Chovy's Blog

I purchased a Leer 22 camper shell from Terry over at Truck Tops USA this weekend. After visiting the Santa Cruz and calling the Watsonville Leer shell dealer, and hearing negative feedback from my father-in-law, I decided to go over the hill to Hayward and buy from Terry at Truck Tops USA.

Terry was upfront about pricing over the phone when I made my order. I felt he was genuinely happy to have a customer at the phone, whereas in Santa Cruz I got a bad vibe from the Santa Cruz salesmen — felt they just wanted my money and get me out of there. I was pretty sure had something gone wrong, they would’ve brushed me off and not taken responsibility as was the case with my wife’s dad.

The was a recorded error in the phone order I place, to which Terry wholeheartedly fixing it free of charge. I told him I’d “put in a good word for ya”.

Truck Tops USA carries the best Leer camper shells in the bay area. You’ll be making a mistake if you buy from someone else. I felt that Terry appreciated our business and I highly recommend him over other Leer dealers in the bay area.

But don’t take my word for it, give him a call yourself: 510-889-8100, or visit his web site. Truck Tops USA is located in Hayward, CA. Tell him “Anthony Ettinger” recommended you.

As a recent Dish TV convert, I soon realized that many of the shows I watch start 2 hours ahead of their regular west-coast schedule.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing…at least I get live shows when they’re live, not a 2 hour delay for us late-bloomers on the west coast.

I called Dish Network’s 800 number, and spoke with a tech. He confirmed that it was going to be that way, since they are based out of Miami, Florida.

Suprising with all the technology, that they can’t deliver the schedule time to other geographic locations — but I admit I know virtually nothing about how Dish TV works, it’s limitations et. al.

I like the interface for Dish Network better than Comcast or Charter (cable needs some serious UI upgrades if they want to compete).

Built-in picture-in-picture (although this requires the TV have a dedicated receiver), better searching and pre-view channel while browsing guide, and you can even preview 6 channels at once — although from what I can tell you get the 6 most popular. I couldn’t find a way to pick which channels I wanted to preview.

The built-in DVR is an excellent feature (still not available from Charter in my area). For the past 2 years I’ve been calling Charter every 3 months and they always say the same thing — “it’ll be here soon, in 3 months’ time”. Well, I got tired of waiting.

Next on my list of things to do is get an HDTV — costco.com had a 42″ for $500 today.

I also went with the bundle from AT&T for DSL, lanline phone (unlimited USA calling), and Dish Network — it all came to about $120/month, but the price is locked in — meaning that it won’t raise after the initial 18 months are up.

The AT&T landline plan was unlimited for US only, Canada was an extra $10/month for unlimited — kind of cheezy when Vonage, Packet8 and Skype give it all to you for one low rate.

What I have to do now is figure out how to get a cheaper Verizon wireless bill.

Update: — I had mistakenly read Comedy Central shows “Colbert Report” and “John Stewart Show” as starting 2 hours ealier…turns out those are the previous days shows…and have always been at that time. I find it amusing that Dish Network’s customer service rep (and the tech that I was handed off to) confirmed my observation and told me that the reason is because they are based out of Miami and that all shows would be EST. This however, is not the case.