Best Buy Ad -- Early bird gets the worm

[Younk]

Good luck, some sweet deals...

http://bestbuy.shoplocal.com/bestbuy/Default.aspx?action=browsepageflash&storeid=2413277&rapid=340754&pagenumber=1&prvid=112306mw&promotioncode=112306mw

[discmonkey]

1 - read the fine print (limited quantities, no rain checks, etc.)
2 - all the limited qty specials will be gone in the first 30 minutes the store is open
3 - There will be a line of over 100 people at the front door as early as 3-4 in the morning waiting for these specials at every location

I work in that industry and there are some great deals Friday morning, just make sure you are committed to getting them and get to the store and in line early.

[Jon Brakel]

There were well over 200 people in line at Best Buy in Arlington Heights at 4:45 this morning. In Long Grove there were fewer but it was still way over 100. A guy who wanted to get the $300 laptop had been in line since 4pm Thanksgiving day. We went there for the Magellan GPS for $279 and to look at the $5 DVDs...we also went for the spectacle! I did not want to wait in line outside and I didn't want to be in the mad rush when the doors opened so we went in at about 5:05am after the stampede was over. I got the GPS and two $5 DVDs and it only took an hour (the 2GB usb drives were sold out before I could get to the bin). I read that Wisconsin doesn't allow loss leaders--they have a minimum mark-up law. However, the Best Buy ad has the same prices as the Illinois version. Most of the prices are from instant rebates. I wonder if that is their way of getting around the minimum mark-up law?

[discmonkey]

Instant rebates are usually paid by the mfr.  Also, all mfrs. give the retailers end of year volume rebates.  If on your books, you put those end of year rebates towards the cost of the loss leaders, you get by.  Another way is when the mfrs. offer things as buy one get one to the retailer.  Ex - BB buys 2,000 of a given laptop and the mfr. of the laptop gives them 2,000 usb hard drives to give to customers with each laptop they sell.  Instead, BB sells those drives at a low price that is actually 100% profit.  It's all fuzzy math in the end.

[Bruce Brakel]

The disc business is the same way.  You buy so much stuff, you get so much free stuff.  At least with Discraft anyway.  With Innova its, if you buy so much stuff that's been marked up a little from the regular price, they'll give you enough free stuff to get you back to the regular price on the average, but they want you to thank them for the sponsorship.

Does the Best Buy manager thank Dell for the sponsorship?  I don't do a lot of shopping.  Seems to me it's not sponsorship; it's taking care of your good customers. 

O.k., let me display my ignorance.  I've heard that GPS units are hot this year.  What do you do with a GPS unit?  Is this a portable mapping device like they put in cars or is this just something that tells you your GPS coordinates?  And after you buy the thing, do you have to subscribe to a service or is it a one-time buy? 

[stpitner]

The disc business is the same way. You buy so much stuff, you get so much free stuff. At least with Discraft anyway. With Innova its, if you buy so much stuff that's been marked up a little from the regular price, they'll give you enough free stuff to get you back to the regular price on the average, but they want you to thank them for the sponsorship.

Does the Best Buy manager thank Dell for the sponsorship? I don't do a lot of shopping. Seems to me it's not sponsorship; it's taking care of your good customers.

O.k., let me display my ignorance. I've heard that GPS units are hot this year. What do you do with a GPS unit? Is this a portable mapping device like they put in cars or is this just something that tells you your GPS coordinates? And after you buy the thing, do you have to subscribe to a service or is it a one-time buy?

It should be a one-time buy on the GPS.  It connects to a minimum of 3 satellites to figure out where your GPS transponder is located.  Sure you can use it to tell you exactly where you are, but the best usage for a GPS is to have it tell you how to get where you need to go.  It like mapquest or google maps on the go and it tells you when you are about to arrive at the turn instead of trying to read the printed out directions.

A lot of GPS units will also allow you to store some of your favorite locations in it, so you could program in DG courses (just tell it where it's at), and then you could use it to map out where you go from course to course if you want to play more than one on a day, especially on a road trip!

[mirth]

the only expenses you may see with a portable gps unit is occasional map software updates to reflect new/changed routes.

[Jon Brakel]

the only expenses you may see with a portable gps unit is occasional map software updates to reflect new/changed routes.

I've heard that one of the car manufacturer's proprietary devices charges $100 for their updates. Don't know if that is common or not.

[mirth]

Bruce - the subscription to use GPS satellites is paid anually by everyone.... in our taxes!

[Bruce Brakel]

Well, if I'm already paying for the subscription, feel free to get me one for Christmas!   

[mirth]

I'll let diana know.

[Bruce Brakel]

On the GPS topic, suppose I'm hiking around in the woods off trail surveying some acreage for a disc golf course.  I'd like to make a map of the terrain so I could get a good idea on the locations of various features in relation to each other, their sizes, etc.  Like how long is that swamp and how big is that piney wood and how far would it be from here to there after they brush hog all that Russian olive that makes it hard to pace that off?

Some kind of GPS thing would be great for locating and mapping 40 acres, no?  How would I figure out what kind of GPS thing I needed for that? 

I spent the day today getting lost and found at a 10,000 acre park that would be willing to give up 40 or so for a course.  I think I could accelerate the process if I could produce a useful map of the 100 I'm focusing on. 

[tacimala]

I've seen some smaller course directories that have it broken down as far as a hole by hole level. By using the GPS coordinates they had it mapped out from tee to basket. Based on that I'm guessing you could do something similar with the coordinates to map out what you want as well. I'll see if I can find that link again.

[stpitner]

On the GPS topic, suppose I'm hiking around in the woods off trail surveying some acreage for a disc golf course.  I'd like to make a map of the terrain so I could get a good idea on the locations of various features in relation to each other, their sizes, etc.  Like how long is that swamp and how big is that piney wood and how far would it be from here to there after they brush hog all that Russian olive that makes it hard to pace that off?

Some kind of GPS thing would be great for locating and mapping 40 acres, no?  How would I figure out what kind of GPS thing I needed for that? 

I spent the day today getting lost and found at a 10,000 acre park that would be willing to give up 40 or so for a course.  I think I could accelerate the process if I could produce a useful map of the 100 I'm focusing on. 

One would think that you could get some sort of topography map of the park, although I don't know if they would be willing to give you one should such a thing exist.  That should tell you not only distances, but elevations as well.

I did a quick search and found this:
http://www.gps4fun.com/mtech_terrain_states.php

It's $89 for the state of michigan.  Maybe that would help.

Who needs one for Illinois?  We all know that it's all flat

[tacimala]

Bruce, here is the site I was talking about: http://www.earthoffice.net/discgolf/directory/

Some of the featured courses on the right have a hole by hole layout overlayed on the Google map using the GPS coordinates.

[Bruce Brakel]

The maps the park has are not very useful.  Unfortunately the area I'm looking at straddles county and township boundaries so the free topo maps I've found I'd have to piece together.  They'd be useful for locating the wetlands and ridges but not as useful for locating the particular trees that define fairways. 

Jon says what i need is one of the cheaper GPS units that gives coordinates.  He could not figure out how to get coordinates out of his talking GPS unit.  It is oriented towards streets and highways, not forests and meadows.

[stpitner]

Maybe this is more along the lines of what you need:

http://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/View_Catalog_Page.asp?mi=4210

This is the place where I ordered my flags for marking tee signs, and they have all sorts of nature-type products used specifically for the people in that line of work.  They have other GPS units, but this one specifically talks about surveying.

[discmonkey]

What you are looking for is a GPS used in what is called geocaching.  It is a fairly fast growing activity where people hide things, mark the coordinates, and others find them.  The cache is usually a container of some type and usually with a notebook in it to sign that you found it.  Some people leave items in the container as well.  I saw a guy doing this at Fairfield a while back and after talking to him for a while, it seemed like the small handheld GPS unit he was using could get him within feet of a specific target.  These units also set what are called "way points" that mark specific coordinates you indicate.  These units are less expensive than car units as they don't need to talk to you or reroute you around traffic.  You can get decent ones on ebay.

[stpitner]

... now if there was only a way to track the coordinates of my disc when I throw it into the reeds at Streamwood or <insert name of your favorite disc eating course> ...

[tacimala]

I hear ya there...the discs that my buddy and I lost in the snow there at Streamwood a few weeks ago were never returned. Bad enough to lose discs but even worse that no effort was made to return them!