Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way. Last week I received several packages in the mail, the combined contents of which included enough Christmas decorations to actually put me into the Christmas spirit. I got all excited and put the ornaments on the miniature tree, then took out the strand of lights and wrapped all six feet of it around the eighteen-inch tree.
Then I plugged it in and marveled at how festive my room looked, especially with the small-scale supernova glowing in the corner. It did occur to me that the tree was especially bright, and the bulbs noticeably hot, but I figured that's why you're not supposed to leave Christmas lights plugged in if you're not at home. Even ten minutes after lighting the tree, when the whole strand started to surge in intensity, I figured it was probably the generators putting out a little bit of uneven power. It took about two seconds of flickering for me to get a clue, that perhaps 220 was not the correct voltage.
I suspect the strand burned up about half a second before I managed to unplug it, although by that point it may have been in the terminal phases of burnout and disconnecting the power may have just put it out of its misery.
There are two lessons to learn from this. First, your average 50-bulb strand of colored Christmas lights will last about ten minutes running on a double-dose of voltage. This, in my opinion, is an impressively long time, especially since my other run-ins with the wrong voltage burned out a set of computer speakers and a printer in a combined total of about six seconds. Lesson number two: It is possible to burn out every bulb in a string of lights simultaneously. I wouldn't have suspected this, but then again, I'm not smart enough to avoid making exactly the same mistake three different times. There's also a third lesson here, which is that if you ask an Afghan Dari-English interpreter to buy you a replacement strand of Christmas lights from Kabul, you will get a blank look. I should have expected this too, but it gets back to the whole not smart thing.
The good news is that I was generously given a replacement set of lights before the interpreter could even get back from his weekend in Kabul, so I now have a 100-bulb strand wrapped around the same eighteen inch tree. I had hoped that a good twelve feet of Christmas lights on such a small object would have made up for the overwhelming intensity of doubling the recommended voltage, but no such luck. Still, it's pretty impressive, and my room is once again festive and merry.
Adding to the Christmas spirit is snow. The weather changed a few weeks ago, and we've now had several snow storms. There hasn't really been any significant accumulation by the camp or the office, but the peaks are coated for the winter and the camp has picked up the mentality of a bunch of elementary school kids staring at the clouds praying for snow. Driving around here is bad enough in good weather; if it's actively snowing, we do our best not to leave the camp.
I'll try to be more consistent about writing posts. If you have any suggestions, questions, or just pictures you'd like to see, let me know. Inspiration has been somewhat lacking on my end, so input is definitely welcome.
Keep in touch, and if I don't get back to this in the next eleven days, have a merry Christmas!
