Thursday 29 December 2005

Pic of the day: One of the old standing lamps.

Day of the lamps

The icy wind remains, though the cold may be relenting just a little bit. It is hard to say, I don't have a thermometer outside. I go to work each day, although the workdays are slightly shorter between Christmas and New Year. This is probably to encourage some people to not take those days off. In Norway, there is no endless sea of job seekers, at least not that are qualified for this kind of job, so you have to throw them a bone from time to time rather than just threaten them. Actually I could have taken one of the days off, and probably should, but the reserve sysadm was sick so it was just as well I didn't. And I would probably just have slept anyway. There hasn't been too much of that lately.

I got a gift card from my workplace too. Something about having been there for so long. It's in the rules, so they can't avoid giving it to me since everyone else gets it. Not an awesome amount, but it would have been almost enough to buy two of the standing lamp I bought yesterday. If they had had two. And if I had remembered to use it, which I didn't. I am not used to being on the receiving end of gifting.

The lamp was pretty heavy, by the way. It consists of a heavy foot to keep it balanced, a long metal rod near my own height, and a not quite opaque glass bowl that lets some light through but reflects most of it up to the white roof, from which it diffuses through the whole room. It can easily take a 100W bulb without combusting. Robust stuff. I got it on the bus and carried it from there directly to my new apartment. I used to have two standing lamps, but as described in this entry, they died on me. As did later one of the two new lamps I bought, the ones who stand on shelves. Note to self: Must remember to locate receipt of purchase and tape it to the foot of the lamp so I can shove it in the face of shop people when lamp dies early. Well, it beats cursing the darkness, right?

Anyway, I managed to get the lamp home. It seems a lot more like home when there is light there. (Since it is the middle of winter, daylight tends to both come and go during work hours. I was pretty tired of carrying it in the end, but I recovered fairly quickly. Then I went back to my old apartment where I am still living for some days. (I planned to move before New Years, but this did not come to pass. Still packing and sorting and throwing away and carrying over stuff.) On impulse I put a bulb in one of the standing lamps that hasn't worked for many years. Yes, you guessed it. It shone brightly. Amazing what fear of death can do to furniture.