Twas the night before Xmas....

Zoo lights

We checked out Zoo Lights this year and although it was crowded, it didn't disappoint.


Here's a picture of the kid's and the grandparents. Christy was off to the left as this was the most people I could fit in since I had my prime 35mm lens on and couldn't zoom out anymore.


These lights were all choreographed with music.


Photo op with the komodo dragon. Cole did a research project on it for school this year.





Never too old for the carousel.


The bright butterfly is actually a huge lego construction.

New and Old Friends

We had a new friend visit us in the backyard. We aren't sure but this might have been a baby rattlesnake. We didn't see or hear any rattling but we kept our distance. Although I almost did step on it while working on the pool equipment.


Here's some of our old friends. We love seeing these guys. One of these days I'll get a picture of them taking off from the tree.


Here's his friend. Both were sitting in the tree. A little spooky to see their eyes locked on you. :)

Cree LED Bulb Flickering Problem

I love LED bulbs because they should theoretically last forever and use the same watts as a CFL. However, when they start dying after a year or two, you begin to question whether you should have been buying $10+ light bulbs. I currently have 7 Cree 60W lightbulbs that have issues. 6 of them are the TW series where it's supposed to show true colors. You can tell that type of bulb (on the right) by the purplish color of the glass as well as the larger heatsink fins around the base.

I contacted Cree on their facebook page after seeing so many other people complain about the same issue and seeing a positive response from Cree. So after a few emails, they are sending me all new replacement bulbs and they didn't ask for receipts or anything. They told me to dispose of the bulbs. I thought maybe they would want them back for failure analysis but I'm sure they know what the problem is already.

So thinking it would be neat to reverse engineer the bulb, I was going to take one apart but thought for sure someone has already done this on youtube. Sure enough they have. In the comments of that video, someone explained how most of the failures are due to a loose wire near the base of the bulb. They explained how you can take a flat head screwdriver and dent the metal right near the wire to make a better connection. So considering I had 7 bulbs with nothing to lose, I started hammering away. I managed to resurrect 4 of the 7 bulbs. I'm not sure how long they'll last but at least they are working for now. If you look closely at the bulb on the right, you can see a burn mark where the bulb failed. That is pretty much where the wire is. Most of the bulbs have the wire in the same place.

Now if you get a bulb where the LEDs are glowing dimmly, well this fix didn't work for those. This fix is for when the LEDs are flickering and then completely turn off.
Here's a picture of the glowing LEDs.

I'm 9 years old today!

Today was the last day of school for me. I finished 3 years in lower elementary with the same teacher and now I'm headed to upper elementary with a new teacher. One of these years I'm going to show you a new phone in these posts but until then I'm still swimming, doing gymnastics, and playing chess. I also got a new gear bike this birthday. Can't wait to try it out.

I'm 7 years old today!

So much has happened this year. First, I've gone on a 3 day / 2 night school trip all by myself. I'm practically an adult now. Okay my sister was there too but she doesn't count. Also, I've started playing chess and have done several tournaments this past year. I even checkmated my Daddy in 6 moves. I also got a new bike from Santa that has gears and a suspension. So like I said, I'm practically an adult now.