One of the Best Tech Deals Ever

For our kids' entertainment on long road trips we've been using portable dvd players. Though they work fine, they are a pain to install and remove before and after each trip.  So I thought what would be better would be to provide each child with an Android tablet, with which he or she could watch videos, play games, track our progress, etc.  I had been looking for some inexpensive 7" tablets that were powerful enough to play video and games smoothly, for under $150.  The top contenders were the Asus Memo HD 7 , and the Barnes and Noble Nook HD.  I was hoping a good deal would turn up on Black Friday, but it wasn't until Cyber Monday that I found a deal that turned out to be one of the best deals on tech that I have ever gotten.  The tablet is the Hisense Sero 7 Pro.  New ones are only sold through Walmart, for $129.  On Cyber Monday, Newegg were selling refurbs for $85!  I couldn't pass that deal up!

Spec-wise, it's pretty good.  Not top-tier this year, but it would have been up there last year.  Some of the specs: Tegra 3 quad core running 1.2GHz, 1 GB memory, 8 GB storage, microSD card slot, GPS, mini-HDMI, 2.0 MP front camera, 5.0 MP rear camera with flash, 1280x800 display with 5 point multitouch, 4000 mAH battery, runs Android 4.2.  The price was so good that I bought three of them!

I got the cases on Amazon, a different color for each kid.  Guess which one is Jessica's.  The only problem I ran into was a bad usb cable for one of the tablets.  Rather than send it back, I just bought another one cheap on Amazon.  Otherwise, the tablets are awesome!  Noticeably faster than my Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus 7.0.  Everything works and works well.  Video is smooth.  Games work well.  GPS works well.  Sound is good.  Couldn't be happier.  These would be good tablets at $150.  They are fantastic at $85.

Bathroom Faucet and Drain Replacement

For over a year the faucet in one of our bathrooms has been dripping.  Initially, we could stop it by turning the handle a certain way.  Recently, however, the turning trick stopped doing the trick.  So, I knew it was time to change this thing.  Here's the piece-o-crap faucet:

Never liked this thing, ever since installing it about 11 years ago.  It worked well for about a month, then started getting stiff.  It also started corroding. Then dripping.  Moen just sucks.  I installed a Moen kitchen faucet that was terrible.  I didn't want to repair the thing; just wanted to replace it.  Here's the drain that's going with it:

I had installed an American Standard faucet in another bathroom several years ago, and it works well, so I bought one for this bathroom several months ago.  Just never got around to installing it 'til now.

First, I had to get under the sink to remove the old faucet.  Check out this drain, clearly some leaking going on here:

Removing the faucet involves first removing some nuts. They were a little difficult to get off due to corrosion, but that's pretty normal from my experience.

 I really like the way American Standard designed this faucet.  They use these large threaded brass pipes that are secured with plastic nuts.  Very easy to put on, and corrosion won't be a problem.

Once the faucet was installed, I installed the drain, which was pretty straightforward.  the mechanism for the pop-up stopper was interesting.  I've never seen one like this, but it works very well.

And here's the brand new faucet!  Woohoo!

And a shot of the drain: