Alpenglow Lights

The previous owners of Kailani had installed four Alpenglow lights.  These are handmade, marine, interior lights.  They are beautiful and energy efficient.  It's weird that they are made in Montana; it would be hard to be further from an ocean.  Originally, they were made with custom fluorescent bulbs.  More recently, the company has switched to LED lights. While the LEDs are no more efficient than the fluorescent bulbs, they last virtually forever and are shock resistant.  The fluorescent bulbs are custom made for Alpenglow and expensive.  We didn’t want to have a carry a bunch of extra bulbs around, so we were looking for an alternative.  We found that Alpenglow offers a rebuild service; for less than half the price of a new LED light you can have your old ones converted.  It seemed like a good choice.

Alpenglow light in main saloon.

These are our main lights, so to send them all in at one time would be a hardship.  Instead, we have been sending them in one at a time.  When one comes back we send out another one.  The first one went great.  We sent one out and ten days later we had a converted LED light that had been cleaned and refinished.  We sent the second one in; they quickly rebuilt it and sent it back then took a two week winter vacation.  What company takes shuts down for two weeks in Feb?  Anyway, they said we should receive the light around Friday, Feb 14.  Our mail all goes to the marina office; they put the envelopes into boxes for us and they hold the packages until we come in and sign for them.  The packages are placed on a big table with our names written in big magic marker letters on the top of them.  On Monday, Feb 17 I stopped by the office to see if the package had arrived.  I checked the list and didn’t see our name.  No big deal, sometimes the mail is slow.  I checked back the next day and the next, on the following Friday the office manager looked through all the packages to see if it had arrived, but not made it onto the list.  No luck. 
Nothing left to do but wait until Alpenglow came back from their winter vacation.  When they returned I asked them for a tracking number.  They sent a number that didn’t work, but let me know they had checked and it had been delivered.  I asked them to try again and they sent a number that worked and showed that the package had indeed been delivered.  Now I had proof and was looking forward to the next day when I could go to the office and demand they produce the package.
The next day I stomped into the office and said, “We have a problem. The post office says that a package was delivered two weeks ago and you are claiming it hasn’t arrived.”  The office manager asked if it was an envelope or a package.  I said it was a package and held up my hands to show the size.  Beside me there was a table that holds all the packages that are waiting to be picked up.  I looked at the table for a package that was close to the size I was expecting to help reinforce the size I was trying to explain.  Seeing one that looked right, I grabbed it and said, “It should be about this size”. Looking down at the box in my hands I realized that it had my name on the label.  The office had written the senders last name in big, bold letters on the box and on the list, instead of our last name.  The box had been sitting there for over two weeks just waiting to be picked up.  From now on I’ll ask for a tracking number as soon as a package ships.  Also, if I expect something and the office says it isn’t there I’ll just take a look through the packages anyway.   Maybe I’ll save a couple weeks of waiting.