Watching Television

I'm fascinated by television, more than I ever have been.  With the choice of cable channels, and all the informative and educational programming available, there are usually several shows that are, in my opinion, worth watching every day.  If our package included the Science Channel, I could easily become a TV zombie.  But I don't have time for that.

My work week has been based on working about six hours a day, seven days a week, so I will get at least 40 hours.  But it almost never happens.  Entire days somehow get blown away.  As long as my wife is making most of the money, my plan isn't going to work, and it has to be that way.  I am Available Guy, and I have to deal with that.

Recently we had a weather forecast for almost a foot of snow over 24 hours.  My wife had to be at work at 6 A.M., and there was a good chance that our road would not be plowed in time (it wasn't.)  That night and the next morning, I spent a lot of time shoveling snow.  I played poker in between shoveling sessions.

I stayed up until my wife got to work, then I couldn't get to sleep for a couple hours.  I had been getting up every morning so that I would be on the "church schedule," but as often happens, my schedule and sleep patterns were completely disrupted.

It's not the pre-Black Friday world any more.  I can't play online whenever I want.  There isn't something worth playing 24 hours a day.  I tried to do a little studying but I was too tired to make sense of anything, and I'm not going to record hours when I'm not doing anything useful.

I can't control my schedule, and that's very frustrating.  We have one car, my wife usually has it, and I can't do what I want, where I want, when I want.  I'm Available Guy at home while she takes care of business (including checking on her 90-year old mother who lives alone), and it has to be that way.

The situation isn't going to change until I contribute enough to the family income to pay cash for a second car and/or pay someone else to do things like snow shoveling and/or buy the technology (such as a new snowblower) to do things more quickly and easily.

What I can control is how much televison I watch.  One by one, I've stopped following my favorite shows.  I've dropped more than half of those shows, while only adding a couple shows that are new this season.  It's making a big difference.

As I type this, it's Friday night and I have already worked 42 hours this week.  I'm going to do some studying tonight, and I still have most of Saturday free, as far as I know.  I'm considering completely giving up television for a while.*  I would love to get some 200-hour months in and really get things going.

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*Except for poker shows where I can learn something by watching them.  But a lot of those shows, at least when shown from start to finish, are moving online.  Most TV poker shows are highlights, but online I can watch live streaming of a tournament final table and see every hand, even if takes 12 hours.  That makes it much easier to follow the flow of a tournament and understand how the players adjust to each other and to changing tournament conditions.