7-2-09

The master of audio / video equipment almost meets his match

I’m a pretty smart guy. I know when to get out of the way of an oncoming car, I know when to come in from the rain and my wife has helped me learn how to shut my mouth at just the right moment. I also have a fairly good aptitude for figuring out how things work.
TV and stereo equipment have been a closet fetish of mine for a very long time. I have this uncanny ability to just look at the stuff and be able to follow input and output paths, read speaker impedance labels and I can also figure out how to set flashing clocks on VCRs.
Once in awhile my father would come home with a new TV, VCR or some other piece of audio/video equipment. Normally, he would just leave it in the box and wait until I came home. “Think you can hook this up?” Dad would ask.
“Wow, a new stereo... with 5 channel output and Dolby Pro Logic!” I would shout.
With a clueless look on his face, he would tell me to hook it up after dinner.
I haven’t changed at all to this day.
The somewhat new technology of being able to program and record shows and entire seasons on a video recorder that comes standard from Direct TV was a great addition to my collection of A/V equipment. This piece of equipment, however, has given me a little bit of trouble.
Maybe it is just a learning curve or maybe my skills are being phased out and I am slowly becoming one of those people who just can’t keep up with technology.
I think it is the learning curve.
Leigh and I have a few shows recorded and some have been programmed to record for the whole season. We haven’t watched them yet.
Not too long ago, we realized that there were some strange shows on our list that neither of us would ever watch.
I chalked it up to a mishap until Leigh and I were sitting down together one evening to watch a recorded program. She turned and looked at me and said, “When did you start recording cage fighting?”
“Uhhhhh, never.” I replied.
“And when did you start watching Days of Our Lives?”
My reply was the same.
We deleted them and watched the desired show.
Over a few weeks, we noticed more of the same thing happening. Strange shows at strange times showing up on our recorder. I also noticed the bright orange recorder light on while we were at home.
I would turn it off and thought either we had a ghost or a malfunctioning recorder.
One night, after the unit’s memory was full, I sat down and began to delete and reprogram.
The next morning was a Saturday and we were all relaxing and cartoons were on. The children were watching TV Leigh and I were enjoying the calm.
Leigh and I left the room for a moment and came back in. The recorder’s bright orange light was on again. A little bit angry at my time wasted the night before, I walked back to the room to tell Leigh that the recorder was still acting up and I was going to throw it out the window.
She laughed and I walked back out to the living room.
When I rounded the corner I quickly realized what was causing my dilemma.
A 22-month-old girl was laying on the book case in front of the A/V equipment pushing a bright orange button on and off.
Quickly, I leaned back and yelled down the hall to Leigh, “The recorder is fixed. I got it all figured out!”
I knew I could fix it.
Bryan Pinkey can be found reading his owner’s manual over and over while his daughter giggles or at bpinkey@nccox.com.