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July 23 Last Update for AwhileWe're heading to the cost today and we likely won't have Internet access for the majoroty of the next two weeks, so don't expect any updates before then! Cheers! July 22 Wilsonville, OregonToday is our final day in Wilsonville before we head out to the coast. Yesterday we went to downtown Portland to check out the Saturday Market, Powell's Bookstore (largest new and used bookstore in the world), and Whole Foods. After that we had to go do some Geocaching, including finding the site of the first ever Geocache. Then it was back to the RV for something to eat and then out to do some more caching within walking distance of the trailer. All in all it was a relaxing day which we all needed after two long days of driving to get here. Tomorrow we set our sights on Nehalem Bay State Park. We'll find out if the little seafood restaurant we found in Manzanita in 2004 is still there -- they offered a very good clam chowder in a bread bowl that we have been very anxious to try again. July 21 The Simpsons MovieI think I can say without hyperbole that this will be the movie event of our lifetime...
 July 15 Taking the plunge...Well, I made the plunge into the world of high definition TV. Just before leaving for the Ghost Town Convention (see previous post) I bought a Pioneer PDP-5070 TV from Costco. Sure, it might be last year's model but it has everything I was looking for and the price was right for what is a relatively high-end unit. Besides, this unit gets almost nothing but praise when you read the reviews.
So, the decisions I made:
50 inches: This was a no-brainer. While 50" is still too big to beat in the "sweet spot" when it comes to price, for the size of the room I have 50" was the right size for proper viewing.
Plasma: Despite concerns about burn-in and reflections, I went with plasma over LCD. I wanted the deeper blacks that plasma offers and since I don't own any gaming consoles I don't have much concern about burn-in. Also, despite the family room having a couple of fairly large windows there doesn't appear to be a glare issue. Besides, most of the time when watching TV it is winter anyway and it will be dark before I get home from work.
768p: Yes, despite the naysayers who drone on and on about "1080p" being a requirement for future-proofing, I went with a set that "only" offers 768 lines of vertical resolution. According to my research, at the distances we normally sit when watching it is very unlikely you would notice any difference in quality between 768 and 1080. Besides, have you seen the thickness of my glasses? I'm half blind anyway so what are the odds I would notice?
I still don't have a high-def source for my signal yet. Needless to say, as soon as we get back from vacation next month I will be phoning Bell and seeing how much this new toy is going to cost me in terms of upgraded programming packages. I plan on waiting before buying a high-def DVD player though -- three reasons: I want to see how/if the format wars settle out; I want to wait for more of a price drop; and we rarely watch DVDs anyway.
Our "old" TV (27" Hitachi) has served me faithfully for 13 years so it will now get the TV equivalent of being put out to pasture -- it gets to serve duty in the trailer for vacation and when we go "camping". Ghost Town ConventionWe just got in from the Ghost Town Convention which was in Hallonquist, Saskatchewan.
There were about ten people who showed up, which is almost exactly what I expected. On the first day we toured Hallonquist, Braddock and Scotsberg. Our former neighbor from Hawkwood came with us which made for some interesting stories since Braddock is the town he grew up in. Not much remains in Braddock other than the community hall and the remains of Don's old house! We had a great tour as he showed us the locations of the former buildings and we saw the fence which used to section off Don's grandmother's yard. The basement he dug for her house was still there as were a number of wooden sidewalks.
That evening we got a class in "painting with light" which is a photographic technique using full darkness, very long exposure times and and some well placed spotlights. Mike and Glen are heavily into this art form and you should check out Mike's gallery for some examples. I really hope to be able to try this one day but I doubt my "point and click" digital camera is capable of the long exposure times needed...I may actually resort to reading the manual now.
The second day was road trip day. We hit a number of ghost towns in Saskatchewan including Saint Boswells, Bateman, Wiwa Hill, Shamrock, Codere, Courval and Kelstern. The most interesting parts were the old school in Bateman which appeared to have either been hit with a tornado or a very poor demolition crew. The abandoned house in Kelstern was also noteworthy just for the artifacts inside: a washing machine, a statue of Jesus, an old eggbeater, a tricycle and a ton of paper and notebooks.
It was a great tour. I took over 300 pictures, some of which will be posted here when I sort through them. There is already talk of doing it again next year and with the way the railroads remove branch lines there will be no shortage of new targets. |
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