next entryA Bright Idea?
Bright and Bendy
Since I complained sufficiently enough yesterday about not doing anything and being bored, Phil suggests that to prevent a repeat of that today we install a light in the dining room that we got at Ikea over a year ago.
The current light in the dining room is somewhat of a pain in the arse, it's one of those ones that you can pull up and down, but unfortunately ours doesn't retract high enough - so anyone over 5'4" invariably twats their head / eye / ear / jugular vein on the glass shade.
The new one we got at Ikea is a bit more funky and is a sort of spot light arrangement - except the spots are on a bendy rail which is malleable into pretty curvy shapes - so you turn into the designer, and you can shape your lights in pretty much anyway you wish. The problem however, and the reason it's been sat in a box for over a year, is that neither Phil or me know anything about wiring up lights and the instructions look terrifying.
So after brushing off the dust we get all the bits out and start thinking about what shape we want the rail to be in - an "s" shape seems the easiest considering that we have to drill into the ceiling beams to hang the rail - easy enough if you know where the beams are, which way the run and how much distance is inbetween them - none of which we had the foggiest idea about.
Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?
Putting that problem aside for the moment then, we set about undoing the old light to put the new lights transformer in its place. Easy peasy, you just unscrew the wires from the old light and stick them in the new light... right? Well actually no, a big part of getting this step right is to note down how the old light was wired before you rip it apart. Ooops... we neglected to do that. So after unwiring the old light, wiring up the new one and flicking the switch we have no wattage what so ever.
Buggery bollocks - we've already been trying to fit this new light for about 2 hours and we've gotten no where. But after a bit of advice from Phil's dad, and Phil having a think about it (I gave up and ate something instead) we eventually manage to wire the new light up so that it's working! Yay!
It's now about 3 hours in and after stuffing a lot of cable up a very small hole (suits you sir) we make it to the next stage of fitting - screwing the flexible rail into the ceiling beams, which for all intense and purposes are invisible to us as the plaster board nicely covers them. So after using divining techniques similar to that of a Y shaped stick (Ok, Ok, it was in fact just a lot of pilot holes and knocking) we manage to get the rail in place, screw on the spot lights, and hey presto we've got light!
Despite the fact the lights are a vast improvement on the old death trap decapitator device we had previously, had I have known it was going to take so long to put the bastards up I'd have never complained of being bored :)
Changing places, or history? Ashton Kutcher in The Butterfly Effect
What's left of the day is devoted to a bit of film watching. I've seen The Butterfly Effect before, but liked it so much I got it on DVD. We give it a second viewing today and it's still a cool film - even more so the second time around because you pick up on all the little hints and clues that you miss when you first watch the film. Its fascinating stuff, all about Chaos Theory and Time Travel, and the obligatory love story naturally - worth seeing if you like that kinda thing :)
If you wanna know more about Butterfly Effect - the theory click here.
Posted by Abi on the June 5, 2005 10:15 PM
Why a simple S shape when you can bend it int an @ ...