My Substitute Reality

Sunday July 17, 2011

Carmawhoopdeedoo

Filed under: Nothing — don @ 5:41 pm

All you folks who don’t live in LA have no doubt heard about Carmageddon. With all the hype I kept saying it would never happen. People are not as stupid as the media would have us believe.

When they close a major road anyone with any sense is going to avoid that area and that’s exactly what happened. We didn’t change anything at all about what we normally do. I suspect most didn’t except the ones who do normally use the 405.

I know Richard also didn’t think it would be bad since he lived through the 84 Olympics. I wasn’t here then but heard the stories about how the traffic was supposed to be a nightmare and it never happened. I don’t know why anyone thought it would be any different this time.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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Friday April 8, 2011

Pismo again

Filed under: Quads — don @ 8:56 pm

I’m heading to Pismo Beach again next weekend. My friend Scott had his quad worked on and wanted to go see if it’s faster.

We are trying something new this time. We will be leaving around 6am which will get us there by 9am and then we’ll ride until 3-4pm and then come home. We always before have stayed overnight but it’s not really that bad a drive on a weekend.

That means I should be home by no later than 7pm which means I’ll have Sunday to recuperate.

Edit: I added pictures from the trip here.

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Tuesday January 25, 2011

What’s up?

Filed under: Family,Life — don @ 1:51 pm

I’ve been ticketed by the blog police so I guess I better respond.

Nothing really new or extremely exciting happening around here. Since my last post some things have happened but most of you know about everything. Here’s a synopsis.

In December Ann moved into her own apartment. We are all very happy for her as this is the first time she’s been on her own. She moved into a one bedroom apartment that is about 2 miles from us. That means she’s close enough to take to bus if she needs a family fix. I think she’s got most everything she needs in her place now including broadband DSL from DSL Extreme.

Earlier this month Dale came to visit Southern California. You can read his description on his blog but I will add that it was GREAT having him here. The first weekend he and I went to the Getty Center on Saturday and the Reagan Library on Sunday. Neither place was all that much fun itself but spending time with Dale would have been enjoyable doing anything.

Last Monday Dale, Betty and I went to Universal Studios. I hadn’t been there in close to 16 years. It has changed a bit but the tram tour is very similar to what it was. The main difference is you don’t stop and get out now. They have added a few rides and shows and updated the others. The Animal Actors show still has the dog go backstage and bring out articles of clothing that a young boy is supposedly thinking about. Of course a bra is still the last thing. I guess they figure that never gets old.

After Universal we stopped by Dianna’s parents house to see if there was anything we wanted/needed from the estate. There were 4 of Betty’s paintings that we took to add to the one that was given to me many, many years ago. Then we went home, had dinner and said bye to Dale. Hopefully we will see him at least once more before he leaves SoCal.

The one thing different this year is we didn’t make the trip to Arizona yet because of Betty’s sciatic nerve issue. We are hoping we can go over in February when Dave and Lisa visit. We will have to see how she’s doing but I’m hoping.

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Friday December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas!

Filed under: Family,Life — don @ 10:57 pm

I just realized I didn’t even change the theme since Halloween. I haven’t done much exciting since the last post except for a trip to Pismo for a day. Ann is moving out which is quite exciting for her. We will miss her but it’s a big step that we are glad she’s making. Maybe we’ll have all the kids gone by the time I retire for real but I’m not holding my breath.

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