Last week as I drove down Broadway I noticed city utility trucks parking in the middle of the road, and city workers up in the bucket working on the street lights. It looked like they were putting new lights up on the poles. I know the city has been working on replacing the older lights with new, efficient LED fixtures.

“That’s great,” I thought. “It ought to save the city some money on lighting.”

That night, as I walked through the darkened living room on my way upstairs to bed, I noticed something odd. Beams of bright blue-white light were shining through the front window. It looked kind of like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” when the alien ship hovers over the house and sucks the little kid up into the sky.

I opened the front door to see what was going on, expecting to see some kind of flood lights on a fire truck or police cruiser shining in the window, but it was just the new street lights. Man, they are bright. They are focused down onto the street, and my front yard looked kind of like a ball park with the lights on for a night game.

Fortunately, my bedroom is in the back of the house, so the lights won’t be shining into my eyes.

But I am amazed at how lighting technology has advanced in the last 10 to 15 years.Think about it. Thomas Edison invented the first practical electric light bulb filing his patent in November 1879. For more than a century, the incandescent light bulb, with a filament that glows when electricity flows through it, was the standard. Yes, neon lights and fluorescent bulbs came along, but incandescents were the norm.

In the last couple of decades, however, light emitting diodes have been developed that use less electricity, shine as bright and last a lot longer than the incandescents. They are going to be the new normal.

The street lights in front of my house are an example. The city is spending less money and providing a heck of a lot more light with the LED street lights. I am impressed.