"They say it's your Birthday...." and out go the lights!

"So happy Birthday To you..."

I love the Beatles version of that song. Today I turned 47. I figure I'm going to have to work, at a minimum, until I am 70 years old. Fortunately for me, that is about the time the 25 year warranty on my artificial hip wears out, so I'll be able to get another one, right?

This morning at 5:02 AM, I passed the KNBT bank on Hamilton Boulevard at Old Krocks road, and the temperature was 58 degrees. I passed it Monday at exactly the same time, and it said 13 degrees. Wow, 48 hours later, and it's 45 degrees warmer. Not only that, I was treated to what looked like Blue lightning in the clouds to the East over South Mountain in front of me.

Just the kind of thing I needed to see on my Birthday. So I get home from work, and the Christmas lights I spent hours working on are off. Timer has no power to it. Outside outlet is dead. So I check breaker box. No Breakers tripped. Hmmmmmmm?

About this time, Mrs C tells me digital cable box isn't working. That's plugged in to a outside outlet in the garage, on the same circuit as the Christmas lights. I start checking the outlets, and the one for the digital box is kicked. I reset it, and voila!, we have lights! Poof! we don't!

To make a long story short, I believe there's a ground issue somewhere by the tree. I disconnected the lights, and I am leaving them off for tonight. I wrapped all the connections and insulated them to protect against them getting wet, but that doesn't mean something didn't happen somewhere. We had some pretty high winds, so until I get out there and spend some time looking it over, the lights stay off. The 10 miniature Santa's and Snowmen lining the driveway are out until further notice. Good thing we aren't on any body's light tour!