Tim Swillinger of Lighthouse Solar & Electric has been working hard over the past few weeks turning our flaky electricity solid.

He's given us better grounding, has brought the house up to 2005 code, checked and tightened all braids, joins and terminations, and even labeled all of the circuits in the box, as he did the safety inspection and replaced suspect breakers.

He's found and fixed all the oddities.

• The receptacle in the attic wasn't working, not because it wasn't working, but because it had been tied into the circuit for the puck lights over the bars between the kitchen and living room, and kitchen and dining room. You had to have the puck lights on for the electricity in the attic to work. That's now been solved with the attic being on the un-switched leg of the hallway circuit, and now having not only properly laid out wiring and new receptacle, but having three new lights with their own switch.
• The dedicated circuit in my home office for computer equipment, now has a companion in the attic. Noisy servers, such as the T2000, can be in a nice rack up there. And being on the Coast, the attic never gets hot, but the cabinet style rack is vented to bring in outside air to the bottom and exhaust away from rack. The attic has never been dryer.
• My parents now have a new, switched ceiling fixture over their dining room table. Dad and I still must patch the holes in their wall though. The light fixture was in our Living Room was one with burnt-out sockets, which HMB Electic repaired. Mom admired it, now has it, and we wanted to bring the style together upstairs with...
• The new monorail low-voltage system that I installed, after Tim had checked out and tightened the ceiling fixture.
• The custom low-voltage system that we had installed when we purchased the house is working again. It's transformer had burned out. The switch that controls it from downstairs is no longer in my parents' apartment, but at the bottom of the stairwell, where it belongs. It shares the switch box with a new switch to control a new outdoor receptacle just under the 2nd floor overhang - being switched, we'll be able to control decorative lights [Christmas, Hallowe'en, whatever] from inside.
• Tim installed the new overhead lights in the kitchen and hallway.
• He determined that the dedicated circuit for computer equipment was fine. APC replaced the Back-UPS and no more weird beeping as I'm trying to work. APC was great on the RMA too.
• The exterior lights have all been replaced, and new locations on either side of the garage door have been installed. The lights we selected are motion sensing, photocell controlled fixtures in compliance with the new California Title 24 code. Unfortunately, they only worked when coming down on them from above, such as when walking down the stairs from the deck, the first floor lights will come on, but walking along the ground near them, they won't. Unfortunately, the factory has told us that ALL of their Title 24 lights are defective. We're still awaiting word on the manufacturer's remediation plan. /sigh
• All the wiring in the garage is being replaced, as well as associated exterior receptacles. This will separate the garage from the rest of the downstairs, as well as replace the dead or dying long-tube fluorescent fixtures, and fix the dead receptacles.
• The spots in the kitchen burning out were easily explained. The fixtures are only rated for 50W, and we were using 65W bulbs, as that is what was in them. We're replacing them all with 15W fluorescents. If those burn out, we'll replace the fixtures.

How much of this was caused by the demise of the holy cypress, associated power outage and subsequent power weirdness, or just the combination of living in the salt fog of the Coast and having a house built in the 70's, we'll never know.

Tim has done a great job. Now if I could only find other contractors who would show up [at all, let alone on time] or give the promised estimates, we could finish the bookcases/stairwell, windows and bathrooms. Then we'll repaint the outside. Maybe then I'll come close to believing Zillow's price appraisal for the place.

I have been told many times over the years that my taste in tuna salad is quite odd for an American. It must harken back four generations to my Italian roots. There's no mayonaise in the sandwich, and certainly none of that sweet sandwich dressing stuff. And while I might on other days enjoy a more standard tuna salad of mayo, dill pickle relish, and celery, I never go for sweet or bread-and-butter pickles or red onion in my tuna. Being all alone today, I indulged in one of my favorite lunches.

The starting ingredients might seem a bit strange to you.

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The celery stalk is for dicing. The anchovy, marinated garlic clove, calamati olives and capers are for the tapenade, which I do at a medium to fine chop with my knife. Add tonno canned in olive oil from Italy, and local extra virgin olive oil from Napa Valley [both bought at Colombo's Deli], and that's the ingredient list.

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I hollowed out the heel of some chewy, flavorful Henry's Harvest from Grace Baking, lined it with a leaf or two of romaine lettuce, and stuffed it with the salad. Added a real Manahatan style pickle that's packed in brine without vinegar or preservatives, and Maverick's Amber fresh from the brew pub, and I had lunch.

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Ah! It was wonderful.