Lights Went Down

[Anthony]

Im just a beginner. So, I'm sorry for my bad English. I bumped into a question on Instagram onto a page created for people who want to improve their English skills. The question was " All the lights in the building suddenly went...? A) off B) out C) down " The correct answer was A but I didn't get it. So I was just wondering what is the difference between went out went off and went down.

You know those lights were bright on Broadway

That was so many years ago

Before we all lived here in Florida

Before the Mafia took over Mexico

There are not many who remember

They say a handful still survive

To tell the world about

The way the lights went out

And keep the memory alive

LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. Learn more in our Cookie Policy.

Just yesterday, as my day in the office came to an end, I started to refocus on my writing; I shuffled and stacked to clear the space. With my screen glaring, I opened a new browser window, headed for Youtube and Mozart, and the conditions for creativity were set. I should also say that, most unusually, I was entirely on my own and would be for some hours. This precious space was a goldmine. I could not waste the opportunity.

And then, the lights went out. Not with the ominous wind-down noise of the millennium falcon just before making the jump to light speed, but simply with a wink. It was gone. As an illuminated night sky flickered and danced through the sliver of my office window, I saw the culprit of my darkness, previously unobserved due to the glare. Not to be deterred, I wandered around in search of light. I found three delightfully misshaped candles. I lit them, grabbed my pencil and notebook; careful not to singe my hair, I repositioned myself to make the most of my frolicking glow.

Solitariness often receives a bad rap. Despite our belief in individualism, we are uncomfortable with people who declare their allegiance to solitude, perceiving it as contrary to our nature as social animals. They are often seen as outliers: misanthropic, mad, bad or sad.

Our willing servitude to digital devices is largely responsible for driving out solitude. Captive to the shimmering seduction of our screens, to cursors pointing the way to limitless entertainment, a tsunami of opinion, we often choose to exist in a reactive rather than generative state. Whilst it might satisfy the sense that to be doing something is better than doing nothing, we are duped into a world where we find it increasingly difficult to occupy our own selves. Constant connectivity satisfies the desire to be occupied, but it erodes our ability to access our inner aptitudes and capacities.

When we experience solitude, as I am right now, the regularity of the master clock as we have come to know it is nothing more than a shill. A master trickster who contends to be both supreme authority and instrument for governing such a precious resource. However, when we are solitary, the master clock can be suspended; we enter a different temporal space in which Time loses its tick. Experiencing an open-ended spaciousness, we can be more receptive to alternative imaginings, particularly if we experience silence in solitude.

This time it was early in the am on Monday morning. And, the next time that it came back on without interruption was Thursday. Naturally that was the day we had a pipe burst and our kitchen flooded with water.

From a work perspective, it was tough. I consult for some clients and also have a job as the Acting Chief Marketing Office for a software and services company. I prayed for my laptop not to die while I hosted a global call with public relations agencies from the US, France and London and a new executive. I personally shared my plight in my leadership role, which resulted in our very kind and empathetic CEO, based in another country, telling people in Texas to stop working on Thursday and Friday and to concentrate on their families. I tried to hold it all together, but a hot spot can only do so much. Thankfully, most people were understanding.

We are lucky. Some are not. While power has been restored for some, we now face a crisis where many, including my parents and brother, have to boil water because water treatment facilities are not deemed safe. We have a shortage of bottled water and there are too many households with no water due to busted pipes and not enough plumbers to fix them. NBC News sums it all up here. I pray that people get the relief that they need quickly. It was the nights the lights went out in Texas, neighbors gathered together to assist and a gas fire, our pets, wine and togetherness saved our personal sanity.

I just bought a house built in the late 90's. While upgrading some lights in the bathroom, I replaced a recessed can light with an LED version that uses an adapter for the bulb socket and simply fits over the can. The only wiring involved is a ground wire.

After getting the new light setup, I tested it and it worked just fine, including when I had the ground wire hooked to the can. As I was pushing the cover onto the can, all the bathroom lights went out. This included the shower & toilet cubby next to it. I also found that the other 1.5 bathrooms also didn't have working lights anymore.

I find this strange, but evidently code allows bathroom lights to be all on the same circuit as long as the outlets are on a different circuit. I think I still want to separate them out, but that's a different topic for later, I think.

I went to the breaker panel and tripped what I thought was the correct breakers, but I still didn't have lights. Then I flipped all the breakers to make sure I got the right one and still nothing. I ended up getting out my multimeter and taking the front panel off the box, then checking that the breakers were working correctly. They were, but still no lights.

The first part of the problem is that yes, your lights are downstream of a GFCI. Which is not usually required. It may be that someone was in the mode of "I better put GFCI wherever I can and protect everything in the bathrooms, including the light", or it could be that there is another receptacle (bathroom, garage, outside, kitchen) on the same circuit that actually needs GFCI protection.

You mentioned a ground wire, so this sounds like more than just a simple screw in bulb replacement. But whether that new ground wire was involved or not, it sounds like you pinched or shorted a wire when putting the cover on the can. That could easily cause a ground fault and trip the GFCI. Then you took things out, double-checked everything, etc. and when you put it all back together, everything was OK. Except that you had to find the GFCI and reset. Once you did that, all the lights worked.

While getting ready to call an electrician to figure out what was wrong, and making a last desperate attempt to find a subpanel, I found a "dead front" GFCI in a closet next to one of the bathrooms. I'd already tried testing a GFCI outlet in the bathroom to no effect, so I tested this one "just because".

It didn't feel as if it tripped, so I reset it and tested it again, which felt like it tripped as expected. So, I reset it again. As I was going to walk away confused at another oddity of the house, I decided to try the bathroom lights for no other reason as "maybe it worked".

As it turns out, the lights turned on, as did the lights in the other bathrooms. I don't know enough about housing code and electrical systems like this to know why this was done, if it's up to code, what the person installing this was thinking, or how I was supposed to find this when the lights went out, but there it is. If I had anything in that closet, I wouldn't have found this GFCI.

Well, obviously the person went to a lot of trouble to put GFCI protection to the downline circuit, and obviously the lights were accidentally swept up in this. Probably because the person was dealing with legacy wiring that was not easy to change, so the deadfront in the closet was the least bad option.

(Note that circuits that serve bathroom receptacles aren't allowed to serve outlets in any other rooms, therefore the use of the deadfront instead of a GFCI recep, which is obviously just the same thing with sockets).

Any socket protected by GFCI must have a sticker saying "GFCI Protected". It doesn't have to be the blue labels that went into the trash 5 minutes after the GFCI was installed. You can use any sensible labeling method; I like white cover plates and P-touch/Brother labels. While you're at it, you can add a second line of text, "Reset in hall closet".

Minutes after Jones gave the Ravens a 28-6 lead on the second-half kickoff, the lights went out in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Some backup lighting remained on, but play was stopped for about 34 minutes, and the international television broadcast was interrupted.

A statement from Entergy and the Superdome said that a piece of equipment monitoring electrical load sensed the abnormality and opened a breaker, partially cutting power. The statement said backup generators kicked in before full power could be restored.

"The power outage was an unfortunate moment in what has been an otherwise shining Super Bowl week for the city of New Orleans,'" Mayor Mitch Landrieau said. "In the coming days, I expect a full after-action report from all parties involved.

FBI special agent Michael Anderson said terrorism was not the cause of the power outage and dismissed reports of a fire as a cause. In addition, New Orleans Fire Department spokesman Michael Williams said no fire was reported before, during or after the power outage at the Superdome.

The New Orleans fire department was called to investigate a smell of gas near the Superdome's elevator No. 8, New Orleans police Sgt. T.J. St. Pierre said. The elevator was stalled on the seventh floor with people inside. The fire department tried to pry open the elevator from the basement, and it resumed operation after the power returned.

3a8082e126