Albany Tom
Enlightened
I figured we're all about due for a light story, so I thought I'd relate an incident that happened to me a couple of days ago. It may only be funny to me, as I have a slightly twisted sense of humor.
When you come home from work, at your usual around eightish in the evening, and see lights on in your apartment, you start to feel that something may be wrong. When you park the car and see a couple of guys in there working, you can pretty much bet on it.
It seems that with the nice cold windy spell, and the landlord in the middle of residing the house, some pipes froze in the apartment above mine. For some strange reason, when the sun came out during the day, these frozen pipes decided to thaw out. This apparently turned my kitchen into a low tech indoor fountain. (Hint #1 - don't keep any important paperwork in the kitchen.)
Anyway, to skip past most of the grief, the water blew a couple of circuits, so the guys were working on the problem in the dark, with the aid of a cute purple or pink 3D maglite. This was working much better than I would have guessed...I guess those lights do actually light. I pulled out my Arc-AAAA (no typo!), and was looking around at what was going on.
"Ok, time to get these guys a couple of lights to use", said the little voice in my head. I went to the much drier bedroom, and grabbed the first bright light I noticed, my Legend LX. You ever notice how the bulb sometimes wiggles? You ever have one flicker a bit when you turn it on? You ever have this happen, then for some reason have the brilliant idea of turning the light face down? You ever do this, then hear the "plink" of the bulb falling out of the socket and landing on the lens? If so, you know what my reaction was. Eyes slam shut, teeth clenched in a near perfect imitation of Eric Cartman of Southpark as I mutter "G&*& D&*it", while playing hot potato with the bulb inside the flashlight so it doesn't burn into the lens. (Hint #2 - The Brinkman Legend LX may completely suck as an emergency flashlight)
Ok, time to move on to flashlight number 2. This time I grab the Rayovac latern, with KPR-103 bulb. I also grab the Tigerlight. I feel much better, as these lights aren't going to let me down...I hope.
Back to the kitchen. Much swearing and apologizing going on. I suspect drinking would be involved as well, had I not been there, but that's another story. Anyway, I hand the lantern to one of the guys, and just stand the Tigerlight up on end to illuminate the room. Eventually they find the leak, and I end up taking showers at work for a couple of days until they fix it. Joy for me... Oh, this leads to: (Hint #3 - A KPR103 bulb in a 6V lantern battery powered light will be very bright. It also won't last as long as the battery does. You may want another plan)
So it's warm and dry, inside at least, and I've learned a couple of new things. For one, it's time to convert that lantern to LED, as I intended to do in the first place.
When you come home from work, at your usual around eightish in the evening, and see lights on in your apartment, you start to feel that something may be wrong. When you park the car and see a couple of guys in there working, you can pretty much bet on it.
It seems that with the nice cold windy spell, and the landlord in the middle of residing the house, some pipes froze in the apartment above mine. For some strange reason, when the sun came out during the day, these frozen pipes decided to thaw out. This apparently turned my kitchen into a low tech indoor fountain. (Hint #1 - don't keep any important paperwork in the kitchen.)
Anyway, to skip past most of the grief, the water blew a couple of circuits, so the guys were working on the problem in the dark, with the aid of a cute purple or pink 3D maglite. This was working much better than I would have guessed...I guess those lights do actually light. I pulled out my Arc-AAAA (no typo!), and was looking around at what was going on.
"Ok, time to get these guys a couple of lights to use", said the little voice in my head. I went to the much drier bedroom, and grabbed the first bright light I noticed, my Legend LX. You ever notice how the bulb sometimes wiggles? You ever have one flicker a bit when you turn it on? You ever have this happen, then for some reason have the brilliant idea of turning the light face down? You ever do this, then hear the "plink" of the bulb falling out of the socket and landing on the lens? If so, you know what my reaction was. Eyes slam shut, teeth clenched in a near perfect imitation of Eric Cartman of Southpark as I mutter "G&*& D&*it", while playing hot potato with the bulb inside the flashlight so it doesn't burn into the lens. (Hint #2 - The Brinkman Legend LX may completely suck as an emergency flashlight)
Ok, time to move on to flashlight number 2. This time I grab the Rayovac latern, with KPR-103 bulb. I also grab the Tigerlight. I feel much better, as these lights aren't going to let me down...I hope.
Back to the kitchen. Much swearing and apologizing going on. I suspect drinking would be involved as well, had I not been there, but that's another story. Anyway, I hand the lantern to one of the guys, and just stand the Tigerlight up on end to illuminate the room. Eventually they find the leak, and I end up taking showers at work for a couple of days until they fix it. Joy for me... Oh, this leads to: (Hint #3 - A KPR103 bulb in a 6V lantern battery powered light will be very bright. It also won't last as long as the battery does. You may want another plan)
So it's warm and dry, inside at least, and I've learned a couple of new things. For one, it's time to convert that lantern to LED, as I intended to do in the first place.
