A few days ago the incandescent bulb in the standing lamp that gives light to my computer work area burned out. Okay, I thought, here we go again.
It’s been increasingly more difficult than in days of yore to find bulbs for the lamp. It takes a three-way bulb, you know, three different levels of brightness. In truth, I only need the strongest setting, but I don’t dare insert a regular bulb for fear of a short or a fire.
On my next trip to the store, I wandered the lighting aisle, seeking in vain the incandescent bulb I needed.
Over the last year, most of the hideous mercury-tainted bulbs in the section have been replaced with LED bulbs, more expensive individually, but much better for our health. A few incandescent specialty bulbs remain, such as the ones in ovens, refrigerators, and microwave ovens. But there were no three-ways available.
Finally, I spotted a three-way bulb among the LED boxes. Instead of the common 50/100/150 watt using brightnesses, this one only uses 6/15/22 watts of electricity. I’m not used to rating my bulbs by the lumens, so I don’t know how this bulb compares to the incandescent ones, but it gives off 700/1600/2155 worth of brightness. Probably sufficient for my purposes.
I put it in my basket, cringing at the $18+ cost, but hope to get at least five years worth of light out of the bulb rated at ten years if I only use it for three hours a day.
What writer only uses their work space for three hours? Not me. However, I now have light, albeit blue-tinged instead of yellow. I hope I get used to that!
Business is Keeping Me Busy
Work continues on a mega print edition of The Complete Owen Family Saga. That has been quite an undertaking. I’ve had to change the font and margins several times in order to keep the book within the page limit for the size. At first, I thought I might have to go up to 8 1/2- x 11-inches, but I figured out a way to keep it at the familiar 6-x 9-inches.
