Ave Lux!

You know me, the constant Latinist. It's a little phrase a bear might say when he emerges from his cave after several months of winter sleep: "Howdy, Light!" And that's exactly what I said this morning, having returned from Lowe's with two boxes of flourescent light tubes to replace those burnt out in the shop fixtures. When I had moved in, there were already several tubes out, and recently, more of them bowed their heads and gave up the ghost. So, our options were two: 1) issue miner's lights to everyone so they can more easily see their stitches and pattern charts or 2) figure out how to change the dang bulbs. This morning, I loaded my 6' ladder into my car (yes, it fit), set it up under one of the defunct panels, managed to figure out how to open the thing, copied down every shred of information from one of the tubes, measured it every way, and headed out to the home improvement place, where there was an entire section dedicated to flourescent tube lights -- of all lengths and diameters, some with one prong, some with two, some rods like the ones I needed, some with squiggles and crooks. Who knew there were so many different types of these things -- then I remembered the folks who measure yarn by weight. Just like yarn isn't just yarn, I suppose these bulbs aren't just bulbs. The number letter code means something, I found out. So, judging from the similarities of the writing on my burnt out ones and what was written on the boxes of the new ones, I selected what seemed to be the proper sort. The moment of truth was to compare the old to the new. A match. For the next 30 or so minutes, I scaled the ladder, removed and replaced, careful not to break the things (one of the old tubes was broken in the fixture already). When I was all done, I cleared away the debris and took a look at the new bright and sunny knitting area. Nice. We're brighter now than we ever were! Fabulous! So hurry on in and enjoy the brightness! Howdy, Light!