Maybe this proves you can have to much stuff

Well really, of course you can.

Anyone in the Foreign Service can tell you that.

But it shouldn't be your UAB that teaches you that lesson.

Let me back up. My wife's UAB arrived yesterday. Because I had already gotten my UAB and HHE, we were pretty well covered in terms of "needs," so her UAB contained her clothes plus some "wants."

One of the wants was our PS3. In preparation for that, I had attempted to plug a surge protector into the transformer. Although there was nothing plugged into the surge protector, it blew it and a fuse.

I assumed that it was because the surge protector was old.

You know what they say about assumptions...

But no worries. I knew I had a newer one in good shape in the UAB.

The GSO here is my friend...we spent a year together in language and that kind of close contact either makes you good friends or makes you despise each other. I was really lucky, given how small this post is. I really like both him and his wife (our consul).

So I felt really bad about having to call him after work hours.

I felt worse when I told him what happened, and he sighed deeply and said, "How big is the fire?"

There was no fire, fortunately. What I had done was attempt to plug the new empty surge protector into the transformer. It too blew the transformer and the fuse (clearly the issue is the transformer...just saying). My wife, before I could tell her not to and before I could unplug the transformer, reset the fuse.

And blew out the whole house.

Let me tell you, Tallinn in the winter is dark. An apartment in Tallinn in the winter with no power any time after say 3 pm is REALLY DARK. And this was well after 3 p.m. Well after work hours.

Neither of the breaker boxes in the apartment worked. Nor could I find the mysterious third breaker box for which I was given a key and the tag on the key says "ceiling breaker box." Yes, I looked at all my ceilings.

Finally, after some guidance from my friend (who I clearly owe lunch), I discovered a FOURTH breaker box in the hall outside the apartment and a key in the mass of keys I got when i checked in. And inside there I found the tripped breaker.

So the story ends well...but probably wouldn't have happened if I had been happy with only using the wii.