Brendan Gates

We have returned, from Playa Del Carmen in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Actually, we were just outside of Playa at the Hotel Valentin Imperial Maya. I took some pictures, you can see them on my Flickr page here.

It was a great trip. Very relaxing, lots of time on the beach. We couldn’t have asked for more.

A few comments:

– The Mexican people were extremely friendly, and not just the resort employees who could have been pleasant just for the sake of a tip. Every person we came across, down to the airport security employee who searched my bag, was amazingly friendly.

– Based on a consumer reports review, we went with a Walgreens brand sunblock. That stuff worked great; easily the best sunblock I’ve ever used. I thought for sure my fair pseudo-ginger skin was going to fry, but it didn’t. I have a little color from walking around without sunblock in the morning, but otherwise I look much the same as I did before I left. I can’t recommend this sunblock highly enough, especially considering it’s a discount brand and I put it to the test, spending at least 4 hours a day out at the beach or pool in the blazing Mexican sun. It was the Walgreens Sport SPF 70+ Continuous Spray. If you want to spend some time in the sun and not burn, even you fellow paper-white peeps, get this stuff (and don’t forget to reapply).

– And for other teetotalers out there, you can get non-alcohol beer in Playa Del Carmen. I had about a 50% success rate in getting it when I asked, and about a 85% success rate in getting a weird look for asking for such a thing. At the Argentinian Steakhouse in Playa they had O’Douls Amber, and at the resort they had Sol Cero.

– Back to sunblock, be advised that the super fantastic sunblock I was just evengelizing above will do you no good if you go snorkeling or swimming in the caves. Those are protected areas, and as such you’ll need biodegradeable sunblock. Predictably, it doesn’t work nearly as well. But if you’re going the cave route you probably won’t see much sun. Snorkelers should buy the bio-friendly stuff ahead of time so as to not be forced to buy the overpriced versions when you’re at the snorkel shop in Mexico.

– There is no shortage of “day adventures” you can sign up for, and the zip lines alone are worth the price of admission. We did the Tulum Xtreme and were led around by a great guide named Gus. You can see a video of me riding a zip line here, ladyfriend here, and Gus here. Our day trip was offered by Aventuras Mayas, and we would definitely take a tour with them again given the opportunity.

I’m sure there is more I can say, or there are details I’m forgetting, but the pictures and video links are the most interesting things anyway. If I think of anything else I’ll come back and append this post.

Okay, there’s a wee bit of hyperbole in that title. I still can’t bench my own weight, explain baseball’s infield fly rule, or understand anything that happens under the hood of a car. So I might be a few skills short of getting into the Manly Man Club (where I imagine that Ted Nugent or Clint Eastwood are checking IDs at the door). But I did just successfully fix my own TV, and that’s gotta be a step towards club membership.

Me with my TV. Click here or here to see the other versions of this pic that didn’t make the cut.

The issue with the TV started several months ago. When we would press the “on” button, the TV would click like it was turning on, then click off, then turn back on. The first time it happened I thought I had accidentally pushed the on button twice. But I hadn’t, unfortunately, and the cycle continued each time the TV was turned on. Over time that cycle worsened, clicking on and off several times before eventually firing up. After only a month or two the delay between pressing “on”, and having the TV actually being on, was up to about 15 minutes.

So what did Ladyfriend and I do about it? The most logical thing we could think of; we stopped turning off the TV. If you didn’t have to turn it on anymore, then you didn’t have to suffer through that cycle, right? For over three months our TV stayed on, 24/7. When we would leave the house, or go to sleep at night, we’d just change the input over to HDMI3, which resulted in a black screen since nothing was attached to that input.

This system worked until one fateful day last week, when I accidentally turned the TV off. I was moving the remotes around to clean the coffee table, and I put something down on the off button of the TV remote. I wasn’t facing the TV when it happened, but I knew the click as soon as I heard it. And like I feared, the TV wouldn’t turn back on. Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued, followed by a brief time spent wondering if it would help to blame the situation on the dog. My hand had been forced; it was time to fix the TV.

The warranty period had long since expired, and a quick call to Samsung confirmed that they would be no help – despite this being an obvious manufacturing defect. I went on the interwebs and found many other Samsung customers complaining of the exact same problem. Apparently a particular run of TVs assembled in Mexico had used undersized capacitors on their main boards, and as a result many of the TVs from that run were afflicted by what had been dubbed the “click of death”.

There were two ways to fix the problem. One, you could pay somebody else to do it. The other Samsung customers online all reported between $300 and $500 as what they paid, or what they were quoted, from local repair shops. I called our local shop and they didn’t know what it would cost without looking at the TV first, and that quote alone was going to be $60. The other way to fix the TV was to do it yourself.

I went with the second option. I cracked open my set to remove the main board, and sure enough, two of the capacitors had blown. I went to my local electronics store and bought 4 new 2200uF 105c 25v capacitors for 90 cents each, and a small spool of rosin-core solder. Radio Shack provided the soldering iron and desoldering vacuum. YouTube provided videos on how to solder, and even a video of a guy fixing his Samsung. Total cost was under $40, and it’s only that high because I didn’t have any of the soldering equipment to start with.

So solder I did. And it worked! Despite my lack of electronics experience, and despite my shoddy first-time soldering job, the TV actually turned on when I plugged it back in. It turned on in only one click, too, which was the best part. I was amazed, and very proud of myself. I did a few Tiger Woods style fist pumps and then ran to tell Ladyfriend the news, who was slightly less excited because I had just woken her up.

Is soldering manly? I don’t know about that specifically, but saving $300 and doing your own repair work probably is. I think I’ll head over to that club now and see if Ted or Clint let me in.

Note to Samsung: I’ve been a loyal customer of yours for years, so much so that I’ve even recommended to friends that they too invest in your products. I understand that hardware components can fail, but I’m very disappointed by your lack of response to this widespread issue. I will no longer be recommending any Samsung products to friends, and I’ll have to think long and hard before buying your products for me as well. Let me know if you ever decide to make customer service a priority, and maybe then I’ll reconsider.