Satellite TV Dish

From what I hear there are lot of people that are unhappy with the switch to HDTV. I am also sure that on the other hand there are many people that feel that it is long overdue. For myself I put off buying the converters as long as possible and did not make the conversion until it was mandatory to the utmost degree. Then I was really unhappy about the situation at best. I will say that in my motorhome I have a different situation than most homes have. When we bought the Vectra we had a choice of having a satellite unit installed or not. At that time the system available did not have good reviews so we elected to not have it installed. In our travels there were many places that had some sort of cable available. Sometimes it was good cable, sometimes poor. Sometimes the cable was free and sometimes as much as two dollars a day. When cable was not available the antenna would not pick up anything or it would pick up four channels, two which were Spanish, not good because we do not speak Spanish. Once in a while we had good TV with just the antenna. It was fine for me but my Wife and Mother in Law were irritated a lot of times. With HDTV it did only got worse. Cable did not change, but the antenna picked up even less signals as near as I could tell. Also it was not convenient to hook the converter box up in the motorhome. Everything in there is built enclosed, all the wires are hidden behind the walls or panels. We have two TVs in the motorhome, largest in the front and smallest in the back. I could only get decent access to the TV cable in the back by feel, I could not see what I was doing. But I got the converter box hooked in with the help of some cables that I had along. But the box is hanging in mid air, dangling from the cable connections and had to stuffed in behind the TV whenever it was not being used. The TV in the back is on a swivel for storage purposes. Add to that a remote that only adjusted the volume and on/off, plus another remote for converter channel up/down and on/off. Personally I do not like more than one remote and the less buttons the better. So in a nut shell it was a big pain in the neck.

When we got to Rochester the motorhome needed an oil change and a couple minor repairs. We scheduled a time to get it in. Then we decided that maybe the time had come to go to satellite TV. I very nearly came to total regret of that decision. First we had to decide "Dish TV" or "Direct TV" before we could even order the satellite receiver dish, and it would not be available until after our appointment. So we would reschedule. We had determined that we wanted the self aligning type as opposed to the one that I would have to adjust by hand every time we moved. Which service we wanted, we had not a clue. In talking to some other campers we decided that we should get "Direct TV," as it seemed to have the greatest satisfaction. So we ordered the satellite dish and then was told that it was in stock at Camping World. Why didn't you say that in the first place? The next thing according to Camping World was that we had to have a service contract set up with Direct TV and the "boxes" ready before Camping World could finish the installation of the satellite dish. Of course Direct TV said that we had to have the satellite dish installed before they could install the boxes and set up the TV. Camping World would not allow Direct TV on the site because of insurance purposes, so we made arrangements for the boxes to be dropped off at Camping World. All this is after a dozen calls. "A" says I have to call "B", who says I have to call "C", who says I have to call "D", who says I have to call "A". All of these people are in Timbuktu or somewhere and I also have to deal with an installer in Rochester. Fast forward past several days after an installer from Direct TV would not leave the boxes as they had said they could do and I finally said, "Do whatever you have to do. We will manage something."

When Winnebago built the motorhome they built in wires for the satellite TV, The wires which were put neatly under the roof embedded in foam insulation, are not obsolete. New technology does it every time. The satellite dish I got cannot be mounted on the mounting bracket which was originally provided, and the wires have to run over the roof out in the open. Okay, since I have no choice, okay. I had rescheduled a second Direct TV installer to come to Camping World. By this time they said the installer would be allowed out in the public parking lot. CW said he should come at 3:00 and DTV said he would be there between 4:00 and 8:00. I expected about 7:50 since Camping world closed every thing at 7:00. Suddenly things fell together. About 3:00 the installer called and said he was on his way. When he arrived he said that they dropped off the boxes all the time, it only depended upon who you talked to. Obviously I talked to the wrong "Boss". Also Camping World said no problem, just back the motorhome six inches out of the shop and that is fine. We this sort of thing all the time. Why did they not say that five days or three days before. Everything went like clockwork. Instead of me needing to get two cats that didn't like each other into the same burlap bag I only had to deal with two service people that liked each other. So with a lot less hassle right at the end than I expected I got a system that works just like I figured it would. I get 250 channels of everything and at least one day a week there is something that is worth while watching.


ACTORS AND INTERPRETERS IN SHAKESPEARE'S HAMLET

New experiences are usually enjoyable. I went to a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet that was interpreted for the deaf. I do not think that I had ever attended any show of Shakespeare so this was first for several reasons. There was an interpreter for about every three actors. They had to sign the meaning of the dialog and not the exact words. They had a tremendous job and all of them worked hard. We sat out in the open on a lawn during an evening when it had rained earlier,typical Rochester weather, and then it got down into the 60's. Just sitting there it was cold. As soon as a person could move it was not so bad. I am sure glad that I had long pants on and a heavy warm shirt to put on. I would go to another interpreted Shakespeare but I am not sure that I would go to a regular show. The actors speak English but I almost need a translator. Or maybe I could study old English, no I don't think so.

Till Later this is Uncle Duck

Leroy, New York

I think that I got told a bit ago that I was not doing what I should be doing with this blog. There was a phone call to my wife in which it was said that since there had not been anything written for a while the caller was concerned about us. At least I took the message to tell me to write. I have been thinking that I should do it anyway.

We are staying in a camp ground near Leroy, New York, which is about twenty miles from Rochester. That is not the same place as LeRoy, New York, which is suburb of Buffalo. How a state managed to get two cities with so extremely close names is a mystery to me. There may be very similar names in ever state that I don't know about. There are a lot of trees in this camp and therefore there are a lot of birds. There is one small bird here that I cannot identify. It is about the size of a common sparrow and it spends some time with the sparrows. Whatever it is there only seems to be the one bird. I have never seen two of them. I have really wondered if it could be color mutation of some sort. A couple years ago we were in a camp where one sparrow had a white head like an American Bald Eagle. It looked like it was cross between an eagle and a sparrow. Other than its head it was exactly like all the other sparrows with which it flocked. Erma and I find ourselves looking for this one bird because it is so unusual.


THE WHITE BIRD IN OUR CAMPGROUND

There is a lot of other wildlife in this area. I have seen more groundhogs around Rochester than I have seen in my entire life. Some of them are right on the campus of the Rochester Institute of Technology. The thing that amazes me about RIT is that they claim that there are over two hundred deer that live on the campus grounds. At one time the whole area was a swamp so there is still plenty of tree areas and some swamp that remains. We have seen a lot of the deer from time to time. At least two of the does have twin fawns. We have also seen some more twin fawns by the highway near our campground.


A DOE AND FAWN ON THE RIT CAMPUS

The weather here in Rochester continues to be cool and rainy. We heard last nigh that so far this July has been the coolest on record, and the records have been kept for 139 years. This morning is bright and sunny. So today is a beautiful day. Yesterday started out that same way but in the afternoon the rains came in again. We did not get a lot of hard rain but I guess that some places did. I get reports that where we stay in Texas the weather has been totally different. Temperatures well over a hundred and no rain at all. In Colorado where I spent forty years I was not used to as many cloudy days as there are here where I am now and the temperatures were a lot milder than where I am spending my winters. When a person get used to one particular climate it is easy to forget that there is such a difference in other areas.

Till Later this is Uncle Duck