Some Blog Site

I’m on holiday this week, so no real blog post.

I will take this time to mention that around here, we don’t put the wise men at the Nativity, because they didn’t arrive until a couple years after Jesus was born. But I think you should be allowed to have the wise men at your Christmas display if you note they are the wise men from two years ago. Then you get into all sorts of time travel logistical problems, such as shouldn’t the baby Jesus then be the toddler Jesus, and how can you have the baby Jesus and the toddler Jesus in the same place? Maybe it’s best just to keep the Wise Men apart from the manger to show the time distance that way.

Some Wife and I have different philosophies on some things, one of which is turning on lights in hallways.

I prefer to have light so I can see to not step on whatever things the kids have strewn about the hallway.

She thinks its a waste of electricity for such a short distance, especially during the daytime when there’s enough residual light.

We went back and forth for a while. Years, in fact. I leave the room and turn on the light; she follows and turns it off. Or vice-versa. Not that she was following me just to turn off the light – it’s just that if we are going somewhere that’s how it usually works out.

I got tired of flipping the light switch, especially as there is plenty of light available, just not in the interior hallway. If only there were a way to get outside light inside the house.

Behold, the magic of skylight tubes! They are perfect for a situation such as our upstairs hallway, where there is no place for a window to the outside, and the ceiling has an attic above it.

So I bought one to install. That took me a couple of weekends working on it part time, and had a bit of a learning curve. Plus the attic was tall enough that I had to buy some extension tubes.

But I got it in, and it worked. But the light wasn’t impressive. A number of reviews had said that one skylight tube looks bleak, but add a second one and it is much better. The sum is greater than the parts, or something like that.

So I bought another one and installed it. Installation was about 4 hours one Saturday this time – much quicker the second time around.

Here are the main steps, in case you’re interested.

• Cut a hole in the ceiling drywall
• install the interior diffuser
• go into the attic, find the interior diffuser, and mark a spot on the south-facing roof that lines up with the diffuser.
• cut a hole in the roof
• go on the roof and install the exterior dome and flashing
• go back in the attic and connect the diffuser and dome via shiny tubes
• clean up

I must agree with the other reviewers – having two skytubes is more than twice as good as one skytube.

Here are the before and after pictures, although I don’t have any with just the one skytube.

Before, with the bedroom door fully shut.

Before, with the bedroom door mostly shut. This is how it usually was.

After, with the door fully closed.

After, looking from the bedroom doorway.

End result: I’m pleased with them. They do what they’re supposed to do, and now Some Wife and I don’t disagree on the hallway light switch. The skytubes were more expensive than the electricity we’re saving, but overall it was worth it.

Rough week over here. Tune in next time.

I realized I mentioned the German accenterator wasn’t working but I never indicated that it was back online. I had to re-write the whole thing from, well not from scratch but mostly new. I’m pretty sure it’s not exactly how it used to be, but it makes one sound more German than nothing.

Go visit the German accent page to try the accent.

Common knowledge says that before Columbus, people thought the world was flat. I think that’s a bad generalization.

Consider what the Bible says in Psalm 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

I have heard that explained a number of times as a good description of an infinite distance – no matter how far east you go, you’ll never be west. Unlike north and south – if you head north, eventually you end up going south, and vice-versa.

And that all makes sense, we can picture that on a globe.

Of course, like all analogies there is a weakness. If your sins go west and you go east, you’ll end up meeting when you circle around. But as far as your direction goes, if you go east you’ll always go east.

But that description and that explanation means that people in the Bible (that Psalm was probably written around 1000 BC, so 2500 years before Columbus) knew the earth was a globe and that north and south were the poles.

I think we need to give people of the past more credit. And the Bible too.

Since today is Christmas, I won’t take much of my time to write anything lengthy here.

But I am posting this public service reminder that Joy to the World is not a Christmas song. It is actually a song about the next arrival of Jesus. But since we don’t have a day to celebrate the rapture and all that, I suppose Christmas works.

I’m on spring break. No real content this week. I was going to discuss how Kentucky will let you get married younger than they’ll let you get a driver’s license, but they changed the law last year so now that’s no longer the case.

Why would I pick on Kentucky like that? Because we can drive the country from top to bottom (Canadian border to Miami) using I-75 and that’s the one state where my teen driver can’t drive because of their driving laws.