Dirk and Val arrived at about 9pm on Friday, and the fun just kept rolling from there on out.
The party was a great time for me, and I appreciate people coming out and wishing me happy birthday. I really enjoyed seeing spiderman 3 (even though it was quite a disappoitment compared to the other two…easily the weakest so far, they tried to cram in too much stuff), cooking out, and getting to hang out with a bunch of really cool people. My only regret from Saturday is that everyone (including me) was too tired to really get a good Beer-tasting going. So that just means I have a bunch of great beers sitting around at my house and I will have to do a tasting some other time.
Sunday was nice, I went to church early and got to hear Kyle and Ellen do a great job talking about their upcoming church planting efforts in Mexico. Then we went out to eat a Famous Dave’s at the MOA (that is the Mall of America for all you un-hip non-minnesotans). One slightly striking moment in my mind from that was when we wanted to pray for Dirk and Val before they left (they were taking off from the mall), and we had already been at the table in Famous Dave’s for a long time, so we felt like we should pray somewhere else so the waiter could turn the table. We went and sat on one of those round benches that wraps around a planter, and we prayed for them for a long time. The amusing part to me, is that a bunch of people sat down around us, and then left, people walked by, and it wasn’t really that weird. I didn’t feel really self-conscious, and no one seemed to care that we were there in the middle of the mall praying for someone else. Sorta broke some of my fears of being ‘weird’ or out of place while trying to pray in a crowded area. After Dirk and Val took off we went to best buy to try and buy speakers (more on that below), and then went home and watched “Jesus Camp”. Jesus Camp is an entire post in and of itself, and I’ll save that for a different time, but I will say that my overall opinion / reaction to the movie was mixed. Then Elle brought home a copy of Shaun of the Dead, and we watched that to round out the evening.
Overall, a pretty great day, other than I started feeling a little sick after we left Famous Dave’s.
I received a pretty decent bonus for our companies Q1 profit sharing, and we decided that some of that money could go to some new speakers, since all we have no are some that a friend gave us, and the speaker liner/dampener around each cone has deteriorated making for some nasty distortion sometimes.
Anyway, I based the budget on the Klipsch RB-51’s, but after doing a head-to-head comparison with the next ones up (RB-61) The price / performance just looked much better, and the sound difference on the low end was night and day. So, I set about to get a good deal, as Dave Ramsey said we should, which means I went online, found a good price low/high range that I should be able to get the speakers for. This range happened to be right around $350. Suggested retail is $449, and Best Buy carries them in their Magnolia (high-end section of selected stores) section for around $400.
On Saturday I went in and was able to talk them down to $360 before tax. Not really good enough, since that would put me out the door at $383, and I could get them shipped to my house for $350.
On Sunday we thought Lauren should give this a shot cuz she might be better at it than me. So we go to a different Best Buy on the south end of town. It should be noted that we both were not feeling very well, so we didn’t want to be haggling with them forever, just to give a frame of reference for things.
Lauren went into the magnolia section to try to get them down to $350, while I went and looked at some video games. About ten minutes later she comes back and tells me that she waited there for most of that time, with no one asking if they could help her, while two employees (a manager for the magnolia section, and a regular sales associate) helped one other guy in the demo room. This other guy said he wasn’t going to buy anything that day while Lauren was in the room, and we were going to buy speakers that day, either at Best Buy or online. So, she was mildly annoyed by waiting so long just to be able to talk to someone. Then, one of the Best Buy people came over and finally tapped her on the shoulder, which she assumed meant she was finally going to be helped. But he says to her “excuse me Miss, could you move” and proceeded to show this same guy some speakers behind her.
So, she felt pretty profiled at that point, and was pretty upset. But we waited a few minutes, and went back, and they were still in there showing this guy stuff.
At that point we debated me going in there being pissed off, and playing a “Bad Cop” role and trying to get them down in price that way, threatening sexism and all that. But, we were both exhausted and not feeling well, so we just decided to say ‘screw it’, and we went home, and Lauren emailed corporate a re-telling of our experience instead.
And, I bought the speakers online at this store for $346.98 shipped. And, I’m not feeling exactly like I want to buy any other items from that Best Buy’s Magnolia store.
And that about wraps up my B-Day weekend excitement.