Today, the cable guy came. I'm thrilled.
Now I've got high-speed Internet and cable TV in the apartment. All the comforts of home. Not that I minded living in an empty apartment....reading books and magazines, sketching, studying Spanish.....with not even a radio to listen to. However it makes me realize how addicted I--or all of us--have become to modern technology.
Now I can watch The CBS Evening News live on The American Network. I can listen to the BBC World News on the Internet. I can watch old reruns of Seinfeld (with weird Spanish subtitles), HOUSE, and American movies. I can post to my blog. This is fun!
All for about $32/month. That's about a third of what I was paying in Phoenix for a TV/cable package from Cox. Of course, having the cable service meant I had to go out (late last night) and buy a TV. I went to 4 stores and wound up buying a TV at Chedraui's, a chain store that's a Super Wal-Mart knock-off. I spent $135 for a 21 inch screen....NOT flat screen. Back in the State, we can hardly find a unit that's NOT flat screen. My logic was this: a big clunky, boxy, heavy TV set is a TV set that's harder to rob. A burglar would have a hernia lugging this thing out of the house.
The cable guy came exactly on time as promised (that's an unusual big deal in Mexico). He spent almost 4 hours here pulling cable from the street, up on the roof, and opening outlets in the house. The same guy did all the "heavy lifting" as well as the computer/modem/password setup stuff. I tipped him for his hard work. That's always appreciated here, even though a cable company technician would be considered a solidly middle-class profession.
This morning, I joined the guys for our weekly breakfast. That was a welcome connection, too. And then I went for my weekly massage with Beto...low tech, hi touch. It was a day of getting connected.
