There is a lamp on my computer desk. There is nothing special about it. It's a reading lamp. I've had it since I was very little, although it hasn't always been on my computer desk. Anyway, the bulb went out the other day. There's nothing so extraordinary about this, the bulb has been changed before, after all. On the other hand, I couldn't remember the last time when. So it was due for a change. I decided to change it.
A few days later, I actually got around to changing it by getting a new bulb from the bulb supply, and I noticed it was a CFL. I briefly felt smug for being better for the environment, and then I remembered that LED lights are probably going to replace the CFL soon enough, making the CFL a very short-lived phase of our lighting history.
So after bringing the CFL bulb up to my lamp, I began to unscrew the old bulb. It was difficult to turn, and after using some language that would make my grandfather blush, I wondered if it was going to break. I kept having to turn it, then re-position the entire bulb-socket mechanism, then turn some more. Eventually, the bulb came out. Or at least, so I thought. As it turned out, only about half the bulb came out. The base of it was still stuck, threaded in the socket.
What was I to do? My first thought was to ignore it and just go without a lamp. My next thought was to switch it with the other lamp and pretend that I'd always had this one. But then I thought "No, Mike, you're an Engineer, and what kind of Engineer would you be if you couldn't solve this tiny problem?" So downstairs I went, to get a pair of pliers.
I knew I couldn't just pull it out, because it was still threaded. So what I figured I would do is push the pliers into the socket, then open them to put pressure on the threads so I could turn evenly. But first, I tried to just grab one edge and turn it using just that. That didn't work out. I went back to my original idea, and out it came! I put in the CFL, and lit it up, and all was well!
And my first instinct was to blog about it.
-mikeejimbo
