Took this as the sun was coming up this morning–the birds weren’t at the feeder yet but the grandkids were up. Note: the ground is bare but snow is expected by tomorrow. Hope everyone reading this has had a Merry Christmas.
Archive for December, 2006
Merry Christmas
Monday, December 25th, 2006Weather–Again
Friday, December 22nd, 2006It’s been a strange year, weather-wise. In last night’s weather report on the local TV, the weatherman said we would probably top the all-time record for precipitation by the time today’s rain storm is over: we’re talking over 50 inches. The records go back over 60 years so it isn’t something that just started.
Also, it looks like temperatures on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be in the upper 40’s, possibly into the 50’s. This will mean that for 5 out of the last 6 years we won’t have a white Christmas–even the last time we had significant snow on Christmas a storm dumped a foot of snow on bare ground begining late on Christmas Morning. Not that I’m protesting (it might make my grandkids unhappy though, especially my grand daughter whose favorite thing is snow)–each day that it is like this is one day closer to spring.
This week’s cat blog
Saturday, December 16th, 2006Life is good! When your belly’s full, you’ve got a soft leather chair to sleep on and there is a fire in the fireplace, who cares if the weather outside is frightful.
A Disorderly Compendium of Golf
Thursday, December 14th, 2006Wisdom, Folly, Rules, Truths, Trivia, and More
Do you know how to figure a golf handicap? (Turns out it requires a degree in advanced mathematics or good computer program but anyway…) How about how to get on the St. Andrews golf course? These, plus several hundred other bits and pieces of information are found in this book by Lorne Rubenstein and Jeff Neuman. Filled with, mostly, one and two page bits of minutiae, this book will let you in on 378 pages of things about the game and those who played it that you never thought you would want to know. (Ingredients in the famous Pimento sandwiches sold at the Masters?) If you into golf or are into the trivial or into trivia about golf, this is a great book to have handy. (Want to know the correct way to play the various gambling games of golf?) It is available in paperback from Workman Publishing—I found my copy in the books section of Wegman’s.
Comments
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006If you’re reading the postings here and would like to make a comment you may have a problem. I have been spammed with ads from drug and sex sites so had to shut off the ability to leave comments unless one is registered with WordPress. However, if you’d like to leave a comment and cannot, go to left, click on “About” to get my email address, and, using my that address, send the comment to me. I will copy and post it. Sorry for the inconvience, I do, however, want to hear from you.
Distant TV Channels
Thursday, December 7th, 2006Living in my neck of the woods has few disadvantage but, lately one has reared its ugly head: televison reception. Since tv signals travel in straight lines and the topology of this area includes hills and valleys this means the ability to receive a particular over-the-air channel can vary from good to none. Where I live we can receive the local (Binghamton, NY area) CBS station fairly well whereas the ABC,Fox, and PBS signals are poor and can vary depending on the weather as well as the leaves on the trees–watching a football game on ABC or Fox, for example, is like watching in a snowstorm, you can see the players but not the ball or yard markers. Additionally, there is no NBC affiliate that puts out an over-the-air signal to this area–the one that did broadcast NBC was purchased by Fox a number of years ago. It was a godsend then when, back in the 80’s, we put in a C-band antenna and a few years ago replaced it with a small dish because, given our location, we were allowed to receive “distant network feeds”. That is until December 1st.
The letter below is a response I received from Senator Hillary Clinton after I wrote her in re to legislation to restore this service.
Thank you for contacting me to share your concerns regarding Dish Network TV’s provision of distant network programming, a television service by which certain satellite television subscribers receive network programming from out-of-market areas. As you may know, in October a District Court judge in Florida issued an injunction requiring Dish Network TV to terminate all of its distant network programming no later than December 1, 2006. It is my hope that all those with a legal right to distant network programming can continue to receive it.
The court order was the result of a lawsuit brought against Dish Network’s parent company, EchoStar Communications Corporation, by the major broadcast networks. NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox claimed that Dish Network had been illegally providing distant network programming to some of its subscribers. According to the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999 , only those without any other means of accessing network television, such as over-the-air broadcasting, cable or “local-into-local” satellite service, are eligible to receive distant network programming.
I share your concerns that this sudden loss of service could leave some New Yorkers, particularly those in rural areas, without any access to the broadcast network television that is an important source of news, entertainment and public safety information. Shortly after learning of this problem, I became an original co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation, the Satellite Consumer Protection Act of 2006 (S. 4067) , that seeks to restore distant network programming to all those who are legally eligible to receive it . I hope that the Senate can move to address t his imminent problem in the near future. Please be assured that I will continue to monitor the situation and work with my colleagues to bring about an expeditious and satisfactory resolution.
My problem is compounded by the fact that not only do we live in an area of poor reception, but there is no cable service out here(in fact, if our house was another couple 100 yards further south, we couldn’t get DSL either) nor do any of the local stations broadcasting via satellite. (In 93 % of the country DishNet is able to supply local channels via satellite–we’re in the 7% where cannot be done.) While there is another company that is able to send us major networks through DishNet’s satellite, there is a need for a waiver from the local affiliates in order for this service to be turned on. Although I had this waiver for both the C-band and the previous DishNet service, I must reapply, a process that can take 30 – 60 days. (For some reason the local Fox affiliate gives these waivers automatically and, for some other reason, the NBC affiliate doesn’t despite the fact their signal is only available in the Binghamton area via cable–go figure.) So for the next couple of months I’m unable to receive any major network channels except what I can pick up over-the-air. While, normally, this wouldn’t both me, I’ve become hooked on several NBC programs: Earl, Studio 60, Friday Night Lights, and Scrubs. Now I guess I’ll have to wait for the DVDs to come out. Fortunately this does not effect other channels–I still get ESPN so I can follow college basketball.
BTW, I, and those in the same position as I am, would appreciate it if you’d contact your local federal reps in re to passing Satellite Consumer Protection Act of 2006 (S. 4067). You can go to for information and a boilerplate letter that you can email to them–takes only a couple of minutes. Thanks.
Frankly, I’d just as soon get the major networks over the air because they would be free as well as the news/weather would be local–it cost about $120 a year for all 4 network feeds in addition to DirectNet’s programing fees. As an indication, although we did receive the CBS distant feed from a NYC station, we always watched the local affiliate’s over-the-air feed. Trust me, I’d do the same with the others, if I could.
Christmas Letters
Tuesday, December 5th, 2006My dad did one on a mimeograph that he sent to his brother and sisters at Christmas time telling about the previous year. My father-in-law did the same thing to keep in touch with his far-flung family and friends. I started ours back when the kids were first born for the same reason. This is a Christmas letter.
From time to time, these letters have been praised as good ways to keep family/friends up to date and roundly criticised as worthless bragging or, worse, real downers, to people who could care less. As a offshoot of the latter, there have been some great parodies done on them. Having been a writer of these letters as well as a recipient, I’m of two minds: I enjoy most but there are some that aren’t worth the postage to send.
Whether mine is well received or not, I have some rules about writing one. First, keep it upbeat. No one cares about your or your family’s latest illness or near death experiences and, in spite of the fact it was very tramutic to you, that Fluffy or Fido kicked off last year. In fact, the year my Dad died I left it out of the letter for the simply reason I figured those that knew him knew he died, the rest wouldn’t care. Second, keep the bragging to a minimum. We all want to know that Junior made the football team and even that he was all-league second string, but we don’t need a detail of how many tackles/touchdowns he scored and a word-for-word speech from his coach. In fact, a picture with him in his uniform holding the trophy would be sufficient. The same is true about the kids’ academic achievements–we don’t need a complete report card with teacher comments. Third, if possible and, by doing the letter on a good computer program this can be done, try to include something personal to each recipient even if it is only their name(s) in the greeting. Fourth, if you are going to use photos, make sure they are of a quality to be viewable. Again, a decent program will allow you to crop, shrink, and lighten/darken the pictures so they can be seen. Maybe, for space considerations, they will be small but if the recipient is really interested they can use a magnifiying glass to enlarge a quality print. Fifth, again, if you’re using color photos, use a color printer–black and white pictures of color photos don’t come across that well. If you don’t own a color printer, how about making a separate collage of photos on the computer disc, taking it to Kinkos to be reproduced and sending it with the letter? Finally, proofread!!! Typos and misspellings are bad enough but some letters come through with passages that don’t make any sense. Try giving it to someone else to read before you print a bunch off.
A Christmas letter is a great way to update your family and friends and, by keeping a copy for yourself, make an ideal way to store your family’s history. But, if you are going to do this,there is no excuse for not doing it well.
Not Winter Yet
Saturday, December 2nd, 2006On December 1st we had temperatures in the middle 60’s–broke the old record of 57–until a front came through. Still, I managed to get this picture of some fall crocus blooming.
