Random Pieces of Trivia About Yourself...

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

That's typical during teenage years apparently...you'll get over it. 
This might cheer you up...I'm going to try and work on getting a couple 80s Power Lighting Products from the house my honorary granfather lived in.  One even has a Norelco lamp but it's EOL unfortunately.

[Mike]

ahh well it cheered me up a little. is it RS or PH?

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Your standard dim crappy LPF rapid start ballasts...common in all shoplights from the 80s up until recently. Those are VERY cold-natured and dim in general...same with the LOA type ballasts...compared to a nice 1970s or older shoplight with a full-power .80 amp HPF ballast they're pathetic.  I think these ones are from the 80s-90s and might be the same as some that were permanently installed at my mother's house and had Philips F40CWs made at the old Norelco plant in Lynn, Massachusetts, just like the one in that preheat fixture in your aunt and uncle's basement.  (Any updates on getting that lamp and any other fixtures?)

[Mike]

ahh I see. Yeah the full power ballasts have unbeatable quality. Nope no update of my aunt's and uncle's basement. i haven't seen them recently. The fixtures are all still up and the lamps are stuck up in between the bridging between the joists. I think the only fixtures with lamps are the WWII era light and the one I gave them new lamps and starters for. The basement is their last concern (well, besides the fact that they got a new sunk pump installed since the old one wasn't working well and the dain pipe for it dumped out right outside the house, meaning when there was a lot of rain, the water just seeped back into the basement after being drained out so basically it was an endless cycle).

I'll let you guys know when there are any updates. as for now, the fixtures are safe and sound hanging in their basement.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Oh nice...
Did you guys know that I (sorta) own a 72' boat?

[Mike]

ahh no i didn't. Is it yours soley or is it your family's?

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

1/2 my family's...well myself and one other relative actually.  I have some interesting boat electrical stories to share...
This boat was built in 1940.

[Mike]

oh wow. Vintage watercraft. does it have frosted rough service 130V 100W incandescent lamps for that nice vintage atmosphere?

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

LOL no it doesn't.  Although, before the fire and sinking at the dock (Neither under my watch LOL) it had all these vintage Mazda-Lookalike (They apparently made some lamps like this up until the 90s I guess) GE 34 volt inside-frost bulbs.  (32VDC battery system before 12v became common in situations like this so I guess a 32v equivalent of a 130v extended-life lamp.  There were 15w ones as well as 50w and 100w ones...those 100w ones were a HUGE envelope, I think A-23 even! There's still one there, in a currently disconnected fixture I need to save...I'll post a pic.
Fixtures looked like this...http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2350&pos=21&pid=63820
And the etch on some of those bulbs was like this one...http://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=2337&pos=3&pid=81348
If I remember the bases were aluminum.  There were even some NOS ones still in their sleeves as of March 2012...they aren't there now though. Most of said fixtures are now Lithiona 2XF32T8 vaportight ones with Sylvania 6500K Octrons.

[Mike]

ahh yeah that's right, boats don't have 120V duh lol. At Battleship Cove in Massachusetts the boas had been upgraded with 120V grid electricity since the bost is a permanently docked museum along with it's smaller sister ships. so the lamps are all 120V. The ship was made into a museum decades ago. There's one fixture with a top mounted ballast; a WWII era fixture with 34W altos in it. I didn't see starters and i saw what looked like starter sockets on top of the fixture so I guess it was converted to RS.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Probably, especially if it had 34w Altos which haven't been made for some time now.
Mine does, but from a generator...nothing is 32v anymore; 120v or 12VDC.

[Mike]

yeah the altos had those black spots in them and LOTS of them too.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Oh yeah the Moldy Alto Syndrome!
I like 5000K-6500K fluorescent lighting the best.

[Mike]

Ugh. I've been trying to ask a girl to the winter dance for the past two weeks but every time I see her I just freak out and back out. Today was the first day I actually had some confidence but there wasn't a point in the day when she wasn't with her friends. I can't ask her out if she's with friends; she's gotta be alone. I keep telling myself every day "Okay, TODAY I'm GOING to ask her out. That's IT. TODAY." but every day I come home angry at myself for not asking her out. I've talked to her before and she's really nice so I just don't get why I'm so intimidated by her.

anyway, I'm testing out a different color temperature in my closet light. I stuck in the Philips Alto Kitchen & Bath lamp. I was going to use one of the Sylvania WW lamps but it looks so pink. The 3500K lamp wasn't cutting it for me either. I'll leave the soft white lamp in there and see how it affects my morning compared to the cool white lol.

[GEsoftwhite100watts]

Did you try the 3500K for a few days?
Just an idea, try a 6500K lamp (if you have one) just to see what that does...or stick one of your streetlights on an appliance timer! I'd try that with my 400w MH but if I haven't started the generator yet in the morning when it'd be waking me up I don't want to put that extra strain on my (already low by then) batteries.  But I bet that'd get me up!
I just thought...if you ever have to do a science symposium project the closet-light-color one might be a good, very original idea for one!