Altivo

Still under the weather, which isn't hard since today's weather was beautiful. Congestion down, fever and headache up. Haven't had this kind of stiffness and muscle tie-up in years I think. Did not go in to work today, may not go tomorrow, though the symptoms do seem to change rapidly so not sure about that.

Couldn't focus on reading or weaving. In fact, I couldn't see the threads at the loom well enough and It was painful to go through the treadle and shuttle movements. Spent a good part of the day sleeping, or trying to. At least I've recovered my voice more or less.

Lacking other things to do, I finally got around to watching the British television series The Darling Buds of May which has been sitting here for weeks. Alex Vance suggested that my writing often shares common elements with that of H. E. Bates, who wrote the books on which that series was based. I've read the first book, now I've seen the series and I have to say the realization into a screenplay was far more effective than what Hollywood normally does to a book. It kept the story line intact, retained much of the humor, and kept things moving along at a good pace. Pacing is essential for that kind of story.

So, after sleeping all day, I'm ready to try to sleep all night as well. Dunno how that will work out.

How quickly I lose track when all I'm doing is sitting around the house. Watching a collection of old television Westerns from the early 1950s, since I don't have the energy to do much but sit still. The Cisco Kid was played by Duncan Renaldo on radio and he moved into television in the same role, with Leo Carillo as his sidekick Pancho. The stories are formulaic and each one is complete in 30 minutes, with commercial breaks, but they are still good for a laugh. I first saw Cisco and Pancho on black and white television, probably as reruns when I was less than ten years old. I didn't remember them being so cheesy, but 1950s television was that way all over. Most amusing in retrospect is the way they used pretty much the same cast for every episode. A couple of the actors were always bad guys, in a different scheme and with different names each time. And of course, Cisco and Pancho always succeed in trapping them at their own game. Carillo's fake "Mexican malaprops" were one of the trademarks of the show. "Cisco, I thin we better went before we end up dancing on the end of a rope. Without music." Cisco's magnificent black and white overo horse Diablo was the main attraction to the show as I remember it, and he still does look good. Even though sets were all black and white in those days (late 1949 through 1956) the show was filmed in color. They're a bit faded now, but obviously show the natural color rather than "colorization" that has been applied as an afterthought.

Simon's blood tests came back and are encouraging. Kidney and liver activity are just slightly high, thyroid very slightly low. The vet doesn't think we need to worry about that, so he's a go ahead for the arthritis medication. It does look as if stopping the aspirin has increased his discomfort level somewhat, but the temporary painkiller should cut in by tomorrow and we can increase the dosage to two or three times what we started with yesterday if he seems to need it. He can start on the Rimadyl a week from today.

Didn't get the predicted thunderstorms this afternoon, but we had occasional heavy showers, some with slushy blobs of snow mixed in even though the ground air temperature was well above freezing.

So I dusted the cobwebs out from behind (and the front) of the television, and hooked up the "Apex" digital converter box. Since the antenna rotator lies, I ran in and out several times to check before I got the antenna pointed at Chicago. Then I let the box scan for digital signals. As I had expected, nothing usable was found.

Next I tried pointing the antenna at Rockford. An errant tree branch gets in the way of fully pointing the antenna west, and I had to settle for south west, more or less. I guess we'll have to climb up on the roof and prune that branch.

Anyway, let the box scan and this time it found two stations from Rockford. WQRF (formerly ch. 39) is a FOX affiliate (ewwww, not gonna watch their news much) but their signal is pretty clear when the antenna points in the right direction. WTVO (formerly ch. 17, ABC affiliate) also has a readable signal, and has a subchannel so that's a total of three stations (or two, if you're honest) with admittedly good signals but worthless content. We used to get about 10, including a PBS affiliate and Chicago's award-winning WGN independent, with some snow but mostly watchable if you really wanted to.

According to the FCC engineers, we are supposed to be able to receive 9 stations at this location, taking power levels, antenna patterns, and even landforms and elevation into account. I guess they used the same data measurement equipment that they used to prove that BPL worked and caused no interference to other services. Of course, there's no way to manually tell the box to add any given station to its menu. It has to scan and find them itself. Consequently, even if we could receive all 9 stations, we couldn't get them all on the menu at once, because 5 are from Chicago (ESE) and 4 are from Rockford (W). Switching from a Chicago station to a Rockford station would require reorienting the antenna, then rescanning the channels, then selecting the desired channel. Poorly designed equipment for a poorly planned protocol, I'd say.

In any case, we can now receive news and weather from two mediocre stations, so we're not totally cut off. On the other paw, the chances of either of us wasting time watching "The Bachelorette" or "The Newlyweds" is nil. (This is prime time on ABC? I knew that things had deteriorated into so-called reality shows and NASCAR but this is utter, brain-killing mush.) The second subchannel of 17 was running Dr. Phil, which is even worse than reality TV in my opinion.