It seemed simple enough. The wife would be gone for the day and I could just futz around in the shop for the day. For once in a long while I could spend a Saturday cleaning, reorganizing, and doing simple maintenance around the shop. Nothing needed to be functional until Monday morning and it seemed like a great chance to catch up on some things.
I was able to clean things that were WAY over due to be cleaned. In a wood shop, that can be dangerous. I could also finally fix the only 8' florescent light in the shop. We've long ago gone to all 4' lights. I had tried changing the bulbs before but the one's we had were quite old and I was never sure that they worked. So, I thought that now would be a good time to get new ones.
Now, the closest place to get 8' florescent light bulbs (at a reasonable price), is about 20 miles away. Confident that new bulbs would do the trick, I drove to town and retrieved a package of 10 bulbs. Upon returning I opened the package and replaced both bulbs in the fixture. Didn't do the trick.
Okay, so I now go back again and get a new ballast for the light. I completely rewire the light, insert two new bulbs, flip the switch...nothing. Hmm, must have missed something. Rewire the light again. Still nothing.
Realizing that so far I'm into this light bulb changing thing about $60 and about 7 hours at this point, I have to decide what to do next. I suppose I could have gone back to the store and purchased the ceramic end-pieces since that's the only thing I hadn't yet replaced. However, the store wanted almost $6 a piece for them. This would have put me over $80 into a light I could have purchased new for about $20 or so. Of course by now my goal of cleaning up the shop has been thwarted and I now have bare wires and light parts scattered all over the place.
It seems that now would be a good time to convert the last 8' light to a couple of 4' lights. This means I not only won't need the ballast I just purchased, I won't need the 10 8' florescent bulbs either.
Back to the store I go with both ballast and bulbs. I return all of it with no problems, and head back to check-out the 4' lights. It seems that there isn't much difference in price between 4' and 8' light fixtures. By now I'm burned-out on the whole light thing and have decided I would rather work by flashlight than pursue this any further and leave the store without any light at all.
Looking for a way to console myself I decide to stop in at the local Best Buy and snoop. I really try to stay away from the audio sections of places like this. I almost always end up having a fit by the time I get out of there. This was no exception. I saw some of the most cheaply made garbage I have seen in quite some time. Half-inch particleboard with vinyl wrap and nearly everything else is plastic. It's been a number of years since I've browsed mass-fi speakers and such, and to say that I was discouraged would be a severe understatement.
For some reason I had hoped to be consoled in some fashion (although I have no idea why I would think such a thing), by visiting a gadget outlet. Perhaps I thought there would be some salve there for by bruised ego over the light bulb thing. I couldn't have been more wrong. I was given a stark reminder why I ever began doing this in the first place.
So, what's the point of this whole story? I may not be able to change a light bulb, but I CAN and DO build some fine loudspeakers!
