Another slow week. Still too cold to ride much (-21°F yesterday, +2°F today). Lots of running around this week and needed to plow snow often for the first half of the week. Plus a followup visit was needed to the State of Alaska office as they typed my son's birthday into their system wrong and he was unable to do much of anything on their system. Surprisingly, the visit went very quickly and efficiently. The waiting room was almost empty and the person at the desk had no problem taking care of everything. I guess we just picked the wrong day last week as I was in and out in ten minutes.
The led conversion in our house continued. A couple of 40-watt halogen bulbs in pendant lights were replaced by 3-watt LED bulbs. Almost the same amount of light and the 4000K color was identical. The fluorescent tubes in the kitchen were replaced by LED tubes. The fixture needed to be rewired to remove the ballast. The new LED replacements were double ended so simply wire hot to the four tombstones on one end and neutral to the other end. Now, the kitchen is so bright that I may end up removing two of the tubes and use them in the utility room. Each tube is 18 watts and is equivalent to a 48-watt fluorescent. The picture shows the fixture without the oak cover and diffuser so you can see the LEDs that make up the bulb. In the whole house, we are down to two halogen bulbs. And one of them is the yard light. Do they make LED yard lights?
It's only March 1st and we are already getting 12 hours of light (i.e first light to last light on the figure). No one is looking forward to DST as that means it'll be dark in the morning again. At least for a while. The state government keeps saying that they will get rid of DST but the tourism industry seems to think that the tourists are too stupid to understand and will be confused and upset. I don't know. Maybe they're right...
But the highlight of the week was the Friday evening KL7KC amateur radio club meeting. Bob Heil, as in
Heil Sound, joined the meeting via Skype. He started with some history and explained how his whole audio career started with ham radio. In fact, it even states that in his permanent display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is the only non-musician with a permanent display. It was a great presentation with no PowerPoint. Just off the cuff.
Great job getting all the lights covered over to LED. We did the same and were surprised at how bright things are. I think they do have outdoor lights. The have flood lights at any rate. Check Lowes.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't able to find any flood lights at either Lowe's or Home Depot but maybe they just don't carry them here at the local store.
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