Digital TV And Beyond

How Santa Claus Works

2011-12-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

With Christmas right around the corner, I wanted to fill you in on how Santa is able to deliver all those toys in one night. I figured this out a long time ago when I was in the second grade. Kids are really smart at that age, and it's hard to pull the wool over their eyes.

I noticed that all my toys on Christmas morning had a shipping label to Sears Roebuck, and Company. They were never wrapped, and all the boxes were opened as if someone had inspected them before delivery, to make sure all the parts were there, and of course, pre-install batteries. It didn't take a lot of mind power to realize that Santa can't possibly load all the toys on his sleigh at once. His sack would be huge. I had seen the size of the sack the Grinch had, and he was only packing enough for one town. Imagine the size of the sack to hold toys for 9 Billion kids at once!

Santa had developed a very cleaver distribution system centuries ago . He ships toys to retailers like Sears, then when he comes to my state, he stops at the distribution center and loads up the toys for the local area. It's brilliant! Today, he uses malls as his distribution points instead of just Sears like the days I was a kid. The mall Santas take the kid's requests, and makes sure the big man's elves get them to the mall. He then oversees routing the toys to Santa's sleigh depending on which direction he is flying. Bulky items like large screen TV's and tools remain at the stores and are distributed by Best Buy and Sears elves. He really has this system down to a science, and I bet he has a huge database to guide him and his helpers.

Using malls today as his delivery points means he can keep his load low enough for the reindeer to pull without being exhausted before morning. I'm sure there's some Dept. Of Transportation regulations today that limits how many pounds he can carry, as well as OSHA limits on working on rooftops after dark. Come to think of it, if Santa abides by all safety rules and regulations, it's a wonder we get anything at all on Christmas morning!

Happy New Year!

2011-10-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good year,although it seems to have flown by so fast! Last week I was buying building materials for my new kitchen, and this week the isles are filled with Christmas ornaments. Oh, and some Halloween decorations. The calendar says it's October, but it must be 2012 already judging by the shelves at the stores.

The sad thing is, if you see something unique on the shelf, you better buy it now because when it sells out next week, it won't be replaced before December. This whole seasonal buying frenzy drives me bonkers sometimes. I guess the whole fourth quarter should be considered one long holiday.

Hallowgivingkwanzaahaunakachristmas.

Am I getting jaded in my old age? Bah, Humbug, not me. I love candy, turkey and the heartfelt season of giving and receiving love from kith and kin. Those DVD's you pull out once every year that make you feel so good. The Great Pumpkin, Sleepy Hollow, Hocus Pocus, and The Burbs. (I pull out Ghostbusters any time of the year, so it's not limited to Halloween.)

Next month will be the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Bugs and Friends Thanksgiving, and the next month all the usual Christmas Vacation, Scrooge in different forms and Santa Claus saving the day. Or Rudolf. Or Ernest.

I don't want my holiday viewing mixed up like the stores are. I want one holiday to be over before moving to the next.

So with Halloween a couple of weeks away, have you made your Christmas list out yet? Times running out, so you better hurry! Operators are standing by to take your New Year's Resolutions....

What do you guys think? Are we rushing the shopping season too fast? Making a commercial mess out of what should be emotional experiences and Holy days of celebration? Leave a comment and let me know if I'm the only one sitting on the porch yelling at kids to stay out of my yard!

Your House Will Keep You Busy

2011-09-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

I have always loved older houses. They just don't build them like that anymore. Living in an old house can have its' challenges, but a lot of fun at the same time. My last house was new construction and even it had issues I had to deal with from time to time. Like the outlets in the dinning room that were never hooked up, but passed all inspections, and rot under the front door and a leaking Sliding door leading to the deck.

I had the opportunity to buy my current house back in 1995 and figured it would be a 5 year project to restore it like I wanted. Here I am 16 years later and still renovating this old house. It's a labor of love though, so I certainly am not complaining. Besides, it has a history that is cool to research and imagine how it was when it was built back in 1905. The town of Wendell was new, founded in 1903 as a railroad stop between Zebulon and Knightdale, NC. The Richardson family had it built and moved in. Mr. Richardson was the former Mayor of Zebulon, NC. He would walk the three blocks into downtown to buy a cigar in his retirement days, and always had some candy in his pocket for the kids he'd walk by.

His Granddaughter told us about the bathroom addition added to the back "L" of the house, and how she had to dawn her coat to go onto the back porch to the bathroom in the Winter, but at least it was attached to the house. The old Carriage House is still in use as storage, and in need of repair, but that's another project for later. Down at the Little River, the grist mill ground corn during the day, and was switched to a generator at night to supply electricity to the town. Each household got about 85 Watts of power to run the lights and radios at dusk. They were charged extra if they went over that amount.

Back in the day, houses were built facing East / West with a center hallway for cooling. On either side of the hallway are four big rooms. A double sided fireplace on each side of the hallway warmed the main part of the house. Off the back is an "L" which is two room in a line from the left side with porches on each side. Later those porches were closed in to make smaller rooms about 7' X 15 feet each. The street side porch is now a mud room/ laundry room connected inline with the main hall, where the indoor bathroom was added on.

At some point, the house was divided into two apartments, with the owners living in the front, and tenants in the back. The great hall was divided, and the front kitchen was put there, with the back kitchen in one of the closed in porches. The wiring was updated for the two spaces. Some of the old two-wire ceramic insulators are still in the attic. Today, the kitchen is still in the main hallway and has to go somewhere!

We used one of the main four rooms as a guest bedroom and storage. We noticed the floor was sagging a bit, and later a lot. I took a quick look underneath and saw a couple floor joists had broken in the middle. A few pine floorboards were rotten by the fireplace so it was obvious we had some water damage from a roof leak around the fireplace chimney flashing. I had no choice but to tear up the flooring and fix the problem.

In late August I began demolition with the aid of Tommy Stanley, a younger friend of mine for many years. At 55, I needed a strong helper since my knees and back wear out quickly and Tommy's dad, David, does this kind of work and was kind enough to provide technical help and code advice. David was amazing and pitched in to handle the hard stuff we could not have tackled on our own. We started at the outside wall since I figured that's where the most damage would be and I was fearing the outside sill would need replacing and the sooner I knew this the better.

Builders at the turn of the century did not lay sub-flooring. The tongue and groove 3/4" Pine boards are attached directly to the joists using cut nails. Made out of iron, these nails will rust a bit causing them to grab into the wood making it impossible to pull out. It makes one heck of a strong floor, though. Unfortunately, you end up tearing the floor boards to pieces when you remove them and since most were a little rotten, there was no way to save them for use later.

The 2"X8" joists all failed near the center of the room as they were spanning 15' with no center support. In the picture above you can see the cut nails still holding strong in the joists and mold growing on the beam in front of the fireplace. We pulled them all out and had David over to inspect the sills around the room. To our surprise, they were all in good shape except a small area at one of the piers. These are 8" X 8" "logs" surrounding the room's perimeter and was dead level on all sides. David chiseled out the bad spot and inserted some good wood into the beam. It was easy to nail a new treated 2" X 10" to them so we had something fresh to nail to. The old wood is so hard being old growth Pine it's a chore to drive a nail into, but fortunately I was given a pneumatic framing nail gun for Christmas last year, so it made the task pretty easy.

Even though local building codes allow a 2" X 8" board to span 15', I decided to add a center beam to bear the load. We set a double 2" X 10" treated beam on three new foundation piers in the center of the room that the new joists rests on. Now that it it finished, I wouldn't have a problem if someone drove a Mack truck on the floor. It is pretty stout now. I spent every free weekend and day off moving plumbing and electrical outlets for the new kitchen. I had to wait until a good time to move the drains and water lines since this disables the old kitchen next door, and we've been eating out for a week now. But finally, I don't have to lay under the house making connections. I have been sore in places I didn't know I had from crawling in the dirt, twisting into awkward angles working around air ducts and numerous obstacles. It's been an amazing feeling to wake up and not have to shimmy under the house for hours.

I think the happiest feeling I've had on this project was when the insulation covered the view of old dirt, and the new sub-floor sealed it up. I was totally tired of seeing a dirt floor and walking atop floor joists. Luckily, I didn't fall and break a hip and aside from a burn from dripping solder on my left arm, no injuries so far! I did get a bruise, but haven't shed any blood yet.

With a solid floor to walk on, we removed the wallpaper, and began patching walls. I have some framing to finish in the old closet area and a portion of ceiling to fix. A previous owner cut an access panel to the attic in the closet. The ceilings are the same tongue and groove Pine used on the floors. I found enough pieces of it in the attic to fill in the hole, but it's going to be a challenge to get it to match the cut they made. Hopefully a little caulk will fill and gaps I leave.

With the major construction nearing the end, I'll post the finished results when it's finished. I have the new sink ready to go in, the new flooring is ready to lay down, and we finally agreed on a paint color. I have a couple more days off, so I hope to finish this project soon. I need some rest!

Holy Convergence, Batman!

2011-04-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Since the early Nineties, tech articles have been touting the word: convergence. That wondrous time when the PC and the TV merge into one device. We heard and read that it is coming. For over a decade, we heard this. Over and over.

Finally it has happened. It kinda took it's sweet time coming, but it did finally happen. The Internet came to the TV screen and TV came to Internet devices.

But wait! There's a catch!You will have a hard time watching video on that old 56K modem. Heck, even DSL and cable have issues from time to time with streaming video. That old wireless router can't serve up the bits fast enough. Your daughter's on Facebook, your son is downloading an album on i tunes and the refrigerator is ordering next weeks groceries as you try to watch a movie on Netflix.

Worst yet, your ISP decides you are hogging too much bandwidth, and cuts you all down to 56K. It's all about bandwidth. He that controls thy bandwidth, controls the world. (for a "fair" price)

And who controls the bandwidth? A handful of companies like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time-Warner and a few others. What you don't realize is these companies are more powerful than any other force on the planet. Sleeping giants, if I may say so. When the FCC decided we needed a National Broadband Plan to become the leaders of the free world, they also decided the Internet must remain open and free. Those companies listed above said, oh no! We can't supply that much bandwidth to everyone, and help low income households connect. We have to throttle down those huge data wasters to allow everyone a piece of the American Pie.

There's also a barrage of new devices hitting the shelves everyday. And lots of confusion with it. Today, the biggest question is "What is a TV?" Time-Warner made an app for the iPad, and almost immediately media companies sent out 'cease and dissent' letters. Media companies signed agreements with cable for them to deliver their programming to home TV sets via cable. They say they never agreed to let TWC deliver it via an Internet app.

TWC however, claims an iPad is a TV, and the companies gave them the right to deliver to consumers' TV sets, regardless where they are. A household is a subscriber, or sub, and it can contain 10 TV sets, but TWC only pays for 1 sub, not 10. Sure they may charge you for different outlets in your home, but you can actually wire up as many devices in your home as you want- you're still one sub.

TWC believes your iPod, iPad, Zune, or Android phone are additional TV sets. I have to say I agree with the program suppliers on this. They signed an agreement for subs wired to the cable. When the cable company copies that programming, and delivers it via the Internet, that's a whole new delivery method, and should have a new agreement.

Now, I like what TWC did, just not the way they did it. It was a good idea executed badly. HBO launched their own mobile app as HBO Go. It's their programming, so it makes sense for them to create the app and deliver their own stuff, instead of letting TWC make a profit off of it.

TWC has filed for clarification of 'what is a TV' in the courts, so it will be interesting to see how that works out for them. What do you think? Is your phone a TV and you should be able to watch all the same programming on it as your TV wired to cable in your den?

Almost a White Carolina Christmas

2010-12-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

Certainly it's rare to see this much snow this early in Winter in the South, and extremely rare at Christmas! I gotta say I had the best Christmas in many, many years. I got and gave all the gifts I wanted, and everyone had a holly jolly time. I usually get phone calls all the time about technical issues at the station, and although it passed by last Christmas without a major incident, the previous two years I was awaken on Christmas morning by calls that the transmitter was off the air. This year, the call was the day after, and in the middle of the snow storm.

My dog Zeus and I were getting cabin fever anyway, so we went to the transmitter site. This video is the ride there, and a look at several cars that didn't make it, as well as some that should not be on the highway in these conditions.

All in all, it was a nice ride in the 4WD Chevrolet, and some beautiful scenery. You can click on the video for the full HD version on my You Tube channel, and while there do me a favor and subscribe. You never know what I'll post on there. (or here for that matter!)

Internet Pumpkin Toss 2010

2010-09-24T07:42:00.000-07:00

I have been playing a game I call Internet Pumpkin Toss with my readers for the past couple of years. It's an interactive exchange of ideas, topics, questions, and a great way to get answers to all home entertainment questions. You toss me a question, challenge, or comment about television, and I toss you a blog of vlog on that subject during the month of October. We don't actually throw pumpkins at each other, because the questions and comments are the pumpkins. Each response from me will have a unique IP address, or title on any subject you want to discuss.

It's totally your opportunity to ask or say anything you want about home entertainment, the lack of, or how outside forces are influencing how you entertain yourself.

This is the third year we've done this, so let me hear from you in October! Comment below, send an email to me, contact me on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or YouTube. Follow me. I need all the friends i can get!

How am I even alive?

2010-08-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

With all the recent Salmonella outbreaks and egg recalls, I wonder how I have survived 54 years on this planet. My Grandma Delcie had chickens in the yard when I was just a young lad, and I know exactly what it's like to step in chicken doo barefooted. There was no running inside for the anti-bacterial foam to wash my feet, just wipe them a couple of times on the grass, and keep playing.

She also had a sink on the back porch where she did laundry in an old wringer style washing machine that had one small jelly jar glass that the whole family drank out of. The process of sanitizing the glass was to fill it and empty it several times with water and then drink. The water was usually a bit warm in the summer, and using this process would allow the cool water from the well to fill the glass. Their was no hot water out there, and none of the family seemed to ever get sick.

Same with Grandma Brown's home. She didn't have running water in the house. She would fill a pail of water from the old hand pump in the back yard, and everyone drank out of a ladle that was hung on the side of the pail. That shallow well had lots of iron in the water and I'm sure she never had to take an iron supplement in her life, but it gave her potato salad a tangy taste that no one has duplicated since. It also caused a brown patina on the porcelain pail. The whole family drank right from the dipper and never used a glass.

How did we get to the point where we are so allergic to everything in my lifetime? I remember as a teenager working in the tobacco fields all summer, and now I can't walk to my car without breaking into a sweat. Am I getting weak in my old age? Well, maybe a little, but we all are definitely getting lazy by past standards. Imagine if you will, my Grandma Brown had to carry all her water into the house, and likewise, all waste water outside. I feel inconvenienced having to switch the lever on the front of my refrigerator from ice to water to fill my glass, and who hasn't waited impatiently by the microwave waiting for something to heat up watching the time count down thinking "hurry up!".

We are also getting "digital lazy" these days. If an internet video freezes and buffers for a second or two, we freak out and hit the refresh button. Uploading is worse, and something I usually do just before going to bed so it will be finished when I wake up the next morning. There's no way that I have the patience now to sit and watch the upload progress, or lack of it, without trying to do something else on the machine, which usually causes everything to slow down and cause more frustration.

Now, I have been asking around to see how many of my close friends (yes, I have some) actually use the internet to watch videos and the number is extremely low. Most say that's the last thing they'd use their computers for, and yet some of us do most of our viewing on the internet. How about you? Leave a comment whether you use the internet for entertainment, or rely on cable or over the air signals. Could you imagine toting water inside each day, trying to live without all the digital conveniences you have today?

But, is life better in the digital age?

Happy Fourth of July!

2010-07-04T12:57:00.000-07:00

We have come a long way and yet, we have a long way to go. Not everyone is equal. The American Dream is cloudy for some looking their next meal. Too many have trouble stretching their paychecks week to week, if they are getting one at all. We need to stand up and make a difference. Now is the time for all good men (and women) to come to the aide of their country!

Breaking Away From Techonolgy

2010-06-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

Living with digital devices seems normal these days, but I can remember when nothing was digitized at all! I have an Sirius-XM tuner in my car, as well as an HD Radio receiver, and I must say I can't drive without either. Unless I plug in my portable music player, and a thumb drive in the USB slot that is.

Lately though, I have been rocking out like I did when I was 16 and got my first car. That 1967 Turquoise Chevy four door Bel Air my Dad gave me. It was an awesome ride with an under-dash air conditioner and a bass thumping Delco AM radio. In my later teen years, I upgraded to an under-dash FM converter, but I still have fond memories of searching for music on that old AM radio.

Yeah, they used to play music with hosts like Cousin Brucie and Wolfman Jack. And even though that is available on satellite radio, there's just something about analog AM radio that seems so cool now, although back then, it was a curse.

During the day, you had plenty of stations to listen to; Ahoskie's WRCS-AM played Rock and Roll favorites, but Windsor's WBTE-AM and Williamston's WIAM-AM played country and Gospel, which wasn't the best way to impress a girl in the early seventies and they all signed off at sunset.

Then we had to tune in weaker signals from Raleigh, Norfolk, and beyond, like the occasionally "We are 1220 WGAR!" in Cleveland, Ohio. One late night I remember a buddy and I scrolled through the dial and ended up hearing Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" on every station in a period of a few minutes. It became our currency for bets. I betcha' a Pepsi you can't find that song on the radio, and surely it would be playing, no matter how weak and scratchy, she was always there.

I've been reliving those days a bit lately since local station WKIX-AM 850 has returned to that era of songs for their play list. Oh, you thought AM radio was dead after most stations converted to talk news and sports news, and just plain talk babbling? Well, guess again.

WKIX-AM 850 has targeted my generation with exactly the same experience we had back in the late 60's to early 70's. I'll argue with anyone that not much great music came from the 70's, but I have been enjoying the diverse play list on WKIX. There's not many commercial breaks right now, which makes you wonder if this is a short lived thing and they will go back to some talk format at some point in time, but for now I encourage you to experience what we all went through in the 50's to 70's with AM radio as our primary source for music.

Will I abandon my Sirius-XM in the car? Oh hell no. Nor my portable media player or USB port, but for a chance to hear classics that you never hear on the new-fangled techno-channels, give WKIX- AM 850 a test drive. I guarantee you'll be in a better mood and happy to hear some oldies the way we used to enjoy them, with electrical interference, buzzing, and all kinds of artifacts we take for granted!

Today's Digital Lifestyle

2010-06-20T10:25:00.000-07:00

We live in a very interesting time, not only for home TV entertainment, but for all our amusements. Games, programs, maps, email: all on the go. We'd never leave the house without pants, and therefore a pocket device capable of all of the previously mentioned digital apps. I have actually driven back home from work to retrieve my Blackberry that I left on the charger that morning. I can't function without it throughout the entire day.

So how did we become so dependent on such a fragile technology? Don't think it's fragile? Ask Apple or AT&T when their web system crashed on the first day of pre-orders for the new I phone 4. Or try to make a phone call from my living room! (I have to go to the sun porch to talk on my Blackberry using Verizon Wireless service. I want even mention the red ring of death, scratched video game disks, or emails that end up in your spam folder that you were waiting for.

It's a fragile technology we have based our entire beings to, so we have to learn how to cope with failures. Ever seen a teenager at the grocery store try to make change the old fashioned way when a register malfunctions? It's funny and sad at the same time.

So over the next few postings, we'll discuss our digital lifestyles, and how to deal when things go awry.