Let there be Light!

 I told you all yesterday I was going to review with you my list of what you should always have either with you or in your emergency kit.  Recently I was asked what is the most important thing I would tell someone or anyone to have on them if I could only tell them one thing.  That is of course have a flashlight on you at all times.

 Now not all flashlights are created equal and from The Diabetic Camper (the worlds only diabetic camper so remember that!) that you need to get a "quality" flashlight.  We have all seen those ones with like a billion little LED's in them and ones that cost 99 cents but please do not buy those or even touch them.  They might give you worser diabetes than you already have because they are just that bad.  Why are they bad?  Because you have to understand how an LED makes light and it is not like your old non-government approved bulb where you just had to touch the positive and negative side to the bulb to create a closed circuit and walla!  instant light.  LED's require a circuit board to put the "0's" and "1's" into the right hole to tell the LED to turn on.  So your 99 cents is dependent on the cheapest circuit board with a gazillion LED's to not turn on.  Now I have about a thousand of those cheap lights in my house and I feel bad because I get coupons to get them for free all the time but now I just throw away the coupon because they all break and a broken flashlight is like a diabetics pancreas, it just sits there wasting money and space.  The light you see above is one I picked up on "black Friday" which is the best day to shop for random crap like this.  I keep that one in my truck with its 500 lumins it is like the sun in the palm of your hand.

 Here is my flashlight I keep in my briefcase and I also run at night with this light.  This is a 100 lumins light that only requires 2 double A batteries.  If you are not going to buy a flashlight on "black Friday" then your next best bet is www.Amazon.com or www.Woot.com or any number of inter-web pages that sell these suckers at great discounts that are delivered to your house with neat Chinese characters on the package.  So what do you look for when buying a "quality" light?  The one that The Diabetic Camper would tell you to get is a flashlight with a bulb made by: CREE.  These are the Cadillac of the light bulb industry and they produce the light that is claimed by the packaging and also are extremely durable.  Remember the circuit board thing I told you about earlier, you need a good one not some sort of Tandy 4600 piece of junk.  www.cree.com and CREE is even a public company: http://investing.money.msn.com/investments/stock-price?symbol=US:CREE&ocid=en-us_bingiaquotebtn

OK final note on flashlights and well light in general.  What use is a flashlight without any power?  Yes it is the same as a diabetics pancreas, just wasting space and money (I kind of like this joke).  So what to do about keeping your batteries good in your flashlight?  When I was 12 years old my first scout master taught me a trick I have used ever since and it is the greatest thing to do.  When you are finished with your light, take the batteries out or just one out and flip it around so that if you bump the button to turn the light on it won't because there is no complete circuit.  That brings up those cheap 99 cent lights as well and their cheap circuit boards.  This trick does not work in them because their boards are so cheap that if you flip one battery around alot of the time it ruins the board.  See how good that 99 cents was worth to you?  Go out and spend a decent ten bucks on a good light for your car, home, purse, man purse, diabetes bag, and a couple more just for fun and when you need this light I have just told you about just send me a thank you email, that is all I like to hear is how one small piece of advice I gave a billion people (OK so maybe like 100 people read this blog but lets just go with it) can save at least one person.