Tag: Rena

Daewoo Ka Choo

Not enough sleep. I just can’t go to bed early. Normally Sunday’s a day for sleeping in (as is every other day to me). This was to be an exception.

I was in the shower by 8:10. I was dressed a little after 8:40. Five minutes later the phone rang. It was Rena. She and Albert (and the kids) were running late.

No complaints. Albert and Rena are saints. This Sunday morning they are our knights in shining armor. They’ve got a little trailer they can drag behind their SUV and they’ll help us retrieve the TV from BJ’s.

As chronicled earlier, with a blown TV and a now strangely shaped space in our family room we were scrambling to find a set. Picture be damned! We were looking for something that fit and found it in a Daewoo projection model at BJ’s.

Not only did it look right, it was the least expensive of all the TVs we’d seen! Is there a reason for this which will later come back and bite us in the ass? Right now I neither know nor care. I’m just thrilled.

We tooled over to BJ’s and walked in. With a swipe of my credit card and with receipt in hand, we cut the straps that held the gigantic box to a pallet. Albert and I (mostly Albert) hoisted it onto a flat cart and wheeled it into the lot. Three pieces of rope later, we were heading back to Hamden.

I had measured more than once. It looked like there would be about 1/2 inch clearance on the top. On the other hand, the sign above the TV listed a height that was a full inch over what I’d measured. Was there a mistake? Would we go to push the TV only to have to smack into the bottom of the cabinet?

We took the back roads. This thing had a lot of wind resistance. Even tied down, at 60 mph it would surely go airborne. Slow was good.

Albert and I (again, mostly Albert) carried it into the house. After snipping some bands the box slipped directly up and off.

Now the moment of truth. I slid the TV toward the wall unit and it fit! As predicted, there was less than an inch of space – but enough!

When last I looked, Steffie was watching it. She said the color was slightly off. I will attempt to properly align the set later.

We had already had discussions of how we’d like it set for picture coverage. If we allow standard definition TV to fit the whole screen, everyone will be stretched widthwise and look chubby (like me, for instance). On the other hand, if you leave the TV at 4:3 with blank areas at the edges of the screen you’re wasting a lot of space.

Hey – at least there isn’t this huge hole in the family room anymore.

TV Or Not TV – Is That Even A Question?

When I left you early this morning, I had just discovered the TV was a goner. And then the realization that TVs are now shaped differently – 16:9 rather than the old 4:3. That little change is a huge difference because our wall unit was built to accommodate a 4:3 TV.

We headed out to Circuit City to survey the candidates. The first thing we realized was, with the new aspect ratio anything that would fit in the space would have a smaller screen! Sure, we might be able to find a set as wide as the old one, but with 16:9 it wouldn’t be anywhere near as tall.

We searched and searched. Some models were too tall. Some models were to wide. Others were too big in both directions. We weren’t panic stricken, but we were concerned.

Next we headed to Target. I had been to the new Target in North Haven once and remembered it had an electronics section. They did – but no big TVs.

Steffie needed something small, so as she and Helaine checked out, I stood in front of the store watching seagulls fly into today’s howling wind. They weren’t very successful.

My pocket began to vibrate.

There was a call from an unknown number in an unknown location. I answered. It was the central monitoring station. Our burglar alarm had gone off. The police were on their way.

I rounded up Helaine and Stef and headed home. We got there 10-15 minutes later, with the alarm still yelping away. A window in Steffie’s room hadn’t been properly latched. In today’s wind it shifted enough to register a fault.

The police had come, but seeing everything locked up and in good shape, they left. Thank heavens there wasn’t a door ajar. They would have gone upstairs, seen Steffie’s room and called for reinforcements thinking the house had been ransacked!

As it is, I understand we’ll get a warning on the alarm. That means if it happens again, we’ll be fined for calling the police.

We re-measured the TV space and had out again. This time we went to BJ’s.

They don’t have a particularly large collection of big TVs, but unbelievably they had one that fit the bill. It was a Daewoo with a 47″ screen. I think it will fit in the space with less than an inch to spare on top. Even then it will have to be turned sideways and cajoled before it will fit in.

BJ’s doesn’t deliver.

I went to the car only to find the inevitable. It was bigger than the cargo space in the SUV! I couldn’t think of anyone with a pickup, which was what we needed.

I called my friend Kevin. He is truly the solver of all problems. Not this time. He had no access to anything large enough to haul a big TV.

Within the same strip mall as BJ’s is a Home Depot. They have a truck they rent out by the hour. Unfortunately, as I found out, they only rent it if you’re hauling goods of theirs.

Back to the drawing board.

We drove around and pondered. Finally, Helaine came up with a friend we though might have access to a pickup through her business. We called… and then, we hit paydirt.

Tomorrow morning… Mother’s Day morning… Rena and Albert and the kids will come over with their trailer and we’ll all go to BJ’s to get the TV.

Yes, this will leave me with the old one to dispose of. I can deal with that. On the other hand, if I’ve miscalculated… if there isn’t that fraction of an inch to spare… I might go “pfffft” just like the first TV.