The New TV
Our old big screen TV that we got from Radio Shack about 7 years ago started acting up last month. JC is a whiz at fixing TV's so he printed out some pages from the service manual CD, tweaked the settings and cured the dim picture and several other problems. But after he left, a black horizontal bar appeared that bounced the picture up and down like a Parkinson's patient on a “Magic Fingers” motel bed.
We put up with it for a while and even began to get used to it, until Carol started complaining of headaches and I gave up trying to time my tremors with the bounces. JC wasn't sure what it would take to fix it, and Radio Shack wanted a hundred bucks just to come and look at it, so we finally decided that it was time for a new TV. If JC could fix the old one we'd give it to one of the kids.
“Since we can't figure out what to get each other for Christmas, let's get something that we both can enjoy!” I said, rationalizing my hopes for a really big screen TV.
“After all,” I said, “What else is there to do in the winter time except watch the boob tube?”
I went on line and found a 65 Inch Mitsubishi on sale at Amazon dot com with free shipping, and best of all it was bigger than JC's!
After some trepidation, and discussion with the boss, I went ahead and ordered it. Amazon confirmed the order and gave us a tracking number to watch its progress as it traveled by truck from Lewisberry PA to Harrisburg PA, to Columbus Ohio, by air to Sacramento, then to PDX in Portland and finally by truck, hopefully to its new home.
Its journey started on December 23rd and it was supposed to end here on January 5th. That gave me enough time to build a stand to set it on. Amazon wanted $400.00 for one and I figured I could build one just as good, if not better, for less than $50.00. I picked up a piece of high density particle board at the lumber yard and went to work.
After a lot of sawing, cussing, screwing, gluing, nailing, more cussing and sanding I had a TV stand that was ready to paint. I bought a quart of flat black enamel and a roller at Ace Hardware and commenced to paint not only the stand, but both of my hands and just about everything else in close proximity. I cleaned up by throwing the roller and brush away and taking a shower.
I was disappointed the next morning when I went out to the work shop to view my handiwork. The flat black was just too...flat. I hurried down to Ace, picked up a quart of black semi-gloss, another brush and roller and went to work. When it dried I was disappointed again, in my rush I'd picked the wrong color, stupidly thinking there was only one color of black, I'd picked “India Ink Black” instead of “Ace Of Spades Black” and now it was too... India Inky?
And so, back to the hardware store where I carefully picked out a can of “Ace Of Spades Black” satin, (they were out of semi-gloss,) and another roller. (I'd at least cleaned the brush!) The third try proved to be the charm, and the well-painted TV stand was finished. Total cost – particle board $27.00, paint and rollers - $42.00.
I set the stand up in the living room and filled the lower part with two tower speakers, a Hi Def DVD player, surround sound amp, video recorder and a center speaker. We carried in a small, (25”) but heavy, TV from the bedroom and put it on top to try it out and to give us something to watch until the new set arrived. Unfortunately the whole conglomeration was so heavy it was almost impossible to slide across the carpet.
A trip to Wal-Mart solved the problem with a package of furniture glides which I glued and screwed to the bottom, and I was finished just in time for the new TV!
On the next morning, Jan 5th, I called the trucking company to find out what time the TV would be delivered. When the secretary said, “Uh, Mr. Cleland, there's a problem, let me put the dispatcher on. Great, I thought, it's probably not going to get here today. A man's voice came on the phone. “Your TV was at our loading dock in Lincoln City last night and someone broke into the truck and stole it along with two cases of Nike tennis shoes!
It had traveled all the way from Pennsylvania and got swiped 60 miles from it's destination!
I spent the rest of the day on the phone with Visa to get the payment stopped, with Amazon where I talked to an Asian lady who's English was so bad I could barely understand her, and with several of the trucking companies that had handled it. Two days later Amazon reordered the TV, I lifted the dispute from our credit card and another TV was on its merry way across the country.
The new tracking number supplied by the trucking company showed a now familiar route; Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Columbus Ohio, Sacramento California, and then PDX in Portland on January 13th.
The trucking company called the next day to get directions and an hour later we had our new TV. It took me all afternoon to figure out how to operate the electronic gizmos, bells and whistles, but it has a beautiful picture, and its bigger than JC's!
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