New Bed Number 2 and Nook Number 1

Went back to Art Van's last Monday and exchanged the Serta iComfort Prodigy mattress we bought 2 months ago with it's softer cousin the Savant, the one I originally preferred. Perhaps I should have pushed harder for that one, but I really thought there wasn't much difference. But after sleeping on the stiffer Prodigy for 60 days and occasionally waking up with aching hips, (Hal also had some uncomfortable nights) we decided to return it and get the other one. Besides we never heard that celestial choir telling us the mattress was pure perfection.

It arrived Friday and we've had 2 nights on it already. I like it better, I think Hal does, too though he still hasn't heard that choir. It's possible we need to break it in as we were told we'd have to break in the other one. This mattress is actually $200 cheaper than the Prodigy but the Art Van policy is you have to replace a mattress with one of equal or greater value. We weren't expressly told that but it's in the fine print which, of course, we ignored. So we didn't get that money back, plus we had to pay shipping this time which was close to $100. The lesson learned here is try the cheaper item first THEN get the higher priced one if you have to. We'd be $300 richer now if we'd done that. Could have bought 2 nooks this weekend with the sale Barnes and Noble is having.

Which brings me to the nook. B&N had a sale before Mother's Day so I finally bought a nook as I've been wanting an e-reader for some time now but $269 was more than I was willing to pay as there wasn't a lot you could do with their HD+ model. But then they added Google Play apps this year and dropped the price to $179. (For Father's Day they dropped it to $149, the bastards!)

It's a nice little device, touch screen, color, an 8.9" screen. I've read a book on it as has Hal, and we're reading another now. We've been sharing it to see if we want to get another, but those virtual keyboards leave a lot to be desired, it's a bit slow with the online stuff, though the couple of games I've loaded give me some amusement. Hal has decided the nook is mine to keep, he wants a tablet with a detachable keyboard, a better ability to utilize external memory (he wants to load camera cards from his wildlife camera and though I did download a photo viewing app for the nook, it's not really tailored for it). What Hal needs is one of those Microsoft Surface tablets but they cost around $1200, so he's planning on waiting a year or two till the market has more or better and cheaper offerings. Till then he'll just keep using his laptop.