Re~re~re~rewind it's Vacation Time, Getting There.

Yesterday a coworker asked where I went for vacation and after I told her she asked me why I wasn't tan. I hate that question, it's right up there with 'Hows that flossing going on?', HATES IT. Why? Well it's so high school, I remember when spring break would come and all the cool kids who went on vacation would run off to the Virgin Islands, Outerbanks, Aruba, Jamaica, Florida, California, etc etc. You know wherever the sun may be because God, Christ and all of his heavenly host know quite well that it ain't in Ohio land of eternal fucking grey. Seriously it's the middle of fucking May and we still, still have lows in the 50's and highs in the 60's. Granted I may be grumpy because I just got back from an environment where even when it was overcast there was still sun and water temperatures hovered around 81 degrees. For those keeping track I'm saying the OCEAN was twenty degrees warmer than the air is here. Ohio is thesuck. Anyway I hate the 'Why aren't you tan' question because I'd think one look at me would would tell them that I don't tan. Please oh please Mommy could I lay on the beach for hours and hours and crisp my pasty translucent skin to a reddened blistering mess and then lay awake at night in a non air conditioned tent cabin trying to sleep as the heat from my sunburn causes me to sweat profusely. B'sides if I'm somewhere nice enough to lay out on a beach all day I'd rather be snorkeling, body surfing, boogie boarding, scuba diving or doing ANYTHING then laying on a towel on a sandy beach. I love the blue blue ocean, I hate the sandy sand sand and I still don't know how to deal with this love and hate thing.

So vacation, since there was no Tivo I had a lot of time to read, play video games (until my Gameboy battery died 1 1/2 days into vacation) and do the old school personal blogging that lowtekkers like to call journaling. So re~re~re~rewind it's vacation time.

-- Saturday, May 6th --

SG and I choose to stay at a Eco-resort on St. John called Maho Bay. I'm pretty sure I now know what eco-resort means: interns as staff, new linens only when necessary and cold showers all hours of the day. Let me get this off my chest before I get any further, regardless of what I say here I HAD A REALLY GOOD TIME DAMN IT. It was a lot of fun, I just like to rant and now that I said that I can continue. Maho Bay is by no means luxurious it's more like a camp ground nestled placed right between some national park land with some of the best beaches in the world. Gorgeous sparsely used white sand beaches and aqua marine picture perfect water with sailboats added in as a nice touch. I really don't have much to compare Maho too as my family was never much into the car camping. I to this day aren't much into car camping, I figure if I'm going to camp I'm going to backpack screw this sissified camping. So when I say it was like a campground I have to go on what SG says and what little bit that I saw of the KOA's out west. So Maho has these things they call "tent cabins" which are elevated framed in structures with water resistant plastic/rubber canvas forming the walls and roof. Inside they have two beds, a sleeper coach thingy with all weather pleather foam cushions, propane stove, cooler to store food, a little porch, lots of screen windows, electricity for lights and a box fan to keep you cool at night. If this doesn't sound intriguing to you that's ok go do a fucking cruise, I wanted cheap and for $75 a night I got cheap. There aren't that many resorts on St. John and what there is is expensive. How expensive? Like $2400 a week expensive. Your other option is to rent a house which I'm sure for two people isn't all that practical.

Enough of this back story and descriptions onwards to the flight. The flight to St. John wasn't that bad, exhausting but not that bad. The reason why the flight was exhausting was that neither SG or I like to pack and so Friday we found ourselves still packing at 12:30am. 12:30am is by no means passed my bed time, it just proves to be more of a problem when you are planning on getting up at 4am for a 6:30am flight. Not seeing the point of trying to fall asleep for four hours of sleep I hunkered down in front of the Tivo for one last hurrah. The goal as I said was to stay up till 4am however I only made it to 2am before I had to beat a quick retreat to the bed which left me with a little bit more than two hours of sleep when I woke up again at 4:15am. We flew United which has "economy plus" which means your leg room is much more analogous to sitting in the front seat of a compact car instead of the back seat. It may not sound like much but it was enough that SG and I couldn't figure out for the longest time why we felt so less cramped than normal. Along the lines of airplane seating here's an article about Airbus's proposed plan to turn the cattle class on their airplanes to standing room only. I realize that most people have already read about it but the idea doesn't stop becoming any less repulsive as time goes on. We landed in St Thomas airport at around 3pm and after some musical airplanes deboarded. I call it musical airplanes only because after we landed and taxied it appeared like the traffic controller was using his magic 8-ball to determine what gate each plane should use. Have you ever seen a 737 attempt to maneuver around on the tarmac? It looks like a semi trying to maneuver around a Taco Bell parking lot to position itself for de-fooding. Getting the bags took a little bit as it seems St. Thomas airport does it's receiving and sending off of planes in batches. So when we landed there were two other planes of baggage that were also coming out for the masses to sort through. To kill the time and the heat we guzzled rum punch and SG's new favorite fruity drink the Pain Killer. SG loves Pain Killer's because they have a sprinkle of nutmeg on top. Nutmeg to her is like honey to Winnie the Pooh. Along the same line of reasoning she loves eggnog not so much because she likes eggnog but because she likes nutmeg. I can't blame her her love for nutmeg is kind of like my love for ketchup, I eat fries only to use them as a spoon to get ketchup to my mouth, then when I'm out of fries I suck the ketchup out of those little ketchup cups to the disgust of all around me.

Once we got the bags we went to the taxi cue and jumped into a giant van-taxi thing with six other strangers and started our slow journey to the ferry at Red Hook. Our fare for two people, 28 bucks, his accidental tip pushed the whole deal too $40. How does one get a $12 tip? Well it surely wasn't for services rendered. Let me layout the story here, we finally roll up to the ferry unbeknownst to us as the ferry didn't look so much like a ferry as a little area with wire fences and a wire gate slightly opened and people milling around like cattle attempting to get their tickets and bags onto the next ferry. Right as we pulled up a ferry was getting ready to leave so there was chaos as other equally weary travels fresh off the plan were attempting to buy tickets. Right as we pulled up a guy grabbed our bags and put them on a little cart thing and then rolled them 15 feet inside the ferry area by the ticket counter while I was paying the cab driver. I gave him $40 and then he gave me $5 back as he was continued to make change. I expecting to get more change back had the five in my hand ready to give him as a tip. SG not knowing what was going on told him to keep the change right as he was getting ready to hand the rest of my change back which just happened to be at the same time I handed him a $5 for the tip. SHIIIIIIT. Wallet sucking experience numero uno. SG wasn't to blame even though I was plenty grumpy, she didn't know what was going on and was as equally flustered as I was, saw a leaving ferry, masses of confused people and our bags being rolled away. So for future reference if you are ever staying on St. John go to the Charlotte Amalie ferry which is in downtown St. Thomas. The cab ride is like $18 and takes 10 minutes to get there. The ferry is then $28 and takes 45 minutes compared to the ferry from Red Hook which costs $16 and takes 20 minutes. Believe me though the ferry is much more relaxing than the taxi, you can stretch out, watch the scenery go by and not worry about breakneck speed on windy little roads with cars on either side. By the time we get to Cruz Bay on St. John we find ourselves in ball sweating, crotch rot, swamp ass heaven weather waiting for Frett's Taxi (aka: Maho Shuttle) which while we know is supposed to come we aren't all that sure what his taxi looks like which could make it hard to pick it out amongst the other 20 taxi trucks parked by the ferry.

While waiting for the taxi I ask a police woman if we can use the public buss (Vitran) however apparently it just goes from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay (other major town on St. John) and back, I did however find out that Frett drives a green taxi and should show up around 5:20. Around 5:30 Frett comes rolling in right on island time and we haul all our gear over to his taxi and procure ourselves a ride to Maho Bay. Remember how I said this was not a resort, more like camping? Well it turned out that Frett has a bad back so he can't put your bags on the taxi for you. Instead what happens is that he attempts to tell you how to do it in a very thick island accent which ended up meaning that it took a few minutes to cross the communication barrier and finally put the bags on correctly. I don't hold it against Frett that he can't lift the bags, the guys getting kind of old, I just wasn't in the mood at that point to deal with any of that. The drive to Maho Bay resembled a rollercoaster ride due the steep grades of the roads, winding roads and the open air element of the taxi. The cabs on St. John are all converted pickups of varying sizes with benches put in the pickup beds. They have rails along the sides and between the seats but if they were to add a little bar that would drop across your legs it really wouldn't feel out of place.

When we arrive Maho Bay, check in and get to the tent I am completely and totally underwhelmed. The first time I stayed at Maho Bay we were living it large in these studio house things called "Harmony Studios". Sure they might be a 20 minute walk from the beach when going up the hill but the did have private bathrooms with solar heated water four walls and a roof that resembled techniques used for houses. The tents while not bad have none these things as already mentioned at the top. On top of that I had been reading reviews of other people's experiences who stayed in the tent cabins off of a website called trip advisor. The negative ratings people gave Maho Bay almost always had to do with relentless mosquito's that left them with copious amounts of bug bites. Upon entering the tent the first thing I notice is that the tent had subsided a little over time and now the doors weren't plumb. So while the windows and doors had screens in them all the nefarious viet-mosquito-army had to do was to enter through the gap under our door, wipe it's little feet off on our welcome mat and come in for a quick snack. Even if the doors were plumb the floor was made up of boards with inch sized gaps between them. Handy if you have sweating coolers or you want to sweep up the sand as all you do is sweep the sand to a crack and there ya go, not so handy if there is a potential mosquito problem. For whatever reason though mosquito's weren't an issue and even if they were you just take your bug repellent and spray it along the edge of the bed and the sheets and it forms a bug barrier that stops most of the mosquito's. And if that doesn't work you through caution to the wind and slather on some 100% Deet bug repellent, I mean so what if they say you shouldn't leave it on your skin for more than two hours.

After I took a nice cold shower, cold not because I was sexually frustrated for any reason just because that's the only game in town, I felt much better. Cold showers sound really bad, and they are the first 10 seconds or so when the water hits you and your breath leaves you from shock. After that though it's quite refreshing and I'd say necessary when you don't have AC to keep you cool at night. The toilets on the other hand caused my psychological constipation to go on red terror alert. Not "Transporting" dirty just public and me and public toilets aren't friends. There was the added bonus that the urinals weren't working which meant that everyone and their brother would be pissing all over the toilet in heathen caveman like abandon leaving a nice layer of bacteria for me to sit on. Ick, ick, ick. In case you think I'm neurotic apparently David Sedaris also had the same issue when he was younger... hmmm not really sure if that really helps my case or not. The story I'm talking about is in "Naked" where he wrote about one summer when he went to summer camp for a month or so. At the time he was used to having his own private bathroom that no one else used and when faced with using a public toilet his intestines seized up like I-95 at rush hour. His analogy of a month of not crapping while eating large hearty Greek meals was that it was much like packing a musket, an intestinal musket. Now mull that one over for awhile. Think about it? Good. I'm sure while David Sedaris has gotten past his public toilet phobia, mine however is still alive and well. As for the mosquito's they didn't seem to bother us that night or till about Thursday or so but I'll bet getting to that in due time.

On returning to the tent my outlook had greatly improved, it was still a little rough but the sound of the ocean along with tree frogs was really satisfying at many different levels after a day of travel and I found myself asleep by 9pm.

Between the weather and work I'm not sure which one sucks more.

Not that anyone keeps up on this dialogue with myself but I was on vacation last week in the land of 1000 virgins. I actually do have quite about to write about it even though work has sucked all my life force, desire, passion, motivation, desire, passion, desire, you get the picture. I came to the maddening realization today about work and the product that I work on and granted this is probably not just a problem here at Sprockets but a problem with any company who tries to write a software application that can do everything without really having an idea about what that everything is. Think of our product as a Mr. Potato Head (MPH) and all of his bucket of parts, with buckets of fun for everyone. You know that children will want to play with it, add things to it model it in their own creative image that is sometimes logical and sometimes not. You take his body try to figure out every single place someone might want to assemble and accessorize MPH, you add the holes, and you plan the accessories that you will package with MPH and then you release it to the general public of kid normal. Now Hasbro or whoever makes MPH doesn't have to worry about feedback from customers, if a child wants to give MPH mechanized legs, a unibrow-brow, body builder arms, or a giant freaky phallus they don't have to go back and figure out how they are going to allow the kiddy to add these things. That is unless of course Hasbro gets sued in a class action suit because someone's child nearly dies after choking on a MPH ear.

So the product I work on is like a MPH, we planned it to have all these things you could do with it. It would be relatively easy to add things to MPH to configure him in any way that our clients would want, they want MPH to have one eye, a cowboy hat, one arm, no lips and two legs, fine we can do that. The problem for us is that the client comes back and says that they don't want MPH to just stand there, maybe they want him to walk, maybe they want him to talk, maybe they want to put a wheel on the bottom of him and have MPH soap box derby races. So what started out as a nice little modular system where most of the features we thought a client was going to want was there and other functionality could be added turns into a freakish post apocalyptic MPH that was melted from the radiation, has three eyes, 16 legs, scaley skin, the ability to think for itself, and maybe water your plants. I look at MPH and all I do is become disgusted like one would be if they were to actually look at a melted down radioactive infested freakish semi aware toy. I look at it and I get depressed because we are never going to take the time to go back and really try to determine what people want, or to rethink things all we were ever do is drill more holes onto MPH, melt existing lip accessories into frowny fanged grins and hack hack hack.

Enough of that, as time goes on my love for the Toyota Scion xB grows and grows too bad the response from everyone I generally talk to treat it as if it was some freakish dwarf like psychopathic clone with two different colored eyes. It's a little boxy, but it's got nice clean lines, and so what if it's a little under powered and may limp along like one leg is a little shorter than the other. So in my goal to "win the hearts and minds" of the doubting group that is my pears I figured a little media blitz with a revised picture of the xB may need to be in order. Isn't it cute? Don't you just want to walk up and scratch it's ears and watch it hope hop along the street sniffing flowers, eating clover and destroying your vegetables every chance it gets? I was thinking putting a baby seal picture on it's face however bunny ears seemed like a much better idea.

No prof that isn't a close up picture of a nipple.

Due to fantastical job of the administrators at my alma mater I had to go fill out my first credit report. Apparently someone at Ohio University never realized that a database of alumni information was hanging it's bare ass on the internet highway for all to see for the last year. Thankfully they finally put together a site to tell everyone what was going on and THANK GOD it was only contact information, names, addresses, social security numbers, pet names, favorite sexual positions, and no credit information. Did I mention social security numbers? Thank GOD they didn't have things like credit card information, I mean shit if someone got that they would have access to all of my $2 dollars. However with that pesky cute little social security number they'd only be able get a new license, credit cards, passports, WHEW. It's not their fault I'm sure they were like "Duuuuuuuuuude, that alumni database I think it was like ummmmmm.... on the internet for like the last year. I mean does that matter I mean those alumni's are all so like old." In continuing with the theme of being screwed Windows updated itself right into irritating mode. Now every time I logon it nags me like a mother warning me how I was "Victimized by software counterfeiter's" and that I should "request real Microsoft software." Shiiiiiiiiiiit They think they can out irritate me? They've got another thing coming, this stuffs going to run off me like water off of a dead goose. I'm the guy who's processor kept overheating for 6 months when he played counter-strike, there's no WAY I'm going to let nice little nagging messages bother me.

Tonight was my first class in B&W dark room photography. When I was in high school I decided to take a years worth of photography classes all to the woe of my parents I'm sure. Woe because photography is like say Scuba diving, it isn't very cheap. I burned through hundreds of sheets of photo paper like a Nazi on a book burning campaign, except I was developing pictures ... of the ... HOT type. Heh heh. No seriously of trees and flowers and pets. When I was in high school I was so sure that the equipment we were using was old. Well again WOE to he who thinks that as the class that I'm now taking seems to be using equipment even older than what my high school had. The timers that are hooked up to the enlargers which control how long the light is on have a design very similar to clocks found in cars made in the sixties. You think I'm kidding. Like it matters though I mean the camera I use is over thirty years old and I have little or no intention of buying a digital SLR. Not because I think digital is the devil, I'm just too cheap. The class is taught by this guy who could give your grandmother a run for her money when it comes to talking. You know those conversations you used have when you lived your parents and grandma used to call up. All you wanted to do was pass the phone off and every time you tried to say "Let me get Mom" she would break into another long story about some giant bunny she saw the other day that was walking on it's hind legs sucking the marrow out of a piece of celery all the while whistling Yankee doodle went to town. You get the idea.

After he showed us how to spool film on to a spool, how to use the enlarger, and make a contact sheet we were standing around and he was talking about the places he takes photographs and how if you send pictures back to that place that they are more likely bend a little for you, let you in earlier, trespass, and take "artistic" pictures. Heh heh. I understand that, it makes sense it was what happened after someone asked him what he thought about digital SLR's that everything got a little weird. Let me preface all of this, the Instructor is really a nice guy, and I'm really excited to be taking this class, he's just a little wordy is all.

Instructor: I can't use digital, hate digital. You see to get a decent rig you have to spend at least $1800 for a camera body and then another $800 for a nice lens.

I'm thinking, right he's going to make the point that digital is expensive and that with film SLR's you can just go buy on Ebay for $100 or so and start shooting. Nope, I couldn't have been more wrong, that adventure was not one that was available for the choosing and there was no "all of the above" option either.

Instructor: You have this nice rig and you decide that you are going to take pictures at a basketball game for a local newspaper where they'll pay you $60. That's great I mean you get to go to a game and get paid for it. Except that I've known people who have had their 5K cameras broken, destroyed, crushed, maimed, chewed on, craped at, forgotten or in the least they loose their memory cards. So you get done with the night with a potentially broken camera at the worst and at best 40 bucks spent between gas, food and admission and all you have left is the $20. It's just not worth it, not worth it at all.

At this point I figure, OK not sure what that had to do with the original question but we are at least winding it down here.

Instructor: There was this one time where I got a 100 bucks for a shoot, it was terrible though it was raining I had my camera wrapped up inside plastic bags, my flashes were going bad left in right spewing toxic gases and corrosive elements onto my skin and clothes. I looked at my camera Roger and said "Roger, this is the shit that mean die in." When I finally wrapped up and returned home I didn't start developing my film till 11pm and by the time I got home it was 2am. I had to then tear down my cameras and clean the water out with cans of air, q-tips and paper towels, by the time I finished it was 5am. All that for $100, it's just not worth it. Then there was this one time, in Nam when I was on patrol with my unit. At the time I was the platoons camera man so my rifle was on my back. While I was taking pictures of the unit a Vietcong popped up, POPPED up right in front of me. I instantly threw the 15lb camera at the Vietcong killing him instantly however it also killed the camera. I spent the next month in shock laying in a hospital in Saigon unable to eat or sleep. When I could sleep the nightmares would come and I would wake up in a cold sweat and feeling for the camera I had lost. Wher was I.. oh yes so whenever you take pictures of something be sure to send them back prints because people really like that.

I'll be honest with you he never said anything about being a camera man in Vietnam but you get the point. On the joby job dealio apparently we have some sexual harassment classes coming up. Which is going to be funny not because I find sexual harassment funny. Nope because I can't get the episode of "Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law" where they are watching a video on sexual harassment where they have peanut say something inappropriate and the announcer says in a booming voice "That's wrong!"

Peanut: (to two girls) I'm Peanut. How bout you be bread and you be jelly and we could make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich!

This is the shit that Juan Valdez pisses.

I know I have mentioned this that the coffee they give us at Sprockettes is the thing of nightmares. It looks more like they pulled it directly from Lake Erie, at least if they got it from Lake Erie I might have a small chance to get some sort of nourishment or chemical or something that would wake me up. As it is I feel that I would be much better off if I could chase down Juan Valdez's donkey while following it with a cup just praying that I can catch some of it's glorious golden caffeinated stream. I'm not into that stuff, you know golden stream, I'm just saying Juan Valdez's donkey's piss may have more caffeine and flavor in it than this coffee. Let's try to get beyond this coffee.... I don't think I can, especially since I forgot my danty little green coffee cup of wonder at home. MWAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA I nearly turned around and went home to get it. It needed a good scrubbing from the ye ol' dishwasher because apparently if you run boiling water through a dirty filthy coffee mug it doesn't get clean. I started cleaning my kick ass green mean modern styled coffee mug that holds a half a cup of coffee with a damp paper towel and after the fourth one on Friday I realized that maybe this was a job for modern machinery. I choose to let my mug of modern greatness get this dirty because I'm hopping that the concentrated left over drippings will somehow help to enhance my next cup. It hasn't yet but I'm still holding on to the hope that it might.

This weekend saw the epiku dorama (epic drama) that shall be known as the HIGH OUTPUT FLUORESCENT COMMERCIAL LIGHT ASSEMBLY, TANTRUM, ASSEMBLY AGAIN, AND FINALLY HANGING OF SAID LIGHT. I can feel it, yes I can feel the marketability of this story. It involves one man, his tantrum, two high output fluorescent lights that weigh no less than fifty lbs, a car in which he slept in and no less than six hardware stores he went too. Last year we had our old garage knocked down and had a new one built and with the suggestion of mi padres I had the electrician put an outlet on the ceiling so that I could put a set of fluorescent lights up there instead of a a single crappy 60W bulb. At the time my Dad made a point to tell me that when I bought these fluorescence that I should buy something called high output fluorescence because beyond being 4X heavier than the cheapo's and 5X more they would light when it got cold out. Something about fluorescence not normally providing that great of a quality of light below 50 degrees F, bla bla bla bla. Well the first time I went to find these lights, I bought the wrong ones. Fuckity FUCK FUCK FUCK I hate going back and returning things, specially if it is my nth time to the hardware store. So I decide to keep the el numero uno cheapo fluorescence I bought on the first trip and went to find the high output variety. I found them only to be shocked by the price $40 for one light while the numero uno cheapo ones run you something like $25 for two. Throwing my doubts aside and trusting in he who is Padre I buy these lights only to get them home and realize that for $40 a light you have to assemble these fuckers. On top of that they don't come with all the amenities and frills that the cheaper ones came with. Things like a little packet of directions, chains to hang them, S-hooks, OH AND OH some little NOT SO IMPORTANT THING CALLED A CORD! Jeez. $40 a pop and I don't even get a cord, I have to go buy one and put it on myself.

SCREEEEEEEEEEW THAT

So I put them on the shelf last year fully expecting to have to use them when the temperature plummeted but one of the silver linings of global warming is that it doesn't get that cold in Ohio anymore so my el numero uno cheapo lights worked pretty well this winter. GREAT. So now I have $80 of commercial grade high output fluorescent lights sitting in my garage that I can now no longer return because places don't have return policies that let you return something that you've had for nearly a year. This weekend I decided that I was going to wire these suckers up and finally hang them.... I mean I paid for them why not use them.

Saturday I head over to the local Ace hardware to look for some electrical cords that I can wire up to my lights. I get there but find that I am overwhelmed by the choices. This one says that it is good up to 7 amps, this one 10 amps and this one 13 amps. This one's a replacement cord for appliances, that one for power tools.... this one's for ... toasters? Yes toasters. SHIT. SHIT SHIT SHIT. Amps, toasters, power tools, coffee makers, what's an AMP? What happens if I buy the wrong cord? My lights say that they are 120V but these cords are rated at 125V so what happens if I buy one of these cords wire up the lights and they burn down my garage. SHIT SHIT SHIT shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Completely demoralized like the French must have been after the Nazi's rolled into France in WWII I head home with a nasty tantrum a brewing. I get home throw this tantrum which drove SG away, she hates tantrums she should especially coming from grown men. What I wanted was help, it was unreasonable of me to ask her for it, she knows as much about wiring things as I do but I wanted help nonetheless, and my Mt. Vesuvius like explosion was .. not very .. nice. When you are really pissed off that you bought these overly expensive really heavy fluorescent lights mentioning to said unhappy person that you suggested to them that they should've returned them a year ago is rarely helpful. UGH I hate to waste money. I fret over impulse $8 CD purchases. Tantrum thrown I spent the rest of the day curled up in various places around the house asleep. SG finally found me asleep in the back of my car and told me that her Dad was willing to show me how to do one tomorrow. Crisis was sort of avoided dinner was had.

I haul these lights over to my father-in-law's place, we look at them then go to the second hardware store of the weekend buy two cords, some chains, S-hooks and return back to wire one of these lights up. As it turns out wiring one of these things is so easy it is embarrassing...... We'll just leave it at that. Next up now that I have one of these lights wired and know how to do it, I need to get some bulbs. So I go over to Lowes looking for a T-12 48" long high output fluorescent bulb. You know when you go into a hardware store like Lowe's or Home Depot and they have a whole row of light bulbs. You walk to the section you need, pick out your bulb and you leave. Well the problem with high output bulbs is that it isn't like your daddy's ol' fluorescent light, the ends of the light aren't those two little prongs on either side. Nooooooooooooooooo the contacts for high outputs are oval shaped. At Lowe's all I could find was 96" long high outputs at Home Depot after 20 minutes of wander around checking and re-checking I finally break down and ask someone about them. I say break down because I nearly did break down.... perspiration ran down my back, the isles started curving over me trying as if they were attempting to crush me, eyes darting back and forth, lungs began to hyper ventilate I skulked over to an employee. What am I rewarded for my trouble? They don't sell them.

CRAP.


I hates the large hardware stores.

I head home with my impulse closetmaid purchases for my nearly perfect garage shelving system to face the fact that I may have to order these suckers online or just give them away. Crap, CRAP CRAP. I didn't spend $80, countless hours, a tantrum runs to five different hardware stores just to find out that I can't find bulbs. To bolster my nearly deflated ego I put up my little lovely additions to my already nearly perfect shelving system. PEEEEEEEEERFECT. Only to find that this little basket thingy that is supposed to hang from below a shelf needs a space of at least 21" and my shelving is more like 12" between each bracket. FUCK, remember what I said about my hate to return things to the hardware store. I go back to a different Lowe's that is closer to my house to return this basket. At the return counter I am greeted by a congested spacey looking Lowe's employee who looks like she can barely stand little less see in her heightened allergy/flu infested state. I break into this great long schpiel about how I bought this basket but I didn't realize that it wouldn't work because I don't have enough space between my brackets to use it. Employee looks back at me. I say "I need to return this." Light in employee's head goes off, return starts. Return done I decide to give this bulb thing one more go, maybe the 600th time will be the charm. I first go over to the lighting section to see if they even sell high output fluorescent lights, turns out they do AND that they have the brand that I bought last year. Better yet they have the ones that are currently sitting in my garage. Now you have to be thinking the correct assumption is that if someone sells a 48" high output light that they would sell the bulb for it too. Otherwise that would be........ well I guess it would be typical. I go back to the light bulb isle and read very very carefully with the care of a careful person each and every label on the shelves looking for me White Whale of light bulbs. Arrr I know she be out thar Moby bulb I be gettin ya yet. I get to the last label in the fluorescent bulb section to see "T-12 High Output 48" fluorescent". "T-12 High Output 48" fluorescent". Sweet Jesus on a stick, I grab 4 and bolt for the door get home plug them into the already assembled light and thankfully it lit up. So I put together the other one quickity quick, add the bulbs and it too works, a freakin miracle in the eyes of all gods, seven hells, buddha, confucious, jimmy cricket, and bugs bunny.

I went to dinner after that.