Things I learnt this week

1. Tall glass jars are the best thing to melt butter in the microwave with.  No nasty splatter, and no nasty plastic!  Also, it diswashered clean so well!

Old tomato pasta sauce jar... works a treat
Old tomato pasta sauce jar… works a treat

2. I can write a report.  OK not that I doubted my ability to write, but I tend to loath writing for work, as it usually serves ME no purpose (Gen Y, will you put your hand up!)  Alas, today I was lucky to have the opportunity to write a report which is basically going to put forward what I want/need to get the results in the section I’m overseeing.  I am proud of punch of my graphs, data and thoughts, so here’s hoping it goes down well!

3. Planned graffiti art can be pretty awesome.  I bet Dar likes this photo:

Way better than a wall full of tags!
Way better than a wall full of tags!

4. The bible isn’t all ‘fight, kill, die’.  So I’ve even enjoyed my last few days of reading on the train. The last two days I’ve read lots of Psalms, Proverbs and Daniel – it’s been pretty relatable in a way Ezekial makes me want to poke my eyes out (he’s now finished too though).  I’ve got behind in May, but I got through 4 weeks worth of Psalms and Proverbs in short time, so that’s promising.  Proverbs has been like reading a ‘quotes’ book – some great things to live life by I think!

Seen on a real van. Shared with you, just because
Seen on a real van. Shared with you, just because

5. I didn’t learn this, but I taught someone.  A customer complaining about a street light outage got a call back from me.  He asked ‘why are some yellow and some white in light colour?’  The answer is, some are mecury lights (being phased out) and some are sodium lights.  Also, there’s a preference in suburban streets for the ‘warm’ yellow light, but main roads tend to preference white, as it’s better light quality and less fatigue inducing.  Anyhow, we have a smattering of both types more or less everywhere, as there isn’t the capital to bulk change the fittings to all one lamp type – they only get adjusted as they die a horrible death (the fitting, not just the globe).  So there you have it – not all gospel truth, but as best as I recall it!`

That is all for now – what have you learnt this week?

17 Replies to “Things I learnt this week”

  1. Are sodium the yellow ones? Remember there are non-science types here and my son and husband aren't handy to quiz.

    I was always told that there were more yellow street lights in the western suburbs because we have more mist/fog and the yellow light is better in those conditions. Rather than it being a choice/preference thing about warm light.

  2. I love that you wrote "learnt" and not "learned". I always got crap for that when I was younger from others (sometimes teachers), so much so that I started doubting that I really knew how to spell in English.

    Turns out I am schooled in British English, not American! 🙂

    The other one I got teased for was "drank" versus "drunk". I said: "She drank all the juice yesterday", and I was told: "No it's she DRUNK all the juice yesterday"

    Grr… I knew I was right 😛

    1. There you go – you're one of us (the English speaking English!). Alas, I have some brighter people than me who read this blog, so I hope they'd let me know if I got it wrong!?

      1. I don't think you got it wrong. It's just a difference between American and British English, the way I spell everything with a “U” as well..I also grew up reading a lot of British books, so my spelling comes from that!

      2. I didn't even notice your use of learnt, because it is "correct". I had to correct a teacher at work who had changed the spelling on reports to the American spelling. He thought "learned" was right form of past tense – in his defence, he is a PE teacher.

  3. That is interesting about the traffic lights over there! I don't think we have any white ones, but they do vary from more yellow to more orange. I will have to keep the tall glass in mind; I hate melting butter for baking. I'm sure your report turned out well!

  4. That's really interesting about the street lights, but it completely makes sense. It got me thinking about when they started changing all of the traffic lights in Edmonton to LED. It saves the city in electricity costs, but unfortunately they don't heat up the way the old ones did, so they get covered in snow during the winter. We'll just file that one under "oops".

    Was the grass on the back of the van real or astroturf? I'm getting a kick out of it 🙂

    1. Hahaha – we are moving to LEDs too – they are a very white light – but we don't have any snow to contend with. There's so many tasks I wonder 'how do they do that in really snowy places/times of year?'

      I had to get pretty close to confirm it was astroturf. Pretty awesome hey?

    1. That is strange – I didn't have to 'double think' but used learnt instinctively, as I would burnt or spilt (until spilt got the red wiggly line here in WordPress/Chrome and made me wonder!).

  5. Love the Lego art! Well done on the report (I wish we could use graphs in our school report writing. Would be prettier and very much to the point!) I love reading Proverbs. My brother used to sit round the kitchen table making up his own proverbs. Hilarious though possibly a bit irreverent!

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