February 23rd, 2006 - Cool gift
I forgot to write that when I saw my brother (hi Michael!) last week, he gave me a gift, and it’s just what I’ve always wanted!!! A flashlight that is powered by shaking it vigorously! Woohoo!!!! We thought it didn’t work at first, but it’s just that the “30 seconds of shaking” should be “about 60 seconds of vigorous shaking.” I would love to have more things around the house that didn’t use batteries or electricity (especially my digital camera which eats a $20 pack of lithium batters every 1-2 months.) My next step is to get an old fashioned alarm clock. My clock radio is dying anyway–the radio hasn’t work well for years so I never use it. The clock part runs fast, gaining about 15 minutes every month. I use the thing to tell the time about 4x a day (when I go to bed, and multiple times if I wake up before my alarm, which is typical) and to have an alarm (used about 1x per week). I totally don’t need to be wasting electricity 24/7/365 on these purposes. (However, the digital part is important since I don’t read time very well. But I don’t always read digital time properly either. And I can read analog clocks. I just have to do it carefully and thoughtfully and check it twice. [To indicate how bad I am about reading time, I am not allowed to tell my husband when a flight arrives or leaves. I have gotten it wrong too many times, although we’ve never actually missed a flight. I have to show him the time instead.] This is an actual learning disability, which I learned as an adult from a women’s mag at my grandmother’s house. Made me feel a little better about being highly intelligent but not able to read an analog clock until I was in junior high. I’d have to count it out like “Okay, it’s 5, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18 minutes after. Clocks without numbers were really tough.)
Anyway, the flashlight is totally awesome and I adore it! Oh, and instead of a bulb, it has an LED so I don’t even have to worry about buying new bulbs for it. My brother rocks!
March 1st, 2006 at 11:38 am EST
Seeing how quickly my Canon A95 Powershot ATE batteries made the switch to rechargeables mandatory. The A95 uses AAs though, so finding a cheapie recharging system was easy. Good luck.
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:46 am EST
I used to use rechargable AAs in the camera, too. But they were eaten up so fast and drained the overall usage of them. I had an article that discussed the best batteries for digital cameras. Rechargable batteries, even given their ability to be recharged were the worst or second worst option. I kept the article around while I was using the rechargables, and indeed, I would sometimes get only a couple pictures taken and the batteries were worn out. Definitely not something you want happening on a trip, or even around the house.
I think internal rechargeables are the way to go now.