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

Well, I’m migrating all our photos on our photoalbum site to Flickr. It will take something like 4 days to complete, but it will be nice to have that whole thing offloaded!

This picture was the latest upload when I checked it this morning and it is definitely one of my favorite pics. Jaime cracks me up…

Here’s the URL: www.flickr.com/…

New photos will be appearing regularly over the next couple days, oh boy!

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

After a nice chuckle, it dawned on me that I haven’t asked my USAF buddy about his role, or more accuratley, the USAF’s role in the current Iraq conflict. I was also curious about how the war was being perceived by the folks that aren’t necessarily doing the house-to-house combat. He gave me permission to blog him, so here’s his reply, sanitized to protect the innocent:

The AF is completely involved in Iraq, although not as much when it comes to full-up urban warfare in a place like Baghdad, where the Marines and Army have to go house to house and bombs are a little inappropriate.

We do have some pretty cool newer, smaller bombs — do a search for the “Small Diameter Bomb.” It uses the most precise GPS-aided package ever made, and unfortunately I can’t give you the exact precision numbers, but it’s pretty darn good. If you wanted to take out just your neighbor’s car across the street, while limiting damage to the house, this bomb can do it. If you want to kill somebody in the northwest corner of a building, and make sure you don’t kill the POW in the southwest corner, this bomb could do it. If there was a tank hiding under a bridge, this bomb could be setup to penetrate the bridge first, and then blow up the tank under it, without doing too much damage to the bridge itself (besides the hole where it penetrated).

There’s other places where we can provide “close air support” to Marines and Army guys with bigger bombs and what not, like in some of the further-out areas where insurgents lurk. These also use GPS to hit whatever target the soldiers don’t want shooting at them anymore. The soldier pretty much just hits the target with a laser rangefinder to get the coordinates, relays them to the pilot (kinda like when they called in an air strike in old Vietnam movies), and then a plane (sometimes the big B-52s or B-1s even) just drops a single bomb right where the soldier wants it. After that, they go in and clean up the mess.

And, of course, there’s all the non-direct, supporting missions that the AF controls — GPS (yeah!), satellite communications, weather over the war zone (aka “theater”), basically all the space stuff outside of reconnaissance. I also have a buddy over there doing something a bit different — he’s in charge of setting up the Iraq Air Forces version of Officer Training School. It’s where all their pilots and other officers will go to “boot camp” prior to getting their commission as officers and moving on to pilot training or whatever else.

I’m sure there’s plenty of other miscellaneous tasks we’re doing over there, but I’m just not in the know.

As far as your second question of “how do we perceive the whole thing,” well, that’s a bit more of a quagmire (giggity). Some people believe very strongly on one side or the other, but most people are pretty moderate; many of the younger guys just know that “a war is going on” and that we’re providing support through accurate GPS. Although I should, I don’t think I have a strong opinion on the matter. I know what we did was great for the Iraqi people, and I hear stories about their thankfulness when guys come back. I know what we’re doing now is necessary for Iraq’s success as a democracy, otherwise they’ll end up potentially worse off than before. I know we can’t make a public “we’re going to pull troops out by xx date” statement, b/c that’s pretty much a ridiculous mistake that only tells the enemy how long they need to wait before they can attack and meet their objectives without opposition. But that’s about all I know or have thought about.

Did that answer your questions? There’s actually good info/stories on the www.af.mil page from overseas about what some guys are doing, and (I don’t know the link) there’s more in-depth stories in “Airman Magazine” somewhere within the af.mil domain.

I told him that we feel about the same way. The Iraq war is a nightmare on many levels, but we have to complete the mission or we will have made an even bigger mess than we already have. Timetabling the way to a specific date will definitely end the insurgency, because why waste anymore munitions? We’re leaving, so just wait. That can only be perceived by the enemy as a victory on their part. They finally beat us into submission, and we’re pulling out disgracefully.

The other thing I did was go research a bit on the stuff that was mentioned. These “Small Diameter Bombs” are very cool. Their accuracy over the distance they can be fired is amazing, and the description of hitting a car while minimizing damage to the house seems to be awfully accurate. The GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb is some serious technology that is very versatile in what it can accomplish. If you don’t believe the claim about blowing up a tank under a bridge without heavy bridge damage, check this out. Here’s the aftermath. Sure enough, minimal damage, even through steel reinforced concrete, 3 feet of which is within operational specs of this particular munition.

Now, as to my title question. How does any of this justify the expense required to build/maintain/deploy it? For me, this is easy…

This is a graph of a concept known as Circular Error Probable (CEP). This graph is very important for many reasons, but let’s start with some basics. A simple definition of CEP is “The distance from a target in which 50% of munitions will hit.” Now, if you’re any kind of statistician, you already balk at the “50%” statistic. Obviously, if 50% hit within a certain distance, then 50% hit outside that distance, so it’s a bogus stat and might be easily written off. But, the graph clarifies this further, because CEP is the first distance “n” given all distances using a normal distribution of ordnance distances from targets. That means there is a “bell curve” that peaks at the target position and trails off very rapidly by 3 times the CEP.

Moreover, the CEP for precision guided ordnance doesn’t follow a normal distribution due to the very precise nature of the weaponry. That means that the CEP will more than likely contain a higher than 50% ratio of hits and nearly 100% of all munitions land within 2xCEP of target.

In the case of the SDB, the CEP is 5-8m. That’s 15-25 feet. Since the bomb is precision guided, that means that almost all ordnance will hit within 50ft of the target, even on the worst possible targeting effort. This also means that a majority of the ordnance will land within 20 feet of the target. If the weapon is fired from a closer range the accuracy increases still, and the more telemetry that can be leveraged, the more accurate still.

Basically, everything my USAF buddy claimed is correct. This bomb gives you the ability to hit very isolated targets and save lives. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t put a price on human life, not even an Iraqi citizen halfway around the world that I’ve never met. If spending more money on defense provides one piece of technology that can accomplish the mission with less collateral damage, then spend the money.

If we stopped all this high technology and went back to churning out high-explosive and incendiary bombs and revert to the carpet bombing days of WWII. Heck, we could even try to top the Soviet Tsar Bomba with a >50 Megaton nuclear bomb and just level Baghdad altogether. I’m sure that our defense costs would drop dramatically in the R&D areas and we would have a nice budgetary surplus thanks not only to the decrease in defense spending, but the lack of foreign aid as most all of the middle east would soon perish in the nuclear winter and fallout.

I realize that we need to spend money here for things like roads, schools, and life-enrichment, but I think Mother Teresa was onto something when she said, “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” If my daughter having a better education comes at the cost of lost lives in other parts of the world, then I’m home schooling her. The Bible (as usual) sums it up even better, “Anyone who sets himself up as ‘religious’ by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world. (Jam 1:27 MSG)”

We have a responsibility to protect all the people in the world from corruption, and a strong defense insures the old adage “Peace Through Strength”. Sun Tzu recognized that adage as an important part of maintaining peace in a world of war, and Ronald Reagan saw it as the same. If the USA can keep the peace by showing unwavering strength, we will be respected. If we can do that while simultaneously demonstrating a desire to preserve and enrich all human life, then we will be admired.

-Chris

If you want something answered, let me know and I’ll list it up there…

Also, check THIS out!! It’s like those fridge magnets from the olden days! It updated your movements in realtime to the server, so you can share in the fun with others…

Comment with the funniest poems you can make.

OH! If you’re wondering about all those fancy icons underneath every post, those are links to the many, many, many link aggregator sites around the internet. Now the whole world can be made aware of my musings! yay!

-Chris

-Chris

I cannot believe that it is February already. January was simply a blur. With a kid being born on New Year’s day, you really don’t get that “Here comes 2006!” mentality. It’s all about the baby and when you finally poke your head up to see what’s happened in the world, it’s February! shish

Anyway… there’s been some cool stuff going down in my perimeter…

First

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAIME!

I know that it is belated here on the blog, but the world should know. There are pictures of her cake on the photo site (photoalbum.theh…). We had a nice day, and my gift to Jaime was letting her order herself some stuff on Old Navy. I realize that this is, by all accounts, a rather lame gift. What you don’t understand is, she loves to shop, and she hasn’t gone clothes shopping for her normal self in months due to Emma’s residence.

All in all, she got some stuff that she really wanted/needed/fancied and that’s what matters to me.

Also, I’ve overhauled the above linked photoalbum site as well. I was many, many, MANY versions in arrears on that system. I brought it up to the latest spec and threw a new look & feel on there to boot. The latest version has some nice additions. My favorites are the “last pictures uploaded” and “last albums changed” areas near the top. It makes it easy to see what has changed “at-a-glance”. Previously, you had to navigate a category to see if there were any new albums/photos. Well, NO MORE OF THAT!

Check it out and let me know if you have any feedback.

You also might have noticed, but only if you’re a WoW geek, that I redid the addons page to make it MUCH easier to use. I broke apart the active/inactive addons into two lists, and made both lists sortable to find what you are looking for easier. As I mentioned before, hardly a day goes by without a change or ten :-) on that page. Also, if you see, or don’t see, an addon that you have suggestions about, please comment and let me know. I have worked hard to be able to account for what every single one of those addons is doing to my interface, so if you have questions, I might have answers… :-P

Speaking of wow geekiness, check THIS out: [Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros] or [Ashkandi, Greatsword of the Brotherhood] or even [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker] or perhaps [Ashbringer]. Whoops, almost forgot [The Twin Blades of Azzinoth]!!

Yeah, I found a WordPress plugin that auto-links all WoW Items in line. So nerdy…

So here’s some cool news. We found out recently that two sets of our friends are adopting children. Moreover, they are both adopting from Guatemala! The weird thing is, these two sets of friends don’t know each other AT ALL, but made decisions to adopt at just about the exact same time. They both feel God pulling them very strongly to do it and do it this year!! We are so happy for them and, as you might have guessed, are wanting to support them however we can. If you would like to help financially, let me know and I will put you in touch with them for that purpose.

At the least, I know they covet your prayers over this whole process. Foreign adoption is a trying ordeal, and we hope that is goes as smooth as possible. We plan to adopt in the future as well, so we’ll be taking notes the whole time. :-)

That’s enough for now. I’ll holla later. ;-)

-Chris

It’s been a fun couple of weeks, and we got to take Emma to the doctor today to see if we’d screwed her up.

The doctor’s exact words were “She’s perfect.”, so I guess we’re in the clear!!

I head back to work on Monday, so please pray for the big change as Jaime will be solo during the day, and I will be worried the whole time. :-) In all seriousness, Jaime is an awesome mom, and I don’t worry about her doing a great job, I just worry because I’m a natural “fixer” and I have a hard time taking my hands off of a situation…

So, pray for us as we go back to our almost normal lives.

We’re going to go to Church this Sunday, which should be a really fun time!! We were gonna go last week, but Saturday was pretty rough and we didn’t want to take her just to have to calm her the whole time. Now we’re starting to get the hang of it a bit, and we’re ready to give Church a go.

I’ve been posting pictures as much as I can, but we have been more focused on spending time with her than taking snapshots. More will come though as we get more settled and she really starts growing.

Speaking of growing, she weighed in at 8lb. 5oz. today!! That’s 1lb. 5oz. more than her weight when she was released from the hospital. She’s really feeding well, and Jaime’s nothing short of a pro at breastfeeding. We’re going to start pumping a bit soon, then I’ll be able to bottle feed her and give Jaime a break.

We had a nice laundry list of questions for the doc today, and he patiently answered them all. He’s such an awesome doctor. If you live on the northside and are looking for a great doctor, I highly suggest Dr. William Wunder. He runs a family practice, and has been like a good friend before/since the delivery. He actually stopped by our room to share a story about double deliveries he had to do last night. He also noted that both of them added together were easier than ours. :-)

So, we’re still trucking and she’s still growing. Keep on praying for us and if you would like to come visit, just let me know. If you need my contact info, shoot me an email from the contact tab.

Now, on to the mundane business of free time….

I’ve been playing only a bit of World of Warcraft, and usually in short spurts. It’s still fun and it’s a nice stress reliever to focus my brain on something else.

When I first started, a buddy from work, Don, brought me up to speed about the power of addons within the User Interface (UI) of the game. Basically, you can load some little tools that are written by various people to aid you in certain tasks within the game. They help you to overcome many of the annoyances of the game that you find from the start, but some add functionality that the game simply doesn’t include out of the box.

I started with a packaged collection from Insomniax (www.insomniax.n…). It was really good, but I noticed almost immediately certain things that I didn’t like. After Blizzard (the company that “owns” WoW) released some patches that basically screwed up the addons that had been working. You can think of it like a phone cord plugging into a wall. If the phone company came into your house and replaced all your phone jacks with new, differently shaped phone jacks, your phone service would still be available, but until you replaced your phone cords, you couldn’t use it.

Due to those changes, which broke most of the addons and caused lots of in-game errors related to the UI, I started tinkering with the individual addons, instead of a collection.

I slowly whittled the collection down to the individual addons, and figured out what each one of the did. From there, I was able to remove many of the addons that added to value to my gaming experience, and also added a few that I really love.

Sum total, I now maintain a fully customized addon collection of 90+ addons that all do different things that I really couldn’t live without. :-)

If you click on the WoW addons tab above, you can see the latest collection that I am using. I maintain the versions as I update/test/validate them, and I do that almost weekly.

Anyway, have a great weekend, and I’ll catch up with you all later!!!

Oh, Andy, I got your phone call and email, thanks for the contacts and I’ll ping you next week sometime.

Thanks everyone for your patience!!!!

-Chris

We had a home nurse stop by the house today. Riverview sends a nurse out after a couple of days to answer any additional questions you might have after having the kid home for a couple nights. She was super nice and very very helpful. She layed a bunch of concerns to rest regarding all the little stuff that we have seen. Basically, as a new parent, every little new thing, no matter how minor it may seem, is a concern until someone smarter than you gives you the old “no problem”.

The sum total is that everythings great and getting better. Emma’s gained 2 oz, which means that breastfeeding is going swell. Moreover, Jaime is healing very well and her treatment is definitely helping.

My mom, dad, and sister came up for a visit today. They just loved seeing Emma, and she was in a great, alert mood. She was wide eyed and looking around until they all settled in and Emma slowly nodded to sleep. The family arrived right between feedings at nearly perfect timing, and got to spend a couple solid hours with the little princess. Dad took some pictures of the visit and they are posted to the photoalbum site already (photoalbum.theh…).

We’ve been trying to keep track of Emma feedings/changings etc. It’s helpful when trying to establish a more concrete schedule in the future. To that end, I ran across a handy piece of software called Baby Manager made by Babble Soft (www.babblesoft….).

We haven’t really used it yet, but it has a pocketPC interface that basically reduces to pushing buttons when you start/stop feeding, and it calucates the duration and logs the details. It does the same thing for diaper changes as well, only without duration. It seems really handy and automatically syncs with the Windows version do you can prepare reports and see what schedule works best for mom/baby.

If your nursing, you should check it out and post some feedback here. Also, if anyone has seen any better software, especially one with a pocketPC interface, let me know!

Have a great weekend!!!

-mrw