I suppose Twitter is good for something once in a while, depending on who you follow. crazyfillyjonk, known elsewhere simply as Fillyjonk, linked to this good news about light bulbs. Incandescent bulbs might not be going away completely.

Now I have one important question. What about clear incandescent bulbs? I am more or less resigned to compact florescents (though I do have complaints about them) but in some fixtures only clear bulbs look right. For example, last week we went a little crazy and bought this ceiling fan and installed it in our dining area. (It looks a lot nicer than the picture.) I actually liked this one better but my other half liked the clear glass shades on the one we got better and for me it was very close so I let him have his way. But, as I was saying, it just wouldn’t look right with anything but clear incandescent bulbs and I worry that in a few years we won’t be able to get them anymore. (It is possible to replace the shades if necessary.)

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Remember this? I like it so well I got an (approximately 16″ X 20″) enlargement of it. This was a real “I LOVE modern technology” moment. I emailed the digital photo to Apertures Photo in Tulsa and a few days later the print was delivered to my house. It turned out fantastic and I didn’t have to drive to Tulsa to get it. Besides the convenience it is a much higher quality enlargement than anything I ever got with film. Even the 5″ X 7″ enlargements I got from 35mm negatives were unacceptably poor but I have this huge print made from a digital image and it looks absolutely professional.

I took it to a shop in the Nearby Small Town and got it professionally framed. They do great work too and I’m torn between wanting to give them a well-deserved plug and not wanting to identify my location too closely. It’s hanging on our living room wall now. I can hardly believe I took that picture myself. It’s making me want to decorate the living room. I already had sort of a decorating plan in mind (That is, I know what color I want to paint the walls.) but now I’m really wanting to make the room look worthy of this picture. (as well as the few other nice things we have)

— Update: Thanks,Michael Bates for the link. Apertures Photo does do great work. This was the second time I’ve been a customer there. Over a year ago I had copies made of an heirloom photograph and those turned out excellent too. —

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We still don’t have any ripe tomatoes and very few green ones or blooms but the plants are looking great. I think I need whatever kind of fertilizer it is that is good for fruit production. I know what it is but I always forget. Tomatoes are the only vegetables we grow. As usual I have too few flowers but I do have some that are looking good.

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I need to spend more time reading. That’s funny… I’m making it sound like something I like to do is an obligation but I have all of these things I really want to read and I seem to have a hard time getting around to them. I’m a couple of months behind in reading Smithsonian, as usual. We still get Bee Culture magazine even though our hives died a couple of years ago and I intend to read at least some of the articles in those but I’ve hardly looked at them for several months. And my husband gets a magazine related to the industry he works in that sometimes has articles that I like to read. That’s it for the dead tree magazines. I’m always seeing things online that I intend to go back to and read later but more often than not I don’t get around to them.

I’m almost finished reading Crossroads of Time from my Andre Norton treasure trove and I’m eager to get into some of the others. I don’t know if I will read them all straight through or read other books in between. I’m thinking I’ll do the latter. When you read 50-year-old science fiction you sort of have to put yourself in a different frame of mind to keep from being constantly amused by the quaintness and simplicity of it all. (Trans-dimensional cell phones would come in really handy at times.) I read two different, unrelated, stories by Hal Clement in which scientists use slide rules. Sometimes it’s hard to keep from cracking up.

I’m not sure it would be entirely healthy to have a part of my brain living in the 1950’s-’60’s for an extended length of time so I think I’ll need a break from the classics after two or three more books at most. Before I received the Andre Norton books I had been starting to crave more Neal Asher and China Mieville. I need me some weirdness once in a while.