Minimizing Media -- Again

Satellite TV via DirecTV was no longer part of my life about five years ago. Determined that I didn't watch it enough to justify the monthly expense. With over 150 channels available, there seemed to be nothing of interest -- to me. Rather read a book with no commercials and the story moves at my pace. So looking for a TV free zone in my own home, the DirecTV service was canceled.

I've kept the TV in the outside possibility that I may view a DVD movie from the library. Perhaps someday I will actually borrow a movie based on friends' recommendation.

Access to the internet when I embarked on my nomadic wanderings 12 years ago was via a dial up line and on rare occasions Ethernet at Kinko's (before they were part of FedEx). In those twelve years, I've had internet access via a tripod mounted satellite dish that I focused at a pinpoint in the sky above. It worked. No longer did I have to find a dial up line or a Kinko's. Technology developments continued and soon a device called an air card could use the cellular networks to access the internet from my laptop computer. Not about to give that up.

Satellite radio came into my rootless existence after two years on the road. With numerous music streams to choose from, two classical music were the streams that I regularly listened to. I enjoy classical music varieties from the baroque to the modern with few exceptions. Selections with harpsichord are the major exception. Could never stand the sound of "two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm". Credit to Sir Thomas Beecham for that quote.

Seems I prefer silence. At home or on the road. With a receiver in Silver Slug and another in Wandrin Wagon, I was paying $28 a month to Sirius/XM for something that was little used. So I canceled satellite radio.

Playing my preferred music through a radio, I have an iPod that contains over a weeks worth of music from the CDs that I had when I hit the road. Naturally, it is music I like. Best of all there is no harpsichord music in there.

Speaking of silence, it is time to head off for a hike.

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Regarding silence... In the previous post I wrote about the encounter with the rattlesnake. What I didn't write about was the couple I met about 100 yards from that rattlesnake meeting. Both were wearing earbuds. As they approached, I told them they might want to remove the earbuds so they could hear the rattlesnake.

Come on people. If you are going to be out and enjoying the natural world, leave the earbuds at home and hear the birds, the wind whistling, the crunch of your shoes on the trail -- and the rattlesnake.