Today I made it back down to the fort snelling state park again. Today I went back to Pike’s island, but did not quite make it to the river split. I decided to turn back after about 2.5 miles, as I did not want to push my self to far. We will try again next week.
So the task was simple, get a TV in the basement so I have something to do when walking on the treadmill. I figure go to Ultimate Electronics, get a 24″ tv and a tv stand, throw it on the wall, 2 hours later I am done. Man did I wish it went this way. Based on my basement, I figure 24″ was the right size. 21″ was to small, and 27″ would be to big. I get to the store, and between the 15 21″ tvs, and the 10 27″ tvs, they had like two 24″ tvs, one was less than the 21″ tvs, the other was more than the 27″ tvs. I was eyeing the cheaper one, and went to look at the wall mount stands. The stand to put the TV on the wall, was going to cost more than the TV.
At this point I decided it was time to leave trusty ultimate electronics, and head down to Circuit City. I have a bit more luck there. I find a nice 24″ tv, for a low price, and find a wall mount bracket also for a low price. Get the TV guy, convince the 4 circuit city folks that the tv is not going to fall out of my trunk and get home.
I start looking at how to mount this sucker. I know exactly where I want it. I start making up the wall, start drilling, and I notice the screws are 3″ long. I then mark the drill for 3″, and it goes through the wall. I look at the wall, and it is 2″ thick. Would have thought I would have noticed that in the 2 years I had the house, but guess not.
Now faced with this problem, I know that a wall with 2×2 studs is not going to support a 24″ tv. I spent a few hours thinking about it, and I just went to get a 2×4 stud. I cut off a foot or so to drive some lag bolts through, to have some beef on the other side of the wall (to keep the bracket from pulling through the wall). I then used the rest of the 2×4 to support the bottom of the wall mount bracket stand, so most of the weight is on that point. Its ugly, but it works.
Well, something that has been on my “I need to get” list for years is a treadmill (clutch)
Still on the list:
A sound system for the living room, A sofa for the living room.
Removed from the list:
A new car, A big screen tv, A nice chair, A nice bed
(/clutch)
Anyways, I had to find a somewhat sturdy treadmill, and finding one for less than $5000 is not a trivial task. I did tons of searching on the web, Usenet, everywhere. Every line I looked at only had the high end models as sturdy ones, hence the $5000. I started looking on the websites of the local places that sell exercise equipment, and I found out that 2ND Wind has a line of True Fitness treadmills. I looked around, and it turns out that the True 500 series is all heavy duty from the low end to the high end. I ended up getting the True 500 non-programmable treadmill. All I want it to do is go around in circles, and it does that just fine.
So far I am very happy with it, it has a nice wide walking area, and can go slow, what else can you ask for.
Well, quite a bit going on and I have not done a blog post in quite some time, so I am going to do several posts today….
Over the past month or so, I have been doing quite a bit of walking. Every time I go out, it is nice to find a new place to walk to, after awhile the city streets get a bit boring. What works out for me is that I live in a great area that is close to lots of stuff.
What I like to do in a evening is go down to the wood lake nature center in my city, Richfield.
On the Minnesota river, the Minnesota off-road cyclists club>maintains a nice trail in Bloomington on the Minnesota river bottoms. This is a nice trail to hit on the weekends when I have more time. Every time I made it a bit further in, and the trail can be accessed from several places.
Today I went down to the Fort Snelling State Park. Man is this just a wonderful area! I paid my $25 for the annual pass to any state park, and if the weather stays nice, man will it be worth it!
The area is very nicly wooded, right where the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers meet. Today I walked along the Mississippi on Pike’s island. My goal was to make it to the point where the two meet, but after 1.7 miles, and I was not there yet, I decided to turn back. We will see, another day I will make it.
So I am not much for gadgets but I did some looking around for a MP3 player. I wanted something small, with a decent amount of storage, and long run time. The YP-MT6 fit the bill.
This sucker is light, small and has a 41 hour runtime on one AA battery. The audio quality is very good (I have been using it for podcasts) and it has a built-in FM tuner which is very nice. As I mentioned it has a very long runtime, and is fairly easy to use. Only downsides is that it does use its own USB to special connector, instead of a standard mini USB port, and it does tend to scratch easy. Those do not bother me all that much, so I still love it.
Compact, light and long lasting, what else can you ask for.