Lighting the Way

Whether you think global warming is fact (97 percent of climate scientists world-wide do) or fantasy (a handful of scientists are skeptics) you most likely believe that air pollution is not a good thing.

As one who suffers from COPD (a fancy abbreviation that means my lungs don’t work all that well), I fully endorse any measures that reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The purer the air, the better I live. And that applies to every human on this planet.

The biggest amounts of carbon dioxide emissions come from our cherished gasoline-burning vehicles and from power plants burning coal that generate most of the electricity used in the U.S. Individuals can do things both large and small in both areas to help our lives be healthier. On the small side, one action looks like a winner right now.

LEDS--bright idea for 2013

After spending hours in the annual hassle trying to get strings of outdoor holiday lights working, beautiful wife Sandy took the initiative and replaced the whole nonfunctional tangle with new strings of LED lights.

LED lights are pricey. Our new complement cost slightly more than $100, and we have a fairly modest outdoor display. However, nary a bulb has burned out during the three weeks they’ve been twinkling outside in generally inhospitable Michigan weather. If claims prove true, few or none will burn out for many years. I fully expect to burn out before the lights do.

The really good news about replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs is that LEDs use fully 80 percent less electricity. Most electricity in our state comes from coal-burning power plants.

So although my holiday pocketbook felt a bit light after the lighting switch, in the long run we’ll recoup the cost and can feel good about doing a small bit for the environment.

You can do better. Right now stores such as K-Mart are selling LED holiday lighting at huge discounts—as much as 50 percent. In many places, compact fluorescent bulbs also are on sale. They are not as energy efficient at LEDs, but they cost less and are as good or better for some purposes than incandescents.

Why not cash that check Uncle Moneybags sent for Christmas and get some new lighting to stash away until the holidays roll around again? You would be making a smart investment. The best time is now. It’s a positive way to start 2013.

Santa Scores

About ten years ago, beautiful wife Sandy came up with a surprise holiday gift—a large Green Bay Packers flag.  Flagpoles weren’t allowed in yards in the planned community where we lived in Utah.  I often flew Old Glory from a standard attached to the building adjacent to our garage door, which was in keeping with community rules.

What so proudly I once hailed.

The second flag posed a bit of a problem during football season.  So we devised a sharing system that became an amusement for most (but not all) of our neighbors.  A Bears fan down the street definitely was not amused.  Neither was a Cowboys fan across the street, but he launched a counter attack by displaying his own team colors.  The Bears fan merely seethed.

The sharing plan was simple.  If the Packers won their weekly game, their flag was displayed soon after the contest ended.  It flew until Wednesday, when it was displaced by the Stars and Stripes.  The national flag stayed up until the Pack won again.

When we moved three years ago, our new place had a regulation flagpole installed by the previous owners in the lawn beside the house.  There also was a standard beside the garage door, almost exactly like the one in Utah.  No rotation problem here.  But as one who fancies tradition, the Geezer continued to display the Packers banner in the old way—up after a win, down on Wednesday until the next win. 

For almost two years, the rotation worked well.  Toward the end of last year, however, it got a little old.  The Packers ended the season with six consecutive victories.  It became drudgery to take the banner down and reinstall it every week.

Prospects were even better for the team this season, so the Geezer devised a labor-saving strategy—leave the flag up until the Packers lost.  The new plan seemed a stroke of genius as the Packers won 11 straight games.

This week, Sandy devised a new strategy for our annual holiday lighting display.  Lights were strung most of the way around the garage.  The design placed lights perilously close to the Packers flag.  With any sort of breeze, the flapping banner threatened to destroy a key part of Sandy’s display.  Something had to give.  Guess what won out.

Ho, Ho, Ho . . . . Packers, you’re on your own now, you know.