TV Time

I like television. I used to work in television for a television production company. I loved most of our shows. I was absolutely addicted to Dallas--I knew who shot JR. When I miss something on TV, I really miss it. People tell me, why don't you tape it? There was a time when I was quite adept at taping, but no more. That requires planning and time to plan is in very short supply.

So Dad got me an early birthday present--Tivo. He had it and really liked it. I had tried to get Mom Tivo, but she didn't want the monthly expense. Me neither, I always thought. I can live without seeing every show--it will come on again in reruns (even if I feel blue missing something). But then came tennis. I do not get the tennis channel and two years ago, I went to live matches and tried to tape the slams. This past year I got taping the slams down to a science and I loved having all that tennis to watch and then at the Australian, I missed a lot of taping (I can't figure out exactly what I did wrong, but not enough hours in a day is a probably cause of my problem). When I missed matches, I really missed not seeing them. [Just like I really missed not seeing any tennis at the Olympics--I didn't catch a single match although I was forced to sit through hours and hours of beach volleyball and badminton just in case they televised tennis--but I digress.]

I was already paying a whopping $5.00 per month for a digital cable box (but only in the sitting room) and a whopping $5.00 per month for HD (but I think it is included in the monthly rate now, because I tried to cancel it when I kept forgetting to turn the tv to the 700 numbers and I still have it now). So the tivo came with three months free, but after that it will be a monthly charge. I really don't like monthly charges--I pay my curves membership annually--I pay my car insurance every six months in full--I worked it so that I don't have a car payment--I hate monthly charges. After loving tivo for a few weeks, I upgraded and got netflix too. Two monthly charges now, oh my, but I can't wait to get home to turn on the tv. The French is coming soon, so I'm going to have to cancel a bunch of my season passes to make room for all the tennis that they will show me on TV. And then it will be time for Wimbledon and then the US Open series--I sure hope that my tivo is smart enough not to cut off taping when Nadal takes Federer to five.

Anyway on netflixs, there are so many cool movies, I may never buy another movie again--I can get rid of all the old ones that I have now, well maybe not get rid of--I don't want to go crazy.

So I'm all set up with tivo, loving tv and my tv died. It just stopped working. Turn it on and nothing. This happened last year when it was under warrenty and it took days and days to fix it. I don't like unreliable things in the least, so we went to costco and they had a great flat screen cheap--it is even energy efficient (I'm a sucker for going green). So I had my new tv all set up, with tivo, with netflix--I was all set. And then I lost my remote for the tivo. I didn't lose it--Adam took it into his room and forgot to return it. No worries. One night of no tv gave me a chance to read a book and really, really, really miss my tv. No monthly expense is too high anymore--I want my tv. Well the remote was returned and I thought finally, no more trouble in tv paradise. Now the remote for the tv is missing, so for two days I couldn't adjust the volume. I searched high and low. I delved into minute details of when did I see it last. I went through the trash. I even went into Adam's room. No remote.

Luckily, I finally remembered to Think. The tivo remote can be programed to work on the tv and the volume and so I did that last night and all is right with the world. Swine flu do your worst, I have tivo and netflix and I will not try to go to work if I get sick.

Obviously

You don't know what you don't know. That should be a quote from Yogi Berra. I went to a seminar last week on a subject that I felt very comfortable in. I was assuming that it would be a great opportunity to catch up on my sleep and maybe get a little work done. Wrong. It was fascinating and as I sat there taking it in, I realized that there is so much that I don't know. This strikes me as odd, because most of the time I am amazed by what other people don't know. I just take it for granted that everyone knows everything that I know. I assume that when someone blows up at me that they know that I know that they are trying to control my behavior with negative reinforcement and that I sit and I choose whether I care to accommodate their opinion or not. It occurred to me recently that maybe they don't know about the concepts of psychology that I studied in college. But I digress.

In my class, I keep telling my students--this is easy--you know this. They look at me dubiously, but they are nice enough to nod their heads after I explain it, that it makes sense. I developed a jeopardy game for my level 2 class about introduction to law. I made the questions to the topics that I introduce to my students. They are about the three branches of government, checks and balances, a little on the 1st, 4th and 5th amendments to the constitution and about people you find in a courtroom. Really basic stuff in my mind. My students did ok, not great, on my test run through with them. Then I presented the game at my Toastmasters Club. Out of fifteen, only two people answered more than a 2 or 3 out of the 20 questions. The majority didn't know any of the questions. One of the people who answered about 10 out of the 20 is a retired history teacher and the other went to law school.

Dad said, well, I couldn't name world leaders and I consider myself to be pretty informed. Sarcuse--that's the French guy I couldn't remember. Kim gil young--I think that's the North Korean guy. Did he have a stroke? How can he still run the country after a stroke? Oh well.

My point I guess is that I don't know what I don't know and one of the things that I didn't know was how little everyone else knew compared to how much I thought they all knew and even more frightening, how little I knew compared to how much I thought I knew. I really enjoyed that seminar. It's like I opened this door to a new room filled with cool stuff to explore. Its really too bad I have so much junk on my desk and no time to get to the fun stuff for a while.