Home Improvement Tool and Toy Reviews

It is not a cold front but an “Arctic Front” that is coming down from the north. With that we are going to go from almost 80’s weather today to 40’s weather tomorrow. Then on Thursday night is supposed to freeze.

I don’t know why it is such a big deal to me. When I lived in the Antelope Valley in California it would freeze on a regular basis. I guess it is just that it has been almost 15 years since I lived there.

The good thing is that this really does not happen very often so that is good. I am still lovin’ Texas.

Technorati Tags: Round Rock TX, Texas, Weather, Antelope Valley, Lancaster, Palmdale

It looks as though I won’t have to wait all the way until next year to get my bull riding fix. After I posted about the Bull Riding Finals I started searching and found that Houston has a pretty popular Rodeo and Livestock show. That is even better for me since Houston is just a hop, skip, and a jump from Austin.

I really do not know what it is but it is really cool to go to the livestock shows and see all of the different livestock that get auctioned off. I remember the fresh smell of alfalfa when walking around looking at the different animals that are entered in the contests for the biggest this and nicest that.

The other cool thing about the rodeo is that they also have concerts. This year they are having Sheryl Crow. I would not mind seeing her in concert as I dig a lot of her songs. They also are having Larry the cable guy along with Cory Morrow. I saw those guys on TV and they are really funny. I bet they are even better in person. I guess I will be picking up my Houston Rodeo concert tickets along with the ones for Las Vegas.

With going to all these rodeos I guess I am officially a Texan now!

Technorati Tags: Houston Rodeo, Houston Livestock, Rodeo, Livestock, Houston, Texas, Larry the Cable Guy, Cory Morrow

I have been messing around with my new Sandisk Sansan MP3 player the last few days and I have to say that I am really diggin’ it. The main reason is that I have put a lot of music on it so I have a really good variety to choose from.

The other reason is that I discovered the “Play All” option which just takes all of your songs and mixes them up so it is kind of like a radio station but it is all of your favorite bands and songs. I know some of you are going to say “duh” as this option is probably on every physical and software player out there. Hey, give me break, I took a break from all music for a while, like a 10 year break, so I am barely getting back into the swing of things.

The other thing that I have messed with is the video player. I was able to download an episode of South Park from Youtube (thanks to TechCrunch) and then used the included converter to convert it to a Quicktime movie. It then automatically transfer it to your player once it is done. The only issue is that the file from Youtube was only 58mb and by the time the converter was done the same 22 minute episode was 160mb. i am still looking into how I can make this smaller.

Anyway I am totally stoked with my MP3 player and am so glad that I did not get an iPod.

Technorati Tags: Sandisk, Sansa, MP3 Player, e250R, iPod

I caught the tail end (no pun untended) of the Professional Bull Riders series on TV this past weekend. This reminded me of when I would go to rodeos at the local fair grounds when I was growing up.

It always amazed me how people could get into the ring with with a 2000lbs bull that is pissed off and ride him (or try) for 8 seconds. 8 seconds may not seem like very much but that is an eternity to the guy on the back of broncing bull that wants to get him off so he can pounce him. What is also amazing is the hits that the riders and the clowns take from the bulls. I have seen some hard hits that I have no idea how they have walked away from.

Anyway it is really cool to watch a rodeo on TV but it is even better to watch it in person. I guess next year the Professional Bull Riders Finals are going to be in Las Vegas. That is a really good reason to visit Las Vegas . If I go I plan on getting my PBR Finals tickets early as I am sure it will sell out quick.

It will be nice to see the best of the best duke it out with the biggest bulls you have ever seen.

Technorati Tags: PBR Finals, Bull Riding, Rodeo, Las Vegas

So I am testing out the released verison of Windows Vista Premium.

Overall it is pretty nice. My major complaint about it is that it takes so much hard drive space. I currently only have McAfee antivirus installed on Vista and I have only 5GB of a 20GB partitian installed. That is only after I disabled the system restore and deleted all the restore points.

Other then that it runs really smooth and looks really nice on my 22″ LCD. More info to come as I put it through it’s paces.

So here it is, my new Sansa 2 GB MP3 player.

This baby was only $99 and has a voice recorder with built-in mic, FM tuner, and can play video.

I had been considering an iPod Nano but they just seemed to expensive. Also, this may sound weird but it just seemed too small. This one has a really nice solid fell to it.

Oh I forgot to mention that it also can have the memory expanded by a mini sd card.

So here it is. The before and after pictures on my new 22″ Westinghouse LCD Monitor.

 

The before picture.

 

 

 

 

 

Side-by-side 21″ CRT and 22″ LCD.

 

 

 

 

 The new setup.

 

 

 

So my brother-in-law and I successfully made it in the door. This was our final tally:

• 2 of the $250 Toshiba laptops
• 2 of the Westinghouse 22″ monitors
• 1 Sandisk 2GB MP3 player
• 1 1GB memory stick

After I came home I dropped off the loot and my bro-in-law and went to Toys-R-Us and got my son a little toy work bench that was on sale.

I finally got home and went to bed about 8am. By the time I woke up about 12pm I had 6 emails about the laptops that I put up on Craigslist.

An hour later I was on the road delivering the laptops to their new owners. My bro-in-law cleared $180 each - cool. With that $180 that means that I only paid $167 for my monitor, MP3, and the memory stick.

I am definitely doing this again next year.

OK, well it looks like I am the first one in the Austin are to post to Craigslist the goodies that I got from Black Friday.

My bro-in-law and I are selling our laptops for $450 each (list price is $599). Here is out post - http://austin.craigslist.org/sys/239135694.html.

Feel free to email me if you are in the Austin area and are interested.

Technorati Tags: Black Friday, Best Buy, Toshiba, Craigslist, Laptops, For Sale

So it’s not 1am and I am starting to get tired. My brother-in-law and I have watch Zoolander and 3 episodes of South Park in between going to the restroom and getting food.

One person came by taking “inventory” of what everyone was buying. I thought it was a little weird because she wasn’t asking about anything specific. Also she was writing it down on the ad. Anywho it has been pretty uneventful.

The breeze has died down mostly so it is not as cold but the overall temperature has dropped some.

With that lady coming by it made me realize that I am in a unique position. See I am # 12 in line and therefore have the oppertunity to get a number for one of the products on the first page of the ad. Everyone is assuming that the $250 Toshiba laptop will also get a number. My bro-in-law was buying one to sell it and not I think I am going to do the same.

I think that I can put it up on Craigslist for $450 and get some bites. If so I would walk away $170 which isn’t bad. That would almost pay for my monitor. I haven’t asked the wife but worst case scenario she says take it back and then I get my money back. I think I can sell it though with it being new in the box.

Anyway, only 3 hours until things start to happen a 4 until the doors open.

I wonder if anyone had posted these laptops on craigslist yet…

Technorati Tags: Black Friday, Best Buy, Toshiba