a trip over to my battery guy this morning yields a solution to the problem. first new battery is real strong , 900CCA no problem, load tests at 1200CCA and recovers fine. my man, troy, slips his neat induction ammmeter over the battery cable, looks closely at me and asks. "what all accessories you running?" just the clock, i reply. "gotta trunk light?" "oh ya, replaced the bulb last month." we go look and troy burns his finger on the hot bulb and we both realize why there is that .8 amp on the meter.
so for the past month i've been merrily discharging the battery, all day & all night, due to a failed switch. amazing that the bulb just kept putting out. and the cold weather was more or less a coincidence.
so thanks for the replies and i'll go back to glowing and thinking about all the money i could of spent here.

hanss