Monday, March 16, 2009

A Visit To Radio Shack

Taylor, Texas

Weather: low 37 degrees, high 86 degrees, clear skies

We had great weather today, just like what you would expect to see in Texas this time of the year. The forecast shows this same type of weather continuing the rest of the week. I'm sure that's good news for the families on spring break.

We had breakfast after my morning walk. Then I got everything together to show the folks at Radio Shack what I needed to get the satellite dish set up and operating. After explaining how everything looked like it connects on the different systems to the salesperson, I was told I needed to get a new satellite receiver. That may be, but what I want to try to do is use what I have. Once he understood that, he gave me an adapter that should at least give us a picture from the satellite dish to the TV. He couldn't think of a way to take the satellite signal through the home theater system, and then to the TV so we could take advantage of the sound system.

If needed, I'll get in touch with Dish Network to see if they can help me. My experience with Dish has been that support is coming from India or Pakistan, and they have a script to follow. If there is a deviation from the script, the support people are lost. Why can't we speak to an American? That's a rhetorical question. I know why the jobs were shipped overseas. It doesn't make me feel any better about it.

When I got home from Radio Shack, I pulled everything out of the basement and swept the basement clean. I went through everything, managing to get rid of a few things. It's hard to believe, but I still have stuff that we started with six years ago, and haven't used. I can see that I need to get really heartless about some of this stuff.

The new home has a central vacuum system. I got all the paperwork, hoses, and attachments out of the basement and gave it to Carolyn to read and learn how to use. The system works really well, with good suction. I used it in the basement, where there is a connection, to vacuum up what I swept in there. The great thing about this system is that I can pull the truck up by the RV and use the vacuum system to vacuum the truck carpet.

Carolyn did some more fine tuning of the storage inside the RV. I have a feeling that we will be fine tuning for a couple of months before everything is just right. We don't have a problem with lack of storage space. It's just deciding where to store it so it's most easily reached.

I didn't take the time to try to set up the satellite system today, which is probably to our advantage. Tonight, we watched a show on PBS that we may not have seen if the dish was set up. It was a concert by Roy Orbison a few months before his death in 1988. The title of the concert was Roy Orbison: Black and White Nights. One of the things that was unique about this concert was the supporting cast backing up Roy, including Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, K D Lang, Bonnie Raitt....... We are fans of Roy's music, so we really enjoyed it. Maybe some day, we'll make it to Wink, Texas, Roy's hometown, and go to the Roy Orbison Museum.

More later, be safe.

Today's Town - Decatur, Alabama: The Ballooning Capital Of Alabama

Not all who wander are lost.

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