Wednesday, April 7, 2021

New Ceiling Light Fixture; Crossing Guard Follies

We replaced a ceiling light fixture in our living room. It had been installed in 2008. It had five ring "bulbs" that were a pain in the ass to replace. You would have to use a screwdriver to remove the bulb, if you were able to find a replacement bulb in the first place, because the bulbs were not standard and could be found in some out of the way home decoration place. The Result was that after all these years, there was only one of the five bulbs still in operation. Finally, we got around to just replacing the whole setup.


What was interesting to me about this was what happened to the old light fixture. I first asked the installation guy if perhaps he wanted the old fixture so as to cannibalized its parts maybe. He didn't. So, I took the fixture out to the trash area of our apartment complex. I wondered how long it would be before someone would take the fixture out of the trash. For I had noticed this phenomenon before of fixtures being thrown out and then being quickly grabbed by someone else. It first happened with a TV stand that we didn't need which was gone five minutes after I put in the trash area. So, I put the light fixture in the trash. Half an hour later, I returned to see that the fixture was gone and that all its old light bulbs had been thrown in the trash.


My premonition was correct!




The intersection neared by corner is still manned by personnel, with shiny jackets, monitoring whether pedestrians and cyclists are behaving in a civilised fashion by obeying traffic signals and standing in proper areas when waiting. Many locals ignore them or are too busy going about their day to notice the crossing guards.


One day, I saw a woman cross an intersection against a red light. Two crossing guards didn't notice this. Perhaps they were looking at the laowei! And so, I had the splendid view of a citizen breaking a rule beside two oblivious guards.


An instant later, they decided to act when they saw pedestrian walking on the roadway for cars instead on the sidewalk. I saw the pedestrian make a gesture indicating where she was concentrated on going towards.



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