Redbox DVD Rentals

Say good bye to your video rental store and say goodbye to the online video rentals and say hello to Redbox. Redbox allows one to rent current release DVD videos for a total of $1 plus tax for a 24 hour rental. New releases come out on Tuesday of each week. I had co-worker who was raving about his one day and suggested I try it. I thought I will give this a try at somepoint. Well, last Thursday was that day.


I went on line to http://www.redbox.com/ and signed up online. I then went around the corner Walgreens and proceeded up to the box. I selected a movie to rent, entered the information to verify my identity, and swiped my credit card. The movie was then vended out of the slot in the side of the machine.


When I got home I checked my email and there was an email indicating that my total was $1.07 if I return the movie by 9pm the next night. I had rented this around 12pm on Thursday. I watched my movie and took it back around the corner to return it. I selected that I wanted to return a movie was prompted to put the DVD in with instruction on the dvd how to do it. I placed the DVD in the machine and the screen indicated that it was returned. When I got home checked my email and a confirmation was there indicating that it had been returned. I did get an email for signing up and giving them an email for a free rental which I will use this week. I have also read because I gave them permission to send me text messages via my phone I will get one free rental a week. I will wait and see what happens this week.

All in all this is a very slick idea. Very convenient as I have one less than a mile from my house and worked really well. I will be trying this again this week with my free rental code in hand.

Happy 70th birthday Dad!

I want to wish my dad a happy 70th birthday.

Taking the HD (High Definition) Plunge

A month or two back my sister suggested that I take my family room and set it up as a family room. Looks like that has worked out to be a great suggestion. When I started work on this room there was a model railroad layout in the one corner with stuff piled around it. I have been working to get rid of , sell off, or throw away stuff to clean out the area. I also moved some of the stuff to a storage area in my utility room. It has been a pain staking process.

The one thing I added to the idea was a 42" plasma TV that I mounted in the one corner of the room. I finnally on Friday managed to get the TVmounted and all the cables run for the antenna connection. This is my first High Definition TV and I am amazed at the picture clarity on the channels that are broadcasting in HD. Sunday my son and I went shopping for the TV stand were the DVD recorder is sitting and the kids Playstation two is located. The old Playstation stand is now a home for my laptop. I purchased an additional recliner from the kids mom so there are three seats in the room. I am using the old convert box as a tuner for the DVD burner which will allow me to record one show and watch a show. The kids seem really pleased with the idea. My son was more than willing to give me input on how to set it up.

This afternoon I got off work early and finished the work. The work I did today involved moving the stuff in the shevles to the opposite side of where they were. The video's behind the TV and the pictures to the other side. I hope the kids are supprised when they get here on Friday.

The Netbook

Back in October 2009 my son got a Acer Aspire Netbook. At that time I personally couldn't see what the appeal would be to get one of these, but for him it was the perfect first computer. It basically has the same amout of computing power as my Dell D400. My D400 is one of the smaller laptop computers with a full keyboard. My concern with this smaller computer would be could I type on it if I was using it or would my hands be to big for the keyboard and would this make the computer useless to me.

The first opportunity for me to use his computer came one night at Mc Donalds. He wanted to take it in and try it out as he had never had it connected to the internet. At that time Mc Donalds charged $2.99 for two hours of access (as of January 15th unlimited access is now free) to the internet. I spring for the $2.99 and in a few minutes we were connected.


While he and his sister played in the play area I tried this smaller and lighter computer out and low and behold I could type on the keyboard and use it just like my D400. My son recently wanted me to connect it up and take it on one of our railfan outings and I was highly impressed by how it performed. After we figured out how to make the screen brighter it worked out great.


The Acer Aspire uses a Atom N270 processor running at 1.6 ghz. My Dell D400 is about 1.4 ghz. The Aspire has 1 gb of memory and 512kb cach memory. It also has a 160 GB hard drive. The whole thing only weights 2.44 pounds. The down is no CD or floppy drive as that must be purchased seperately. His mom managed to get this computer for him for a mear $249 plus tax. I happened to have a spare external CD burner that I let him have to use with this that I bought back in 2002. All in all I am quite impressed with how well this computer operates and how light it is. When I decided to replace my current laptop I may just get one of these plus an external cd burner. I am a Dell man my self and I will be looking to see what they have.

Blogger M.I.A

Missing in action. This blogger has been missing in action over the past several months. Too much life at the current time. We had a major issue with my son back in December that saw him in the hospital from December 18th until December 30th. He is now on medication. The good news is he is doing a lot better now and is in his third week with no problems at school. I thank God for whatever it was that changed and for the great improvement that we have seen. I also want to thank all of you that prayed for him.

For the past few months I have been working fifty plus hours a week and what little time I have had left I have been devoting to cleaning up the family room area of my house. I am almost there with the family room. After working for a while each evening on that it seems like all I can do then is colapse on the couch and watch TV. The family room I am cleaning out the stuff that was in there. Selling it or getting rid of it if I don't think I will use it. The idea is that it will be a recreation room for the kids when they are here. Yesterday the kids and I went shopping for a 42" Plasma TV for that room. Today I spent some time mounting the bracket ont he wall on which I will mount the new TV on. All in all life is going pretty good at the moment. I am looking forward to getting back to blogging and working on my website. The website hasn't been updated in a year (YIKES!). I am in the process of redesigning the site to make it much easier to update. It currently takes about four hours to process just a little bit of stuff to the site. I am also looking forward to getting back out track side for some rail fanning.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

This month has been very trying for me and my family. I have had many things I could have blogged about, but just haven't had the heart to sit down and write. I did want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!