Why does my porch light burn out bulbs so quickly?

I have searched for an answer on this several times over the past six months and never came up with the real answer. Because my porch light burns out bulbs faster than you can say, "I dropped my keys." On some of the forums Google returned when I searched for answers, people suggested that vibrations would cause bulbs to burn out (doesn't hold up for the compact fluorescents, though, and we've burned through those in less than a month). I was fairly convinced that the suggestion to check for a loose neutral connection would be our "ah ha" moment, but that wasn't it. There were all sorts of suggestions from the harebrained to the absurd and none of them applied to my porch light.

Yesterday, we had an electrician out to give us an estimate on upgrading the service into the house so Jesse can eventually weld things in the garage. As he was leaving, I mentioned the porch light problem. He was half way down the porch steps and without so much as looking at the fixture, said "Oh, that's easy. Someone put too big a bulb in there at some point and burnt out the fixture." And that's it. Within ten seconds, the mystery of the porch light was resolved.

I am hoping that other people who have light bulbs burning out too frequently might end up on this humble blog post and therefore find their own burnt-out bulb problem resolved more quickly than I did. Because replacing light bulbs every few weeks is a huge pain in the rear. Especially when you drop your keys as often as I do.

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Something I once said turned out to be true

Job hunting, as we all know, sucks. It's one of those things that most of us wind up having to do at some point, and most of us would rather not do. One thing I've tried to keep in mind whenever I've been on the hunting end is that time moves far more slowly for the hunter than for those that do the hiring. It turns out, it's totally true. We are trying to fill a new position at work AND get out multiple releases for multiple customers and keep everyone happy and our code bug free or at lease respond to bugs and... well.

We've gotten several resumes, but have not actually called anybody in the last two weeks, although my boss did just email our most likely candidates today. There were a couple of people who seemed to have actually read the job posting and matched their skill set to what we are looking for.

At any rate, this is just to confirm for anybody who is or ever will look for a job: what seems slow to you is not slow at all to the people who are trying to fit resume-reading into their already overworked schedules. They also have to filter out all the spam and the other spam and the myriad people who a) want to help you hire someone in India or b) are in India or c) have an H1B Visa and are trying not to get deported back to India. (Seriously, India comes up a lot when you're hiring a developer). Remember, in all likelihood, they're at least one employee short if they're hiring, and are therefore probably a bit busier than you. They're certainly less focused on finding you a job.

Oh, and if you know anybody who is looking for a web development job (mostly front end, with an eye toward learning back end) in Portland, let me know. We've got lots of work to do.

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Dancing tractors!

Thank you, Canada!

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Word

Jasonaut was right. WordToYour.com is my new favorite site. OK, so he said it in March... I'm a bit late catching up.

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Home again?

Hachiya (photo by bsterling)

There is something incredibly surreal about a one week trip to Africa. We left on a Friday morning and returned home the following Saturday morning. It's weird enough without the added time zone craziness of arriving in Portland one hour after leaving Frankfurt... somehow, that one hour involved ten hours of airplane travel. The mind boggles.

So far, my mind has pretty much been alternating between boggling and sleeping. I slept a fair portion of yesterday and Saturday, waking up at one point to wonder why Ransom was in Africa, once my eyes focused enough to make out his face. Disorientation isn't necessarily all that fun; it makes me glad I never got into hallucinogens.

Today, I'm fairly well readjusted to place, if not time. My head is once again aswim with plans for gardening and home repair projects. I've caught up on reading work emails, so I have a rough idea of what I'll fall into when I return to work on Thursday. Right now, though, I'm off in hunt of a persimmon tree. Who knew it would be so hard to find a hachiya persimmon tree? Portland seems to be all about the fuyu variety, and those don't work as well for my grandma's super special cookie recipe. Silly Portland.

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Quick update

I'm afraid my tummy's a little off at the moment and it's past my bedtime, so this is just a brief update to say we had another great day and are on our way home tomorrow. We still have to pick up the kids' visas at the German Embassy, which is a gigantic pain in the rear. Hopefully, all our paperwork is in order and we will have no further problems with that!

It's difficult to believe that our time here is up, although there are certain things about home I'm really looking forward to. Brushing my teeth with tap water sounds so fancy and exotic right about now. But there is much beauty here in Ethiopia and I truly hope I have a chance to come back some day.

OK, ciao for now. I'm off to get a good night's sleep... I have to rest up for something like 22 hours of travel tomorrow.

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Whirlwind Wednesday

We finally found a decent restaurant

So many activities today! We started the day by going back to CWA and dropping off gifts. The kids are all so extremely generous, they gave most of the toys and fruit snacks and things that Brooke and Ben gave them. It was very impressive and a true mark of their character that they are so giving. They had wanted to go back today because some of the nannies work different shifts and wouldn't have been there until today. We took photos of the kids with their nannies, but unfortunately weren't able to take photos of other kids in the orphanage, as it's strictly against the rules. It's too bad because I had a couple of buddies there and they were awfully cute.

After that, we headed to the German Embassy to sort out transit visas. This is a very stupid thing. It's only Germany (not all of Europe as I thought yesterday) that requires a visa for Ethiopians who are changing planes in Germany. The thought is that they are taking advantage of the surge of Ethiopian adoptions that has happened in recent years and are viewing it as a way to make money. Whatever the cause, we have to return to the German Embassy tomorrow with copies of passports, US visas, plane tickets, birth certificates in English and Amharic, court papers in English and Amharic, six live chickens, and a stein of beer. Seriously, it's ridiculous. They won't even be leaving the airport. This law went into effect April 1 and there's a chance we could skip doing all this and just hope for the best in Frankfurt, but it's definitely not worth the risk. So we will grumble and comply.

After the German Embassy, we went to lunch at another Italian restaurant. The two main signs of the Italian occupation that I've seen are Italian restaurants and the use of the word, "Ciao!" The restaurant we ate at was called Blue Top and definitely caters to us ferenge. Marta and Addisu were laughing at my ferenge sunburn today. "Habesha no sunburn," they said.

An injera basket is a must for a family of eight with three Ethiopian children... Luckily, the kids know how to make it!

Then we went shopping. We got some new threads, which are awesome, and baskets, "church umbrellas," toys, games, trinkets, googaws, etc. The shopping areas of the city are somewhat spread out, and our driver, Dawit, does not think it's a good idea to go to the mercato. I think with three kids and three white people, it would cause a certain amount of mayhem. We still want to go and look, but he said we definitely don't want to buy anything there. "Listen to your driver" is a rule that was stated again and again and we all have to agree that he knows better than us, so we might get out and look a bit, but will not be buying much of anything at the mercato. Ben did a great job haggling with some of the shopkeepers today, and Dawit helped us with the rest. At times, he seemed to have fun helping with the haggling; at other times, he seemed like it was kind of a pain. He's a wonderful guide, and has made our trip far more fun and easy than it would be without him. We love Dawit.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant called Fastika with several of the other families who are here picking up their adopted kids this week. The kids very much prefer Ethiopian food to western food, although Esrael is still digging the french fries. Fanta, Coke, Pepsi, and Sprite are all well liked, as well. The food was excellent, although Brooke and I ordered way too much food and had to share with the rest of the group and Marta. I'm afraid we were rather a more boisterous bunch than the rest of the families there. But I sort of liked that, too.

The kids continue to be wonderful, funny, and charming. Addisu is very smart and studious, but quick to laugh and smile and make fun of his younger siblings. Brooke taught the kids to flap their hands and say "blah blah blah," and that's been a source of much amusement. Addisu frequently says, "Marta, blah blah blah," and doubles over with laughter. Marta is very affectionate and sweet. She laughs when her brother makes fun of her... most of the time. She sings a lot, with her lovely voice. It's wonderful to hear. Esrael is quite the little dude. He has many of the mannerisms of an older boy, but the silliness and cuteness of a boy his age. Like the other two, he is quick to smile and can probably charm the socks off of just about anyone. Today, when he called me on the phone, he got my name right, but apparently had the mouth piece in the wrong place. I bet he'll have it down by tomorrow.

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