Add KVCV to the airport map

Michelle and I flew down to Victorville today to look at new TVs. Currently we have an overhead projector that works ok on movies that aren't real dark and as long as all of the windows are covered with black-out coverings. Now that we'll be having a kid, it probably won't work out to well to have the room pitch black while trying to watch tv. This means we're looking for a new TV. Since we're used to the 99" screen we have right now, it'll be hard to step down in size.

Originally I was thinking about getting a plasma, but I can see them flicker and it drives me crazy. This leaves us with LCD (since we want to hang it on the wall). I've been looking at online reviews and seeing some at peoples houses and narrowed it down between the Samsung LN52A650 and the Sharp Aquos LC-52D64U, which are both 52" LCDs. Michelle's principal had the Sharp at their house and it looked great.

As I was reading reviews, it seemed that the Samsung had an edge in picture quality and features, but was more glossy and susceptible to glares. Since we have our house set up to eliminate all light for the projector, there should be no glare issue. Also, Best Buy and Circuit City both were out of the Sharp model and do not have the new model in stock that apparently became available this past January.

As I was shopping for prices, it was obvious that Amazon.com was by far the cheapest vendor and there was a lot of good reviews for them. Since you can't see what the TVs really look like from the internet, we flew down to Victorville to see them at Best Buy. It was a bit bumpy on the way down, but I was cleared through the Edwards restricted airspace above 6000 ft (I was at 7500 ft anyways). Million Air had a really nice Dodge Minivan courtesy car. It didn't cost anything and they didn't take a tip. They even told me to not put any gas in it! I feel bad since I didn't do any business with them, but used their car; I'll get over it quickly. The way back was much smoother and we made it home with 1.4 hours on the tach.

The final results, we're getting the Samsung LN52A650 with a tilt wall mount. This way if light glare is an issue, we'll be able to angle it down to avoid the lights. So far there has been a little glitch with Amazon, and I don't think this will work out as intended, but will still end up good. They had a deal for 2 years of no interest if you sign up for an Amazon credit card. The problem is, the limit is so low it doesn't even cover the cost of the TV. Amazon doesn't allow you to split an order between two credit cards either. After talking to customer support, they suggested buying a gift card with my personal credit card, then applying that to the purchase so that the balance that needs to get applied to the Amazon credit card is lower than the limit. Now I'm just waiting for the gift card I had emailed to myself to show up...

I'll post again once I have the TV up and running.

P.S. We also found out we'll probably have to update our receiver to handle the new HD cables. The plan for now is to have the S-video from the receiver and the HDMI directly from the satellite box both go to the TV so we can avoid HD on the receiver for the time being; one thing at a time.