My Substitute Reality -You're just jealous cause the little voices only talk to me-

Sunday June 17, 2012

Fun with the Balchs

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Family — don @ 12:27 pm

A few weeks ago Heather called me and said they would be at the Lawrence Welk Resort from the 10th through the 17th and would we like to come spend a few days doing stuff. I immediately said yes and we booked a couple of nights at a Comfort Inn in Escondido.

We drove down on Thursday the 14th and checked in and then drove to LWR. Mark was out playing golf so Heather, Camden, Carsten, Betty and I went over to the Activity Center so the boys could paint some clay turtles. We stayed there for a while and Mark called Heather to say he would be on the hole right behind the center soon. We went out and watched him play the hole. He came really close to having a Birdie but ended up with par. You can see a panorama of the activity center here.

Then we went back to the house and had a spaghetti dinner (I had Spaghetti Squash and Walden Farms 0 calorie sauce).

After dinner we went to the pool and got wet and relaxed. After that Betty and I drove back to the hotel.

The next morning they picked us up in their van and we drove in to Balboa Park to go to the Fleet Science Center and Model Railroad museum. That was lots of fun and we even saw an IMax movie called To The Artic. It was a little too political but enjoyable nonetheless.

That night I took them to The Fish Market where we all had a great meal. Mark had the Ciopino which used to be one of my favorites but I stayed a little lower calorie this time.

The next day we checked out and drove to the coast to meet up for a beach outing. We were going to be at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas but it was closed for something special. We ended up going to Oceanside State Beach and spent some time there. I have a pano of the beach here.

At about 2pm Betty and I left for home. The drive should have taken about 2 hours but because it’s Southern Cal and a Saturday it took 3 1/2 hours.

We had a great time and I will post some more of the pictures in my Gallery later. Right now I’m getting ready for Richard and Dianna to come spend Father’s Day with us.

Friday September 2, 2011

Tablet Buying Saga, Slight Frenzy

Filed under: Computers,Cool Stuff,Geek — don @ 7:46 am

A few weeks ago I sold my old Toshiba laptop to Patrick so he would have something for school (that’s another post I should make). He had wanted to buy a new one but I convinced him he would be better off saving his money and using my laptop. He didn’t want to take a chance he would break it or have it stolen and then feel like he owed me so he asked if I would sell it to him and I did.

That gave me the perfect excuse to start looking for something to replace the laptop for when I go on trips and other times when I like having a portable computer around.

I looked at iPads about 6 months ago but I couldn’t quite justify buying one when I already had my laptop and iPhone. The iPhone does most things the iPad does but on a smaller scale. The laptop served as my vacation device so I decided I didn’t “really” need one.

After I sold the laptop I began looking at laptops in earnest but I was still thinking I might like an iPad. I checked the Frys’ ads for a couple of weekends and then last week on Friday they had a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 that came with a $100 gift card. Since I buy a lot of stuff from Frys’ I figured that was as good as cash so I went to look at them.

When I got there they had it in a plastic case so I couldn’t tell how light and small it was. I started looking at other tablets and finally decided it was going to be the Acer Iconia or the Asus Transformer. The Acer had mini HDMI, SD card slot, and USB. The Asus had everything except the USB. I couldn’t really decide which to get so I figured I could buy one and if I didn’t like it I could return it. All of them ran on Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) so in that respect they are equal.

When I got to the checkout I was told the tablets had a 15% restocking fee. Since I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep the Acer I just walked out with nothing. I wasn’t about to pay $60 just to try something out.

I went over to Best Buy and asked them if they had a restocking fee and they didn’t. They also didn’t have the Acer but they did have the Asus. I went ahead and bought that and brought it home. I played with it for an hour or so and then I started looking for reviews between the Acer and Asus. Most of the reviews said the Asus was a better tablet but one of them said neither was as good as the Samsung.

I started looking at reviews between the Samsung and the Asus and all of them said the Samsung was better if you didn’t need the extra ports on the Asus. The Samsung had a better screen and was much thinner and lighter. They also said you could get adapters for the Samsung for USB and HDMI. I decided I needed to try one of them out so I returned the Asus to Best Buy and bought the Samsung.

The Samsung came with a USB adapter in Best Buys deal which helped me decide.

After using the Samsung for a few hours I knew that was what I wanted. I also wanted the $100 gift card from Frys so I went back to Best Buy and asked them if they would match the deal. They said no so I returned it to BB and went over to Frys’ and bought it there.

All the reviews I read have the Samsung on top over everything except the iPad. Most reviews between the 2 suggest each has it’s strengths and weaknesses. The iPad is the choice if you want the Apple experience but every review said if you like the ability to modify your tablet then the Samsung was the choice. The Samsung has a slightly larger screen with much better resolution (1024 x 768 Vs 1280 x 800). The Samsung is also slightly thinner and slightly lighter.

Now that I’ve had it for almost a week I feel like I made the right choice. I had looked for an HP after reading Daryl’s tablet saga but none were to be found. I also like the idea of an Android tablet over the HP WebOS although I found out you can install Android on the HP. I guess you can also install Linux so it’s a good choice if you can find it.

In summary I’m quite happy with my choice.

Friday June 24, 2011

Dennis Miller and Air Force One

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Funny — don @ 1:40 pm

Betty and I are going out to the Reagan library in Simi Valley to eat dinner under the wings of Air Force One and then attend a performance by Dennis Miller. I’ll let you know how it was later.

Monday May 30, 2011

New TV

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Geek — don @ 6:52 pm

I’ve had my Mitsubishi 55″ Rear Projection TV since shortly after we moved in here. That was in 1999. It’s been a good TV but for the last year or so it’s been losing it’s red every so often. It’s also only 1080i and 720p so it can’t really do justice to the new HD.

I was looking at TVs around last Thanksgiving but I didn’t want to deal with the crowds on Black Friday and couldn’t quite convince myself that I needed a new one. Then a few days ago the red went out again and stayed out for a long time. I started looking again.

I wanted something at least as large as what I had and would like even larger but I wanted to keep the price below $1000. That rules out most LCD and LED TVs unless I didn’t mind coming down to 46″ or so. I didn’t want to do that so I started looking at the DLP TVs made by Mitsubishi.

DLP stands for Digital Light Processor. It’s a process that’s used in the movie theaters and IMAX also uses it for 3D. It’s not as crisp as LCD but it’s very good and you can get a much larger TV for a lower cost.

I checked on the internet and found that Walmart had the best prices. I was planning to get the Mitsubishi WD-60638 or WD-65638 which are 60″ and 65″. The price for the 60″ was $750 and the 65″ was $900.

I decided to check out Pauls TV(Pauls, the king of big screens) and they showed me the WD-60638 next to a WD-60738. The 738 series has several more features than the 638 and a better picture. They also were offering a Memorial day special where I could get the 60″ 738 which is 3D Ready plus 2 pair of 3D glasses plus a 3D Blu-ray player all for $999. That sold it for me but we wanted to check with Frys to see if they would price match it. They did and they had everything in stock so I loaded it in to my truck and brought it home.

We haven’t watched a 3D movie yet but I’ll let you know how it looks once we do. We bought The Green Hornet to see how it looks.

I figured I wouldn’t be able to beat the price and with my luck if I passed it by my TV would have died tonight.

Here’s the link to the specs on the TV.

Sunday April 24, 2011

Google Maps

Filed under: Cool Stuff — don @ 10:34 am

Google maps has added a higher resolution to their satellite image. Looks like Daryl needs to mow his lawn.
Daryl's House

But at least he has a lawn. I have ground.
My House

Wednesday October 27, 2010

From my iphone

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Nothing — don @ 11:45 am

This is being posted from my iPhone using the WordPress app. I wanted to see if I could post pictures so Dale could see how to do it.


Seems to work.

Monday October 25, 2010

Faster…

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Geek,Internet — don @ 12:39 pm

I’ve had DSL since about the time DSL was available.  I think I first got it from Pacific Bell back in 1994 or 95.  At that time everyone else was using dial up and my DSL was 1.5 MB/S which was screaming.  I’ve kept DSL since then and have upgraded the speed twice to where I’m now at 6 MB/S.

I don’t have anything against the DSL but I decided it’s time to get rid of the land line and since that’s how DSL comes into the house I am going to get rid of it too.  I don’t see any need to continue paying for a home phone when everyone has a cell with unlimited calls between each other and free long distance.

What I’ll replace it with is Time Warner RoadRunner Cable Internet service.  They have a 10 MB/S and a 15 MB/S and since the company pays for it I’m getting the 15.

The installer will be out on Saturday so I’ll let you know how it goes.

This should help the Netflix streaming a little but the VUDU will be the most helped.  If you haven’t heard of VUDU it’s similar to Netflix in the home streaming but it’s pay per view and it’s also high def.  I doubt we’ll use it much but with the price of movies these days it’s a lot cheaper to just wait and stream the high def to the LCD TV.

Friday May 21, 2010

Abby is off again

Filed under: Cool Stuff,Life — don @ 6:53 pm

Abby Sunderland left Cape Town today to attempt to finish her youngest solo circumnavigation of the globe.

God speed Abby.

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