Before the rain hit today, we did the Broadtopper geocache. It was a pretty easy one, but we have been limited to those since Colleen has a 17 pound human strapped to the front of her these days!
After we found the cache, we wanted Ethan to use the GPS to navigate back to the car, but he decided to eat it instead.
The upgrade to Dish Network has been successful. We finally got the DVR this weekend, which is really nice. I've been recording late night movies and then watching them when I get the time. The pause live TV function has been cool as well. Overall, it looks like it is going to be a pretty nice upgrade from those punks at Charter cable. There are a couple things I don't like though:
1, You can only record 1 show at a time.
2, Lack of local channels (we had to keep basic cable to keep CBS, FOX, ABC, & NBC (Another $12/month)
3, You can't watch one thing on cable while recording something else.
I think most of those features on the DVR can be done with a TIVO, so I would still say the TIVO is the way to go if your cable company is reasonable, unlike Charter.
As far as the Audible.com experiment goes, I'm not too impressed. The technology is cool, but I think it is overpriced. To get one book and one magazine subscription a month, it costs about $15/month. The audio book is nice, but the magazine subscription seems stupid. The only time I saw myself listening to programs was when I was driving, but after listening to some monotone voice read some lame Wall Street Journal to me, I decided the magazine portion of the service wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Plus I was having trouble with the software that ran on the iPaq (it wouldn't keep bookmarks). I called up to cancel, and they said they had an option for just one audio book a month, without the magazine subscription, for $10/month, plus they told me how to supposebly fix the iPaq problem. I'm going to try this service for another month before I decide to permantly cancel or not.
I'm sitting in QBA right now, going over homework, and wondering how people who have never used Excel can get into an MBA program.
I talked to the folks at Dish Network yesterday. They are coming out on Saturday to install a system. I'm getting a free PVR, plus the first 4 months are only costing $5/month. After that it is a $35/month for 100 channels. My only concern is the lack of local programming, but the rep from the Dish Network said that within the year, they will be broadcasting some local channels. Until then, I'll hook up some kind of antenna system to get us at least some of the Altoona stations. Tough luck, Charter. I'll be just one of the many customers you are losing after this last price hike.
Here are some friendly tips that can be used in the event that you may want to sell me something someday:
1, DO NOT pressure me into buying something and making a decision on the spot. Unless I know your deal is the absolute best in the world, there is no way in hell that I'm going to give into your pressure. You are just making me mad, and therefore losing what shot you had of making the sell.
2, DO NOT act like you are doing me a favor. This is a business transaction in which hopefully both parties gain something of value for what they give up. I don't care if you knew my brother when you were a freshman in college and because of that you are giving me the "Insider's Deal". Unless my brother or the likes directly referred me to you, I will not let you use that as leverage to get a deal.
3, DO NOT start with the whole "I'm making absolutely nothing on this deal with you" speal. Bullshit, if you weren't making anything, you wouldn't be here.
4, DO treat me with a little respect. If I say I would like some time to think about it before spending $15,000 on your product, do not act like you are getting treated unfair and start talking about how hard it was for you to get the price down so low.
Colleen agreed for some representative of Sam's Club to come to our house to quote us on siding. Everything was going well at the start, but I knew there was going to be trouble when he went from $20,000 to about $15,000 in about 5 minutes. This kid started out by saying he was in the same fraternity at Gannon as my brother, which is great. I'm glad he knew him. But immediately, he started with "Since I know your brother, I"m going to give you the inside deal, yadda-yadda-yadda". So, I told him that I'm not going to spend 15K on anything without at first getting some comparison prices and thinking about it for at least a day, he went nuts. "I can't believe you aren't taking this deal. If you don't take it now, it will never come again." I almost had to kick him out.
I got pissed, he got pissed, luckily Colleen and the other guy were there to calm things down. The thing is, I will absolutely NOT buy this guys product now. If he would have let it go and allowed me to think about it and do some comparison, at least he would have had a chance. Now I say F*CK-YOU and I'll be damned if I buy anything from him. Moral of the story: DO NOT BUY YOUR HOME IMPROVEMENTS FROM SAM'S CLUB!!
