Musica Caliente

I haz a new stereo. My stereo let me show you it.

So with my birthday money from my penitent in-laws (who forgot my birthday) and a little from my own, I bought a new stereo deck for my car. Now I can plug my iPod and play any of my own music there.

Jennifer has been able to do this for a while as she has a tape deck. So she's got a $20 adapter. My adapter cost a little more than that.

The fun part was getting it installed.

We decided to get the deck Friday night, and it ended up being after installer hours. So I went Saturday morning. It opened at 10:00, so I was there at 9:45 ready to go. They opened up, check the stock... They don't have the in-dash install kit. It seems the ones for the 2002-2004 Altimas are out of stock, and Best Buy was in-between suppliers. The installer called a local installer to see if they had the part in stock; they didn't. I said I would be back and ran over to Fry's. I tried calling, but couldn't get anyone.

At Fry's install center, I found out that first, they didn't have a spot available in their schedule until Monday (Best Buy is first come, first served) and that their computer system was down. The guy at that shop pulled out a catalog, and gave me the part number, and said good luck inside. I went inside, and called Circuit City to find out if they had one in case I couldn't find one inside at Fry's. It turned out that both stores had it. I found the unit at Fry's, and went to get in line.

Remember me saying that the computers were down? Fry's, home to techies and electronics geeks everywhere, was having to create hand written receipts on triplicate forms. It took me an hour to get through the line.

Back at Best Buy, I got an estimate, and was told it would be 45 minutes to finish the vehicle ahead of me (luckily just one), and then 45 minutes to an hour to install mine. This will put me right at 1:30 for completion. I have two other events for the day: John's Birthday Cook-out at 3:00 in Albany, buying food for the above, Yuko's Wedding Celebration party at 8:00, and getting a gift for the second above. Plus I hadn't had lunch yet.

Boys, time for a
walk.

So to Chipotle for lunch and a much needed beer, then Bed Bath and Beyond for a gift, Rite Aid for a Pepsi, and finally back to Best Buy. I still had about 15 minutes to wait, but they finished early.

So I got the stereo installed, and I love it.