Adventures in Electricity

My shop is well lighted by long banks of 8 foot fluorescent bulbs extending from the front door to the store back. Periodically, of course, the bulbs burn out, and more rarely the ballasts burn out and need replacement. We've been doing this (and complaining about doing it) for years. I have four fixtures out right now due to ballast issues and we can't have our customers shopping in the dark, so we were off to the hardware store after we closed last night to get ballasts since we had finally used up our overstock supply.

This is the old-style ballast that we used to be able to install...

Bad news. The type of ballast we had been using for years - a magnetic ballast - has now been replaced by a new style because of new Department of Energy regulations and this has unfamiliar wiring and may even require a total rewire of each fixture. We bought four of the new ballasts, but when DH climbed up to change the first one he realized that there was an extra wire on the ballast that he had no idea how to use properly. So, I put in a call to our landlord asking him to come by before hours today and take a look. We might have to have him contact an electrician and suddenly a job that was looking like $200 and stretching our budget at that may run into the upper $100's or even $1000's and seriously impact us. Call me NOT happy. In fact, today you can call me worried until I get some positive news.

Because I'm thinking about electricity, I'm showing pictures of amazing electrical things today...

Electrical Spark and Water

I loved this picture. We are always told that there is an attraction between electricity and water, but this shows it so beautifully.

Ever wonder about electrical plugs? Interesting, isn't it?

Power from an electrical cord.

There's something so beautiful about electricity. It's random in general appearance, yet directed. But that said, take a look at my last pic for the day - this one is called Colored Power and it's quite stunning.

Colored Power

Have a fabulous, high-powered day...