Airport, Deja Vu

Okey, then. Here I am again, at the Springs airport waiting to fly out. The was a last minute urgent development with a job that I did in Delaware in October of 2006. Some very expensive highly custom low-voltage lighting burnt out and has to be replaced at the cost of me and that of the manufacturers. Honestly majority of the cost is and should be absorbed by me vs. the lighting manufacturer, as I had apparently failed to relay to him how high the ambient temperatures were going to be where the lights where going to be installed. The 5W bulbs laid flat over the electrical wire and had an aluminum "heat sink" shield plate between the socket and the bulbs to protect the wire from the heat of the bulbs. What that shield ended up doing, though, was to concentrate the ambient temperature from the room to the spot where the socket was soldered to the electrical wire and managed to burn themselves off the wire. The new lighting has the sockets standing upright without heat sinks, so I should be safe now. The problem is, the system is now one inch taller than before and is no longer hidden behind the custom wood valance I had created to hide it. I will have to take all the valances off (8- 8foot runs) and create a 5/8" wide groove by one inch deep so make the lighting sit in the material so it doesn't stick past the valance. I got the airline tickets using up 25,000 frequent flier miles out of my 54,000 mile balance. I am now 25,000 short to gualify for an ticket to Finland or Buenos Aires next summer. Taxes to the ticket came to $60, +$50 for over-weight luggage, +1-2 nights in Delaware, $500 for the Xenon light bulbs (old ones were incandescent), rental car, and replacement lumber of $100-200 and the shipping of it $250. In essence, this warranty trip is going to cost exactly whatever profit I managed to make on the project year and a half ago. Oh well.. oh well oh well. Live and learn. Any low-voltage lighting I use from henceforth, though, is sure to work fine and not to fail, as we know what to look out for.

The one bonus to this trip is that I get to go hang out with Ms.Spain for the long MLK weekend before hitting the road to DE. We had somewhat considered meeting-in-the-middle in Houston next weekeend during the Tango Festival there, but honestly, the DJ list for the festival didn't look very exciting. There is a festival in Ann Arbor this weekend with pretty good DJ's, but it was too close to Ms.Spain's trip to see me over New Year's, and now this extra trip came about. Next time I'll travel will be for the DC Tango Marathon in March.

With all the hastle I had at the ticketing desk with my big, overweight, bags, messing with name tags on the new bag I had to buy for this trip, etc, she selected me to go through additional security measures - probably as an payback for the time and effort I made her go through to check me in. Although I do have to say they did a poor job with the additional check, which was mainly to check for bomb residue. Because my second bag also got to be a little over #50 lbs, I transferred a Home Depot bag full of various junk and tool to my carry-on that has the low-voltage lighting, bulbs, and breakers. The bag also included a brand new 1" wide chisel that they didn't notice during the x-ray. Not that I will or would no anything funky with it, but that's beside the point. Last June they found a utility knife inside one of my shoes in my carry-on. I had last minute transferred some items from checked to carry-on to keep the second checked bag under #50 lbs.

I also had the written (LEAB) test for the CSPD this morning. I went through it in record speed because I was tight on time, spending only 45 minutes out of my allowed 2:30. I felt and thought that I did very well though.. I had no problematic questions.. but regardless I only got an 6 out of 10. 5 is a passing grade, but anything below 8 is wasting time to continue in the process..
My section is boarding.. got to go..

Ta.