Slowly but surely, I am going to find a consistent format for this letter. Last night, I stayed up to watch The Ohio State Buckeyes shut down the Oregon Ducks, and it was glorious. Now if only I could find one of these jerseys, I’d actually buy one. I also LOVE this graphic:
Aside from the extreme lack of confidence in Ohio State, there’s also an ad for Avengers: Age of Ultron above. I help run a conference with some other amazing people, and we’ll be showing this movie at the event. I’d love to embed the video for the trailer here, but you’ll have to click on this image instead:
As a second item, I’ve been in a massive purchase cycle for the home lately. We’re replacing our stove, microwave, and refrigerator, as well as our 10-year old mattress. For the bed, we decided to look into “gel memory foam mattresses” because they appear to stay cooler when you sleep. I am a HOT sleeper, and anything that can help keep me cool is a win.
My wife and I made a trip to Macy’s, thinking we’d get a good education at a minimum, and we were right. They walked us through the different materials mattresses are made from, the benefits and weaknesses of each, and then we saw the price. For a king sized mattress, we were staring down nothing short of $2000. The high end ones were closer to $5K. I’m all for investing in something I spend 6-8 hours a day using, but that’s pretty excessive.
I decided to also take a look at Overstock.com, and was pleasantly surprised. Similar mattresses, similar materials. To my delight, they were also 75% cheaper (we got it for around $500). I’ve slept on it for a week now, and it’s amazing. Highly recommended. The other cool part was that it was just shipped to us. It was vacuum sealed and rolled up, and they recommend you wait 24+ hours before sleeping on it so that it can get back to its normal shape. The moment I ripped the plastic, it started inflating. Make sure you’ve got this thing in place before you unwrap it. Seriously.
Finally, with my last little discovery of the week, I was walking through Barnes & Noble the other day, and found this:
Not only is it a gorgeous hardcover book, but I had somehow missed the fact that there were novels written for the first Star Wars trilogy. (I will turn in my geek cred card at the next meeting.) Anyways, I will be purchasing this (it’s $20), but you should really check out the entire B&N Collectible Editions. Every one of them has a great hardback leather cover, and would look beautiful on your bookshelf. I now have my eye on the Edgar Allen Poe one, the U.S. Constitution, Classic American Speeches, and Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
What have you encountered lately that you’d recommend?
JEFF BLANKENBURG 