... it's hot, I'm not

Ok, I got the live end of the power hooked up - the house is off the umbilical (extension cords) and on the grid.

Before I started, I asked our neighbor, Jack, to come over and be prepared to call 911 in case I did anything extraordinarily stupid. He also helped with handing me tools and reminding me to talk less and pay attention more. The only stumbling block was when I discovered that I did not have a 3/8" allen wrench to fasten the main lugs. Luckily, Jack came through with one of those, too!

The most stressful part of doing this was cutting the wire. It was a lot of trouble to put it in and it cost a lot. One cut too short and there would be a lot of expensive rework.

Later, I installed 2 outlets in the house - each on its own 20 amp circuit - and fired them up. No surprises, no smoke, no loud explosions - I hate it when those kind of things happen.

The only other thing to do was to roll up the extension cords and stack them with all the other tools. That and call for another inspection.