Costco blog/discussion forum

This 18 piece set includes a driver (10 degrees of loft), fairway wood (16 degrees of loft), #3 and #4 hybrid irons (combination fairway wood and long iron), seven more irons (5-9, pitching wedge and sand wedge), a putter, a bag with stand, and five head covers. (Costco Item #226143 was priced at $249.99 in August 2008 at my local warehouse.) The detailed specifications for the clubs are available here.

Jack Nicklaus Golf sells golf clubs under three different brands marketed to three different types of players: Nicklaus Premium (advanced), Jack Nicklaus Signature (intermediate), and Golden Bear Golf (beginners).

The SS460X set pictured here is exclusively available at Costco Warehouses. Costco.com sells a similar set from Prince Golf, the MX2 Hybrid Golf Set, for $269.99. You can specify regular or stiff shafts when you order that online.

Costco has unveiled a new brand of mountain bikes.

The Northrock Mountain Bike (Model XC9) (Costco item number 293140, priced at $544.99 in August 2008) is a new arrival to my local Costco warehouse.

Although Northrock is a completely unheard of brand, this bike seems to be constructed from quality components including:

• Shimano Deore LX
• Marzocchi MZ Race Fork
• Avid BB5 disc brakes
• Ritchey handle bars, stem, and seat post
• WTB Saddle and tires

Costco.com sells two other models of mountain bikes on their web site, the Schwinn Delta full suspension model ($450) and the Cadillac AM2.4 ($850). The Northrock falls in between these pricing wise.

I haven't bought it yet, I simply don't have time to properly evaluate it these days. Please post your experiences with this bike.

Have you had vandalism or a burglary in your neighborhood recently? Maybe you should install a home surveillance system. Police are increasingly using these systems to capture criminals. Costco warehouses are selling the the Astak CM-818DVR4V (Costco Item #277301, priced at $489.99 in July 2008). Costco occasionally has a $100 coupon on this item.

This item features four cameras and a four channel digital video recorder. The digital video recorder works like a TIVO, allowing you to store the video from the four surveillance cameras on a hard disk, and then instantly review the video at a specified time. The digital video recorder comes with a 250 GB disk, which should be enough to store several days worth of video from the four cameras. The exact amount of storage depends upon the compression rate and the number of frames per second you choose to store.

It has many features. You can also hook this up to your home network and remotely monitor the cameras over the internet. It has a USB port for data backup. The cameras can be mounted outdoor, and they have infrared LEDs for night vision. (You can see in the dark, but the criminal won't know it.) Each camera comes with 100 feet of cable, so you are going to need to do some installation, drilling through walls, and hiding some cable.

If you buy this, the first thing to do is update the firmware. See the product page at Astek.com to download the updated firmware.

For comparison, the same system is available at Walmart.com for $550, that's $60 more.

The Little Giant Model 17 Type 1a Aluminum Ladder is being sold at both Costco warehouses and Costco.com (Costco item number 269470, priced at $199.99 in June 2008 at both my local warehouse and at Costco.com (shipping and handling is included!).

This ladder is made of aerospace grade aluminum. Its rated load is 300 pounds, but it can probably handle twice that without a problem. The ladder weighs 31 pounds, and folds up for easy storage.

If you order this Model 17 from the Little Giant website, it will cost you $359.80, which includes shipping and handling. That's 80% more than it costs from Costco.com!! Amazon.com has similar prices, about $350.

Although many people first heard of Little Giant Ladders from their series of infomercials starting in about 2004, the company is much older. It was started in the 1980's, but sold mostly to industrial and government clients. They were known for quality ladders for some 20 years before they started selling direct to consumers.

I missed all the infomercials, but first discovered Little Giant Ladders at a Costco Special Event a few months ago. The Little Giant Ladders special event has many other ladders displayed and for sale. I had my eye on the four step Little Giant Safety Step Stepladder pictured to the left, but I didn't buy it that day. I'm still regretting it. If anyone sees this at an upcoming roadshow, please post the price.

If you haven't bought a picnic table in a few decades, you are in for a surprise. Wood picnic tables, which need be painted/stained, and gave thousands of kids splinters are being replaced by all plastic tables.

Costco Warehouses are currently selling a 44 inch round picnic table (Costco item number 956027 priced at $114.99 in June 2008). This table is manufactured by Lifetime Products. It seats six adults comfortably, and the attached benches can swing in to minimize the table's footprint in storage. In fact, the table folds flat, so that you can stack these in storage.

The Costco price offers a great value. Amazon was at one time selling these tables for $199 plus shipping. They are now out of stock. You can buy it directly from the manufacturer for $220, or you can get an 8 pack of these tables for $1267 or about $158 each. Costco beats all these prices by over 40%.

Lifetime Products manufactures these tables with a blow molded process using polyethylene spiked with UV inhibitors. Compared to wood, this table won't need painting. It won't split, chip, or peel like wood tends to do, when it is left exposed to the sun for years.

Glancing through the other Lifetime products, I see they make basketball standards, banquet tables and chairs and a fold trailer. This fold up trailer looks like a great product, unfortunately Costco doesn't sell it. It unfolds to the size of a pickup truck's bed, but you can fold it in half for storage.

Costco warehouses currently stock a storage shed, the 6 foot by 6.5 foot Keter Gemini storage shed (Costco Item #137927, $439.99 in June 2008).

This storage shed is completely made of a special plastic that is durable, UV and water resistant, and never needs to be painted. The shed has internal dimensions of 66 inches by 73 inches and the sloped ceiling is 79 inches high at the walls. (Externally it is 82 inches high, which will just peek over a 6 foot fence. It will probably satisfy most homeowner's association rules.)

If you have never installed a shed or other outbuilding, two important factors are the floor and anchoring to the ground. A well built wood shed would include a concrete pad that anchors the main support columns of the shed. This plastic shed includes a plastic floor, so all you need is a flat patch of ground. Finding a flat area that large is often tougher than it sounds. Since this shed is not anchored to the ground, it is probably not a good idea to install it in geographic locations where heavy winds can be expected, like hurricane areas.

The Costco price, $440, is probably as good a deal as you can find. For comparison Lowe's sells a 6 by 6 foot shed, the Heartland DIY garden shed for $799. However the Heartland DIY is a wood shed, not plastic. Tesco Direct sells the Keter Gemini 6 by 6 foot shed for the equivalent of $530 in the UK.

Keter sells sheds, greenhouses, doghouses, and other outdoor storage systems made of plastic. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Israel. Their products are sold throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and North America.

A spotting scope is a telescope that has been modified for daytime use. A telescope usually has an upside down image and a very high magnification. The image in a spotting scope is not inverted. Spotting scopes usually have greater magnification than binoculars.

If you have a house with a great view (nature or ocean or city, whatever), don't go buy a telescope, you will regret it. Buy a spotting scope. These are also used for bird watching, sports, and just looking at city or nature views.

Costco is currently stocking a Meade 20 to 60 times zoom spotting scope (Costco Item 283111 priced at $54.99, in June 2008). This spotting scope features a 20 to 60 times zoom, fully multi-coated optics, and a tripod that adjusts from 15 inches to 44 inches.

You can pair this spotting scope with a $40 adapter, and shoot pictures through it with your digital camera. See this website for more details about digiscoping

Meade sells at least two lines of spotting scopes, the Redtail line and the Condor line. The Costco spotting scope doesn't appear to be from either of these product lines. It probably is a modified package with optics comparable to the lower priced Condor line or to the Meade 20-60x60 Fully Coated Waterproof Spotting Scope 81011. It appears that Meade has replaced the standard tabletop tripod with an expandable tripod that you can put on the floor. Comparable spotting scopes usually sell for $100 to $120, making this approximately 50% off, a great deal.

Costco.com has appears to have a great deal on the Onan Homesite 2400 generator (Costco Item #200085). During June 2008, they will sell this for $349.99.

This portable gasoline powered generator provides up to 2200 Watts of power. It weighs just under 100 pounds and provides two 120 V AC outlets.

For comparison, costco.com sold this same generator for $399.99 in June 2007 and that was advertised as a $150 off coupon, implying the regular price was $550. Indeed, if you look around online you find these generators selling for $500-$550. So it's a great deal right? No.

While this may be the best deal you can get on an Onan Homesite 2400 model generator, you should probably consider an alternative.

In 2005 inexpensive 3000 watt generators began appearing in auto parts stores across the country. The engines in these generators were being manufactured by Jiung Manufacturing in China. They had licensed the design of a popular Honda engine and were producing it for far less money than Honda had charged. These engines led to cheaper generators, scooters, and go carts. In the US, the brand to look for is Champion, although other brands exist. The whole story of this innovation in portable power generators is laid out in this long thread at rv.net.

Have you ever suffered a power outage at night? This GE Steelbeam Lantern (Costco Item #265614) is one thing to keep in your closet for just those occasions.

I was looking for a good battery powered light, when I spotted this at the local warehouse for $14.99. For comparison, if you buy it online, it will cost you about $30, once you pay the shipping charges.

This, and most camping gear, is seasonal. It is available in May. If you miss it then you'll have to wait for next year. You might as well pick one up, you can always return it if you change your mind.

It is simple to use. You just install 4 D-sized batteries through the bottom, snap a door shut, and screw the base back on. Then with the press of a button, you have light.

The light bulb appears to be similar to the compact fluorescent bulbs sold at Costco warehouses and elsewhere. It is a 6 Watt fluorescent tube. I estimate it has the equivalent brightness of a 40 W incandescent bulb. They claim it is rated for 8,000 hours. A good set of alkaline D batteries is supposed to last you for 16 hours with this lamp, probably at room temperature.

Battery life is highly dependent upon the operating temperature. According to the Duracell specification sheet for D-cell alkaline batteries, a battery operating at freezing (32 F) temperatures will last you five hours, but operating at room temperature (72 F) it will last almost three times as long. So if you are going camping in the mountain, take extra batteries.

Summer is coming and the kids need a place to play. Costco Warehouses and Costco.com are offering the Sunray Premium Play Ground System Model 2008 (Costco Item #738285). It seems that every year Costco offers one of these systems, last year it was the Sunray Model 2007.

This includes a big enclosed fort with a decorative chimney, three swings, a rope ladder, a tic-tac-toe panel, a picnic table, and a rock wall for climbing.

The manufacturer of the Costco play yard is Sunray Premium Play Ground Systems. This is just a different name for Rainbow Play Systems, Inc. Check out the Rainbow Play web site for a whole catalog of play systems similar to the Sunray 2008 model.

Rainbow Play Systems is a leading manufacturer of children's playground equipment. They have a huge 130 acre manufacturing facility in Brookings, South Dakota, where they make these play yards. These are then exclusively marketed through a network of showrooms in the US, Europe, and Latin America.

One advantage of buying a play system through a Rainbow showroom is that they typically also offer delivery and installation services. Of course, buying through it through Costco is going to give you a better price, but you'll need a truck and a weekend to install it.

I found this item, Sunray Model 2008, for $1399.99, at my local warehouse. You can order it from Costco.com for $1699.99, with shipping and handling included.