Emma and Eleanor are frantically preparing for Thanksgiving. Yesterday Emma helped by scooping out the guts of her Halloween pumpkin (painted, not carved, so it would last until now). Eleanor roasted the pumpkin with maple syrup I think, and when I got home in the evening there were also roasted pumpkin seeds to be had.

I was out in the afternoon because I went with Bert to help him find the local Best Buy, and then we ran into Brett, and that's when the trouble started. Brett has been egging me on for months to buy a new LCD TV for our trailer. I have not been wild about the one we have been using in the trailer because the 15" screen (4:3 aspect ratio) is too small for letterboxed movies. As you probably know, we watch movies on DVD almost exclusively, and hardly ever bother with TV, so this was an issue for us.

Well, before I knew it I was buying a new Olevia 23" LCD panel (16:9 "widescreen" aspect ratio), and a new bracket to mount it up. Wow -- what an improvement! We put "Hoodwinked" into the DVD player and the difference was just incredible. No more straining to see the picture.

The new TV bracket doesn't swivel. It doesn't need to, because the screen is so wide and viewable from anywhere in the trailer. We still need to make a few final tweaks, such as tying up excess cords, fixing the bracket so the TV can't wiggle during travel, and installing a small inverter so we can run the TV when boondocking.

The downside of the new TV is increased power consumption. Our Sharp 15" TV consumed just 36 watts, but this monster needs 110 watts. That means we'll need to monitor our use a little more carefully when boondocking. But we kept the old TV and mounted it in the bedroom. Eventually it will be hooked up to its own DVD player so we can all pile onto the queen bed and watch it if we want to keep the power use low. I can imagine us cuddled up there with a bowl of popcorn -- sounds like fun!