My winter coat

Yesterday I wore my winter coat for the first time this season. The temperature when I left for work was just barely above freezing. The northern part of the state got hit with the same storm that went through the Midwest, but we had beautiful white, puffy clouds in our skies. All we got was lower temperatures. The almanac says that we are supposed to have a colder than normal winter with average snowfall and an early and warm spring. It will be interesting to see whether or not the almanac is correct.

I was glad that I wore the coat because it was rather chilly out and we ended up walking from the building I work in up the street to one of our other buildings where the cable system "headend" is. The headend is the starting and ending point for the Time Warner Cable signals, so it is where the television information is processed from the satellites and sent out to customers and where internet and phone signals are received and sent out as well. It was cool to see that. The walk was short, but long enough to make me appreciate warm clothing. I resist pulling out the coat for as long as possible, but the time had come. I think I probably won't need it much more for the next few weeks, but it's there for when I do.

We also got to do some hands-on training on how to properly set up cable equipment. I worked with two other ladies and we set up an HD DVR (this is a high definition cable box with a digital video recorder build into it), since the HDTVs have the most complicated set of cables of any. We set up a regular TV to work with digital cable and a DVD player, too. It's just one more set of cords to plug in. We then set up a digital phone modem and a high speed internet modem, both of which worked. It was a fun day, over all.

There is a phenomenon with cable television that happens twice every year. It is called a sun outage. Most satellites are in orbit around the earth's equator, so when the equinox comes around in spring and fall, the satellite passes directly between the sun and the earth. That causes problems with the satellite signal. It will cause bad pictures on cable channels for about 5-15 minutes per channel for about two days depending on the exact location of the channel's satellite. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, but it is completely true. The things you learn when you work for the cable company...