You Know You've Made a Convert When...

In keeping with the "you know you're a flashaholic when..." threads.

My wife, a non-flashaholic who forgets what sort of lights I buy, inspired me to tell this little story.

While we were out camping over the weekend. We had gone to a HUGE corn maze ( http://www.mazeplay.com/showmaze.php?maze=50 ) which they run at night (flashlights required, hey this would be a GREAT get-together!). I'm carrying an Inova T4 with my Surefire L2 as backup as this set of mazes can take several hours if you do all of them. My wife is carrying a Gerber LX3.0 and spare batteries.

No sooner do we get to the "staging area" then my wife looks at the mini maglight the 12 year old girl next to her is using and has the following conversation...
MyWife-(in all seriousness) "I have some extra brand-new batteries if you need them".
TheDad-(Frowns a little) "no, we just put fresh batteries in all of our lights (all mini-maglights), why do you ask?"
MyWife- "oh sorry, it just looked a little dim so I thought she might have an old set of batteries and I wouldn't want her to go dark before you finished the maze".
TheDad- (a little put off) "I thought they were pretty bright."
MyWife- "Oh, I guess I'm just used to these crazy lights my husband buys" -and she switches on the LX3.0.
TheDad- "Holy Cow! What the heck is that thing?"

The next thing I know I have about 15 people all wanting to see and touch (and shine the lights in their eyes?!?) and compare them to their various el-cheapo stuff. I'm giving an impromptu lecture about the current state of illumination tools, light output, and runtimes. My wife is repeatedly telling people to NOT shine the lights in their eyes! Then came the inevitable questions about price and the usual crowd-dispersing reactions we get about that topic .

So eventually we run the mazes and after several hours and many miles of walking we are resting at the benches near the exit and out come most of the people we talked to earlier (most of them with uselessly dim or dead lights). Another pow-wow starts when they realize that our lights are nearly as bright as when we started. This time I have people coming up to me and making comments on the order of "maybe that's not too much for a light like that".

In the end I had to go to the car and get a pen and some paper because several people wanted to write down the make/model/cost and where to buy the lights... Wooo Hooo, more converts!

That's a good one.

You know you've made a Convert when....
...your dad "inadvertantly" pockets your EDC when you show it off to him during your spring visit, grinning the whole time.

...Your niece wants one 'just like yours' for her birthday, only purple.

Daniel

When the dog only fetches something that lights up...

kongfuchicken said:

When the dog only fetches something that lights up...

Click to expand...

ROFL!

ROTFLMAO...

I wonder what the reaction would have been if you'd pulled out a L4 or Mag85...some not so bright people (pun intended) can shrug these off in the daytime, but not at dusk!!!!!!!

I've actually demonstrated my Mag85 by burning newspaper and had people ask if it's really that much brighter than a standard mag because mags are already so good, aren't they? Other people ask " so, it' s brighter. What's the big deal?


sheeeeesh....

Great story. it's cool when you have better equipment than everyone else. Hmm. don't take that the wrong way... haha

twentysixtwo said:

ROTFLMAO...

I wonder what the reaction would have been if you'd pulled out a L4 or Mag85...some not so bright people (pun intended) can shrug these off in the daytime, but not at dusk!!!!!!!

I've actually demonstrated my Mag85 by burning newspaper and had people ask if it's really that much brighter than a standard mag because mags are already so good, aren't they? Other people ask " so, it' s brighter. What's the big deal?


sheeeeesh....

Click to expand...

The thing I think is so funny is that you can NEVER tell who's going to recoil in horror at the price and who won't. There was a serious "salt-of-the-earth" farmer type there, exactly the type you'd think would be super-thrifty, but who was really interested buying a few of the Inova T4's to put in his farm equipment. To quote "If it'll hold up and be ready when I need it then that's money well spent". I got the impression he had a couple of those really big tractors and intended to mount the T4 and chargers in the cabs.

Very cool, those corn mazes can be pretty frustrating, but fun!
daloosh

Great story Zespectre :twothumbs

and:

You Know You've Made a Convert When...

...your friend (who was more than happy with his MM earlier) brags about his new ledlight.

When you build your friend a 700 bulb lumen Mag light that, with extra batteries, chargers, and bulbs, comes to over $150, and a few weeks later he comes back and asks if you can build him another one just like the first one.

twentysixtwo said:

Other people ask " so, it' s brighter. What's the big deal?
sheeeeesh....

Click to expand...

These same people likely have the big-screen TV and the kick-*** home theater system.

Hey, sound is sound, right??

Zespectre,

Thanks for sharing, that is an awesome story. I always enjoy about people realizing how good a high quality Light can truly be.

Take Care,
John

These are great responses, keep 'em coming!
Oh and thanks for the compliments. I try to bring some worthwhile content into the forum when I can.

Great story and well done, Zespectre! :goodjob: Yeah, I'd say that you'vew given many of them some serious food for thought in terms of runtime, battery cost and brightness!

Great story! But did you tell them about CPF? Or The LED Museum? Or Flashlight Reviews.com? People could learn tons of stuff. Look at many of us. Anyway, well done!

Yes I directed a number of them to CPF.

Fantastic story!

gotta love, li-ions w/current regulators!

Great story and response stories.

"You Know You've Made a Convert When..."

...your converts tell you convert stories.

:laughing: That's a great story, thanks for sharing.
It doesn't take a $270 U2 to make a convert, there are plenty of "good" lights for a lot less.