Timer for outdoor compact fluorescent lights

A year or two ago we replaced the 3 lights outside our garage with compact fluorescents to save on energy use. That's good, but sometimes we'd go somewhere and not return until after dark ...with the lights still off, so that defeated the purpose of having outdoor lighting. And sometimes we'd neglect to turn them off in the morning, and they'd end up being on all day. Well I finally located a timer (from Swylite) that works with the low current draw of compact fluorescents. I figured this would be a pretty easy install - maybe 5 minutes. Wrong.




The switch for our garage lights is in this strip of 5 switches. The one on the far right is a timer for the 'holiday' lights (we string up a number of LED lights around Christmas, and they are all connected into outlets that are controlled by this timer). The second switch location in from the right is where the garage light switch was, so this is the location for the new timer for the outdoor compact fluorescents. This would have been a quick install, but one of the wires I needed for the connection was, as fate would have it, located behind the left-most switch. Sigh. So I had to remove 4 switches and do the hookup and then squeeze all of that junk back into the proper locations. Ugh! It probably took me 30 minutes to do this little hookup, since getting things to fit in there and to all align properly with the switch plate was far more involved than it should have been.



Ah, but all's well that ends well, right? It finally all went together and now the lights turn on and off at the proper times. One nice little feature of this timer is that it allows us to set a 'variable' mode. This means that the lights will come on and be turned off within 15 minutes plus or minus from the times we set. So there is not an exact time every day when the lights go on or off. Just a little more security. And some energy savings and convenience :)

SkiniZi: cool iPod skins

I've had my video iPod protected with a skin for a while now. My wife
has just selected the skin shown in the pic here to protect her iPod
nano. Aside from protecting the device from scratches, they just look
cool :)

Skinizi is a venture from a gent I've met through my tech work, none other than Lotus Notes wizard and blogger, Mr Julien "domlike" Bottemanne. I've just placed the order for the skin Shirley selected, and it was quite easy. Julien uses PayPal to handle the checkout (and you do not need to have nor create a PayPal account to use the site) ...and that means that the charges are converted from Euros to US dollars (if you're in the United States), so you can easily see what you'll be charged before finalizing the order.

Check out Skinizi. They've hooked up with some great artists for some very unique and fun designs.

Yaris is ordered :)

We do still plan to get a smart car - but that will be our little car. Our big car will be a 2008 Yaris liftback ...quite like the one pictured here. It will be about 3 months before we are driving it, since the only way to get one with side curtain airbags and ABS (both requirements for us) is to do a special order.

The Yaris and the smart car will each get around 40 mpg (a little under 6 litres per 100 km). Since we're buying the Yaris through Costco, we were able to skip all of the usual hassle of negotiating price and trying to decide what is truth and what is lies from someone just trying to make a sale. We met with the individual referenced from the Costco site, told them the options we wanted, and they showed us the invoice. We put down a US$500 deposit and when the car arrives, we will pay the rest of the invoice price and skip the nasty part of car buying. Very cool.

When our Blazing Blue Yaris shows up (a little brighter, I believe, than the image above), we'll sell Shirley's '94 Acura GS. It's been a pretty good car, but it requires premium fuel, is larger than we need, and is half as fuel-efficient as the Yaris and smart car will be. The plan is to then sell my 10-year old Subaru Outback when the smart arrives. We have mixed feelings about changing vehicles, since both of our cars have been pretty good. But it's time to downsize, go for better fuel economy, and get more safety features.

Any suggestions for vanity license plates?

Verizon FiOS: great connection- TERRIBLE cust service

A couple of months ago we signed up with Verizon FiOS for our Internet service. BrightHouse (local cable provider) had been OK, but could not match the speed/price of Verizon. I've had to power-cycle (turn it off, wait 30 seconds or so, and turn it back on) the router several times a week, but that's no big deal.

Until today.

I don't know what time our service cut out. I work a lot in the Lotus Notes/Domino arena, and part of the beauty of that is that I can do a lot of work without being connected to the 'net. But when I did try to replicate some work with the server, I noticed the connection was gone. I tried rebooting the router a few times, but knew after the first try that it would not work. So I called Verizon 'support' (for FiOS that number is 888-553-1555).

Can you say, "painful"? A recorded voice asked me several questions and then attempted to fix the problem from their end ...which of course didn't work. After 45 more minutes on hold waiting for a human, listening to the same fractured fragment of a horrible song, ...I noticed the green light on the router pop on, indicating a connection. I never did get connected to anyone. I've been warned by others about how horrible the customer support is. Now I know.

Brighthouse can't match the speed and price of Verizon FiOS. But they answer their phones.

Who's profiting from the Iraq war?

The companies listed below have collectively made over 24 BILLION dollars (over US$24,000,000,000) from the war in Iraq. You think there's not a lot of interest from these profit-hoarding entities to keep the war going? And you better believe they've got plenty of money to pay for lobbying.

This is from this MSN Money article. The data are pulled in large part from the Federal Procurement Data System. Thankfully, MSN Money has taken care of slogging through that system to glean the picture for us.

Top 10 money-makers from this WAR (click image to go to the article):

...and tied in with this, of course, are the huge profits being realized from Department of Defense contracts. Here's the top 7 (again, just click the image to go to the full article):

Read the MSN Money article. Then contact your elected officials and demand that they stop this senseless war. I did that earlier this week, and so far my only response is a form letter from Adam Putnam, telling me that he will not "shortchange our soldiers on the ground and hamper their ability to succeed".  Hmmm... I know several military personnel who have been to Iraq and to surrounding areas and would strongly disagree with Putnam's Bush-parroting position.

Thanks to my buddy JL up in the northwest for sending me the link to the article.