Yesterday our Vizio VX37L died. Jaime attempted to turn the TV on and it wouldn’t power up. It has this logo in the front that is amber when powered off and lights white when powered on. I noticed that the logo wasn’t even amber, which was a bad sign. When I unplugged and replugged the TV, the logo would light up amber, but quickly faded. Not good.

I tried all the simple things (unplug, wait 10 seconds, replug, etc) but nothing changed. Jaime had done a bit of online digging and other people had seen this issue exactly as we are seeing. The only solution for them was to find an authorized Vizio serviceperson. /sigh It would probably cost us $200-300 to get this fixed after parts and labor, so we were going to look for a new TV.

Before we left, I decided I would go ahead and look for some folks who self-repaired this issue. I found a thread talking about the power logic board being at fault when this exact scenario happens. Apparently if you can find one for a decent price, you can do this fix yourself, but it’s not for the weak of heart. I’m a tinkerer so this doesn’t phase me at all.

So, I’m churning through this repair thread and it abruptly ends with a “Nevermind, was able to return the TV to Costco!”

This caught my attention as we purchased out TV from Costco, but it was in January of 2007, and at that time this TV cost a whopping $899! So this repair thread became a “How did that work?” thread where many others were asking this gentleman how he was able to return the TV, how long he had it, etc. Turns out he had bought his TV in 2005 and was able to return in in 2008!

THAT IS CRAZY! So, I read on. Apparently Costco’s original return policy didn’t have any time limits, meaning you could return products ANY time after purchase for the full price! He mentioned that the manager at Costco told him that if the TV was purchased more than 4 years prior, it would have required manager approval, but his TV was only 3 years old, so it wasn’t as issue.

Our TV was less that 4 years old, so why not see if we can get this to work, maybe the internet will be correct! So, I call Costco.com‘s customer service line and it turns out they couldn’t find that information, and they gave me the number of our local costco (which is barely local to us, but that’s beside the point). I call in and the manager seems very confounded, which I was expecting due to the nature of my request. Here’s how our conversation went:

Me: I would like to return a television, please.
Him: Okay, do you have a receipt?
Me: No, it’s been a long time since we’ve purchased this television.
Him: More than 90 days?
Me: Significantly more actually.
Him: Well, when did you buy it?
Me: Early 2007
Him: How early?
Me: January (at this point I think I am going to be told that I can take a hike)
Him: Let me look it up [waiting for a minute] A 37 inch Vizio?
Me: Yes
Him: Sure, you can return that. Just bring all the cables, remote, etc. and we’ll take care of it
Me: Really?
Him: Yup.
Me: We are on our way!

I still had my doubts, but we trekked up to the Costco and got the same strange look from the lady at returns, who then started some paperwork and ended up handing us a Costco cash card with $962 on it. The total purchase price and tax paid on the TV ALMOST FOUR YEARS AGO!!!!!

We were so shocked. So, we went over to their electronics department and after Jaime talked me out of another Vizio (but it was 55 inches! :-P), we ended up snagging the last of their Sony 46″ KDL-46EX701 models ( www.sonystyle.c… ). This model is no longer in production as Sony has moved to their 2011 TVs, but it has loads of features, a beautiful picture, and a 3 year warranty! Best part, it was on clearance for $899!

So we basically traded in out 3 year old 37″ 720p Vizio LCD TV for a brand new 46″ 1080p Sony LED/LCD TV.

As a final note, Costco revised their return policy sometime in 2007 to limit returns on most products to 90 days, so this plan will no longer work. :-(

-Chris

1. Quit my job in California
2. Got a new job in Indiana
3. Moved to Indiana
4. Moved back in w/ my parents
5. Celebrated the holidays in Indiana with family
6. Looked for a house
7. Bought a house
8. Moved into a house
9. Sold a car
10. Bought two cars

Needless to say, we’ve been rather busy and the server that I run the blog on has been offline for a rather long time, but I’m back baby!  I’ll try to get some pictures and stuff up when I can for posterity’s sake, but you can check my facebook profile out as I update it more often.

-Chris

Here’s my take.

I am a conservative, this does not default to republican in my book, as the republican party has veered very, very far from it’s days of Reagan conservatives. Now, the republican party is happy to grow the government just as much as the democrats, and with just the same amount of bureaucratic inefficiency as their counterparts “across the aisle”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for a two-party uber alles system, where the parties spend all their time fighting one another from some ideological bulwarks without ever wanting to work together. But, when you represent a party that has a base that believes in fundamentally small, efficient, and effective governments, who focus solely on what the Constitution requires of them, then they need to represent that view in their daily work. This won’t always be the case, just as sometimes a parent has to overstep their own ideal bounds with their children to steer them away from potentially fatal situations, when they might often let them learn on their own. Sticking your finger in hot water teaches you about hot things and the danger/pain of abuse, sticking your finger in a light socket may prove fatal, thus destroying the entire point of teaching at all.

There will be times (great depression) when the government is forced to act in extreme ways to fend off complete national collapse, but it must relinquish those powers once the emergency is over, lest we see a oligarchical nation come into power before our very eyes.

Looking at heavy-handed communist or socialist countries gives me pause, because most of those nations were founded with the best of intentions. Making the working-class, middle-class people more powerful by putting the government on “their side” looks great on paper, but the more you trust those without accountability outside of themselves, the more personal responsibility you (perhaps inadvertently) hand over to them. You no longer need to worry about working for yourself, you work for the country. You earn what the country earns and live how the country lives. Communities are “installed” as needed by the motherland and all you have to do is what you are told to do.

This system can work, but you don’t need the government to drive it. You can loan money to people without interest, believe it or not. Thanks to our overly-bloated tax and banking laws, it is much harder to do that, but you could do it easily once upon a time. There are lots of things that we now need the government to do for us, that once upon a time, we could do without the help of the government.

There are some things that a government should always be doing. Protecting the nation from threats for foreign and domestic is a good one. Guaranteeing citizens protection from crime and fraud is another one. Also, currency control in order to govern inflation and economic growth to prevent huge swings that are potentially national threats.

Neither of the candidates seem to want to focus on these issues. They both seem content to throw money at problems that call for much deeper reform. The fear I have with Sen. Obama is a complete democratically controlled government. The GOP had that a while back and they hosed it up badly. Checks and balances are our friends, after all.

But, I tend to think that the only thing that will wake up the republican party is to see how many conservatives cannot bring themselves to vote for Sen. McCain. Give me a conservative candidate next time, and he/she will have my vote.

I cannot discount Sen. Obama’s ability to bring a nation together under a notion of change, but we need to change for the better. Believe it or not, this country has “changed” greatly from what the Constitution has laid out for the federal government and I think we need to “change” back into the original vision of the founding fathers.

In debates with folks at work, and following an email list that I run for family members, it seems that many of the Obama supporters would rather the government take over stuff that is working inefficiently. They are fine with giving the government the go-ahead, having them tax the rich more, and then wait for the government to handle it. The problem with that mentality is what do you do when the government lets you down? What happens when a promise about pre-existing conditions turn into a wait in long lines for a “specialist”. What happened in other countries are people paying out-of-pocket to see doctors when they want to.

If malpractice was reformed, health care would see a dramatic shift in pricing and availability. Instead, the candidates want to funnel *more* money into a flawed system. You can’t federalize health care insurance without federalizing health care. The government will soon dictate, like a giant HMO, which doctors can charge what prices under their care. Once that division takes place, it won’t be long until the other doctors are forced into their system to still have patients.

Why not take those monies that you want the government to have and funnel them into non-profits and charities designed to help offset health-care costs specifically for people with a pre-existing condition? There isn’t one? WHY NOT BE PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE AND START ONE!?

I know plenty of people that could afford health care, but choose to buy flat-screen TVs and new cars. They take trips and vacations and have the latest technology, then turn around and say that health care is too expensive. Issues like that are about priorities. People with multiple kids have to adjust their spending as well as people that lose lawsuits. Life isn’t “fair” for everyone, but there are ways to make it work, if people are personally responsible enough to actually make it happen.

In my time in Church, I’ve seen that there are people that have a passion for just about anything you can think of. If you want to adopt, they can get you grants, huge sums of money donated by people who have a heart for the suffering of orphans. If you want to go on a mission trip to help build buildings in 3rd world countries, you can get donations to help you accomplish that.

Many children’s hospitals are funded by benefactors so that families can get the care they need without having to bear the entire burden. To think that there is no hope for adults that have a certain condition(s) is to discount the true nature of Americans. You can bet that there are people who have money to send and would happily fund an organization designed to help certain afflicted people get the care they need.

Many issues are just like this! We moved to California a couple years back and now we’re tired of it. The lifestyle is okay, but it’s not Indiana, and we don’t have any family here. In addition, this state is hemorrhaging money into a broken school system and countless junk programs. There are *plenty* of people out here who complain 24/7 about it. They talk about lobbying this and that and trying to change it in such and such a way. Good for them!! Get in there and make a change, but for us, we are going to move to a place that’s more affordable and closer to family. We will bear the responsilibily of moving ourselves and make it happen. I think Californians in general like the idea of a socialist agenda with a huge state government, so I am compelled to leave if I disagree. So be it. I don’t have a right to live in California with a government of my choosing.

The issue I face is that if America takes a turn toward a big-government behemoth, we will have to leave the country to escape that kind of government intervention. That’s a bit tougher for me to do because there have been many people who have fought and died for this country and I want it to flourish like it has the first 225 years of it’s life. We don’t need a bigger government, we need bigger citizens that will take to hear the infamous question: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!”

So, who am I voting for? Honestly, I’m not sure. I guess I pray that there will be something that can convict me what is best for America in the long term, and not just for me in the short term. Here’s to hoping!! /clink

As a last thing, here is JFK’s tremendous “Ask Not” speech. If you’ve never read it, you really should. I pretty much agree with every assertion he makes in that speech…

www.famousquote…

-Chris

However, I recently purchased a new laptop so I could seel my older one to my sister who was in need of a capable computer. Plus I bought a car, so all told it was a killer birthday giftwise. :-)

But, I now embark on my 31st year shuffling around this mortal coil and I’m excited to see where God will take me this year.

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes!!

-Chris

Speaking of making it to 30 though, I got some nice gifts, and got a big surprise. Now, as a general rule, I’m pretty tough to surprise. I tend to pay attention to little details and become suspicious of strange behavior immediately. Combining that fact with Jaime’s *usual* inability to keep secrets for too long means that that cat is normally out of the bag before the bag is closed. Being relatively new out here, I thought there may be something that she was cooking up with some friends of ours in Valencia, but I hadn’t gotten any of the normal “We really should go visit so-and-so!” or “I have a craving for a specific place to eat. Let’s go there tonight around 6:30!” Those are dead giveaways and that would be that. This year, in spite of it being a big milestone, I had heard nothing of the sort and figured we would just low-key it and spend time together, which honetly, is what I want to do every weekend regardless of the “event”.

I need to preface this little story with a couple things. First, I keep my work life and my personal life very, very separate. It’s a choice I made a long time ago so that I don’t punish my family for bad days at work, and my work doesn’t suffer because of personal issues. Second, I tend not to socialize with my workmates to much because I want to spend my free time with Jaime and Emma. This keeps me in the right frame of mind and I rarely think of bumping into work people outside of work, and personal people inside of work.

That being said, on Friday the 7th, I had a meeting with a co-worker of mine. Her name in Monique and she’s really great. She’s been a solid friend at my job, and gave me good advice on where to live before we moved out here. She’s also a grown-up about work-related stuff, and I enjoy working with her because of her stra0ght forward and practical nature. I am taking on some new responsibilities these days, and she is a key asset to help me ramp up and take on the new stuff rapdily and effectively. Because of this new interaction, we had been meeting off and on the last couple of weeks whenever we got the chance.

On this day, she had scheduled a quick 30-minute meeting to discuss some technology choices. She scheduled it at noon, and apologized that noon was here only free time for the day. I eat lunch a bit later these days, so I thought nothing of it. I arrive at noon, we chat a bit about work stuff and vent a bit about work stuff (as commonly happens). I thought I had a 12:30 call (which I was mistaken about) and told her that I would have a hard-stop at 12:30. She asked who it was with and what I was talking about. “Why would she care?” I thought, but whatever. Around 12:25, she pick up the phone and dials a number. “I need to make a call.” she says. I sat there waiting for her to finish her call, thinking nothing of it. “Yup … mhmm … okay … okay”. click. That was the phone call. No introductions, no “Hi! It’s Monique.” nothing.

That was fishy, but remember, I *do not* combine my personal and work lives so I thought nothing about it being almost my birthday. A few minutes later, she makes another call with the same jittery dialog along with no intro. At this point she stands up and says, “You need to come with me for a second. You’ll want to see this.” or something to that effect. I, just like an unsuspecting steer led to the slaughter, just stand right up and follow her out of her office and down the hall. She walks into the conference room and I followed her. As I’m walking in I notice that the room is filled with my team members, a bunch of food, balloons, and most importantly, Jaime and Emma!

“SURPRISE!!!!!”

Indeed it was.

Turns out, Jaime has played the connect-the-dots game to get a hold of Monique by contacting Don Wood (who is a great friend of mine from Indy) to get information about Monique (who I had talked to Jaime about in the past). Once Monique was mobilized, she and Jennifer (another co-worker) worked the whole plan out and made sure that Jaime/Emma were able to get here and get situated. I understand that Monique and/or Jennifer even payed for some of the party favors.

I was shocked like I’ve never been shocked. It was so nice to see everyone in one place and was great for them to meet Jaime and Emmabug. Very very cool and mega props to Jaime for getting me so good. It’s not easy to do. :-)

It appears that one of the neatest marketing gimmicks that has ever befallen mankind has befallen mankind in Burbank, CA (among other places). Turns out, this Kwik-E-Mart is about 2 minutes from my place of work in sunny Burbank, so I stopped by after work today.

I’ve been a long-time Simpsons nut, and to see something like this was just too cool. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but they did a nice job of dressing the place up and it brought a smile to my face. You can go here to see all the pics I took.

Also, I took the pictures using my new Blackberry 8300, aka the “Curve”, so I apologize now for the saturation and grain of the pics. I will admit though, for a cellphone cam, the pics look awfully good.

There are only a few of these around the US, and you can locate the nearest to you here.

I also got the comic book that they distribute at the stores (grabbed the last one by guessing the exact number an employee wrote on a piece of paper. woohoo!) and a collector’s cup.

Pretty fun time, and as you can see from the pictures, it was a popular place. They had policemen at the door and in the parking lot just to keep the rabid, ne’er-do-well Simpsons maniacs from trashing the joint. :-)

-Chris

See www.freedom-to-… for the info, but basically, that number was used to encrypt a copyrighted work (A haiku) and I was given explicit rights to decrypt the work my the encryptor.

You better watch out!! :-D

-Chris

I align with Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, in this plight. The DMCA is getting a bit to big for its own britches and something as trivial as this might be a tipping point.

I welcome debate on why I’m wrong…

blog.digg.com/?…

-Chris

That’s probably one of the first movies we watched on that thing, although I’m not quite sure that I remember it costing FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! We were poor college students. I worked at a frickin hole-in-the-wall crappy restaurant just to pay the bills, and here you were living it up with your fancy-pants electronical equipment, speakers bigger than the wheels on my Skyhawk, and more wattage than the entire GPS constellation. Selfish…pure selfish ;)

What I do remember is thinking how cool it was to have a *digital* system to watch movies, and how cool that uber-expensive optical cable was. Did it make a difference? I have no idea, but it was still really neato. What I remember more (unless it’s the same player and I’m having a brain fart) was the super-mega-DVD changer. Now THAT was totally unnecessary, but still completely cool.

We’re here at work watching “The Matrix” at 1am in the morning (0100 military time, 0700 Zulu), and I’m remembering the first time you and I saw it at the Terre Haute mini-plex. Great movie. That was just a few months before we graduated and I moved a million miles away. Now I’ve gone and made myself sad…

This reply is too long for a comment, but not distinct enough for its own post. I’ll blog here if you give me a topic to write on. Deal?

~Andrew

Ah … the good old days.

WHITESNAKE ROCKS. See you on the tour!

-Chris