Some lessons are worth keeping
Whenever I told my mother, “I didn’t know …” after I was given new information, her favorite response was “well, now you do,” underscoring I needed to remember it in the future.
I was reminded of that phrase after last week’s column regarding replacing lightbulbs frequently. A reader called to say she had the same problem until she discovered 130 volt bulbs at a local, electrical supply shop.
I called the shop and was told: The flow of electricity in this area is not a consistent 120 volts. The lightbulbs sold most frequently are 120 volt. Everytime the voltage surges over 120 volts the bulbs work harder and burn out sooner. A 130 volt design protects the bulb against electrical surges.
I didn’t know that, but I do now and will buy lightbulbs accordingly.
My daughter-in-love lit my mental lightbulb after we watched a show where the infant became seriously ill after it was fed honey. When I wondered aloud “why’ she looked at me in astonishment, “You don’t know that? Honey carries a form of bacteria that the baby’s system is not yet ready to handle.”
It’s a good thing I wasn’t in the habit of feeding my infants honey. I didn’t know it was a problem back then, but I do now.
I may be long past the daily details of babies, but I am immersed with the daily details of newspapers.
Last week I found another thing I did not know. When I began preparing special sections I was shown all the computer codes accompanying any command to print. From then on I did not worry about the settings because the computer program we used automatically went to that setting.
However those computers are slowly dying out and being replaced with a new system that is almost, but not quite, the same.
My command to send a vertical 14-inch page came out horizontal or as a 2-inch strip down the middle of the page. A computer technician worked with the recalcitrant computer for a while. He decided we had to save the settings every time in the new program or the computer would lose them.
Oh, I didn’t know that, but now that I do, I began saving the settings and double checking the preview of the page to be printed.
Everything looked great until I got the proof sheets back and the pictures were shadows instead of prints. I asked half a dozen people what was wrong and made the adjustments suggested. The pictures still shadowy.
After my umpteenth wrong print-out, a production worker, grabbed a magnifying glass and said I had too many dots.
The production manager re-did the pictures and showed me a series of computer commands I needed to double check with the new machines. I had the page reprinted.
The pictures were still weird. I gave up and asked the production manager to sit and watch as I sent the pages to be printed. She did and now I am alert to all sorts of codes, numbers and commands I had previously not had to use, but now I do. And … as my mom’s phrase implied, I better not make that mistake again.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)