It was 96.8F on Monday here, a bit high for June but it does get this hot during a heat wave in the summer here. As much as it get hot, I do prefer it over winter. Today is a nice break from the heat though, my AC was having trouble keeping up on Monday.

It’s hit 100F two days in a row for me this week. Even walking out in the morning, the air feels like hot soup  I shower more often and have to do more laundry because of sweating so much and going through more clothes.

It’s so hot my central A/C cannot keep up. My bonus room/home office/man cave is uninhabitable right now because the it’s 84F inside. I finally made the executive decision to shut off the air in the bonus room, so it’s not running constantly and wasting energy and costing money. I have a window box in the other room that makes it feel amazing! Not even houses in this region can keep up with this nasty heat wave.

Summer is the best season where I live...it stays mostly in the 80°s (upper 20's C), and occasionally goes above 90°, and remains mostly dry.

Probably because we're super niche. Facebook groups contain hostile actors...not worth it.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that we have done surprisingly well compared tomany other niche forums from back then.

I know I've only been back after a couple of days but the site sure seems quieter and with less activity than the way I remember.
Maybe it's just me and I caught it at a slow time. Sure seems like there's quite a few missing members. I suppose it's just one of those slow times that forums like this go through and it does seem like it's getting tougher on collectors and enthusiasts. Prices are going up, certain items are getting more difficult to find. Wondering what anyone else thinks about this since I've been away for awhile.

I rather am going to dispute that, sure things change, and there have been up-n-down's but I would certainly not say LG has been on the decline, theres still been *plenty* of activity on this site, and I have even seen some older figures, like Dimbulb and Dave start posting again which is nice to see

just from my own perspective for example from my own uploads, I still see plenty of activity on them, and there are still plenty of activity and discussions going on in general, and cool finds that get posted, see for example the F100T17 that @Al_M recently posted for example, and I have been on LG for over 15 years now (Eeep! LOL) so I feel I am in a good position to talk about these things


just in the last week theres been 7 pages worth of "recent additions"! thats 210 uploads! in a week! if my maths is right, thats about 30 uploads a day, i'd say things are ticking along pretty well no? (also for people that are unhappy that maybe all the uploads appear to be of one style or the other, you can go into individual categories and monitor those, for example if only lightbulbs are your thing, but not fittings fixtures or streetlights, then just keep the lamp album open and then you can blissfully ignore everything else! https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=229 )



I do know that people sometimes complain about a lack of comments/interactions  on their stuff, but on that front I do notice a lot of times, the people complaining, have poor descriptions when it comes to their own uploads, that dont do much to stimulate the conversation so to speak



"here is GE 175W Mercury lamp" and thats all the description is, its especially annoying, when the lamp is something special, and they do nothing to talk about it!

 
I have seen a few people guilty of that, and I think the best example of that, is a user by the name of Vez Lighting, https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/index.php?cat=10029

and this is from well long ago, so no one here can say this is a recent thing!, he uploaded some great rare and special lamps, his pictures where all high quality, but he barely put any description into them, and notice how so few of them have comments!

so I think if those concerned about a lack of comments on their uploads put a bit more into their descriptions, I think they might get some more comments


and I think sadly in todays world it seems to be "the thing" to complain how things are going down the toilet, when actually its a lot more nuanced then that, and really it is when people do suddenly throw a strop and delete of their stuff that hurts sites the most

its very much a catch 22 "oh this site is going down the toilet so I am going to delete all my stuff" well how is that going to make the site get better? thats just actively doing harm by removing existing content from it. if for some reason you dont want to take part in the forum anymore thats your choice, but please dont delete all your stuff! because even aside the loss of ones own content when one deletes their gallery, its not just your stuff that your deleting, but all the comment and the such like that other people have posted under your uploads get deleted too, and then that in itself can cause people to go "whats the point of commenting if its all just going to get deleted"

and often times valuable information to the wider community, like technical comments from James and the such like get lost when people delete their galleries


its the one thing I wish people would not do, is please dont up-n-delete your galleries if you do decide to leave LG!

I'm assuming there's still some limited demand for incandescent lamps in my area. You can still get certain types (25w, 150w, 3way, 300w) in most hardware stores and even the "banned" 40w, 60w and 100w are still available in rough service which is stocked by some stores so I'd imagine there's still some people still buying them. The thrift stores seem to be a steady supply of older stock incandescent lamps and people buying them as the stock changes fairly quickly.

Even other older technologies like fluorescent are still stocked although I noticed this at my local Home Depot. The options were 4ft T8s were a 2 pack in 3000K or a case of 10 4100K or 6500K, while the T12 had two packs in 3000K 4100K, and 6500K with a case of 30 4100K also available. Maybe Home Depot figured out most residential buyers of fluorescent lamps still mostly have T12 luminaries so the T12s have more 2 pack options while the T8s are most used by commercial users who have either switched to LED or prefer higher CCTs so the only 2 pack option is 3000K.

Plenty where I am as well. They seem popular among hipsters and the wealthy. One guy had a massive garage full of classic cars, and the entire thing was lit by those funky Duro-Test bulbs. Maybe 100 fixtures, entirely incandescent. I live in a neighborhood of mid-century modern homes, many of which have been restored by their owners. Virtually every fixture with a visible bulb will have an incandescent in it. And an acquaintance who lives in a grungy old house proudly uses bare fluorescents in his kitchen and has sockets hanging out of the ceiling by their wires with incandescents in them. Apparently it's all part of the "vibe" and the whole place is carefully curated to maximize the run down look. 

So I agree there is certainly some demand, otherwise this stuff wouldn't be readily available. If/when the bans are lifted, it remains to be seen if their popularity increases, although I doubt it will ever be close to what it once was.

It's definitely gotten quieter in the past year but even from around 10 years ago, people have started slowly moving on to other sites....apparently some moved over to the few lighting Facebook groups and it seems like some have moved on to sites like YouTube.

Anyway I haven't really posted much new pictures as I noticed the following:
- Most of the old installations in my area have either been documented or removed and the new stuff is all LED now.
- The amount of older lighting stuff in stores like Restore and thrift stores have decreased. Most of the stuff now is either LED or from the tail end of the fluorescent/HID era.
- It's gotten more expensive to buy stuff on eBay now so I limited my buying from there.
- I don't have a lot of room left so I'm more selective with my buying, hence not a lot of new collection pictures either.
- I suppose either the site gets too much bot activity now, but the requirement to login limits more casual visits.     

I'm assuming there's still some limited demand for incandescent lamps in my area. You can still get certain types (25w, 150w, 3way, 300w) in most hardware stores and even the "banned" 40w, 60w and 100w are still available in rough service which is stocked by some stores so I'd imagine there's still some people still buying them. The thrift stores seem to be a steady supply of older stock incandescent lamps and people buying them as the stock changes fairly quickly.

Even other older technologies like fluorescent are still stocked although I noticed this at my local Home Depot. The options were 4ft T8s were a 2 pack in 3000K or a case of 10 4100K or 6500K, while the T12 had two packs in 3000K 4100K, and 6500K with a case of 30 4100K also available. Maybe Home Depot figured out most residential buyers of fluorescent lamps still mostly have T12 luminaries so the T12s have more 2 pack options while the T8s are most used by commercial users who have either switched to LED or prefer higher CCTs so the only 2 pack option is 3000K.

I already had my DNA test through ancestry.com and I have been researching my family tree since the death of my paternal grandmother about 40 years ago.  I have branches from Canada, England, France, Ireland and Germany.