Implant Complete

I went to the dentist yesterday - I figured I would start my long weekend with a bit of pain. The worst part, by far, was getting the Novocaine injection into the roof of my mouth. After getting completely numbed up, the actual placement of the implant was completely pain free. Definitely heard some weird sounds, but none of the pain you would normally associate with crunching bone.

So, now i have a screw in my mouth that needs to fuse with the bone over the next 6 months. Very uneventful, just the way I like it. No more dental appointments until March... woo hoo!

Blockbuster Vs. Netflix

I've been a long time user of Netflix - since I got my first DVD player back in 1999 - back when Netflix was a pure rental model, not a subscription service. When they switched to their subscription model, I hated the "End of Late Fees" advertising, because, after all, you were constantly paying - late fee, subscription fee, whatever.

Anyway, eventually they got the pricing model(s) right, and I've enjoyed the service they offer for many years. The one thing that was missing was the ability to walk in to a store and exchange a movie on a whim. That's where Blockbuster could have a killer advantage. Recently, I decided to give Blockbuster Total Access a try. I hunted around the net until I found a 4 week trial of the 3 at a time Total Access Program. Here was my experience:

1. Sign up (thumbs up)
VERY easy. Up and running very quickly, first movie on its way within 1 business day.

2. In-store game rental coupon (thumbs up)
Big selling point for me. They give you 1 free in-store game rental per month with the total access 3 at a time account. That's an $8 value. Nice.

3. Selection (thumbs up)
They have both HD-DVD and Blue Ray titles available, and I found everything I was looking for.

that's where the good stuff ends.

I took my new coupon down to my local blockbuster, picked out Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii and tried to get it for free. I was asked if I had a store account, I said I have Total Access and was told the store and the internet program are 2 completely different entities. Huh?

Why in the world would they do that? What does "Total Access" mean???

4. In store Account Sign-up (BIG thumbs down)

If you are not an existing blockbuster store member, they now charge $10/year to use the store...err, excuse me, to join their non-optional rewards program. Uh, I DON'T NEED the store rewards, i get plenty of rewards from Total Access. I had never paid a fee in the past to be a "store member," but they conveniently dropped my account because it hadn't been used for 90 days or more.

I ended up leaving the store, going home, finding my old blockbuster card, and re-enabling my store account for free. What a hassle.

5. Movie Returns Via the Mail (thumbs down)

My first rentals showed up within 2 business days. I quickly watched and returned 2 of them. Then waited. It took 4 days to show up as returned before the next 2 shipped (Netflix is usually a 1 day turnaround for me). Turns out, 4 days was FAST. The next round took 10 days to show up, and even then, I had to mnaully tell the website I had returned my movies. Then I waited.

After nearly 3 weeks of using the trial service, I have received a total of 5 DVDs. That's with a queue of 15 movies and returning within 24 hours of receiving. That's just plain SLOW.

6. Customer Service (neutral)

I wrote to customer service to let them know how bad their service was and how slow things were... here's the response to my e-mail:

"I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. I've reviewed your account and see that you are waiting for three DVDs to be shipped. Here's an explanation of why this happened. If a movie at the top of your priority list is not available at a distribution center near you, the system automatically searches for the movie at other centers. If that movie falls outside of an acceptable shipping window, the system automatically searches for a movie lower in your queue that can get to you quicker. This process looks for "Available" titles 30-40 deep within your queue. We do this so your shipping times will be faster. On occasion, if your top selections are not available at a center near you and you have fewer than 30-40 "Available" movies in queue, a shipment may be skipped.

It appears this is exactly what's happening with your account. Based on the process I mentioned above, I would recommend keeping more than 30-40 "Available" titles in queue at all times. Once you take a few moments to do so, I'm certain you'll see something shipped by the end of the next business day after your queue meets our recommendations. Please let me know if there's anything else I can help with."

Huh???
So, they would rather not ship anything because it would take too long to ship? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I don't want 30 - 40 items in my queue. I had about 10 movies I wanted to see. I don't want to fill my queue with CRAP just so I can get something quickly.

So, I've given up on Blockbuster and moved back to Netflix 2 at a time for $14 per month. Even the Netflix 1 at a time unlimited was better than my Blockbuster Total Access trial.

On paper, Blockbuster could have a killer service. Unfortunately, they are trying to figure out how to nickle and dime you. It feels like they're trying to figure out just how far they can push you with fees and restrictions instead of making it a friendly, all inclusive service.

Take it from me - stick to Netflix - no hidden fees, great selection of HD movies, fast, easy service to use and excellent customer service. Why was I even thinking of leaving in the first place?

Rejected - Round 2

Got a response back from BCBS yesterday from my second grievance letter. I'll summarize:

Dear Mr. Seifer,

We already wrote and told you that we aren't going to cover you.
I've enclosed that letter in case you forgot.
Stop bothering us.

BCBS

So, now I am trying to get the insurance broker involved.
And the saga continues.

Kitchen Remodel

We now find ourselves on the slippery slope of remodeling. You know how it starts - "Yeah, I'd really like to fix up the fireplace" which leads to "and the kitchen could use new appliances" followed by "we should gut the kitchen" and next thing you know "it would be great to do the kitchen AND the bathroom AND the family room."

I guess we should set a budget, eh?

Fireplace Remodel

Now that my summer is over, it's time to start thinking about the colder weather moving in. My favorite room in my house is my Family Room / Home Theater. Problem is, it has 3 exterior walls, a non-working fireplace and a large OLD sliding glass door with no insulating properties to speak of. It gets chilly in there. It would be great to replace the fireplace with a gas insert and use it as a zone of heat. I also HATE the way my fireplace looks.

It's very plain, just look:



After playing around in photoshop for an hour or so, and digging out some pictures of fireplaces, fireplace surrounds and bookshelves, i mocked up a picture of what I'm thinking of doing:



What do you think?

Speaker Grills Should Match!

How To Paint Your In-Wall Speaker Grills

One of the projects I had completed when we moved into our house, was installing a home theater that could be experienced, but not seen - you know, in wall speakers, all of the components in the basement, flat panel TV - the whole nine yards. Apart from a few problems with the plasma (which were handled nicely by NEC BTW), the home theater has been amazing. Great video and outstanding sound, easily controlled with a Logitech Harmony 880 Universal remote.

The speakers I chose for my in-walls are from the Triad line of speakers (InWall Silver line). While they don't sound quite as good as a non-in-wall speaker, they do sound pretty darn good. Unfortunately, at the time I bought the speakers, the grills and brackets came in white, and it cost extra to match the paint of the room. They have since changed their policy and now include the cost of custom grills in the cost of the speakers - smart move if you ask me. Unfortunately, my speakers still stood out with their white faces on my desert tan walls. Triad offered to send me new matching grills - at $100 each! $600 for grills... I did consider it, but figured I'd see if I could paint them myself before spending any real dough.

I started by pulling the grills off the speakers, leaving the brackets/frames in place. I taped up the outside edge of the frames to keep my walls clean and proceeded to put 2 coats of Benjamin Moore Desert Tan paint on all of the frames. I did this with a 1" paint brush and 2 pretty thin coats of paint. The results were excellent - the frames blended right into the wall - ok, easy part done.

Now for the hard part. Painting the grills with a brush would just look like complete crap! The little holes in the grills that let the sound pass through would clog with paint, making them look and sound MUCH worse. However, I did find that if i painted the grill with a thin coat of paint, then used a compressed air can to spray the grill, the holes all opened up nicely and they started to look good. However, I then thought of a better way to paint these - using an air-brush. Since I didn't own an air-brush, I needed to find an inexpensive model (less than $50 for sure) that could do the job, otherwise, the time & expense of the project would be more than just ordering the grills from Triad.

I called around to a few arts & crafts stores and found that Michaels Arts & Crafts had just what I was looking for. They carry a basic Badger air-brush for $24.99. Add in a can of "propel" (compressed air) for $12.99 and it was well within my budget. After a quick trip to Michaels, I was armed with my new tool.

After assembling the air-brush (2 minutes), I experimented with the paint flow a bit. I ended up mixing water into the latex based paint to thin it down to the consistency of milk. This proved to spray very nicely and evenly. I experimented on one of the grills and voila! perfect. The paint coated the grill without clogging any of the holes.

I then spent the next hour spraying a thin layer of paint on all of my grills, trying to be as even as possible in the coverage (did one pass horizontally and one pass vertically). I did use a bit too much paint in spots, which resulted in clogged pours. This was easily remedied by wiping the excess paint from the back of the grills, then using my compressed air can to blow out the clogged holes.

I let all of the grills dry for an hour or so, then sprayed a second coat on, repeating exactly as I did with the first pass. After letting them dry for about an hour, the results were outstanding!!!
I reinstalled the grills and they look like they came from the factory painted to match my walls. Of course due to the nature of a grill cover, they appear a bit darker than the wall, but now they are MUCH less visible and no longer attract any attention when you enter the room.

Here is a picture:

Smile!

Got some new (temporary) teeth yesterday... it went like this...

Step 1: Get the teeth filed down (YIKES!)



Step 2: Add metal post to tooth nub



Step 3: Add 4 piece bridge



While it obviously looks better than having missing teeth, it's still not as good as it once was :(
Fortunately, these are plastic teeth and we'll work to make them look more natural before making the final teeth.

Here's what they used to look like:


The two teeth next to the front teeth used to be smaller and my front teeth where more rounded. Hopefully, we'll get them looking like that again!