Anklo blog

This year’s destination was Holden Beach and while that’s much closer than last year’s drive to the Florida Keys, we were still a bit late getting on the road. You’d think I’d be used to it, but I always misjudge the time required to get everything done and ready to go. When the whole family leaves home for a week there is a mountain of work to do. It makes you question whether the trip is worth the effort.

After a pre-trip lunch at Bojangle’s we hit the road. We took two cars since we had a mountain of stuff (we had to take linens, groceries, and beach toys) and would have five people on the way back. For the cost of one tank of gas, it wasn’t worth the pain of trying to cram everything into one car. As luck would have it, we hit a traffic jam before we even got to Clayton. There was a line of thunderstorms and that slowed everyone to a halt. This slow pace lasted about an hour, then things opened up and we were cruising.

I have to say that the drive to Holden Beach from Raleigh is a piece of cake. A day trip is within the realm of possibility. The real estate office was right where the bridge hits the island and our condo was just down the street. It took maybe ten minutes from the time we crossed the bridge until we were parked at the condo. We unloaded, looked over the place, then Maria and the kids went for a quick walk on the beach. I stayed behind since I was hot, sweaty, a little mad at Kinnamon for having a pre-teen attitude, and obsessed with finding the condo’s wifi password (which I sleuthed out with the help of Google and the use of Maria’s laptop to login to the router. Password is tater2lola3 by the way).

When they got back from their walk it was time for dinner. I have to put in a plug for Urbanspoon. The user reviews helped us avoid an obvious choice and pick the Provision Company. It doesn’t look like much, but it was great. The definition of casual and the shrimp was excellent. We’ll go again before the week is out. After dinner it was back to chores, this time at the Food Lion to stock up. Back to the condo, unload, make beds, shower, sleep

For Sunday, we decided to make our first day be a full beach day with all three meals at the condo. Kinnamon’s friend Alana arrived about noon. Pretty windy, but not too hot and the ocean was just right. Active enough to be fun, but you didn’t get beat to death.

After downgrading the cable service and turning in all the DVRs, there is one feature that is sorely missed. The ability to pause live TV. If you are watching a DVD or streaming video from Hulu, then there is a pause button readily available. But when viewing something that’s “on right now” and you get interrupted (kids, phone, whatever) then those missed scenes are gone. No good, not happy.

While I knew that not having the ability to pause would be annoying, I underestimated the magnitude of the impact. Eventually we’ll have the ability to play DVDs, stream internet content, and record live broadcasts on all three TVs. Key word is eventually. Can’t afford to fill all the holes at once. It became apparent that replacing this feature was now the top priority on the entertainment list.

One candidate that I had found for replacing the functionality of a DVR was a DVD recorder. Not just any DVD recorder, but one also equipped with an internal hard drive. As of this writing there is exactly one manufacturer, Funai, of such devices and they offer two models marketed under the Magnavox brand.

Note: I have to express my gratitude for all of the work done by “wajo” to compile and post product information at the AVS forum. Everything you could want to know about these DVD recorders is there.

I bought a refurbished model 2160A for $160. I’ve been using it for a few days and I’m quite pleased. It pauses live TV, plays DVDs and basically works as expected. The only real drawback is the lack of any sort of program guide. You have to setup a recording the old fashioned manual way by picking a channel and time. Other than that it seems to be a fine replacement for the cable company’s DVR.

A couple of weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and cancelled our cable service. Almost. Well, not really the same way as I expected. The original vision was to drop all cable TV service and replace it with a combination of OTA using an antenna and internet streaming of Netflix, Hulu, etc.

I even bought the antenna and did some experiments with it attached to a step ladder on the patio. The results weren’t bad, but it was obvious that the antenna needed to be higher for good, stable picture quality. I’d still have to the get the signal cable routed, and so on, and so forth, and the PITA factor was increasing. This pushed me to make a modification of the plan.

For the short term, and maybe longer, I’d accept paying about $8 a month to get broadcast cable. That would get me all the local channels, including HD, on all the TVs with no work required. That’s a deal I can live with for quite a while. The internet piece would remain as is. All I had to do before turning in the DVRs was wait for American Idol and the Women’s CWS to complete, so as not to be a total ass in the eyes of the kids.

When the day came, I called the cable company and told them I wanted to downgrade to broadcast cable and keep internet access. I expected to get price reduction offers or at least a half-hearted interrogation, but there was nothing of the sort. Just a polite “Your new monthly bill for broadcast cable and internet will be $63. Is there anything else I can do?” and it was done.

That night the DVRs were offline, as expected, internet was still working, as expected, and I had all the local channels, as expected. What wasn’t expected was the continued accessibility of the basic cable channels. Hmm, did they misunderstand my request? I wanted the $8 a month broadcast package, not the $60 basic package. So, the next morning I loaded up the three DVRs, remotes, and power cords and make the trip to the cable office (literally across the street from my neighborhood) to return them. And to make sure I’d gotten the right cable subscription.

I explain that I downgraded my service and I need to turn in the equipment. The very pleasant clerk gets my info, scans in the serial numbers, then asks about the cable modem. I reply that I’m keeping internet access along with broadcast cable. She looks at her system again and gets a puzzled expression on her face. She asks if the cable worked last night and I reply that it did, and it still is this morning. She says that the system shows that I only had internet service, that there had been a work order in the system to come to my house, and that the work order had been closed out. She shrugs her shoulders, types a bit, then says that I’m good to go with broadcast cable and internet.

As another bonus, I switched my ISP (all the same hardware and service, nothing more than a billing change in the cable company’s system) and saved another $15 a month for a year. My lucky day.

So, it’s done, I’ve got more cable channels than I expected, and I paying less than I expected.

Just ran across one of the best quotes regarding money that I’ve ever read. From an article by Mark Chafkin at Inc.com comes this quote:

“Money is like gasoline during a road trip,” he says. “You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn’t be about the money.” – Tim O’Reilly

In the previous post, I mentioned that the LCD rear projection TV is broken. Here’s what broken looks like.

There’s the intense, overpowering blue in the corner with the comet-like tail extending to the right. Don’t overlook the oval haze covering most of the left half of the screen.

It’s a Sony design problem with all of their LCD rear projection TVs. All you really need to know is that the repair is cost prohibitive and my $1800 TV is worthless after five years of service. Sony will never receive another dollar from me.