Nostalgia

Looking through old photos, it's hard to believe how tiny Allie was the day we brought her home!

Playing with her gator for the first time.

In the yard with her mom.

Our first family photo!

And now she's an adult - where did the time go?!

Short Shoppers

I saw a couple of very short shoppers while I was at Trader Joe's today.

Two guide dogs in training!  The trainers were working with them both outside the store on the sidewalk and inside the store walking through aisles.

What a great thing to see!

Questionable Products

A few questionable products seen recently.

This is the sort of thing that may have contributed
to the financial crisis in the U.S.
Seen at our church yard sale.

These jeans may prevent your wallet from being stolen,
but not your manhood.
Seen at Ikea.

I wish the inventor of this product would go on Shark Tank.
The comments would be hilariously brutal.
Seen at Wal-Mart.

Don't get your hopes up, people on my Christmas list - I didn't buy any of these.

Turducken

Did someone say Turducken?!?!

Product Review: Westinghouse 46" LED TV

From J:

Our house has a nice, large space above the mantle that's perfect for hanging a large TV. Naturally, we went out and bought one. It was a bit of an impulsive purchase - we were at Sam's Club one day and I saw this Westinghouse TV on sale. I was familiar with what TVs cost at the time and it was a very good deal; I pulled up some reviews on my phone and they were generally good. Awesome, we found a TV. Bought it, crammed it into the back of the Accord and hung it on the wall.

TV features:

• 1080p, 46"
• LED edge-lit backlight
• 2x HDMI, 1x composite, 1x VGA video inputs
• Multiple cinema presets
• Randomly turns itself off and won't turn back on after 1.5 years

Pretty good, amiright? Except for that last part...let's see if we can do something about that. A little bit of research on the internets reveals to me that, unlike the reviews that were posted when this model was new (when we bought it) the more recent reviews are terrible, echoing the exact same issue that we were having. So what's an enterprising young doctor to do? OPEN IT UP AND FIDDLE WITH THE INSIDES (this phrase is only appropriate for doctors of engineering).

23 screws later, the back plate is off and I can play around with the ribbon cables. Discovery: the right hand LED strip is shorting (dramatic sparking! Seriously, be careful doing stuff like this). I pulled the front bezel off and removed the bottom LCD screen retainer (14 screws) to expose the LED lighting strip.


Not working.

Ideally, I would pull off the LED strip power connector and try and put some insulation around it to prevent the short. The LEDs are mounted on an aluminum bar (the silver strip along the bottom) that's grounded, so that's where the short is occurring. But Westinghouse decided to glue the connecter into place, so that's a no go. Next solution: fiddle with its placement as much as possible to try and get the offending wire out of contact with the aluminum bar. A few minutes later:

Victory.

 

Missing is a photo of the intermediate step when I just had the left side LED strip lit up. I also reassembled it so that there's minimal pressure from the bezel around that connector. We'll see how long the fix lasts, as there's really no permanent fix that I can see that's available to me. Suggestion to Westinghouse engineers: save $0.05 by using fewer screws and buy nicer ribbon cables that won't self-fray and ruin your product. Suggestion to everybody reading this: don't buy a Westinghouse.

 

 

Verdict: 1/5. Would not buy again.

 

 

Update: 15 hours post-fix, TV is dead again. Never again, Westinghouse. Never again.

 



Kitchen Island 2.0

In the ongoing quest for additional storage space, J and I have been eyeing an empty corner in our kitchen for quite some time.  We had been talking about building a desk to fit in the corner since we couldn't seem to find one already made that would fit the space.

Yesterday, J had a brilliant idea - perhaps the island we've used in our kitchen would fit in the corner... and it did!

The former island is now our corner dog supply storage area.  I plan to get a second basket like the one on the top shelf the next time we're at Ikea and we'll be set.

You might be wondering what we did to replace the island.  Well, we got a bigger and fancier island!  The new island has more work space on the counter and more shelf space underneath, both of which make us very happy.  J and Allie did an excellent job assembling it.

And here's the finished island... drumroll............

11/11

Happy Veterans Day to all the current and former members of our armed forces, especially to my hero - my dad.

I Had a Cat Drawn for You

J and I love to watch Shark Tank.  And one of our favorite entrepreneurs on the show was the creator of "I Want to Draw a Cat for You."

$9.95-$14.95 was a little more than I wanted to pay for a funny surprise, but when a half price Groupon became available, that was a price I was willing to pay.  So without J knowing, I purchased a cat drawing for him.

Believe it or not, there is currently a 2-8 week wait for cat drawings, so it turns out that this business model has actually been working.  So after several weeks of waiting, J's cat drawing arrived... and here it is:

J loved it!

Well, At Least...

Even if our football team is terrible this year, at least our mascots are adorable!

Thank you for your continuous cuteness, Albert and Alberta.

Three Peas in a Pod

Today I had the privilege of co-hosting a triplet baby shower for my wonderful friend!  The theme was Three Peas in a Pod... I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

I'm looking forward to meeting these three little sweet peas in just a couple of months!

Tricks for Treats

Allie had a fun Howl-o-ween party at daycare yesterday.  When I picked her up, she came out with a candy corn scarf and I was given a copy of her picture wearing a ghost headband.

She also had the opportunity to trick or treat in the daycare lobby before we went home.  She got to do tricks and received treats (Halloween shaped dog treats) for them.  My favorite was the cat shape!  We also came home with a bag filled with more treats to enjoy for the rest of the evening.

I think Allie was liking Halloween after her daycare experience, but she definitely did not like the trick or treaters coming to our door.  She's too much of a guard dog to be okay with people knocking on our door and us opening it to them.

In an attempt to help the situation, I decided to sit on the porch with our bowl of candy so I could pass it out to children before they knocked on the door.  This helped a little, but Allie still wasn't comfortable with me talking to children (in the tone of voice I often use with her) while she was stuck inside.

Lucky for her, our two bags of candy ran out pretty fast.  I thought we were doing well quantity-wise until a group of about 15 children showed up.  Not surprisingly, we ran out of candy and didn't have any good substitutes in the house, although we did consider giving away fruit cups or granola bars before deciding to call it a night and turn off the porch light.  Allie was happy with this decision.

J went to work dressed as a scientist (he wore what he would normally wear) and I dressed in black and orange for work, complete with a pumpkin pin my mom sent for the holiday.

I'm realizing that we need to clean the bathroom mirror.

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!