bobmacliberty

Eh. Better than the normal fatty pieces, that's for sure, but still far short of the real thing. Don't know why they don't get a deli slicer and make them look/taste better.

We used to go every year when my daughter had her Dance Worlds competition at Disney. Five days, but mostly in whatever large space was hosting the competition. Now that we live in Florida, we're only a 3 hour drive away and get a resident discount. I figured we'd spend an off-season long weekend there at some point. Sounds like it might not be worth it. I'm NOT AT ALL big on crowds.

No need. They're stopping in Cozumel.

I remember reading somewhere that the tunnels aren't really underground but rather at ground level. The entire park is raised above ground. I'd love to take that tour.

Nooooooooooooooooooo. Too late. Earworm firmly in place now.

I'm in! Should be great. Love Allure.

Our tankless heater is almost exactly on the other side of the exterior wall of our main shower. We have hot water in about 30 seconds. Our laundry room and kitchen are about the same. One of our guest bathroom showers is about as far away from the heater as you can get and still be in the house. It takes 2+ minutes for the hot water to get there. We tell guests to literally turn on the shower when they walk in then go about their business getting ready. I'd say that we have average water pressure, at best. If we had more pressure, we'd get hot water faster. There's a small wall mounted control panel in our laundry room for adjusting the water temp. We keep ours at 125F. It was set to 120 when we moved in but we couldn't increase the temp any further from the panel. After a little digging through the owner's manual, I had to do something outside at the heater itself to override the max temp safety setting and bump it above 120.

I looked at tankless water heaters about 10 years ago when I needed to replace our water heater in Cincinnati. At the time, tankless was about twice the price of a tank. I was willing to pay that, but our old tank was located in the middle of our finished basement, in an unfinished utility area. We would have needed to run a new exhaust pipe and new electric line through the finished area, which would have increased the installed price significantly. We instead bought the biggest tank that we could buy, saved some money, and never ran out of hot water.

Love our tankless water heat as well. Ours is mounted on the outside of the house.

Definitely varies by car. On my car, if the car is stopped, I press and hold the brake for about a second until I see the word HOLD appear in my instrument gauge. I then take my foot off the brake and the car stays put. Either touch the brake again or touch the gas pedal and it disengages. Edit: I don't think it's how long I press the brake that engages it but rather how hard I push on the brake pedal. If I keep light pressure on the brake pedal, brake hold won't engage.

It's a feature that's been on cars for more than a decade...longer in Europe than in the US I believe. When you come to a stop under certain conditions, the engine turns off temporarily. As soon as you touch the gas pedal, the engine immediately comes back on.

I must be in the minority. I like the auto stop/start feature. It saves a little bit of gas but I don't use enough gas for that to matter. I like it because the car is still and quiet when activated like OB said. It's always worked perfectly and the idea that it puts more wear on the engine isn't really true (Google it). Admittedly, more parts does mean more than can fail, but I've never heard of that being an issue for anyone. I like combining it with the brake hold feature so that I don't need to hold my foot on the brake at a long traffic light.

Are you sure that you don't have a button somewhere with the letter A surrounded by a circular arrow? I thought it was standard on any car with a start/stop system. You usually need to press it after every time that you start the car. For the cars that I've had, you can't "permanently" turn it off.

I had battery problems on my 2009 BMW. I drove it to work and back, about 5 miles each direction and never more than 45 mph. Other than that, I only drove for an occasional local errand or two. The electronics drew a lot of power and my driving habits didn't allow the alternator to recharge the battery well enough. After a couple of expensive battery replacements, the dealer said my options were to use a trickle charger periodically or to drive a couple of loops around Cincinnati's I-275 circle freeway every month to give the battery a good charge. I'm now seeing a similar problem with my Mercedes. I drive even less here, and probably average a slower speed. My nav system wouldn't come on the other day. A couple of full charges with the trickle charger fixed it. I've set an alert on my Outlook calendar once a month to plug in the trickle charger.

Thank you all. Personally, I'd store them someplace on land rather than lug them with me onboard, but that's money that they might not want to spend.

My daughter's fiance's best man (if you can follow that) is setting up a bachelor party and wants it to be a short cruise with golfing either before or after the cruise. They wouldn't be golfing at any of the cruise stops. They want to bring their clubs on the ship rather than find a place to store them at the departure port while cruising. I think golf clubs in a travel bag are just considered another piece of luggage from the ship's perspective. Can anyone confirm that this is true? Is there an extra charge for larger luggage pieces like golf clubs? They probably won't fit under the bed and will take up space somewhere in the cabin but they're a group of guys in their mid-20s who aren't worried about that kind of stuff. Thanks for any help.

You're right that most people, including us, would say they like eastern better. St. Maarten is one of our favorite stops. If you've not been to any of the western ports though, you'll have a great time. Roatan has decent snorkeling and we love a quiet beach day at Nachi Cocom on Cozumel. There are other beach clubs there with more activities for the kids. Costa Maya is a manufactured port but we enjoyed an excursion to Mayan Ruins. I'd agree that the lower price option from Galveston might be better. Spend some of the savings on some nicer upgrades somewhere...an excursion, specialty dining, etc.

Unfortunately, it's a complicated discussion. Without knowing your exact setup and budget, I can't recommend a specific make/model. Sorry for the long reply that follows but there's no easy answer. If you want home theater surround sound, including the latest Dolby Atmos sound, you have a couple of options at a high level. Scenario 1 is a receiver with separate speakers. Scenario 2 is a soundbar. There are a few "flavors" of scenario 1. Scenario 1a is to use a receiver as the "home base" of your system. You connect all of your source devices like a DVD player, an XBox, an Apple TV box, a Roku box, a cable TV box, etc. into the receiver's various HDMI input ports. You then connect an HDMI output from the receiver to the TV. You connect all of your various speakers to the receiver as well. When you want to switch between input sources, you do so at the receiver. It plays the sound from that source through the speakers and sends the video from that source to the TV. The TV is essentially just a monitor since the TV internal speakers would be disabled. In scenario 1b, you could plug all of the input devices directly into the TV and use the TV to switch input sources. The TV then sends the audio to the receiver, which plays it through the speakers. In both 1a and 1b, the receiver decodes the audio to determine what sound gets sent to which speaker. HDMI ports have evolved over time with newer versions having more capability. The AVS forum thread that you linked talks about various issues with trying to have a lot of input sources connected to a system that has a mix of both older ("regular") HDMI and newer HDMI (version 2.0 and 2.1) ports while trying to ensure that everything is capable of the best/most recent sound. Scenario 2 doesn't require a receiver. You plug your various input devices (if you have any) into the TV and send the audio signal from the TV to a soundbar. In this scenario, the soundbar acts like the receiver in decoding the audio signal and determining what sound goes to which speakers. In this case though, the speakers are all embedded in the soundbar itself. The advantage of scenario 2 is that it's a much "cleaner" setup. No receiver or separate speakers, or speaker wires running everywhere. The disadvantage is that you can get higher quality sound with a dedicated receiver and speakers, with quality being pretty directly correlated with cost. Expensive receivers have quality amplifiers and expensive speakers can do a better job of creating sound. If you're an audiophile, sound from a soundbar may not be good enough. For most people who just want a home theater experience, using a soundbar is plenty good enough (especially when paired with some wireless surround speakers and a subwoofer), hence the popularity of soundbars. The problem is that new TVs typically only have a single HDMI port that is capable of handling new HDMI protocols. A port labeled eARC (enhanced Audio Return Channel) is the latest and greatest and can handle uncompressed Dolby Atmos signals. Dolby Atmos signals contain a LOT of data and require HDMI ports and HDMI cables that can handle a lot of bandwidth. Only eARC ports can currently handle this. Less expensive and older TVs will have an HDMI port label ARC (without the e for enhanced). They can send audio signals but with less bandwidth than eARC. The signal going through the ARC port must therefore be compressed so that it has less data, and then decompressed when it gets to the receiver/soundbar. Dolby Atmos will work with an ARC port but the process of compressing and then decompressing the signal degrades the quality a bit. The ARC or eARC port is usually connected to the receiver or soundbar. Other input sources may need to be connected to an older HDMI port on the TV that can handle video just fine but may not be able to handle a Dolby Atmos signal from the source. Not all audio/video sources can even handle Dolby Atmos, and not all video content is encoded with Dolby Atmos. DVDs for example are older and don't use Atmos. Some online streaming services (like Amazon Prime and Apple TV+) support Atmos, but if you're watching an older movie/show that wasn't made with Atmos, you're still out of luck. In short, every element of the "chain" must be able to handle Dolby Atmos...the movie/show itself, the source device, the TV, the receiver/soundbar, and all ports/cables connecting everything together. More info on which streaming services can do what here.   Our system is fairly simple. Our Samsung TV has everything in it that we use...YouTube TV, Netflix, Prime, Apple TV, etc. We switch between these services on our TV. No additional external devices to plug in anywhere. We then have our Atmos capable soundbar connected to the Samsung TV using the TV's eARC port. Depending on what we're watching, the TV sends an Atmos signal to the soundbar when it's available and sends an older Dolby Digital signal (which still sounds great) when it's not. The soundbar deals with it either way without any user interaction. If the source has Atmos audio, and the content's producers did a good job of mixing the Atmos audio signal (not always the case), we'll sometimes notice that there are some overhead sounds while watching. We have a wireless Sonos subwoofer and 2 in-ceiling speakers (located behind our listening area) powered by a wireless Sonos Amp that act as surround speakers when watching video content, or act as full range audio speakers when listening to music. If you don't have any external devices and all audio comes from streaming services on your TV, I'd suggest connecting an Atmos capable soundbar to your TV. It's the simplest and probably cheapest option. If you want to stay within the Samsung family, here's a link to the various Samsung soundbar offerings. I don't have experience with any of these but the Q series looks to be better/more expensive and has subwoofers and/or rear surrounds if that's of interest. The S series looks to be cheaper and has stand alone soundbars (not all support Atmos). There is mention on the Samsung site of wireless Atmos, which I'm guessing means that you don't need an HDMI cable between your Samsung TV and Samsung Soundbar if they both support this. That could be an advantage of staying all Samsung, although mounting the soundbar directly below the TV means that the HDML cable isn't visible anyway. I'd do more research to ensure this really is the case. Do a Google search on "best soundbars" and you will see a lot of online articles. Choose one from a reputable source (CNET, Crutchfield, PC Mag, etc.) rather than a name that you don't recognize that may just be marketing for a particular brand. Be sure to check that the soundbar you choose supports Dolby Atmos as many lower cost soundbars don't have the needed upfiring speakers.

I don't think you need to return your Samsung TV. It has an HDMI eARC port which is what you need to feed a Dolby Atmos signal to a soundbar...i.e. your TV supports Dolby Atmos. You would however need something more than the small wireless speakers that you linked. Those are for desktop use with a phone. We have 3 different TVs with soundbars. It improves the sound from the TV significantly. They all hang directly below the TV and almost look like they are part of the TV itself. After a while, you don't even know they are there visually. Your existing Samsung TV with a Dolby Atmos capable soundbar will sound a lot better than any Sony TV without a soundbar. Sony technology is good, but I agree that you are in part paying for the Sony name. I chose Sonos soundbars because they can all be linked together as part of whole home audio. We can have the same audio source playing in our Great Room, our Master Bedroom, our Office, and our outdoor patio. They also have features to boost voices (great when your hearing isn't what it used to be) and a "night mode" which boosts low volume sounds (whispers) but suppresses high volume sounds (explosions) so that you aren't keeping someone else awake when watching a movie at night. Other brand soundbars will probably have similar capabilities. If you get a soundbar, you can either get one that is a stand alone soundbar, or you can buy them in "kits" that include a separate wireless subwoofer and/or rear speakers. A soundbar by itself can simulate rear channel sound fairly well. Even though the soundbar is in front of you, it can bounce sound of walls and make it sound like it's coming from behind you. The kits with rear speakers however will sound better as you'll truly have rear sound coming from behind you. You just need a spot in your room to place the speakers behind your listening area, and feed power to them. Wirelessly sending sound signals to them is nice so you don't need speaker wires, but they still need hard wired power to operate. Having a separate subwoofer is also not required but nice, since it takes over the job of handling low frequency noises like explosions. That frees up the soundbar to focus just on mid-range and high frequency sounds, and it will sound better. Low frequency noise is not location dependent, so you can hide the wireless subwoofer in a corner or under a couch/table. Like the rear speakers, it must be plugged in for power.

The negative that I've heard about full face masks is that CO2 will build up in the mask, since you exhale into it. You shouldn't use them for extended periods of time, although I don't know if that means 10 minutes or 10 hours.

Lucky is right. What a fantastic view. I'd never get any work done.

Sorry if I'm getting too geeky, but I had to share this demo video of Dolby Atmos. It works best if you're wearing headphones or earbuds but also works well on a mobile phone with stereo speakers on either end (which most recent models have). For best results, hold the phone in landscape mode and cup your hands so that the sound is reflected back towards you, like this. Don't block the ends of the phone with your palm or you'll block the speakers. This technique also works well to boost the volume of sound from your phone if you're in a noisy area since more sound is directed to you rather than spreading in all directions. Here's the Dolby Atmos demo video. Enjoy.

That's the beauty of RAID 1...should be easy to pop in a new drive and everything should be automatically mirrored after a while. You probably already know this if you have a RAID 1 NAS, but don't bother making the new drive bigger or faster...the NAS performance will be limited to the smallest and slowest drive (at least for writes).

Adding to what Greg said...a typical home theater setup is 5.1, meaning 5 channels of sound plus a subwoofer for the low frequency sound (the subwoofer is the .1). The 5 channels are front left and right, rear left and right, and front center. This lets you hear sound coming from all directions. When you step up to 7.1, you add two more channels of sound which are typically middle left and right. That makes sound even more immersive. The latest technology is called Dolby Atmos, which adds the concept of height to sound. You either add more speakers in the ceiling pointed down, or add speakers that are up firing (aimed toward the ceiling) so that sound bounces back down from the ceiling. The latest Atmos enabled soundbars have up firing speakers in addition to speakers in the left, middle, and right. Either way, it enables some sound to appear to be above you, like a helicopter flying over your head or a bird chirping in a tree.

I built a home theater in my basement sometime around the year 2000. I decided to spend some money and buy a system that I would keep "for the rest of my life". I went with a B&K AV5000 amp and a B&K Reference 10 processor, and 5 B&W CDM SE speakers...2 CDM7 towers in front, 2 CDM1 book shelfs for the rears, a CDMC for the center...and a Velodyne Sub. The sound was amazing and paired well with my at the time massive 65" Mistubishi rear projection HDTV. I was in heaven. Fast forward 20 years and things have changed. Everything's gone digital and we don't have room for AV equipment and large speakers in our open concept floor plan. My daughter and her fiancé have the two CDM7 tower speakers but the rest was sold for pennies on the dollar to a couple of AV enthusiasts who were very happy to get them, although the guy who bought the other speakers just wanted them for spare parts for his existing B&W speakers. We now have a 75" TV with a Sonos soundbar and Sonos sub with rear speakers mounted in the ceiling. They don't sound nearly as good, but they're all but invisible in the room design, which as we all know is more important 🙄. Oh well, pick and choose your battles. Happy wife, happy life.