After the cold, snow

"The poor tell us who we are, and the prophets tell us who we could be.  So we hide the poor and kill the prophets." - Philip Berrigan

Yard Sale and opportunistic wiring

 "We are members of one great body, planted by nature.  We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Random thoughts and doings between Thanksgiving and Christmas

 "Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than his own soul." - Marcus Aurelius

Shop lighting - the switch to LED

"It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control.  Nothing is by its own nature calamitous - even death is terrible only if we fear it." - Epictetus

 I mentioned that I'd placed an order for LED tubes to replace the overhead lights in the shop, about 2/3 of the way down this long post.  At the bottom of this post, they had arrived, but I still hadn't found time to install them.

One of the fluorescent fixtures had dead bulbs that were failing to ignite, and I finally had a half-day when I found time to make the wiring changes and replace the bulbs on that fixture.  Below, the far right bulbs are glowing, but only very dimly.

A bunch of random stuff

I had a busy set of days off.  I somehow managed to get a lot done, considering that one day was lost to church, and another to overtime.  The overtime is a good thing, because I had to spend a lot of money this past week.

I was forced to purchase a new phone last week.  I'm *not* fond of replacing stuff - especially stuff that I've gotten used to, but there wasn't much choice in this case.  The power button on the phone had mashed all the way in, and it wasn't waking up any more.  I had to plug it in to wake it up and then enter the password to use it.  Not good.

So I transferred all the files off the six year old Droid Turbo, and then it got wiped.

Garage lighting issue

Something has been irritating me for quite a while now, and I finally decided how I'm going to fix it.

More Deck Maintenance - and a few other repairs

The other post about staining the deck is here:  However a lot more work was needed.

Supplemental Shop Lighting

The roll-up door in the shop is opened by an industrial type chain-drive opener.  Although it's industrial, it still has a standard socket for a light bulb.  Unfortunately, like most modern fixtures, the light bulb socket is only rated for 60 Watts.

More LED lighting

A few years ago, I had four incandescent garage lights replaced with 7 fluorescent tube lights fixtures, for a total of 14 bulbs, each 4 ft long.  I have 6 fixtures above the car bays, and one fixture by the man-door alcove.  Each bulb is 32 Watts, for a total of 448 Watts.

Over the years, I've had to replace a great number of bulbs, and they aren't cheap.  They run about $4 apiece, and I seem to be replacing 1-2 every month.  I suspect it's reduced mercury content causing the failure to ignite after a short time in service.  Also we turn them on and off quite a bit, which is hard on fluorescent bulbs.

LED Lighting conversion

No, I am not talking about some high-tech electronic thing I did.  Several months ago we switched the entire house over to LED lights.  It took over a hundred light bulbs and a couple hours' time to accomplish this project, but it was worth it.

I was an early adopter of CF bulbs, back when it cost over $10 for each one.  They probably paid for themselves quickly because at the time I was a Southern California Edison customer.  SoCal Edison probably has the highest electricity rates on the planet.

The refurbished curio cabinet

My wife has been looking for a curio cabinet for several months on Craigslist.  The style she wanted, and eventually found, was a curved-front type like this: