I hope you’ve had a great week!
This week Shannon and I celebrated our EIGHTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY! And as I reflect on my life I am filled with immense love and gratitude.
We decided to take Monday off and go enjoy the day together. I’m so thankful my life allows me to create my own schedule. The luxury of waking up each day and deciding what I want to do with my time is truly a blessing.
So anyway, we went to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just outside Hilo and it was AMAZING! We ended up buying the annual pass because, after spending an hour and a half walking through the gardens, we knew we’d be spending a lot of time there. The place is just incredible. It felt like Alice in Wonderland and Avatar rolled into one. The variety of tropical plants and trees there was simply unbelievable, and the setting – with waterfalls and ponds all dropping into the ocean – was a Zen-like sanctuary the likes of which I’ve never before experienced. Simply amazing. If you haven’t been – you’ve gotta check it out!
In the evening we managed to fit in margaritas at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Thai takeout from our favorite Thai restaurant, a night swim in our friend’s vacant pool under the palms and mostly-full moon, while sipping champagne that they left for us. Pure bliss!
Anyway, enough about us. 🙂
This week I’m going to keep it brief…
Thuderstorms and Surge Protectors
We’ve been having some crazy awesome thunderstorms here in Puna and my recommendation to anyone who lives here (or anyone who experiences electrical storms this time of year) is to unplug your surge protectors from the wall if it’s stormy out and you’re not actively using your equipment. Any time there’s lightning coming down, you can bet your surge protectors are taking a beating. And if your surge protectors are low quality, or older than a few years, they’re probably not sufficiently protecting your equipment. I have good surge protectors here, but I still unplug everything from the wall on stormy nights to give them a break and save my equipment.
If you’re looking to buy a new surge protector, just make sure the ”joule” rating is in the 1000+ range. This is how much electrical surge the protector can suppress, and the cheapos don’t suppress much. If you’ve got expensive equipment plugged into the wall, you really need to make sure you have decent surge protectors – electrical storms or not. For 20 bucks, you’ll drastically extend the life of your electronic equipment. This goes for computers and TVs, but also for appliances and anything else that may have a circuit board in it – like your cell phone.
Alright, that’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with some thoughts on the future of technology. Stayed tuned, and thanks for reading!