What did you do today with the help of a budget flashlight?

Here's a fun topic that I am shamelessly stealing from some other flashlight site, I honestly don't remember where I saw it. But it should generate lots of interesting comments...

So, what did you do today with the help of your budget flashlight? Let us know!

Keep it clean please!!!

This topic came to mind because I am now sitting in the twilight (6:00 now, always dark by 6:30) with thunder rumbling in the distance and no power. Brief 10-minute afternoon storm came rolling through and lightning hit so close I could almost taste the ozone. Looks like the DSL router is still running off the UPS for when I hit send on this message. I'll probably have to pull out a flashlight pretty soon. This is common occurrence at least once if not several times per week. I believe they have circuit breakers on the main transfer stations or possibly even up on the poles that trip when there are lightning strikes to prevent power surges. They seem to reset automatically after about 10 minutes, but sometimes it's an all-night outage.

I went to the recycling station, putting a couple dead NiMH and some bad li-ion cells in the cell recycling bin. The recycling station is unlit and it gets dark pretty early here. Funny thing is, flashlight use is pretty rare among ordinary people and many seem to want to stumble around in the dark for some reason...

Power outages are also pretty rare where I live, though they have the potential to be devastating due to the cold weather in the winter months.

Well, this wasn't today, but a few nights ago. Like you, we seem to lose power here if drizzles, the wind blows, or more than 3 birds perch on the line at once. That night the missus and I strapped on headlamps and happily read in bed. Being a voracious reader, she finally thanked me for being a "flashaholic" :). I also got a chance to use the MG p-rocket as a candle in the kitchen...worked like a charm!

Today at work I got a fair bit of use out of my streamlight stylus after the hydraulic pressure switch burnt out on the CNC lathe I was working on. Used it to light my way in the back of the machine to replace the burnt switch :)

Best served tool in my toolbox! Its tiny and puts all of my co-workers maglight mini's to shame when it comes to function, size and even light output :)

Do you really want to know ?

Got a kitten recently [ what a time consumer ] . anyhow , flashlight is real handy at night , taking her out to take care of business ...

What a waste of XM-L power ! [ well maybe not ]

Same thing i do every night. Keep an eye on the assistant when she goes out to carry out her wide range of eliminatory functions. She does tend to decide to take herself out for a walk in the middle of the night and my backyard isn't enclosed so i like to see where she's going and what she's doing.

There's an XM-L at the back door for the purpose. And a Skyline, and an MRV.

Had to help the maintenance guy dig around and find a leak in the roof in the apartment across from mine. He was rather impressed what my little Sipik could put out compared to his 3D Mag incan

Power switch gears have a spring loaded mechanism, which allows them to switch on again by them self automatically after a short. But when the short still persists when they switch on again, they will go off definitely and an operator has to take care of the problem.

Interesting! That's about what I suspected. Because repeated lightning strikes seem to take it down for longer periods of time, i.e. someone has to come and reset it.

It's 1:15am here and I just got done reading this so I grabbed 2 or 3 flashlights for each hand and walked around the dark house for a few minutes. Then I went outside, walked around and lit up the neighborhood until the dogs started barking like crazy. I also have to say that I am bored and drunk and acting like an idiot with flashlights. J)

I all the days use a budget flashlight to go to the bathroom and dont disturb others...

Also for reading books

And when the switch of the ceiling lamp is too far. I ALWAYS carry a flashlight with me at home, and outside home. One for work, one for doing other activities.........

Just this morning, my daughter (2 year old) and I played with our lights touching things in the house and make them glow in different colors. We saw a transparent rubber ball with little shiny specs inside could make a disco ball effect in the darkness.

I use my lights to sneak into our bedroom without distracting my daughters attention to different points in the room. She usually grabs my lights to seek her little balls gone under the sofa or the bed. I had to put my stronger lights away and leave only AAA lights in the drawer.

I think it's one of the best things we can do with our light.

give it away

Give the one you like the most ..the one that actually hurts to see depart and realize the folly of things and the value of love shared .

I showed love with a budget flashlight....priceless

Funny that you're asking because just today I tried something new:

Read by the light of the UF-H3 till 4am. Been droopy all day as a result.

Same as what i often do. Opened a defective PC and checked the capacitors for leaks.

Do you still see those? I've not seen one in several years now - the ones i dealt with all died several years back. I didn't think anyone used Taiwanese capacitors any more.

Yep, quite alot. You would not believe how many old boxes people carry for repairs... (in working condition worth like 40€) Still willing to spend up to 80€ for repairs... :/

I generally advise them to get a new mobo, cpu, and a stick of ram for not much more...

Biggest problem I see nowadays is virus/spyware infestation. Hardware is more fun than cleaning out viruses. Ever seen an XP box trying to run 25000 processes? In 512 megs of RAM?

I wanted to put it out of my misery, the owner paid way more than it was worth to get the crud out of it.

Commercial customers get told to wipe and reinstall, and restore the (checked) documents from backups.

Then spend a day cleaning crud and another day or two implementing a backup system that they'll actually use.