Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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Review and New Favorite Thing: Rumpl Puffy Down Blanket

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I've mostly focused on tech products in my reviews here, but I'm straying a bit with this one. This is one of my new Favorite Things and I wanted to share how awesome it is.

First, I'll give a bit of background. Feel free to skip ahead a few paragraphs if you're not interested in how I came to buy three––well, technically four, Rumpl blankets. Rumpl makes premium sleeping-bag like blankets that are great to use both outdoors and indoors. I'd first heard of Rumpl products through a co-worker. I checked out out Rumpl's site and came across this beauty, the Pyro Fade blanket. I've always liked gradient color schemes and this one appealed to me immediately. I added it to my Christmas gift list in a not-so-subtle way and Santa, AKA my boyfriend Chris, delivered! And I was hooked.

Image courtesy of Rumpl.com

That blanket became my go-to to relax with on the couch. It came with us on a 2-week mid-summer road trip and saved our bacon on an unexpectedly cold night while sleeping in our truck bed tent in Minnesota. I was taking that blanket everywhere, including back and forth between home and Chris's every weekend. So then I thought, what if I get another one to just leave at his place? And maybe this would be a good time to try a down version, to boot. This led to the purchase of Rumpl #2, the down puffy in black.

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Review: Buying eyeglasses from EyeBuyDirect.com

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Image courtesy of EyeBuyDirect.com

Image courtesy of EyeBuyDirect.com

I recently had eye surgery (a scleral buckle to fix a detached retina <– that video is not of my surgery and is NOT for the faint of heart) and now need glasses since the vision in that eye has changed. It’s been more than a decade since I’ve needed glasses thanks to Lasik and I was dreading doing what I’d always done before – going to a local optometrist and paying a few hundred dollars for a pair of glasses that I’d be terrified of breaking or losing, and out of style in a year. But, wait – I have the Internet now! If I can order toilet paper online, I should be able to get glasses online for less, right?

I searched for the best online stores for prescription glasses and came across several. Looking at EyeBuyDirect, I liked a lot of the frames I saw there. And their pricing was unbelievably low. Like $6 for a pair of glasses including basic single-vision prescription lenses low. I was worried that this was too good to be true, but from what I could tell, it was a legit site with a facility in Austin, Texas, so I took a gamble and ordered two pairs for a grand total of $57.71. I didn’t really need two pairs but I was a little giddy from the idea that I could get two pairs for hundreds less than I was thinking I’d have to pay for just one.

They arrived in the nick of time before I left for a vacation to Hawaii (and I’m incredibly grateful that I was able to see Hawaii’s beauty even better with them). Aside from an issue with my prescription itself (which EyeBuyDirect had nothing to do with), they were fantastic! I ordered the Sydney frames (shown on the model in the picture in this post) as my main pair and the Milo as my back-up. The Sydney is my favorite and I’ll be ordering another pair with my updated prescription. I’ve also since ordered the Robbie frame with my updated prescription, which cost just over $16.

I purchased clear single-vision lenses and they also offer reading multifocal lenses, along with additional lens options like digital screen protection, tinted lenses to turn any pair of frames into sunglasses, and light-adjusting lenses. You can also add on UV protective, anti-scratch, and anti-reflective coatings. The basic lenses I’ve ordered so far from them come with anti-scratch and anti-reflective coatings.

The hardest part of ordering glasses online is knowing which frames will fit and look good on you. EyeBuyDirect and other online eyeglass stores offer a virtual try-on feature. But I cheated a bit and went to a local LensCrafters and tried on several pairs and noted the frame styles and measurements I liked and purchased similar ones at EyeBuyDirect.

I definitely recommend EyeBuyDirect. The links to them in this article are referral links and will get you $10 off your first purchase there (and I’ll get $10 off my next purchase). I earn no other compensation from them and I wrote this on my own initiative. I’ve just been incredibly happy with my glasses from them and since I’d seen in my own search that independent reviews of them are not plentiful online, I wanted to share my experience to help others.

Earlier today, I ordered another pair from EyeBuyDirect (I’m predicting that having such easy access to stylish yet inexpensive glasses is going to be trouble for my wallet), this time with light-adjusting (photochromic) lenses for the summer. I expect those to be fabulous as well and will update this post if they’re not somehow.

If you have any questions about my experiences with EyeBuyDirect, please feel free to comment on this post and I’ll do my best to answer.

A (pen) Quiver for your Moleskine notebook

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Despite the overwhelmingly digital nature of my life these days, I am still in love with paper and pens. Granted, I don’t get to use them as often as I used to when I was in school but I still enjoy a well-balanced pen that writes smoothly and crisply and a fresh pad of paper. To satisfy this need, I have a Moleskine notebook and a Pilot Hi-Tec-C pen and I try to keep them close to me wherever I go to jot down quick notes and thoughts. However, keeping a pen with that notebook has always proven to be harder than I thought, at least until now.

I came across the Quiver, a product by Quiver Global thanks to The Gadgeteer. It’s an elastic and leather contraption that attaches to a hardcover notebook and holds a pen or two for you. The single-pen version slips over the spine of your notebook and the double-pen version slips over the front cover. Though I only wanted a single-pen holder, I didn’t want that version interfering with my ability to keep the notebook open and write in it, so I opted for the double-pen version since that slides on over the front cover instead of the spine.

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Review: Morris Lessmore DODOcase for the iPad 3

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Every time I get a new gadget, I am tempted to buy a new case or other accessory for it, and I usually succumb to this temptation. This was definitely the case (see what I did there?) for my new iPad 3 and I ordered the Morris Lessmore DODOcase for it. I’ve now had it for a few weeks and have been enjoying it quite a bit.

The Morris Lessmore case, which costs $64.95, was made in partnership with Moonbot Studios in honor of the Oscar-winning animated short film, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. (You can buy the short film directly from the iTunes Store here and there’s also an interactive iPad book app for it here.)

The case looks and feels just like a hardcover book on the outside and is made by hand using traditional bookbinding techniques. The exterior of this particular model (DODOcase offers several different models with different materials and color combinations) is faux red leather and it has a cream linen cloth interior. As with all of DODOcase’s cases, it has a bamboo frame on the inside to hold the iPad, with rubber pads in the corner to grip it and cushion it within the frame.

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Review: Acme Made Skinny Sleeve for Apple’s MacBook Air

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Image courtesy of Acme Made

I’ve always loved the look and feel of Apple’s aluminum laptops and while they’re pretty sturdy, they’re not immune to scratches and dents, even when they’re carried inside another bag. Though I have several laptop bags with dedicated compartments, my 11-inch MacBook Air is small enough that it can fit into other bags I have that lack a dedicated space for a laptop. For these bags, I wanted a slim yet protective sleeve for my MacBook Air and chose the Acme Made Skinny Sleeve.

There are ton of sleeves out there for the MacBook Air but the Acme Made Skinny Sleeve caught my eye for a few reasons. First, it has some additional reinforcement built into walls of the sleeve to provide even more protection against dents. Second, it’s a very slim, low-profile sleeve that adds little bulk to the already-thin MacBook Air. Third, though I’m not the kind of girl who’s drawn to pretty colors, I really liked the dark eggplant color available as a nice alternative from the black cases and bags I usually buy.

So far, the Acme Made Skinny Sleeve is definitely living up to my expectations and is keeping my MacBook Air protected, all while looking sleek and professional in the process and I have only a few tiny gripes about it. Read on or watch my video review after the break to find out more.

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