A BIG Change

Walt came downstairs the other Friday morning to announce the the picture on the upstairs TV was gone.  It had just a line where the picture should be, though the sound worked fine.  The TV is one of those old ones, from the days before there were flat screen TVs.  I thought he was going to go TV shopping that afternoon, but he didn't get around to it until today.

Ned suggested to me that instead of just getting another TV like the one we already have, that we get a larger one "You deserve to see Survivor in all its glory," he laughed.  I told him I thought Walt was just going to get the same size and I was happy with what we had.

Apparently he sent a text to Walt suggesting the larger size screen for downstairs and apparently that got Walt to thinking and so when he returned from Costco, he had a big screen TV.

Not only was it a big screen...and I mean big screen...TV, but it is a smart TV (though at times this afternoon I doubted that!).  It has a built in router, so that brand new Roku I bought isn't needed (which means Walt can use it upstairs), it has an internet browser (reading Funny the World on television, should I want to).  We can connect to Facebook, watch my wonderful (yes I"m kidding) videos posted on Vimeo. 

Haven't figured out if we can get YouTube yet,but I haven't had time to check everything out.

Anyway, it sounds like dying and going to TV addict heaven.  By the time he had gone to the store and taken time to read the instructions, it was really too late to get it set up last night so today was the day it was going to get done.   I was ready and waiting in eager anticipation for my new BIG screen TV.

I'm so lucky to have Walt to get things like this set up.  I'm such a bull in a China shop, I'd break the thing before I ever got it into the family room.  But he takes his time.  First he removed it from the box and attached all the stuff you're supposed to attach to it.

Then he took the "old" one upstairs and got the space all cleaned out.

Finally the time had come and we carried the TV in from the living room and got it put up where the old one had been.

Then it was my turn to get to work and I started getting all the settings right.  One of the first things is to update all the software.  It told me it would take about 45 minutes to do, so I did other things.  It got to where the update was 97% complete and then the TV shut off.  I waited and waited...there had been no message that it would shut down and start again, so I turned it back on and had to put all the same information back into the machine again.  Then it said it would take about 15 minutes, now, to update software ('cause presumably there were a lot of updates in the past 5 minutes).  This time I sat there and watched it and again, at about 97% finished, the TV shut down.  I left it alone, this time, for about 15 minutes and then when it hadn't turned itself on, I turned it on and had to put all the information back in again.  This time when it told me it would take 20 minutes to update, I skipped that step, figuring I could go back and do it again.

We finally got through all the set up screens and waited for our glorious TV to open up and show us glorious pictures, but instead we got a message that said we had a weak or nonexistant signal.  We tried everything and couldn't figure out what to do.

Naturally these days all manuals are on line, so I went on line to do some troubleshooting and saw that I could take to a Samsung help person, named Mickey.   So Mickey and I tried texting and I didn't even understand his questions, but was trying to find the answers when Firefox decided to crash, which ended my sessions with Mickey.

When I had Firefox back and went back to customer service, this time I had Victoria, who didn't ask me any of the questions that Mickey did, but just told me to do one thing for her.  I did and there was our picture.  I think she should have a good chat with Mickey about effective customer service!

We had gotten it working just in time for Amazing Race.

It being Sunday night, there were things to watch so it was late before I started trying to customize our new baby with the things we will probably want to use.  The problem is that you don't have a keyboard but have to input everything one letter at a time using the remote control.  My e-mail address is basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us and my password is about 15 letters long.  I have a basic password, sometimes putting a capital letter in it, sometimes adding a symbol, and sometimes with a minor variation in the basic 15 letter/number combination.  I have all the passwords stored, but sometimes I forget to update them, so if I get the password wrong, I have to go back and start all over again, one damn letter at a time.

I finally gave up, but had added a couple of apps (like Skype and Netflix) to my basic screen.  Tomorrow I'll worry about fine tuning it.

But I are a happy person!  I'm going to have to go buy popcorn.   The screen is so big, I feel I should be eating popcorn when I watch it.