Thoughts on Cable and Television

Yesterday there was an incomprehensible, multi-page flyer from Time Warner in my mail with a bunch of ballyhoo about their services and new channels they are adding. There was pricing listed. I could not figure out what it was going to do to my cable bill; and if it was going to change my service. I have three televisions. Only one receives digital cable. I called Time Warner and talked to a representative. I asked her to explain the flyer to me. She told me she had been off work for a few days and was not familiar with the flyer. She started checking and could not figure it out either. She tried to call her supervisor over and could not get her attention. Finally she said she would call me back. About an hour later she did call back and essentially what is happening is that my bill will go up $2 plus tax. It looks like I am paying ~$6 per month for the Digital Value Package over regular cable. I rarely watch the digital channels. I decided to leave things the way they are for now.

 

It seems like my viewing habits are changing. After 9/11, I had CNN on all the time. Now CNN gets on my nerves. I get the general gist of the news and then turn it off. In the evening I am watching the CBS Evening News with Bob Schieffer. I know he is only a temporary news anchor, but since Dan Rather left I have really grown to like Schieffer. I think he has a lot of qualities in common with Walter Cronkite. There was something about Dan Rather that I never really liked. It is too bad that Bob Schieffer did not get the job when he was much younger.

 

Also it seems like I am almost exclusively watching CBS at night for entertainment. I like all of the CSI shows, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Without a Trace, Numbers, Cold Case and Close to Home. I also watch Survivor and The Amazing Race. I am looking forward to a new Amazing Race series starting tonight.. All of this has caused me to wonder why I need digital cable.

 

My plan has been to take my two newer Sony televisions to my new home and donate the old heavy television that is in the living room to the Salvation Army. I have not studied all the flavors of HDTV and the different screen types yet. I thought I would wait until I am in my new home before purchasing one. Now I am thinking I will be in no hurry to get a new TV. Reading, the computer and CBS seem to be all I really need now.

Really Sad

This morning I took all of my engineering textbooks and the business texts from my MBA studies to the Goodwill donation station. It really hurt me to part with those books. I spent so much time with them. The books were very heavy. I had them stored in a cabinet in the room I call the den which is on the second floor. It took many trips up and down the stairs to carry them to my car in the garage. For a while I thought I was going to have another bruise on my arm, but fortunately one did not develop. The bruise I got last weekend is fading. By next week it will just be a bad memory.

 

After I came back home, I cleaned every drawer in my desk. I had a couple of stacks of current papers that I am now able to fit in the drawers. I now am able to store my new camera equipment in the cabinet where I kept the college textbooks. There is a bright side to all of this sorrow associated with parting with my possessions. By the time my house is put on the market, I will have cleared out enough to make it look very spacious. It did not look cluttered before I started the sorting. I am very neat, but every shelf and every drawer was full of things that I have accumulated over the years and now rarely touch.

 

It was really funny how many pens and pencils had accumulated in my desk drawers. Many came from meetings and conferences that I attended while I was working. One drawer was full of souvenirs of vacations and cruises I had taken 20-30 years ago. I have done so much traveling since I retired. I accumulated an incredible amount of stuff from the travel and reached the point that I just had to throw it out. Now the only souvenirs that I keep are the pictures that I have taken. I have twenty large albums that are filled with pictures of trips that I have taken since I retired. I am keeping those albums.

 

After next week's trip to Frisco, I am going to call the Salvation Army and have them come pick up some of the bigger items. I am going to get rid of my exercise bicycle, old computer, lawn mower and wheel barrow. I may also get rid of the shelves in the garage. I am curious if Del Webb will have an option for built-in storage cabinets in the garage. I am going to keep my upgrades to a minimum. Plantation shutters on all the windows and storage cabinets in the garage are the two upgrades that I most desire.

The Longest Five Months of My Life

It seems like ninety percent of my waking thoughts and some of my dreams and nightmares revolve around moving. I have bought three houses in the past, but in each of the previous moves from the time I made the decision to move or my employer made the decision for me it took no longer than four months before I was in my new home. This time it is different, and I have had time to really agonize over all of my concerns.

 

For a long time I have known I would have to move from my present home because it has two stories with steep stairs that will not be safe for me as I age. Every so often I would think about the Del Webb retirement community which is north of Austin at Georgetown. For some reason that part of the state never appealed to me. Last August I looked at the Del Webb internet site and saw they were planning a new retirement community to be called Frisco Lakes in the north Dallas suburb of Frisco. I had never heard of Frisco. I had been thinking for some time that I would like to live in Dallas to be near the DFW airport. I love to travel. Since 9/11 the commuter airlines have abandoned Beaumont, and air travel has become increasingly difficult.

 

Then last September Hurricane Rita forced me to evacuate from Beaumont. I went to Texarkana. The weather forecasters said Rita was going to track north to Texarkana, stall out and drop 20 inches of rain. I decided I had to get out of Texarkana. I tried to call the various hotel chains and could not get through on their 800 numbers. I had my computer with me and found a Hampton Inn in Frisco. I made the online reservation. I only got one hour of sleep the night that Rita hit Beaumont. I started out in the dark for the drive to Frisco. I truly thought I was homeless. I told myself I was driving to my new home. I only spent one night in Frisco. Everything appeared to be very new and very nice. The one drawback was there was a tremendous amount of road construction. The next day I drove down to Richardson and spent the remainder of the evacuation there. I started calling Del Webb to get information on Frisco Lakes. There was little information at that time. I finally learned that the first homes were projected to be ready for occupancy in August, 2006.

 

Four weeks ago I went to a seminar at a hotel in Frisco where Del Webb presented the first details of the new community. I liked what I heard. I went on a bus tour out to the site. There wasn't much to see. There will eventually be 2,400 homes. The shells of the model homes were under construction. Some of the main streets are in place and there is a dark red brick wall in place around the perimeter of the community. They passed out a packet of preliminary floor plans for their homes. The dimensions were incomplete, and I did not have enough information to make a decision.

 

This week I heard from my sales representative, Rita. I am to meet with her on March 6. The purpose of the meeting is to "give you an opportunity to tour the model homes, walk the lots, view color selections and buyer selection pricing." She sent me a packet of floor plans with more complete dimensions that arrived yesterday. Surprise, surprise--the two floor plans I was considering just will not work with my furniture. I am going to have to go for a larger, more expensive model. The two models I had considered were the Plymouth and the Monroe. They are not including these floor plans in the models that are under construction. The floor plan that I am now considering is called the Walden. I am going to find out if it is one of the models that I will get to walk through.

 

The latest projection is that the first homes will be ready in late July if weather does not set them back. That gives me five more months to fret. I need to keep busy and stop thinking so much.

 

 

Don't Buy Stuff!

That is what I am telling myself. I am continuing the sorting and eliminating process. This week I went through the closet in the bedroom I call the den. The room is furnished with Ethan Allen cabinets and wall units. One unit is an office center. I eliminated my old ten-key electric adding machine, two Texas Instruments calculators that cost a small fortune way back when, a handheld CB radio and a large cassette tape recorder that was miraculously small and portable when new. I found several wooden puzzles, a Rubik's cube and several other puzzles that entertained me in the days before computers. I kept those. I also kept my Smith Corona electric portable typewriter even though I have not touched it in years. It is just too hard to part with some things. Tomorrow I am going through the unit that is called the sewing center. I haven't touched my sewing machine in years either.

 

My arm is healing but still looks terrible. I am glad that it is winter, and I can wear long sleeves.

Slowed Down

On Sunday I tackled my old computer. It has a humongous 17" monitor that is so heavy I can barely push it across the table. I bought every peripheral gadget that could be added to a computer. The maze of cables under the table was unbelievable. I untangled the cables. My wireless router has a print server and the printer is now attached to the router instead of the computer. My old computer had a SCSI controller in it. The disk drives, dat tape drive, CD-ROM and scanner all worked off of the SCSI controller. SCSI peripherals were very expensive. I just hate to part with all of them, but they are all obsolete. They have to go. I was afraid to try and boot the old computer. It has been idle for so long I was fearful that it might burst into flames when I turned the power on. I had scanned my financial records on to the hard disks and was afraid to let them go. I opened up the computer and removed the drives. I now have two disk drive paper weights. I might attack them with a hammer or dunk them in water before I dispose of them. I scooted the monitor across the table and eased it into my chair. I then rolled it to the hall way and eased it to the floor at the top of the stairs. I am going to call the Salvation Army to see if they will come pick it up. That monitor has made me feel very weak and helpless.

 

When I was finished carting out all of the computer stuff, I was left with the laser printer, the router and cable modem on my computer table. I now use a WiFi enabled notebook computer that I move around the house. I can print out documents without being attached to the printer. I disposed of all of my old floppy diskettes. My current computer does not have a floppy drive. I realized that the dat backup tapes contained all of my financial data. I destroyed the tapes by breaking the cases and pulling out the tape. I then chopped the tape up with my scissors. I destroyed more than $100 worth of tapes, but with rampant identity theft I did not dare leave those tapes in tact.

 

On Monday morning when I woke up I noticed my right arm was sore. It had a tingling pain. I had on long sleeves and had not examined my arm when I changed clothes. Finally when I got in the bathtub I noticed I had this huge bruise that covers the entire bicep of my upper right arm. It is really ugly. I am not sure just how I injured my arm. It must have happened when I moved that horrid computer monitor. I have taken aspirin. I am a little concerned that clots might break off of this bruise. Again I say it is really big and ugly. It is much darker in color today but does not hurt quite as much as it did yesterday.

 

I have now started on the bedroom that I call the den. Yesterday I cleaned one shelf in the closet and today I cleaned the top shelf. My arm has slowed me down. I put out six 33-gallon trash bags this morning for pickup and delivered another trunk load to Goodwill.

 

The sales rep at Frisco Lakes who I am to meet with on March 6 called this afternoon. She is sending me a package of floor plans with all of the dimensions. With that information I will be able to finalize my choice.

More Progress

I have turned into a steamroller. I am moving right through the house. The linen closet, the cabinets in the master bathroom, the master bedroom closet and the master bedroom furniture have all been cleaned. I actually have empty drawers in my dresser and areas of bare shelf in the closet. After I finish one task I set the goal for the next day.

 

My worst problem is getting rid of old paper. I saved the stubs from all my paychecks. Just tossing them is out of the question because they contain such things as my social security number. My paper shredder is not designed for heavy duty use. I learned this week when it gets too hot it just quits. Fortunately it started working again when it cooled down. Now every time I walk through the bedroom I feed a couple of sheets of paper into the shredder.

 

There are six more boxes to go through in the garage, and there is a closet in the garage that I have not touched. If I can keep going as I have the past two weeks I will get the job done before the time to move arrives.

 

I talked to my sales rep at Frisco Lakes yesterday. She inadvertently gave me a few clues on how many one-on-one interviews they are going to conduct. After I hung up, I was more optimistic about my chances of getting one of the first lots. I am aware there may be a down side to getting one of the first homes, but I am sooo ready to leave Beaumont.

 

Eleven days before Hurricane Rita hit I got my eyes examined by an optometrist at a local optical shop. I remembered seeing a Lions Club International  donation box for old eyeglasses in the shop. I have a sack full of old eyeglasses that I cleaned out this week. I decided to donate them. I went to the optical shop and saw a sign on the door that said they were closed for ???? due to Hurricane Rita. It is five months since the hurricane arrived. I found it hard to believe that my eye doctor has been shut down this long. He is originally from Gulfport, MIssissippi. When I saw him in September, he told me he had just returned from Mississippi. His father and brother went through Katrina. We discussed what would happen if Beaumont was ever hit by a hurricane. Little did we know that we were only eleven days away from the event. While I was standing in front of the shop the door opened and a workman came out and asked if he could help me. It turned out to be the young man who my neighbor recommended to do my sheets rock repairs. I did not recognize him, but he remembered me. Small world!

 

I have made so many trips to the Goodwill donation station. They have a metal building on the premises and four or more cats live under the building. Those cats have got to the point they recognize me and come out and rub up against my legs. I really do not like this.

 

 

Progress

On Tuesday I received a phone call from my sales representative at Frisco Lakes to schedule my one-on-one appointment. I chose March 6. They are going to be conducting the one-on-ones until March 13. The date of the appointment in no way changes the chances of getting the lot you want. I decided to wait until March so that more work would be done on the model homes and there would be more to see. I am going to drive to Dallas. I have the option to change the interview to a telephone call if the weather is bad. I was wondering when I would be contacted so I am relieved to have the appointment scheduled. This is one more step on the road to my new home.

 

I have continued to work on cleaning the master bedroom closet. I took a trunk load of clothes to Goodwill on Tuesday. The trunk of my car is filled again and will visit the Goodwill donation station again this morning. Tuesday is the normal trash pickup day in my neighborhood. There is a limit to how much trash you can put out each week. I was afraid I had exceeded the limit this week. For some reason the trash was not picked up on Tuesday. I was very relieved yesterday morning when I looked out the window and saw that all of the bags I had put out were gone.

 

I find the sorting of my belongings is very depressing. I feel like I am discarding a large portion of my life. I just keep telling myself that I am going to be very happy that I have this all done when I unpack the boxes in my new home.

Surprises

I am still cleaning the garage. I have three sets of storage shelves along one wall that came with cardboard storage boxes. I have not looked into some of those boxes since I moved into this house eighteen years ago. I found one box that was completely filled with Atari computer magazines. Those probably could be sold on eBay, but I do not want to bother with them. I also found two boxes filled with Folger's coffee cans. My father always told me to save coffee cans because they were useful when painting and good for storing small items in the garage. Well all of that stuff is in the trash now.

 

I have started cleaning inside the house. I am starting in the master bathroom. Over the last two days I have cleaned the linen closet. I started hauling out some of the shoe boxes. I am beginning to think I might be a rival for Imelda Marcos. The trunk of my car was filled to the brim when I went to the Goodwill donation station this morning. There were a dozen rolls of Contac paper that I bought to cover the bathroom and linen closets shelves that I never got around to using.

 

I emailed the lifestyle director at Frisco Lakes and volunteered to help with the formation of some of the clubs. I told her I was interested in computers, photography, books and travel. She wrote back and said she was adding me to the list of Frisco Lakes Ambassadors. I am not one to volunteer, but I feel that it will be a good way to make new friends.

 

The Frisco Lakes activities center will have a library. I noticed that the library at Sun City Texas had many paperback books on the shelves. I am wondering if I could donate my collection. I must have 300 books that I have read over the past four or five years. They weigh quite a bit and will cost me to move them; but if they were in the community library I would feel good about them.

 

Yesterday I went to visit my neighbors who lived across the street from me in their new home. It is lovely. They have used plantation shutters on their windows. I want plantation shutters in my new house. Drapes are dust catchers. I think it will be very easy just to run the vacuum brush over the shutters. I watched what my former neighbors went through as they packed and cleaned out items that were no longer of use. They have inspired me to start the sorting process well in advance of the actual move.

 

I majored in chemical engineering and also have an MBA degree. I still have all my engineering and business textbooks. I do not know who would want those books. No one would want forty year old engineering texts. They are extremely heavy and are not going to my new home. For lack of a better solution they will be going to Goodwill.