Unlimited power.

It sounds enticing does it not? What would you do with unlimited, unrestricted power? Well, the only thing you would do with the 'power' I am talking about is accidentally electrocute yourself.

I have been working with dad the past week, installing fibre optic broadband hubs in Telstra telephone exchanges. It involves a lot of cable, a lot of lifting, dragging and connecting, and a heck of a lot of 'pretending to be a ninja by climbing along racks, into ceiling cavities, and between the phone exchange floors'. It can be a lot of fun, in that 'I am a child climbing' kind of way, but leaves you with lots of cuts on your hands at times... which reminds me, I need to make another nail appointment time to go work, cause I'm fully huge.

Anyway, yesterday I was crawling along a cable tray. Think of it as a 40 centimetre wide sushi train, suspended from the ceiling, snaking its way across the rows of server equipment 12 feet below. It is just wide enough to crawl on, and is close enough to the roof that you have to crawl, because walking, or even crouching is out of the question.

I was on hands and knees, perilously close to losing my balance as I tried to cross another tray filled with some very large, and very brightly coloured red and blue cables. In fact, they ran across my tray, and then down a pillar into a unit the size of a fridge. Just as I was stretched out across these cables, my dad comes along and warns the guy standing 6 feet away.

"Don't touch that, it's really dangerous".

Um, here I am basically lying across the thing, and then you warn the guy that isn't even close to it, that it is dangerous.

The guy looked at dad.

"What is it?"

"That, is unlimited power - if anything gets inside that it will cease to exist. So don't touch it, or it will literally fry your nuts off. It will kill you in an instant."

Once again, dad... I'm already l straddled atop the thing, I really don't need to hear about unlimited power sources frying my nuts off right now.

So I go to turn back, and escape the 'unlimited power' machine... but no... apparently it was my job to be the ninja, and crawl across the power connections. Dad was very keen to stress that I should be safe, so long as I didn't cause an electrical short while crossing the cables. Which feels kinda hard to do 12 feet from the floor, on a tray 40cm wide, on your hands and knees at the end of the day.

I'm sure you have all heard the saying "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", well now the official new saying -courtesy of my father- is "Ultimate power will fry your nuts off".

Rest assured, despite the frightening encounter with the machine that can draw as much electricity from the Sydney power grid as it needs, I am fully intact, and so are both testicles. I leave you with that thought.