Picture of the Day: Beach Sandcastle at Byron Bay

Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia
3.06.2009 

Switching Up Some Switches

Since I am still not feeling the best I've been tackling some small projects around the house. I am missing my power tools but it's still good to be making a bit of progress, albeit slowly.

Last weekend one of the little projects was swapping out some of the switches in the living room. With the new living room light being so bright now it seemed like a good idea to put it on a dimmer for times when it was a little overwhelming. 

When I work on the electrical in my house instead of just shutting off the circuit breaker for what I am working on I like to shut off the main breaker on my panel just to be on the safe side. I took off the switch panel and then removed the screws that hold the switch into the electrical box.

The switch I was replacing was a three way switch. I am not going to go into great lengths about three way switch wiring, but if you are replacing one it is really important to take note of which wire is connected to the common screw and which ones are connected to the travellers before you disconnect the wires. The common screw is easy to identify because it is a different color from the others, usually black of copper. Here is my new three way switch with the screws labeled.

There are different ways to wire up a three way switch, depending on how many lights are involved and the order in which you wire everything up, but here is a simple way to think about it to understand why you want to keep the wires straight.  The power is coming into (or out of) the switch at the common screw and the travelers are two lines between them. When you toggle one of the three way switches you are either connecting the power by having the switches toggled to the same traveler wire or disconnecting the power by having them connected to opposite travelers. 

After I removed the wires from my old three way switch, I reattached them to my new switch, making sure to attach the wire that was attached to the old common screw to the new common screw. Super easy!

The dimmer I got has a slider next to the toggle switch so I can set a brightness level that I like and switch it on and off. It is really nice to have this convenience and now I am thinking I need to add a dimmer for the dining room light...

Next up was adding a wireless motion detector to my front porch light. Living alone, I like to come home with my front porch light on. Since I work a lot of late nights that meant that I was leaving my light on all day which really wasn't the best plan. I saw this wireless motion detector and thought it would be just the thing for me.

The kit consists of two parts, a detector and a switch with an antenna and receiver. The installation was fairly simple. Frank mounted the detector in the corner of my front porch for me while I swapped out the old switch with the new receiver switch. 

The system works great. It has a setting where it will come on half power at dusk and stay on like that for three hours. If it detects any motion it comes on full power. At first we thought it wasn't working because it seemed to be on a lot, but then we realized that we needed to reduce the range since it was picking up cars that were driving down the street. I really like it and wish I had installed it sooner.

The last item to cover is the switch cover. I've never seen a four gang switch plate with a single decora opening on the left and three toggle switch openings so I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I found these snap together switch plates so I decided to use them to make the switch plate I needed.

I have to say that although it meets my needs right now I am not crazy about it, since the seams are super obvious. At some point down the line I'll make something that looks nicer, but for now it is okay. It's a small price to pay for having a dimmable living room light and a motion sensor for my porch light.

Picture of the Day: Flowers in Front of Kuang Si Waterfall

Kuang Si Waterfall
Luang Prabang, Laos
8.15.2011 

Engaged

2.03.2013

Picture of the Day: Zeus Statue at Trevi Fountain

Rome, Italy
3.25.2012 

Picture of the Day: Cenote Ik Kil

Cenote Ik Kil
Yucatán, Mexico
10.07.2005

Picture of the Day: Pink Flowers Overlooking Mountains

Sequoia National Park
California, United States
6.2005 

Picture of the Day: African Elephant at Sunrise

Kruger National Park
South Africa
7.30.2004 

Celebrating Valentine's Day (and White Day) in Japan

Happy Valentine's Day! I thought it would be fun today to share how Valentine's Day is celebrated in Japan. The biggest difference from the U.S. is that only women give men gifts. I bet a lot of American men would like that!

The typical gift to give is chocolate which is usually beautifully packaged and elegant. Leading up to Valentine's Day the Japanese department stores have many beautiful displays of chocolate for sale.

There are two types of chocolate to give. First is giri choco (義理チョコ) which literally means "obligation chocolate." This is given to male co-workers or friends where the woman has no romantic intentions. Giri choco is usually fairly inexpensive and a polite gesture to give.

The second type of chocolate is honmei choco (本命チョコ) which literally means "true feeling chocolate." As you can suppose it is given to boyfriends, husbands, or a guy that a woman is romantically interested in. Honmei choco is usually higher quality and more expensive than giri choco.

A month later on March 14 men reciprocate on White Day (ホワイトデー, pronounced Howaito Dē).  While Valentine's Day was adopted from the West, White Day was started by the National Confectionery Industry Association in the late 70s as a way for men to give return gifts to women (and for the Confectionery Industry in Japan to rake in more money).  If a man received chocolate on Valentine's Day then he should respond with a gift, usually about three times the cost of the chocolate he received. Popular gifts can be white chocolate, marshmallows, jewelry, or cookies.

My experience in Japan was limited to giri choco that I gave to about twenty of my co-workers. I put together little treat bags with chocolates for all of the guys in my group as well as a number of other people that I worked with on regular basis who were in other groups. On White day I received some chocolates and little potted plant from my group as well as a small purse and a beautiful white handkerchief.

While celebrating was very low key for me there was definitely some angst among some of the Japanese women I knew. Because of the tradition of women giving men a gift on Valentine's Day it is a perfect opportunity for a woman to let a guy know that she is interested in him by giving him honmei choco. I knew some women who were worried about whether or not they should make their feelings known by giving Valentine's chocolate, which chocolates would be best and would the guy understand that it was meant to be honmei choco, not giri choco. Very stressful!

All in all, I had fun celebrating Valentine's Day in Japan. It gave me a nice excuse for me to give little chocolate presents to my co-workers to let them know I appreciated working with them. I also had fun looking at and drooling over all of the beautiful displays of chocolate. I even ended up buying myself a box to eat because, well, I felt obligated.

Picture of the Day: View of Roussanou in the Distance

Meteora, Greece
11.22.2009