I saw a disproportionately large pigeon outside my window. It would take only 5 of those birds to span the entire width of the A/C unit. That is big.

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Unmarked taximen line the curb outside of the main hospital hawking their services. Most of them speak only a handful of English words that are most pertinent to obtaining a sale. Whenever I cross the street to enter the hospital, they yell out “Taxi!” to me in a brusque voice, in hopes of securing a sale with me.

I often cross the street several times on a call night to see floor consults between my emergency calls. With no shame, they yell out “Taxi!” and march my direction every single time I approach the cabs. Sometimes I retort in my broken Spanish, “Estoy trabajando todo al noche!”

Then I start to wonder, how come there aren’t any female cab drivers? It’s not like that it’s any different. I see female MTA bus drivers all the time? If you know the answer to that, let me know…

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Over the past ten to fifteen years, compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL) have surfaced as a viable alternative to incandescent lighting that we’ve used since Edison first developed the tungsten filament lightbulb. It’s a great means to reduce our carbon footprint and lower our utility bills in the process. In cities like NYC where electricity costs a whopping 13+ cents/kWh with enormous delivery charges, you can reduce your electric bills from lighting by over 50% with CFLs.

I’ve been using CFL’s since college days. The bulb I have in the track light to the left has been with me since senior year of college. It still runs strong, and uses about 13-watts of power to generate luminosity equivalent to a 75-watt incandescent bulb. You’ve probably read some of the shortcomings of CFL’s, which includes flickering, delayed startup, and incompatibility with dimmer switches. While these problems have been mostly remedied with stringent quality control and built-in dimming ballasts, the one gripe I’ve had with CFL’s is that their intensities degrade over time.

My 13-watt CFL bulb is made by GE; I’ve had it for about 6 years. I recently bought a 9-watt NVision CFL bulb to place in my side table lantern. When compared to each other, it is clear that the 9-watt bulb is brighter than the 13-watt bulb. I don’t have a light meter to measure the luminosity of the light, but there is a perceivable difference in intensity.

The question now is whether my new bulb will degrade in quality over time. I guess that I’ll have to wait a few years to find out. In the meantime, I’ve replaced the bulbs in my living room area with CFL’s. They work well in general areas, but not as well for reading light. I’ve stuck with my mini-halogen desk lamp for that.

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Thanks for being patient…we will be resuming updates hopefully in the next few days…Stay tuned!

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