...And Rigging Up These Lights

Ah, 'tis the season... to freeze my fingers off and yell at the Christmas lights. I made the move and lugged up the bins of Christmas stuff and began the tedious task of checking the lights. So I unfurl the string of garage icicles and the daisy-chained bush net lights. Of course big sections of the icicles are out and I have to start yanking bulbs and popping them into another string to verify if they work. And when I find one, two or seven hundred that don't, I pull out the bulb and then spend 3 minutes trying to feed the little wire legs into the plastic socket holes. Oops, both in the same hole. Oops, bent one. Arrghh... Finally I got the icicles done and went out while it was still light and hooked them up. Great. When it got dark, I plugged them in and big sections were out! How could they go bad in the 20 feet I moved them from the couch to outside? So now, at 8 o'clock at night in 22º weather, I am pulling bulbs. After a few minutes of that, I pulled the whole stupid string down (actually two strings together) and took it back inside. A bunch of bulbs went bad. Replaced them, dragged the string back out, slapped it up, and all is lovely... Then onto the bush lights. Meanwhile, I invested $4 at WalMart and bought a bulb tester that also had a bulb pryer-outer thing. That made things go easier. But the bush lights are not all lined up in a row so it takes a well orchestrated attack plan. No joke - the very last bulb in the grid was broken on one of the nets. When I replaced that, the whole thing lit up. I then lugged that out and drapped that over the bushes. I have enough nets out there to safely snag a herd of blue whales. Should any happen across my front lawn...

And another fun part of the night was trying to find my X-10 light control module. It is an electronic device (think of the "Clapper") that is part of my home lighting setup. Each year I plug the outside lights into it, and it into the outside outlet, and then via computer I can program the lights' on and off time. And somewhere along the way it rains and the module gets wet and stops working so I have to dry it out and on and on. Well, this year, I cannot find the stupid module. Searched high and low. Looked in all the Christmas bins too. Went outside and looked at the new weather-proof mechanical timer I put in last year to see if the module was plugged in that. Yup - you read that right. I looked at the new mechanical timer. Dummy me had gotten sick of the X-10 soakings and failures every year so I bought a 6 outlet electrical box with a mechanical timer to replace the module! I must have forgotten that and chucked the X-10 module as I didn't need it any more. Crisis resolved.

Today is inside Christmas work I think. Setting up the fake tree and all of that. I wish someone would invent a hologram Christmas tree that you can just turn on and off every year. Takes up no space (you can walk through the image) and is up and down in 10 seconds. If someone with some ingenuity is reading this, please contact me...

Speaking of, CCast contacted me several times yesterday. Notice the spelling of that. Of course I am referring to the company that provides our TV and internet service. I asked them how they came across my little blog in the big universe and the guy said they have a Google alert set up to scan all of the Google blogs for key words. Their company name being one of them. And they say they don't know where bin Laden is... (I think they know exactly where he is and are keeping an eye on him...). Anyway, I talked to a few reps (very nice) and told them of my problems and how it is intermittent and aggravating. They are sending a tech out on Monday but I am not optimistic they will find anything since it comes and goes so sporadically. Happened once this morning already.

Speaking of this morning, Elliott is off to take a charter school acceptance test. Four hours long in Wilmington. Another parent was bringing a van load of kids over so he rode with them. They were supposed to pick him up at 6:45. My internal clock went off at 6:25 and not a creature was stirring... So I jumped up and woke him up (his alarm was set for Monday through Friday) and he had plenty of time to eat and get ready (they didn't arrive till 7). And to jump start our day, I killed a giant spider that had come into the house seeking warmth. Probably lured by all the lights... And I am sure it is warm now - in hell!