Automatic Lights

I did a little home improvement task I've been wanting to do here at Chesterley for a couple of years: I installed a timer on our outside lights. One of the things I like about this neighborhood is that it's far enough out of town that it's genuinely dark. Plenty of starry nights here. There are no street lights on the winding lane leading to Chesterley's front gate (OK, winding lane my ass: it's a two-block long straight-as-an-arrow street in a suburban neighborhood). Approaching the house at night is really dark and a bit scary dark at times. I like to have things lit up out front; I just feel safer. Call me a city boy, that's OK by me. But there are many nights when I forget to turn those lights on, and the times we're out before dark and come home after dark, it would be nice to come back to a house with lights. So, there it is. All done, thanks to a little coaching from my brother-in-law who works as an electrical engineer. I managed to complete the project without frying off my body hair and burning down the stately old walls of Chesterley. Remarkable! There are a couple of pictures to prove it under the "diy" tag on my flickr site.

And while home improvements are nice, nothing academic happened today. Life happens, academics do not. Wife was sick this morning, so I was unexpectedly on Moose duty for most of the day. Not that I mind this.

There's always tomorrow for academics, assuming life can stop for a while.