My wife and I had an opportunity to experience the amazing services that the Ronald McDonald House provides to families with children under hospital care. Their mission is to create, find, and support programs that directly improve the health and well-being of children and their families, and they don’t fall short when it comes to following through. Continue reading
Category Archives: Reviews
Verizon Lower Rates, Exceeds Expectations!
It’s been almost 8 months since I dropped Sprint’s service, and I still couldn’t be happier with Verizon. Usually I post about negative experiences, but tonight’s call to the big red phone company has left me in a good mood.
Blue Apron Unboxing
This week, Kelly and I received our trial shipment from Blue Apron. Blue Apron is a mail-order gourmet food service that delivers recipes and pre-portioned ingredents for three meals for two people for $60 each week. (That’s $10 per person, per meal). Check out the unboxing video and some more of my opinion on the service below.
In True 3D
So for Valentines day, I was invited out by Vince and Gina to see My Bloody Valentine in 3D! I have been to 3D movies before, and was expecting something dumb such as, “when the killer raises his axe, put on your 3D glasses!” and then we’d get some cheesy 30 seconds of 3D video. I was mistaken.
The entire film was shown in 3D. The theater used polarized lenses to separate the images which is far superior to the Red and Blue lenses, and allows for accurate color representation.
Further research on this style of 3d imagery showed that this style of 3D imagery is created by two projectors each one fitted with a polarizing filter set at a 90 degree angle from the opposing filter. In addition, the screen must be made of materials that reduce the reflected light from altering it’s polarization. All this would explain why it could be very difficult to have a home theater set up the same way, although, I have a feeling that this is the principal being used by cutting edge “3D Televisions”. I’d have to look into that a bit farther though.
A week ago or so, I had announced to friends that i had ordered a pair of Anaglyph 3D glasses. These are the Red/Blue glasses. This was prompted by my receiving the Amber/Cyan Anaglyph glasses at Wal-Greens for the Super-bowl/Chuck 3D TV events on Super-Bowl Sunday. They were kind of cool but because of the amber tint, they weren’t good for the numerous Anaglyph You Tube videos I found, so I hopped online and spent $15 (including shipping) for a pair of GOOD 3D glasses.
So today I decided to try to make my own 3D image. I actually took 3 pairs of photos in my living room of various areas/objects. This one is my first (and ironically, came out the best.) If you have a pair of Anaglyph glasses (even the cheap cardboard ones) click on the image and take a look. It’s not bad and you can see the depth in the couch and on the animal’s body. Not bad for a first try!
No More Television
My family has always been very handy. My father and uncle both skilled craftsmen. My father did a lot of home repairs, and my uncle, being an engineer, handled a lot of the electrical work. Perhaps this is where I got my interest in DIY projects.
I remember working with my father and uncle years ago, putting together electronics projects. I was young and didn’t know what was going on, but learned at a very early age what electrical components were called, how to read resistors, and even picked up some general theory about electronics. It was back then that I learned to solder electronics, a skill I apparently still have today.
After what must be 10 or so years of not touching a soldering iron, I decided to assemble the TV-B-Gone kit I picked up at The Last Hope conference. I’d say it took me about 30 minutes to an hour to assemble, kinda pathetic considering it’s just 19 components. Then again, I had to re-acquaint myself to the equipment, and try to deal with my tremors, which were actually no problem at all. My hand was rather steady.
I took my time, and the TV-B-Gone is assembled and works. I was able to shut off my TV (Funny thing is, it turns it off, then on, then off again. I guess my TV uses the same code for on and off. Makes sense since there’s only 1 power button on the remote). The next trial will have to be somewhere where there’s a lot of TVs. Maybe Wal-Mart/Best Buy/etc…Maybe a bar. Who knows. I’m still impressed that it works!
I’ll have to look for some other electronics projects to pick up so I can get used to this sort of thing. Then, maybe next time my stereo breaks, instead of spending $600 on a new one, I’ll try to fix it myself.