… this was really easy…
The Legal Genealogist is really on a grump this week.
Today’s “my-family” post is going to reflect that.
You have been warned.
So here’s my rant.
Do you remember when buying lightbulbs was easy?
I mean, really easy?
You knew you wanted 25 watts or 40 watts or 60 watts or 100 watts, right?
Then you figured out if you needed a regular base (for just about every light fixture anywhere) or — fancy dancy — a candelabra base if you had one of those fancy light fixtures.
Later, if things were really high-falutin’, you might have to make one more decision: dimmable or not.
And that was it.
You bought the light bulbs.
So… this week, I needed light bulbs. I have ceiling fans with four-bulb light fixtures in four rooms, and so I figured I’d order enough to replace all the bulbs.
And for cryin’ out loud… it ain’t easy any more.
First off, there are at least three different kinds of lightbulbs you can buy: incandescent (the ones we all grew up with), but not if you live in several states; CFL (the ones that look like twisted pretzels that were supposed to last longer and be environmentally friendlier, except they didn’t and weren’t); and the newest LED (ditto on the last forever and be environmentally friendlier, and who knows, maybe they will …).
So… I’ll go with the newest, the LEDs.
Now… how to figure out what to replace a 60-watt bulb with? A conversion website tells me that what used to be 60 watts is now somewhere from 6-8 watts. Another site disagrees with the first. And I’m looking at a set of what the box says should be 60-watt-equivalent bulbs and they’re listed as 9 watts.
Okay, whatever.
And then I need to know the base. Nope, not regular-or-candelabra. Now it’s a whole entire set of options with a combination of letters and numbers. What’s an E26 anyway? And how is it different from an E27? (Answer? They’re interchangeable, except when they’re not.)
Figure that out and there’s a whole ‘nother set of size indicators. You want an A or a B or a C or…? Then you need to know: A19 or A21?
Okay, whatever.
Then I need to decide on color.
Yeah, color. Soft white, warm white, bright white, day white, day white extra, super bright? Or just go with color temperature?!?
Add in filaments, lumens, frosting, dimmable, indoor-outdoor and more, and I swear to high heaven it took me half an hour just to figure out what would even work in the fixtures I have.
Sigh…
Grump, grump.
No, my family history for today isn’t going to include going back to candles or oil lamps.
But it is going to record a general frustration with incomprehensible technology changes.
I mean, really…
Damn kids …
Get off my lawn.
Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “Remembering when…,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 22 Jan 2022).
We *so* feel this. Our washing machine stopped working. We ordered a part, replaced it, didn’t fix it, have ordered another part, hope when it gets here it fixes it. But if it doesn’t we have to replace it instead. So we started shopping for a replacement machine if needed, and… they’re three times more expensive than they should be, and every review of every machine says that their ‘low water use’ design means they really don’t get clothes clean anymore and they mold and you can’t repair them if they break. So, I’m really hoping that this part arrives and fixes our old machine and we can go back to being ‘luddites’.
BTDT w/ the bulbs too. I agree. Sigh…
Sigh indeed…
When we needed to replace our clothes dryer last year, we just went with a low-end basic model that does the job. No frills, extras, or unnecessary settings, and no problems or headaches.
The trick today is FINDING that low-end basic model that does the job…
Mold, indeed. My clothes get just as clean, but fighting the mold is a constant problem. Good luck with fixing the old one!
“Get off my lawn” Indeed. That’s become a funny pejorative for old folks and an assumed blessing for the young trespassers. And it shouldn’t be.
We have an older couple at the end of the block that yelled at my son to get off their yard and wave me off if I snow blow their sidewalk many years ago. Rather than get annoyed and felt sorry for them and hoped I didn’t (or feared that I might) become them when I get older. Well. I’m older now and just waiting to turn that proverbial corner.
Any time you want to come snow blow my sidewalk, you’re more than welcome. 🙂
You forgot to include halogen. We just had to replace two lightbulbs in the kitchen, one, an indoor flood lamp, the other the oven lightbulb. I just hand the old ones to the guy at my local hardware store and take whatever he hands me….
Nope. Halogen is just a different type of incandescent. So it’s included.
Totally agree on the lightbulbs. And when you get the LED equivalent of 100 watt bulbs they are dimmer than the incandescent ones.
That’s where the lumens come in. Sigh…
I totally sympathize…you need a PhD in electronics to buy a light bulb. The LED bulbs don’t give off enough light for me. Learned that after I bought a hip, trendy ceiling fixture for my dining area that only uses LED bulbs. Sigh….
I’m reliably (???) informed that for that we need to focus on lumens. Forget everything else (as long as the #$%@# bulb fits). Lumens determine how bright the bulb is, how much light it produces.
Yes, lumens. Makes more sense, really. Just have to get used to it.
Oh! You can easily solve the light bulb problem. Just replace your fixtures with the new ones, in all price ranges, that have the chip in the fixture. Voila! NO lightbulb to replace, you just toss the light fixture and call the electrician to replace the whole thing when it burns out.
Oy… not going there!!! 🙂
Could be another variation of “the toothpaste syndrome” which is my term for the over abundance of choices in everyday products causing one to spend valuable time staring at the store selections trying to figure out which one to buy. I named it after toothpaste because that’s where I first noticed it years ago. When I was a kid it seems like there were three or so basic brands to choose from and that was it. Now there are innumerable brands and many variations within brands for designated purpose, flavor, with or without certain ingredients, etc. What once was pick up a tube of toothpaste has now become a scavenger hunt in the long aisle of toothpastes looking for the “one that best fits my needs”. Whatever that is.
Agreed. I live in dread of the day when the maker of my favorite either changes it or stops making it.
Oh, my. Remember reading somewhere that Henry Ford told customers they could purchase that auto in any color they wanted – as long as it was black.
Thank you for the gift of a sympathy laden laugh on a Saturday morning.
Bought LED bulbs a few years back and have noticed that I don’t change bulbs very often so have a lot of bulbs in the bulb cabinet.
I love all your Posts. This one made me laugh – not at you – but at the extremes we have with technologies. Thanks for the rant.
This is one of those cases where laughing at me may be deserved… 🙂
Same here. I tend to get a few, so I don’t have to try and remember which one I need.
And not only that…
If you swap out incandescent that you dim for dimmable LED, you also have to swap the wall switch to be compatible with that dimmable LED bulb. We just went through changing out our whole house full of incandescent for LED, and the best discovery was the ability to select one of five color temperatures (listed as Kelvins on the package) on LED replacements for recessed lights. And then there were the under cabinet lights to go from florescent to LED.
Swapping out one bulb led to a project that will have payback in about 10 years, but at least they aren’t as hot as incandescent.
I feel you! Trying to change a smoke-detector battery led to me changing out all the smoke & carbon monoxide detectors in the whole house for models with 10-year lithium-ion batteries. I figured the small fortune it cost was cheaper than one doctor bill from falling off the ladder. Thanks for the laugh!
The manifestation of this is in the lights above my bath vanity. I have six similarly shaped globe lights and three kinds of bulbs. At first I replaced incandescent with CFL but stopped before doing all of them because of the delayed turn on. And the incandescent bulbs were still going anyway. A few years later the CFLs neared end of light so I selected some LED bulbs to replace. And yet those incandescent bulbs are still going–with daily use!
Otherwise in the rest of the house all LED (including built-in that might last forever with light use) except for a couple in the basement. I actually like selecting now by lumens and temperature (strongly prefer 2700K), but it was definitely a transition.
My pet peeve in technology changes is microwave ovens. Having grown up with basic appliances like toasters that all work the same way, I’ve often been baffled by a host’s microwave oven when I’m visiting someone, because every model has different controls, none of them intuitive. (E.g., to set a 70% power level on my current microwave you press Power then 7; on my previous model, you press the Power button 4 times. Or, to set the kitchen timer on current model, press Timer, enter time, then Start; on previous model, first enter the time, then press Timer.) Who ever had to read a whole manual to use a toaster?
“Not for use in fully enclosed or recessed fixtures”, is now my personal favorite.
They should label it “Only put in a wide open, regular lamp with an old-fashioned fabric shade.”
I found out, after purchasing a large box, that the bulbs will crack at the bottom if placed in a mostly open glass shade (on a ceiling fan light). My definition of “fully” must come from a different dictionary than theirs.
I’d rather do a Census page-by-page search of a large urban county for my ancestors, than buy lightbulbs.
How hard can it be? Family historians are organisers, after all.
You just go to your house folder with the floor plan of all the rooms to check things.
One plan for the lights. One for the paint colours. Sections for your white goods manuals, service personnel and so on.
Sigh, That was my plan, but I only got half way there. What stopped me? Family history was just toooo diverting.
I’m going to do this right this minu— oh look! There’s a squirrel!