May 16 – “Video Limbo Land”

We went on a date night the other night to hear our worship leader Jim sing at Mod Coffeehouse.  We sat and chatted with Jim’s wife Charlotte, and we saw Cathy from church there as well with some of her family.  We were all surprised at one point when the guy just down the street began his weekly rendition of Taps from his balcony.  All of the lively banter and nightclub-type activity stopped dead in its tracks, and everyone stood at attention solemnly joining in on the tribute.  It was our first time to experience the playing, and it was definitely a powerful statement. 

Speaking of Jim, he and Lynn and Dan did a great job with music at the church fish fry yesterday.  We had a great turnout, too.  A group of high school students from Iowa here in Galveston on their senior trip found Seaside because they rented a beach house across the street.  They stayed for the fish fry and seemed to have a really good time.  Great kids, too.  I think just about every one of them personally thanked the cooks and me for letting them join us.  Maybe next time they come they can stay in our retreat center.  I also enjoyed talking to the pastor of a church in Hico, Texas, not far from Waco.  He and his family were on vacation, so they were happy to be able to take advantage of the free lunch as well.  Great worship.  Great fellowship.  Gotta love Seaside. 

We kind of needed a great day after the crisis here at the house on Saturday night.  Our television has been on the fritz for a while now.  The sound part is fine, but every so often the picture just decides to go away.  No particular rhyme or reason.  It just gets tired and shuts itself off.  Sometimes it worked to turn it off and back on again, to reboot itself.  But apparently Saturday was the day earmarked for final departure.  No number of off and ons helped.  The picture was permanently lost in some video limbo land. 

Chris apparently took pity on me enough to agree to accompany me to WalMart to seek out a replacement.  That was not going to be an easy task, though.  We haven’t bought a TV in well over ten years.  The one that just died was given to us after Hurricane Ike by some dear friends who live in Round Rock.  And we only operate with one TV at a time around here (No TV in the bedroom.  That place is for other things … like reading), so no spares.  Chris did some rapid internet homework, and we headed over to take the plunge.  Hopefully I’ll have some weddings to do this summer that will cover the cost. 

We did like probably 90% of other TV buyers at WalMart do.  We stood in front of the wall of screens for 30 or 40 minutes, pondering and comparing.  I liked Nathan’s take on TV purchasing.  He told me, “I stood in front of them and looked at reviews until I found one in my price range with good ratings.  Then I bought one a little bigger.”  That’s my boy.  We didn’t go for the little bigger, though.  Our issue was Smart TV or Dumb TV (or whatever the designation is for not-smart).  Either way I knew we were going to have some problems when it came time for home group.  Our old TV had a connection for extending a monitor cable with the old-style monitor connection.  We have a long cable that fit just fine between the computer and the TV.  That connection is pretty much non-existent any more.  Not necessary in the fast-paced computer world.  I understand it is possible not to do everything wirelessly.  That would be great.  Don’t have any idea how.  Sigh.

Since we do watch things on Netflix, we went with the Smart TV option.  Figured something in the house might as well carry that designation (besides Chris, of course, who is beyond simply smart).  The screen size is the same as what we had, but it seems so much smaller because the old one had speakers or something extraneous built in on the sides.  The first big issue was our sound bar.  It wouldn’t work.  All the connections matched up, but obviously there was something I was doing wrong or failing to do to convince the Smart-aleck TV to accept help.  Never could figure that one out.  I could actually hear it pretty well, though, so we may be all right on that one. 

Next I tried to set up the remote that came with the Smart-dude TV to also operate our cable box.  And of course an issue arose that didn’t match up with what the instructions were telling me.  Once you sync up, you are supposed to be able to disconnect the little device that makes the connection.  Not so much.  It worked OK with it plugged in, but once I unplugged it, all was lost.  Now by OK, I have to say it wasn’t perfect by any means.  After playing with it for quite a while, I think the remote itself just needs to be broken in.  Or I just need to learn all its quirks.  Or I just need to use the cable company remote and call it a day. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am pleased with the Smart One.  It picks up the Astros games just fine.  We’ll have to figure out something else for home group singing.  Maybe I need to pull out my ukulele again …

Romans 1:8 says, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.”

Father, thank you for the great day at church yesterday.  Provide a special blessing to Jonathan and Bob for providing all those fish.  Amen.