Thursday

 

I rode to Clearwater Beach after lunch. It was sunny and 74 degrees. 

I shared the lawn at Pier 60 with a ferris wheel as I did my stretching exercises.

Lots of tourists enjoying the weather

The beaches were packed as far as you could see.

Definitely peak season

Intercostal waterway between the city and beach. This picture was taken from the Clearwater causeway tidal bridge near Pier 60.

New daylight adjusting timer. It's an astronomical timer, meaning that once set, it adjusts to the calendar. For example, if the timer is set to come on at dusk, the timer adjusts to the changing time of dusk throughout the year. Accordingly, it adjusts throughout the year as the time of dawn changes. The switch above also works as an on/off button for the other outlet on the exterior of the house where the transformer is plugged in. That way, we can use the outlet for the pressure washer, for example. The switch overrides the timer settings in other words.

My goal today is to watch YouTube videos and learn how to set it up. Currently, it's in the default dusk to dawn setting. I also have the instruction booklet if needed.

The electricians installed a new GFCI outlet for the golf cart. It's on the same line as the timer but operates independently.

They had to redo the pass through in the garage wall. He applied stucco repair around the opening. Once dry, we can paint it.

This is the new stainless steel transformer, and it's plugged in to a new GFCI weather resistant outlet on the outside of the garage, the same as the new outlet at the back of the house. The cover has an innovative hinge: the cover can be opened like a book or from bottom to top. I've got a little touch-up painting to do, but first I lightly scrubbed and rinsed the dirt from the walls. There's always a mess with improvements.

This is the new all brass bullet lamp positioned under the bathroom window to spread light along the front wall on the right of the entrance.

Close up

This lamp on the right of the entrance shines up at the pyramid, accenting the column and upper elements. The electricians had to tunnel under the sidewalk to get the new low-voltage line over to this side of the house.

This lamp on the left of the entrance shines up at the pyramid from the other side. It sits behind the low wall. They had to dig down and then drill through the wall to get the line positioned here. The electrician's goal was to accent the front without shining the light into the dining room window.

This rectangular lamp shines on the side of the garage wall in front of the dining room window. All of the fixtures have LED bulbs. Soon, they will be replaced with 4000k lamps to give a uniform color across the front of the house. Right now, this lamp is 2700k--much too yellow for our house color. The goal with this fixture was to replace the light from the old lamp pole. I think once we have the right light color, it will work, in conjunction with the bullet light on the pyramid. You can see the dirt on the wall that I scrubbed off after taking this picture.

Last, but not least, the electricians installed this whole-house surge suppressor on the electrical panel in the garage. This device will protect the house from electrical surges such as lightning strikes, storm interruptions, and power fluctuations. There was a similar device already on the panel, but it was ancient and it had no light to indicate whether it was working or not. Unfortunately, the only way to tell was to be hit by lightning or remove it and test it. On the new one, if it stops working, the light turns red. They said it was okay to keep the surge protectors on the sprinkler controller and our computer. You can never have too much protection, he said.

Night pictures after making some adjustments

I think my adjustments smoothed out the distribution of light. The column lights once installed will bring out even more of the details.

We like the way lights shoots up and down the wall in addition to outward.

We're in search of a stucco person to modify the light platform on the columns.