General

We just got back from a week at the lake recently so I am now starting to get back in the swing of things.  As you can see in the picture, coming back to work wasn’t high on my priority list.

Every year we go with some friends to a cabin on probably the cleanest lake I have ever been in. The only way to get to the cabin is by boat.  We have to ferry all of our supplies over on the boat and carry the trash off each day by boat.  You have to do the trash daily or you may wake up with a bear eating you or your food.  It is a small price to pay for the relaxing atmosphere.

I have two HD TV’s in my house and currently get my HD channels from my cable company. The provide around 15 channels which include some of the main ones I would want. I get the locals and the main ones from the big 5 movie channels. It hasn’t been a bad service, but it is also a long way away from the 84 HD channels DirectTV offers.

With that in mind, I was all set to make the switch to DirectTV. I called up AT&T and picked out my programming, selected my hardware, and picked an install date. I went ahead and took a day off from work to stay at home and wait on the installer to show. It certainly felt like the day before Christmas. The day progressed and about 30 minutes early the installer showed up at the house. He started looking around the house and took out his compass to try and find a location he could put the dish.

My house is really unique to be in a subdivision because the back of it actually faces some woods. The house has some very large trees in the back yard including some pines and an oak that are easily 100′ high. We can be sitting at our kitchen table and actually see deer or wild turkeys behind the house. This has always been something we loved about our house. It really is the perfect house to be in a subdivision. You couldn’t ask for a better location.

So the installer climbs up on the roof and continues his measurements looking for a spot he can mount the dish. He gets to the very top of the roof and the heads back down. He then proceeds to tell me he can’t get enough clearance to put the dish anywhere on the house. My tree line is about 5 degrees too much. It seems the only place he can put the dish is right in the middle of my front yard. Needless to say, the HOA would and my wife and I did veto that idea. It would just be way too tacky. I did however start thinking about a way to run one up a 100′ pole in the backyard. I haven’t given up that idea just yet.

DirectTV was also very nice and apologetic and of course they refunded my hardware purchase. It is just one of those things.

You have probably seen me playing around with the design of this blog.  I am working on a new look so don’t be surprised when you see the mess.  The funny thing is I no longer need a designer or a coder, it just seems like I need a blogger.