Review: DEPRESSING
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 12, 2013
In 1986 when I was a bit pregnant with our third child, my husband and I came out with a surveyor to find the exact boundaries of the lot we had bought in a country subdivision. We had chosen to build on the wooded side of the street. Every homeowner had a bit over five acres and had to build a certain number of feet back from the road and build a house of at least 2000 square feet. My sister-in-law, who lived across the street, advised us to make each room as large as we could afford.Within a year our son was born and we discovered the 40' antenna we had erected wasn't picking up even the city station, and we could see their antenna from the master bedroom's bathroom window. We had added some kind of signal booster. Forget it. We joined the  VCR club at Camera World where we were allowed to check out two VCR tapes at a time and keep them a week if we wished.About five years after that we had a huge dish put in our front yard. There were simply too many trees out back-they would interfere with reception.We have a small dish now, in the same spot. I was hoping this book could change that, but the book said a dirty word-antenna.There was a tornado April 2, 2006. We lost over a hundred trees in the back yard. Our home is a hundred yards from the road. We lost dozens of trees in the front yard. Strangely our immediate neighbors lost few trees, so the antenna situation hasn't improved.But we were so blessed. We had friends who lost everything. My husband's brother had to completely rebuild, as did the Kellers and the Ezells. Others had significant damage. We needed new shingles, a back screen door and light fixture.But now there's cable tv in our neighborhood. Funny, but the dish is cheaper.This book also gives advice about cutting the cost of internet and telephone servwice.We looked into completely dropping our land line, but found our alarm service required a land line. Land lines don't have to bleed you dry-shop around.We have watched network shows on the computer when everyone was talking about a 'great show' and we were obviously unaware something that good was coming on. We've caught a few great series a year or two after they started, on Netflix.And the next time we visit our oldest we'll have to see what HULU is all about.You know, that antenna was really handy. We used it as a ladder when it was time to put up Christmas lights or take them down. Yeah, we got a good sturdy one since we thought we'd be using it awhile.