Empty Notebook

I’ve had it less than a day, and I fully understand why so many people are buying HDTVs. I’ve seen it at friends houses and in the store, but I never really worried about getting one until I decided to spend some money and redo my home office. I bought my house a little over four years ago, and the home office was the recipient of all the leftover furniture from my apartment. It’s contents were a 15 year old couch, a 15 year old small entertainment center, a 24 inch Apex TV, my “way too big for it’s own good” computer desk and a huge coffee table.

My poor 11×11 room looked tiny.

Over the last couple of months I decided that I wanted to make that room worthwhile, remove the couch, the computer desk and the coffee table, clean out the closet, etc. When the proper motivation (aka my wonderful girlfriend) kicked me in the butt (wanting to make a space useful for both of us that we like to be in) I started looking at ways to change the room. The couch was definitely going, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit chairs in the room. My girlfriend pointed out that I should just flip flop the room and everything would work out fine.

So I found some recliners at Roomstore that weren’t too expensive, and removed the couch and coffee table. I even broke out a saw (this is highly unusual for me since I don’t do too much with tools) and cut my computer desk down to size for the opposite side of the room. The only problem I had left was what to do about the television. It became clear to me that it was time to get a flat panel HDTV and wall mount it.

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After researching a bunch of different TVs in the 26 or 32 inch range, I decided that the best bang for the buck in my budget was a 32″ Vizio. I headed down to Sam’s Club yesterday and picked up the VX32LHDTV10a. All I can say is that for under $600, I can’t find an LCD to beat it.

The picture clarity is fantastic on the HD channels, great for digital channels and average for the analog channels. In certain circumstances there is a bit of ghosting (mainly I saw it on a tennis match where the player’s dark hair on a dark blue background caused it) and dark, fast-moving, pictures are a little choppy at times. But then again, I’m sensitive to those issues (I’m the type that sees rainbows on a DLP) and for a secondary TV it’s fantastic. It has a ton of fine tuning features (you can even adjust the RGB colors independently if you wish) the sound is good for TV speakers (I prefer it with the “Surround” sound turned off and the Treble and Base pumped up quite a bit). The Red Sox / Yankees game looked fantastic on ESPN2 HD last night.

The only downside I saw is that sometimes HD is TOO clear. For instance, I didn’t need to see the bags under Ann Curry’s eyes this morning on the Today Show, nor did I need to see Brian Brohm’s pores on his closeup on College Football Live on ESPN HD last night. 720p is plenty for a 32″ TV. I honestly can’t tell the difference between 1080 and 720 until I get to the 40″ model line. The pixelation bothers me. Heck I didn’t need to see Jim Belushi in HD either, but I watched for a while because the picture looked to so good.

I can’t speak to the reliability of it yet, since it’s been less than a day. Thankfully Vizio offers in-home service with their 1-year warranty for all TVs over 30 inches. (That was the final selling point over the 26 inch model to me. I figured for $150 more, I got a bigger TV and if something breaks I’m not spending money on shipping.) It’s easy for me to see why Vizio is selling so many TVs lately. Whether I’d go with one for a “main” TV of 40 inches or more, I’m not sure. I’d have to look at the specific model when I’m ready to purchase, I have a suspicion that I’d head over the Samsung’s camp then and pay a little more, but overall I’m very, very pleased with my first HDTV!

I finally bought a pair of hedge clippers and trimmed out the front flower bed of my house. ‘Bout time I got the idea, eh? On top of that, my Crepe Myrtle is about to explode with blooms. Evidently, the fact that I hacked the heck out of it this spring has made it thrive. Maybe my thumb is a bit green?

Remember those CFLs I installed to replace my globe lights and my main light bulbs in the house? I guess they are working.

April 2006 (kwH) 468
April 2007 (kwH) 263

Granted, there are some other factors at play here, like use of air conditioning and the fact that my old school monitor was replaced by a more efficient LCD, but the bulbs are a large part of it. I’m interested to see what May ends up light, since I’ve installed that programmable thermostat for the AC / Heat.

Let’s just hope I don’t break a CFL!

Not really, but I did replace my thermostat today, with a new programmable one made by Honeywell. You can set different temperatures for all 7 days of the week. Basically, it sets a temperature for when you wake up, leave the house, return from the house and go to sleep. The default settings (Energy Star recommendations) were a bit TOO aggressive for me. I can’t imagine letting the house get up to 85 during the day, but I am going to try out 82 on weekdays while I’m not home. That’s 7-8 hours where it won’t be 77 anymore, it’ll be interesting to see if I see the savings on the electric bill. I’ve already seen a steady 40kwH drop thanks to the replacement of most of my light bulbs with CFLs.

Anyway, back to the thermostat. The install wasn’t too bad, the package even contains the labels needed to label the wiring in the wall. I wired up everything properly on the first try, but when I started the unit it was blowing hot air on the A/C setting. I was puzzled for a bit, but then I found the section in the manual that involved the “system” settings, which I changed to my type of Heat Pump system, BINGO I had cold air. So anyway, I’m quite pleased with myself. I’m always happy when I can be handy around my house. Home improvement projects (even small ones like a thermostat) are fun when they’re successful.