Tag Archives: DVD player

2015/05/03 (N) Markets and Meetings

We cleaned up the dishes from last night, started the dishwasher, and then had coffee on the deck but did not have breakfast.  At 10 AM we drove down to the Howell Farmers Market for the opening day of the outdoor season.  We walked the market and then bought a bar of soap from Marjorie and a loaf of bread from Great Harvest.  Marjorie is our favorite vendor at the Howell Farmers Market.  She has liberal bumper stickers all over her van, grows her own herbs, raises honey bees, and makes her own soaps and other wonderful products.  She went missing from the Farmers Market last season and as soon as we saw her this year we knew why; she was wearing a “cancer cap.”  She is now cancer free and back at the Market, and it was really good to see her there.

On the way home we stopped at Home Depot to look at vinyl floor tile.  Their selection was different that Lowe’s but no better.  We spent most of our time looking at various wood flooring products and brought home four samples plus a small vinyl tile sample.  When we got home we had toast for lunch using the bread we had just bought.  I started a load of laundry and then settled in to review my Exterior Makeover article.  I made final corrections, uploaded it to the READY folder in my Dropbox, and e-mailed the editor and publisher of Bus Conversion Magazine to let them know it was ready.

We both took breaks from what we were doing to look at the floor samples in the bus.  We did not like any of the woods.  The vinyl tile sample was OK, but not quite right.  At the store most of the lighter shades of faux stone style vinyl tiles had a lot of grey in them.  I did not think grey would look good in our bus but it turns out that the Corian surfaces have grey flecks, the wallpaper has a lot of grey, and the leather furniture may have more grey in it than I realized.  And yet when I visualize the interior of the coach what I “see” is walnut and brass.  We need to look somewhere other than the big box stores for vinyl tiles.

The DVD of Sherlock, season 1, episode 2, would not play correctly on the DVD player in our bedroom last night so I put it in the DVD player in the basement to see if it would play correctly.  Linda did not stay awake to try and watch it last night, which was just as well, so I suggested that she watch it and see if it played OK.  It took a long time for the player to decide to play the disc but once it did it played all the way through.  That told me that there is a problem with the old Sony VHS/DVD player in the bedroom.

While Linda was watching Sherlock I moved the laundry to the dryer and then started compiling my posts for April 26 through 30, 2015 into a single post.  I got that done, uploaded it to our blog, created the tags, and published it.  I made it back upstairs just as Linda was putting dinner on the table.  Much of life is timing, good or bad.  We had leftovers from last night, including salad, veggie-fruit kabobs, and potatoes.

We left a little after 6 PM for the May meeting of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club.  We normally meet on the second Sunday of the month but always move that up to the first Sunday in May to avoid Mother’s Day.  We arrived right at 6:30 PM and there was already a good crowd there but the club president was not among them.  At 6:40 PM I was getting ready to convene the meeting when someone pointed out that the start time had been changed to 7 PM two meetings ago.  I guess we should read the minutes, especially of meetings that we miss (like December through April).  Our business meetings are usually short followed by a program.  Tonight, however, we had a presentation from our field day committee followed by a discussion and a motion to approve a budget for the activity which was unanimously approved.

After we got home I brought the DVD player up from the basement and we watched episode 3 of season 1 of Sherlock.  The disc and player worked fine, so I will be looking for a replacement for the old Sony player sometime soon.

 

2015/04/02 (S) SLAARC and Company

We arrived at the Senate Coney Island before 8 AM for the weekly SLAARC breakfast.  Paul (N8BHT) was already there and we were followed in closely by Steve (N8AR), Mike (W8XH), and Jim (N8HAM, the best call sign ever).  Bruce (W8RA) and Linda (NF8C) came in next followed by Harvey (AC8NO) and Diane, and then Gary (WA8TJA).  Others continued to come in but I lost track after that.  We sit at a long, two-sided table arrangement, so you can only talk easily to the person on either side of you and the three or four people across from you.  Bruce and Linda sat across from us.  The two Lindas like to talk so we try to arrange the seating to make that possible when we can.

Bruce and Linda just closed on a 25 acre property in Florida that includes a very nice house with a ham radio shack and five (5) towers with antennas so that was the main topic of conversation.  Bruce is also thinking about putting up a “barn” with a pad next to it for an RV so we talked about the requirements for the pad and the type/placement of the hookups.  We both had coffee and Linda had her usual dry rye toast.  I decided to change things up and had a dry, toasted bagel instead of my usual dry, toasted English muffin.  Sometimes you just have to live on the edge.

After breakfast we went to First Merit Bank along with Harvey and Diane.  Harvey is the SLAARC President, I am the VP, and Linda is the Treasurer and we are the folks currently on the account.  There was an issue with the bank’s paperwork and they needed to photocopy our driver’s licenses and get our SSNs.  It turned out that they also did not have the club’s EIN even though Linda and Paul, the outgoing treasurer, took care of some of this in late February.  Nancy helped us and was very nice, explaining that the bank had changed its policies and procedures recently and now required more documentation than in the past.  No problem, the bank is open on Saturday mornings and we are almost always in town for breakfast.

With our banking business concluded we headed towards home via Grand River Avenue.  We knew from yesterday that traffic was moving through the I-96/US-23 construction zone just fine, as long as there wasn’t an accident, but we wanted to stop at Brighton Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram which is on GRA just west of US-23.  We walked around the lot looking at the Jeep Wranglers, especially the Unlimiteds, and after a suitable amount of time David Wade came out and introduced himself.  He showed us around, answered our questions, and gave us a nice brochure (book) and features/options guide.  We liked his attitude and demeanor and left feeling comfortable with him and the dealership.

We focused in fairly quickly on the Willy’s Unlimited model as the one that we thought would best fit our needs and budget.  It is similar to the Sport, which is the base trim level for the Jeep, but is available with the hardtop and, most importantly, the Rubicon heavy-duty suspension and off-road (knobby) tires. The Rubicon is the top of the line Wrangler Unlimited (4-door) but it is not just fancier in terms of electronic gizmos; it has an entirely different suspension, transfer case, and other “features” that make it the most off-road capable as delivered by the factory.  We liked the copper/bronze color, as it would go nicely with the paint scheme on our bus, but I am also partial to the canary yellow as it would be the most visible if we were broken down in some remote place.

A new Jeep Wrangler Unlimited would be a big purchase for us but no more expensive than buying a used one as they appear to hold their value better than most vehicles.  With a new one we can order it just the way we want it, leaving off all of the expensive upgrades we do not want/need (in-dash GPS, entertainment system, etc.) and adding only those that we do want/need (hardtop and suspension upgrade).  New also means a 6-year, 100,000 mile powertrain warranty and a 3-year, 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.  David also told us that we can purchase a lifetime bumper-to-bumper warranty for about $3,000.  We will obviously have to do some research on that.

We finally got home around 10:30 AM Home.  Linda added a few more items to her grocery list and went to the supermarket.  I started a load of laundry and then moved a lot of my “stuff” from the dining room to my office.  After rearranging old stuff to make room for the new stuff I settled in at my desk to work on computer/web-based tasks.

Gary was the SLAARC webmaster before me and indicated at breakfast that he was still getting e-mails from the SLAARC reflector and asked that I remove him from the e-mail forwarding on our GoDaddy account.  My focus for the last two years has been getting the WordPress website built and launched so I had never looked at this aspect of our web-hosting account.  I had some familiarity with the concept, however, from the e-mail accounts that are part of our personal domain and sub-domain.  It was fairly easy to figure out how to edit the existing account and add new ones.  Once I was done I e-mailed all of the club members who were affected by the changes and asked them to review them.  I will check for replies tomorrow and then send test messages.

I got an e-mail from Linda at BCM with the SD version of the March 2015 digital issue attached.  I logged in to the website and downloaded the HD version.  This issue is two months late, the latest it has been since Gary took over the magazine in October 2012, due in part to yet another change in editors that did not go smoothly.  The magazine has been at least a month late for a year now and is slipping farther out rather than closing the gap.  The sad reality is that the magazine does not have enough subscriber base or enough advertisers to be sustainable and Gary is not able to pay enough to get an editor who can/will put out a quality magazine once a month.  But he has not shut it down yet so I will continue to work on articles.  I don’t get paid for my writing and photography.  It’s a hobby and I like it that way as I am not obligated to do anything and I can make my own ground rules.

John and Diane Rauch arrived at 5 PM to visit and have dinner.  They are our longest/best Michigan friends and we always enjoy visiting with them.  They also have two children who went to school with our kids and now have children of their own.  Diane is an educator and is retiring at the end of the school year after a long career as a high school English teacher.  Naturally, our conversation had to do with retirement, travels, and family.

Linda used our outdoor grill to roast marinated potatoes and cook veggie-fruit kabobs.  John and Diane brought a nice Riesling from Woodcreek that we enjoyed before dinner.  We opened a bottle of our 2009 Egri Merlot to serve with the meal and had Biscotti cookies and vegan chocolate “ice cream” later for dessert.  Linda and Diane got a new online game configured on Linda’s iPad and got several things straightened out on Diane’s iPad.  They headed for home around 10:30 PM as it’s a half hour to get back to their house which is only a few minutes from our previous home.

We stacked the dishes in the sink and left any further cleanup for tomorrow.  We tried to watch the 2nd episode of the 1st season of Sherlock (PBS) but either the DVD was damaged or there is something wrong with our player.  The disc was obviously scratched so that may have been the cause, but I want to rule out a defective player.  We have another one in the basement that I will use to test the disc.  If the player needs to be replaced new ones are relatively cheap and I will get one that can also play Blu-Ray discs.