Batteries

Let me digress from the main subject matter of this blog for a moment. I need to talk (briefly, I promise) about the amount of power we are generating in this household. I’m not suggesting that we have our own nuclear power plant in our living room. And I’m not talking about the surplus of energy that Zoe exudes (which is not insignificant). No, I’m talking about the plurality of batteries we are using in Zoe’s gadgets. Everything needs batteries. And a special sized screwdriver to get to those batteries. One toy—a mobile—needed three different screwdrivers to put together and two sizes of batteries. We have a thing that she lays in and it’s supposed to rock back and fourth or vibrate. I think it also plays music. I spent half an hour figuring out how to put the thing together only to discover Zoe doesn’t like it. It does rock and it does vibrate, but the gears must be made out of bone because it sounds like a coffee grinder in slow motion.

The mobile she loves. It has lights and dangling toys and it spins around and plays three different songs and also has a soothing white noise mode and comes with a remote control. Remember, this is only a mobile. It also has a motor that sounds like a muted coffee grinder, but Zoe doesn’t seem to mind. And about that grinding noise, one would think that it wouldn’t take much engineering to have a quiet gearbox. Then again, I’m not an engineer, so maybe it’s one of those insurmountable problems, much like cold fusion.

I think I’ll save my rant about plastic for another day. Besides, I got off track. I was supposed to be ranting about batteries. Did I mention I’m trying to use mostly rechargeable batteries? I figure if I buy enough rechargeables to power all Zoe’s things and our own horde of battery operated gear that eventually I can strap them all together and take our house off the grid. Well, I’m going to have to wrap this up. I’m typing this in bed on my notebook computer and the battery is running down.

See photos of Zoe at "http://picasaweb.google.com/dbglass"