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Current News & Events / Re: The Last Time You Were In Steeple Market

« on: December 26, 2008, 06:52:09 PM »

Wow! I  was there twice on the 24th- in the afternoon with my son, picked up probably the last murphys free range chicken for our once-in-a-while beer can chicken meal. I then came in about 6 pm to pick up a tub of giffords ice cream requested by the relatives. It was great that its just a few miles from my home.

I loved that store, and always showed it off to my out of state friends. Very few of them had a store that had the quality items that steeple market had, and that close. It was nice that if I ever needed to make an impromptu extravagant meal, I could pick up 99% of everything there, and for not much more (sometimes even less) than what I would pay at shaws. The only thing steeple market didn't have was fresh herbs, and they never stopped hearing about it from me in my first few years in fairfax.

I hope that when they rebuild, they make a new steeple of some kind, at least as high or higher than the old one was, and that it be visible from inside the store. Now that they have the opportunity to rebuild, I hoe they ask the community some questions about what they would like in there, it was a great store, but now's the time to think about the future- how could it be even better?

I drove there today to take a few pictures, and I was just sad. Really loved that store! I'm also glad no one was hurt- an old building like that, when that dried up wood catches, it usually goes in minutes.

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Current News & Events / Re: Only 76 Days Left

« on: December 03, 2008, 12:59:44 PM »

I picked up two converter boxes using the rebates. I paid a little more for the second from Best Buy- it was a apex model. The first one I picked up (from Sears) was a magnavox kind. I'd recommend people stay away from that one- the remote is a real chore to use. It's a light gray remote with white letters, unreadable except in bright, direct light.

The apex model has s-video out. I wanted to compare this to the other models, but none of the stores I went to would allow me to open a box to look at the remote to check for common sense placement and layout. I regret buying the magnavox, and another catch with the DTV program- you cannot a terribly designed box them unless it's broke- and then only for the same model.

Interestingly enough, I was only able to get 1 or two channels when using a rabbit ear style antenna indoors. (previously got 3 channels decently with rabbit ears). I then set up an ancient, formerly roof mounted ugly-as-sin antenna, although on the far end of my property. Now I get all the channels mentioned above by Loctavious. (CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, FOX)  The nice thing about the apex model is that the remote has a signal strength button right on the remote, so its easier to figure out optimal placement for the antenna.

Another catch with DTV, you can't split the signal from the antenna with an older splitter- it needs to be a low impedance type of splitter- but even those seem to degrade signal quality somewhat. I ended up running two lines from my antenna to my house for both TV's.

And I didn't get any canadian stations- although I never did with analog. I live in a valley, so I don't get much of a strong signal at all.  CBS comes in the best, and its signal strength is about 55%, and I can get 100% quality from that signal for the most part.