Activating the artificial sun
Aug. 25th, 2010 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaunthieSummer's nearly over. There are lots of signs; the sunflowers are blooming, as are the dahlias for those people who can grow them; the lawns and beds are parched; the potato plants are mostly dying and/or already harvested; the squash is going like mad. But the clearest sign that summer is on its way out:
It's mostly dark when my alarm clock goes off in the morning.
I don't mean it's before sunrise. My alarm clock goes off before actual sunrise most of the year. (Yes, I get up early. No, it's not enitrely by choice, but I can tolerate getting up early better than I can tolerate spending hours stuck in traffic.) Actual sunrise occurs before I leave the house, but only barely; I probably have another week or so before I'm leaving the house before the sun officially clears the horizon. However, living at the latitude I do, there's plenty of light for quite some time before (and after) the sun crosses the horizon. At least a half-hour's worth; maybe as much as an hour, depending on the weather.
And I'm still waking up to the mostly-dark.
Fortunately, I have a nice solution. Several years ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fisherbear and I bought a gadget called a SunRizr, as part of our attempts to help fisherbear cope with the radically different light levels compared to where he grew up. It's essentially a programmable alarm clock, except that instead of playing music or making a sound, it gradually increases the current to whatever light source you plug into it (lamp not included). We bought a $5 aluminum clamp-light, the kind you see next to workbenches or in garages, and outfitted it with a bright bulb that can handle a dimmer. You tell it what time the sun should come up, and over the course of 45 minutes, it simulates dawn, gradually bringing the lamp up to full strength and leaving it there until the cycle ends, at which point it cuts the power to the lamp.
It's fabulous. In our house, the sun comes up at the same time for much of the year: when we tell it to. And it's much nicer to wake up to light, whether you're affected by seasonal blues or not. Not to mention that I don't have to worry about whether I turned off the light in my mad rush to get ready for work and out the door; the gadget takes care of that for me.
I'm still sorry that we've reached the time of the year where I'm getting up before the sun, but it sure is nice to have an artificial sun to help take up the slack.
It's mostly dark when my alarm clock goes off in the morning.
I don't mean it's before sunrise. My alarm clock goes off before actual sunrise most of the year. (Yes, I get up early. No, it's not enitrely by choice, but I can tolerate getting up early better than I can tolerate spending hours stuck in traffic.) Actual sunrise occurs before I leave the house, but only barely; I probably have another week or so before I'm leaving the house before the sun officially clears the horizon. However, living at the latitude I do, there's plenty of light for quite some time before (and after) the sun crosses the horizon. At least a half-hour's worth; maybe as much as an hour, depending on the weather.
And I'm still waking up to the mostly-dark.
Fortunately, I have a nice solution. Several years ago,
fisherbear and I bought a gadget called a SunRizr, as part of our attempts to help fisherbear cope with the radically different light levels compared to where he grew up. It's essentially a programmable alarm clock, except that instead of playing music or making a sound, it gradually increases the current to whatever light source you plug into it (lamp not included). We bought a $5 aluminum clamp-light, the kind you see next to workbenches or in garages, and outfitted it with a bright bulb that can handle a dimmer. You tell it what time the sun should come up, and over the course of 45 minutes, it simulates dawn, gradually bringing the lamp up to full strength and leaving it there until the cycle ends, at which point it cuts the power to the lamp.It's fabulous. In our house, the sun comes up at the same time for much of the year: when we tell it to. And it's much nicer to wake up to light, whether you're affected by seasonal blues or not. Not to mention that I don't have to worry about whether I turned off the light in my mad rush to get ready for work and out the door; the gadget takes care of that for me.
I'm still sorry that we've reached the time of the year where I'm getting up before the sun, but it sure is nice to have an artificial sun to help take up the slack.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-25 07:42 pm (UTC)Nice to know that Fisherbear likes his. Want another one?
--J
no subject
Date: 2010-08-25 07:55 pm (UTC)If you can hear the bulb warm up, it's like the 'click' on a cheap CD alarm clock. It kind of defeats the purpose.
When the current bulb dies, I'm going to replace it with a dimmable LED. Those are effectively silent.