Is it today?

[susandennis]

As I suspected, nope... not today. Sheri says she's better but needs another day so tomorrow but she says she's not meeting the electrician until 11:30 so I doubt much will get finished. Condo rules say they can't work past 5 pm so by the time they get here and get started...

Oh well. My expectations are getting lower by the day. I'll be glad when it's done but I'm not holding my breath that it will be soon.

This is the part I just hate about this kind of thing. There just seems to be no way in hell to ever get anything like this done efficiently and in any kind of reasonable time frame. It's a mystery to me why not but at least I'm not surprised. And waiting patiently for months and months yields no better result than demanding deadlines be met and stressing over every minute.

My current hope is that the house gets put back into some kind of order by this weekend.

And speaking of fail...

Yesterday, I bought a new clock radio. Today I bought another one. Tomorrow? Too soon to tell.

All I want is a simple device that shows me the time (although this is not a requirement cause I can use my phone) and comes on at 6 am playing my local NPR station and does not take a rocket scientist to change the time.

I had a nice little Sony that got good radio reception and went off at 6 every morning but... it was a royal bitch and a half to change the time twice a year and last weekend it and a stroke. I can change the time but I can't see what I changed it to or if I can, it's the wrong time and the alarm won't set.

I stopped at Walgreens which had a very slim selection. The one on sale for $9.99 was sold out and the other two they had in stock were more than $50 each even though they looked like they were worth something south of $9.99 and they were ugly and huge.

So, after swim class I drove to Bartell's (a local drug store chain). They had a better selection. I picked up an RCA. It's small and black (which are two very nice to haves) and it was very easy to set up.

But, my walls here are very thick. And next to my bed is a good 25-30 feet from the outside. Radio reception is not given and can vary wildly from one minute to the next. This morning my new RCA was far more static than NPR. So it will be going back to the store.

I ordered a replacement from Amazon. We'll see. This could be a long saga, too.

Sigh

Comments

[howeird]

My new apartment has no radio reception in the bedroom, so I bought a wi-fi radio. It took two tries to find a good one, and more of a cash-ectomy than I wanted, but you never have to set the clock, and it has two alarms (one I have set for weekdays and one for weekends) which come up playing my favorite radio station. They are *all* on the internet now.

The cons:
First-time setup of the radio presets takes some time and there are only 6 presets
Backup battery is expensive and sold separately. Only needed if the power is off when you want to be woken up.


Pluses for me, but maybe not you:
You can get stations from all over the world
When you run out of presets, you can park more selections under a "favorites" menu
The battery makes the unit portable - it's not just for backup

Click to see

[susandennis]

Wow. That is a mighty big step up from the $9.99 where I started but, honestly, you had me at never have to set the time and sealed the deal with wake up to favorite radio station.

So... I canceled the replacement radio and popped for a red one.

I only need 3 presets - KUOW, KPLU and KQED. 3 more would be just bonus.

THINK of the joy that will happen come pledge time!! That alone is worth the extra coin and it's coming up soon here.

I didn't get the battery but I might reconsider that.

Thank you very much for doing all the research and especially for telling me!

[howeird]

I hesitated to make the suggestion because it is a huge lump of pennies to pay for a clock radio, and it takes patience for the initial setup. Setting up the wi-fi connection is standard stuff, but to find the stations I found it easiest to plow through the internet stations/local and scroll till I hit the one I wanted. Once selected, just hold down the preset button. Lather, rinse, repeat.

For a lark I sometimes search for stations in far-away places, just to hear different sounds. And of course I have all the Thailand music station parked in the favorites section.

[susandennis]

Oh I'm so glad you fought off your hesitation. I am just now reading the documentation. It looks like it will do way more than I need but that it will do what I need just fine and dandy.

Plus, if I get stuck, I know who to pester for help.

I was able to 'refuse' delivery on the other one and they had a deal for next day free if you use your discover card so tomorrow, I could be playing - be great distraction from the living room chaos IF that starts and if not, it will be a nice consolation prize. So thanks. Really.

[susandennis]

And the good mojo get's pooped on...

Of course, Amazon is sending the Squeezebox via OnTrac so who knows when I'll see it or what shape it will be in when I do...

Sigh..

[howeird]

Sigh for sure. Well, I look forward to hearing all about it. Feel free to ask...