3-26-09

What a wonderful world we live in, I just can’t seem to see it on TV

Not to long ago, people didn’t have running water or electricity in their houses. Personally, I would go absolutely crazy.
Not too long ago, we didn’t have telephones, much less cell phones that fit into the small right side pocket of our jeans. I could do without the phone, but it’s important and most everyone couldn’t live without theirs.
We all know how our vehicles have evolved over the past 106 years since the day that Henry Ford rolled the first black, hand-cranked car out of his shop. I don’t know a person that wouldn’t want a car.
The world has launched numerous astronauts into space and actually had them return to earth. THAT is amazing.
We have thousands of satellites that circle the earth at thousands of miles per hour that help us watch our TVs, make our calls, and help us direct our cars in the right direction when we are traveling or lost and refuse to ask for directions.
America, alone, is full of technology and promise. When you add all of the other countries in the world that are contributing to our global progression, one would think that there is nothing we can’t accomplish.
Then how is that after my kids get hold of my remote control, I can’t find it?
Days will pass until I can change the channel on my TV while sitting on my couch.
Military missiles have laser tracking built in so that you can see where they are going and remotely steer them to their target. Why then doesn’t my remote have some sort of locating device? Something that at least beeps. How hard would that be?
I have tried to place them in areas of the living room that I can easily get to them, but the kids can’t. They somehow always find them and want to use them.
Nash, my one-and-a-half year old, likes to get her hands on it and run around the house pointing it at everything that has a little power light. She has stood in front of the TV pushing buttons and has recorded shows and almost signed us up for some unwanted channels.
I’m not sure what it would take to change a remote’s design in order to have a device in there that will allow us to find it when it is “lost.”
It can’t be that hard. There are devices that allow a person to walk into a room, clap their hands, and watch their lights turn on. Let me do that with my remote.
Maybe I just want it all or maybe I just hate getting off of the couch when I have to change the station.
I think that one of these guys that can figure the trajectory of a space probe that is going to travel halfway across the galaxy and land on a planet that has the opposite rotation than the earth and also account for daylight savings time and leap year should be able to devise something for a remote on his lunch break.
Ultimately, I think it is up to me to just find a better hiding place. After all, I would probably also need a key fob that I would have to find and push a button to make my lost remote “beep.”
On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, my daughter can figure it all out, well, after she is done ordering all of the movie channels on Direct TV.
Bryan Pinkey can be found searching through toy boxes and under beds for his remote or at bpinkey@nccox.com.