Conservatism vs. Consumerism

I have a ceiling fan hanging in the middle of my family room. It has a light kit underneath, nothing special about that. The photo is a representation of it, not the actual unit.

Over the course of a last week two of the three lights stopped working. In a matter of good conscious I decided to replace all three with CFL energy efficient bulbs. Again.

The first time I did this a year ago, yes before Al Gore's movie, the color emitted from them was a ghastly yellow green. Our family attempted to get used to the lighting but after a few days it was apparent we would rather sit in the dark than turn on the lights. Maybe thats how we are supposed to save money?

So they went away.

Sunday I replaced all the lights in the ceiling fan with CFL's. The lights this time are a perfect white light. I simply matched up the converted wattage of the CFL's to the normal bulbs but ended up with a much brighter room and a serious contrast to the lightening in the rest of the downstairs. Not to be deterred we decided next week we will buy more environmentally friendly bulbs at $3.88 a piece at a lower wattage to tone down the family room and move the brighter lights to the outside lights.

New problem.

Since Sunday I couldn't figure out why my tv remote was taking so many 'clicks' to react to a command. When I replaced the lights I also upgraded some wires on my entertainment systems' components. I figured I moved the cable box out of alignment with our seating. So I moved my arm up and down and stretched it left and right and sat in different spots always aiming the remote at the cable box. I changed the battery's. In all cases after several clicks the command would be accepted to change the volume or channel or whatever.

The next day, after a long day of work, sitting in front of my gigantic flat screen DLP HD tv, in my ultra bright family room, I started to get frustrated flipping between programs. And when I get frustrated I get inspired. So I asked my wife who was walking by to flick off the lights.

Immediately the tv began accepting my commands. Could it be?

Yes! After a few minutes of flicking the lights on and off and quite a few "Oh My Goshes", it was confirmed that three 100 watt CFL bulbs 8 feet up can disrupt the commands sent from a tv remote to a cable box, a distance of about ten feet apart.

There's some moral decision here. First, I could stop watching television in a well lit room out of frustration of pushing a button five times for one command. Two, I could go out to the garage and tap the stockpile evil incandescent bulbs and zone out stress free in beautiful soft white light.

Yeah. I know. The garage.

This week was the 515th anniversary of Columbus reaching the New World. I have a feeling that well before we even get to the 200th anniversary of Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb he will be subjected to the same outrage. Thomas Edison the destructor of the environment for creating the light bulb! Well I say how dare people tell me I have to use energy efficient light bulbs when that means I waste energy switching channels. Where is the savings in that?

So a warning to all of you other do-gooders out there. Energy saving light bulbs may lower your energy bill by pennies a month but absolutely will increase your frustration level changing channels.