Showing Normal Folks Our Lights: A Case Study!

Yesterday my son (4 years old on January 13th! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif) and I went to the barber shop for haircuts. Believe it or not, my barber is one person who actually asked me to bring some of these flashlights I keep talking about with me to show him. So I did! Brought MR-X to the barber shop in my daypack. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif

But how to demonstrate the merits of the marvelous MR-X? After all, it was broad daylight, and past experience told me that the virtues of great lights are hard to grasp when it's not dark. But I came up with a plan! I loaded up a standard Mag 2D with stock bulb as a "control" for the demonstration, on the premise that most normal folks are familiar at least with a standard 2D flashlight, and many have seen or used a 2D Maglite. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thinking.gif

The rest was simple! I did a simple A/B test, switching between Mag 2D and MR-X, pointing both at the ceiling, then the far wall, then the dark corner next to the chair, and so forth. Tiny yellow spot vs. massive white spot. He seemed to get the idea! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Just wanted to share this success story. Anyone else have techniques that work as far as sharing a little piece of our fascination with the uninitiated?

Scott, maybe a better way in showing off your light is to come to your barber at nite, but then, no body there /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

nice story /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
just wished it was dark when you showed MR-X to him.

Next time you need a haircut, convince him to stay open till night, then when its time for haircut, tell him to turn off the lights and use nothing but flashlights to cut your hair by! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Of course, you better be sure he's a darn good barber first! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Stanley, by saying that, you've proven yourself to be a hardcore flashaholic! No sane person would do that except a true hardcore flashaholic! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Stanley, no need to make sure he's a good barber. (Incidentally, he is.) I'll just take my MagCharger with WA01160 bulb, point it at the ceiling, and the lighting will probably be better than normal! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

He does a lot of salt water fishing as a hobby. If I keep working on him, I might be able to get him hooked up with a good flashlight on the justification that it'll let him see what he's doing out in the bay much better, heh heh. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Good story Milky /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. Yeah, shinning the little beauty into the ceiling will make any night time into DAY /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

On a side topic... over the Xmas holidays, I brought along my 5w OA2D DD (with fresh L91s) to show a friend its power. We went to see the fairy penguins at London Bridge (Link here) thinking... "Yep! This will surely impress the hell out of him". We got there at around 9pm and it was still light, although the sun was fast going under the horizon. As it was still partially light, I thought I would wait till perfect darkness to bring out THE light.

Wouldn't you know it, some @rsewipe went back to their car (it was a public viewing area) and got their 5" spotlight out, along with a motorbike battery /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif!!!!. Boy, did that spoil the party for me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif Not only was the incandescent brighter (albeit it had the standard ugly yellow beam), the 5w OA2D DD's white beam was quite dim when shinning at the pengiuns about 80-90meters away.

Long story short, when we got back to the farmhouse, his smile returned /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. Oh, he took the light! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Nerd, unfortunately I can't claim that title... yet! I'm happy with my hair the way it is now, thank you very much.

Nice story too, hotbeam. Glad it had a nice ending in the end. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I just hate it when those spotlights show up too /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif

When someone pulls out one of those million candlepower spotlights, just do what I do and whip out the Maxabeam! OK, so I don't have a Maxabeam. But if I had one, that would be my plan. It's too bad we all can't afford an HID light just for those rare occasions. It kinda sucks because I know that my cool lights aren't necessarily the brightest in the world, but the uninitiated are often swayed by sheer blinding power and miss the nuances that make a great light great. In general, I've found that normal folks don't really get our flashaholism. They like the Arc AAA's tiny size and bright beam, but an LSH-P usually makes them step back with sticker shock. I've found that normal folks like Pelican M6's because they're bright, small and only a couple of bucks more than their trusty Mag. Sometimes that's not even enough when they find out that they need to go online to get lithium batteries for a reasonable price. Oh well...

P.S. Milkyspit, January 13 is a good day for a birthday since it's mine too! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Mattman, all good points, unfortunately. "I've found that normal folks don't really get our flashaholism." /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif

I take a slightly different approach from you. I usually don't tell people what the lights cost for as long as possible, in hopes that they've had a chance first to appreciate the other aspects of the light. It also helps to focus on really small, really bright, really long runtime, or really white. Maybe those are the four "R"'s of flashlights?

I just hand them the light in question, let them say, "Gee, this isn't very bright," /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif and then let them shine the "dim" light directly into the ol' eyeballs. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/whoopin.gif

Works every time. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin07.gif