Changing a flat tire.... with a sledgehammer??

Those monkeys with the impact wrenches are no fun. There have been times where I've applied my socket to a wheel nut or oil drain bolt and the damn thing won't budge. Then you remember the awful truth - your brother-in-laws took your car to a Jiffy-Oil Emporium of Lubrication or you just replaced all your tires. I just hate that. You can also forget about "just unscrewing the oil filter" too.

"Stormin Mormon" on Wed, 26 Oct

2011 20:22:46 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Flashlight: a plastic (formerly aluminum) tube, kept in a truck for the storage of dead batteries.

-- pyotr Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb.

The paradox is that you can't find it when you need it because it's dark. Having a flashlight handy would make finding one a lot easier but that presents problems of its own.

Well ... I typically have (when dressed):

1) LED Mini-Mag-Lite on my belt.

2) Tiny gooseneck LED with magnet base in my shirt pocket.

Both very easy to find when the lights go out.

When in bed:

1) Multi-LED flashlight on bedside table.

Easiest to reach.

2) more distant, in a cylindrical container which mostly has pens, chopsticks, and other small diameter things, another Mini-Mag-Lite which is used less frequently.

3) On the floor beside the bedside table, a battery powered LED floodlight.

4) a 5-cell Maglite (illuminated police baton, if you prefer).

And this is not counting what my wife has handy, which includes a "carabeamer" (LED flashlight built into a carbiner clip for keys).

Now -- the computers have somewhat less resources. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

An LED 'sweat band' light you can wear on your head, and or a baseball cap with a built in LED light are handy. cuhulin

Same here, but it's so bright it ruins my night vision.

My cell phone screen gives enough light to hunt down a bigger flashlight and change its batteries.

I leave cheap dynamo flashlights in places where I only rarely need them.

I used to carry a finger-sized Maglite Solitaire in my wallet pocket for reading property tags on stored equipment. It puts out just enough light to walk around outdoors at night without tripping, not so much that I lose peripheral vision. Solar driveway lights are good for that too, but awkward to hold if you need both hands to unlock a door or carry something.

The Master padlocks with four letter or number sleeves can be opened by feel in darkness.

jsw

You're really into flashlights! I don't give near enough thought on my portable lighting needs. It seems that I'm doomed to forever be in the dark on that subject.

My alarm clock is also a flashlight

[ ... list snipped .. ]

But not during power outages when you would *need* a flashlight? (Or does it have enough battery backup to keep displaying during an outage? Ours stops displaying, but generates is own internal 60 Hz to keep track of time while the power it out -- it drifts a little, but a lot better than when it has *no* power. But there is no way to ask it to *display* the time until the power restores, so not much good as a flashlight. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

I've got plenty of various flashlights, but during a power outage I use them to get the candles lit, then seldom use them.

--Vic

I have plenty of flashlights too, some of them are very old, you might say they are vintage collectible flashlights.I also have some LED lanterns.

The longest time my electric power was out was when Katrina knocked it out for about 17 hours. cuhulin

why are you talking about power outages like they're expected and somehow acceptable? do you not have the same expectation of utility supply for electricity as you do gas, water, sewerage and phone/data?

No, since wind storms occasionally take out electric service. Happened twice this year, first time in about 8 years. Same with phone/TV cable. Exposed to mother nature's above-ground whims. Never lost gas, water or sewer service. We always have candles in the house anyway. All used rooms get candle-lit during an outage. As a bonus, candles are much more romantic than flashlights.

--Vic

You'd never survive a hurricane with that attitude.

The entitlement mentality.

Power transmission is more efficient with above ground power lines than when underground. So I am willing to trade off some reliability for reduced costs and accept the occasion power outage.

Dan

well, i think above-ground for last mile in urban environments is ludicrous.

two weeks ago, an "over height" truck drove down my street and pulled the cable tv lines from a number of properties, and caused an issue with the electrical pole they were all mounted on. and yet if you go a mile down town to the commercial district, all the lines are buried so this kind of thing can't happen.

now, ask yourself why is it that damage like this to commercial properties is "unacceptable", yet service outages to the proles can be interrupted without question? i think it bizarre that people have been conditioned to think "it's just one of those things". to put it another way, why do you have different acceptability standards for different utilities? especially when commercial property owners take precedence over residential property owners.

indeed.

why? last mile efficiency drops considerably anyway, and efficiency savings drop with each voltage step-down. at the last mile, reliability becomes the driver. and there's a huge difference in reliability between a steel pylon, properly footed, with no obstructions, and last mile residential on some rickety old pole, leaning at some crazy angle getting overgrown by what used to be some decorative shrub.

No kidding. The last bad one that hit here broke over 1000 power poles, and my electric was out for six weeks. If my next door neighbor didn't have his chain saw, we would have been cut off from the nearest main road for weeks. That was quite a sight. A group of people mostly

55 and up 80 out in the rain cutting up fallen trees, while the young lazy bastards sat home and drank the last of their beer.