Some weeks I feel like there's little to write home about. But this week? Well... actually quantity-wise, I guess that's still mostly true. I mean, my mom's side of the family had a family gathering again, and that hadn't happened for years now! It was so nice to see everyone. But as far as a meaningful experience, obviously it means much more to me than most anyone reading this, so there's not much more to say about it. But the tale of a strange spare-time project might well be worth the tale, this week.
Like a month or two ago, my friend bought this cheap, fun little hurricane lantern, but rather than being a real lamp, it was just a little LED light with a dimmer dial, ran on a couple of C or D batteries. I think he got it for like less than 10 bucks. And it was fun! But we both looked at that lantern, and thought it was a shame that the LEDs inside were a cold, pale white, rather than a warm, flame-like tone. So, I did some research to see if I could mod in my own LED. As the old proverb goes, "One thing led to another", and before you knew it, I had spent like 50 or so bucks on parts to replace the LED, battery system, and pretty much everything besides the aluminum casing and glass globe.
It wasn't until this last week we finally got around to doing anything with it, though. And the opportunity was prime, because my friend just bought a new puppy, and he's SOOOOOO frickin' cute! But it then took us a few hours, some soldering, a dremel, and redesigning the dimmer switch to be an on/off switch before the effort paid off. All said and done, my friend now has a cheap (albeit well-made) aluminum hurricane lantern, that has a 12-volt marine-grade LED light (complete with bulb base and socket), a rechargeable Ni-Cd battery pack with its own charger, and a pretty swell-looking lantern that puts off some nice, warm vibes!
Now, coming to terms with reality time. The fact that anyone could buy that same style lantern my friend started out with in the beginning in a warm LED variety for 15-ish bucks is the kind of fact that normally cause anyone to facepalm themselves, and say, "why the crap did I just spend like 50 bucks and several hours of manpower to do that?!" But honestly, we both had a pretty fun time with it. We knew, as we began, that our attempt was, by logical standards, rather ridiculous- in fact, so ridiculous, that it was well worth doing it.
I occasionally read articles about some bizarre sin against technology that someone did, like setting up a RAID array of floppy drives, and half of me thinks "Just... wow", while the other half thinks, "If that isn't devotion to something outstanding, I don't know what is!". The more I think about it, the easier it is, in our minds, to think we want to strive for large and lofty goals, knowing that they'll take time, but will be well worth it in the end. But sometimes, there is no harm in pursuing a strange sidequest along the way.
In fact, I'm reminded of the story of Man of La Mancha, where our hero Don Quixote attempts to follow an impossible dream- one that perhaps doesn't even really make sense or have any meaningful end. And he is naturally laughed at and berated for wanting to do so. But as the beautiful song goes, "This is my quest to follow that star- no matter how hopeless, no matter how far! . . . And the world will be better for this, that one man, stoned and covered in scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable star!"
I won't say every goal in life is a good one- heaven knows that there are great evil undertakings that cause pain and misery to this day. But if you have a wish or a dream- one that doesn't really amount to anything useful, but doesn't harm anyone else in the process- maybe you just need to pursue that idea, and follow it to the end, to know that you really could do it! Again, judge wisely, and don't make choices that will cause big problems for yourself. But perhaps you just need to go and take hold of your dreams; whether they will be laughed at or not does not matter- only the desire of your heart to see your strange but beautiful creation to the end is what matters.
Until next week, have a happy July!