Blog Number 180

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I had quite a weekend just hanging around the house with the family.  We spent an inordinate amount of time playing Texas Hold 'Em Poker (the son cannot get enough of it for some reason).  We also had a few sessions of Uno, Tri-ominoes, Yahtzee, and Chess along with a few other games.  The weather did not co-operate so we staying inside a lot.  We did venture out on Saturday for breakfast at Cafe Brazil (this was a very pricey breakfast - $37 with tip for the four of us!).  We also went to the $1 theatre and watched Bridge to Terabithia (well worth the $1 each that we spent).  We went to church Sunday morning and other than a Starbuck's run on Monday, we pretty much stayed at home.

One thing we did NOT do was watch cable TV.  We did watch The King and I on VHS that we had rented from the library.  We have really cut out TV for the kids and the wife and I only turn it on at night after the kids are gone to bed and it is just background noise really as we have both been reading some good books lately (I finished The Turk in just over a day!) and the TV really is just background noise.  We had talked off and on about disconnecting our cable service and tonight I made a call to AT&T Home Entertainment and cut us off from civilization.

Time will tell if we can go cold turkey.  We are cheating a little by doing it at the end of the TV season since most of the shows that we watched are showing only summer reruns.  The lady on the phone at AT&T could not have been nicer and only tried to tempt me a little with a lower price or a lower service level.  Once I assured here that I was not changing to a competing service (I cannot since the apartment complex I am in only has 1 choice), she resigned herself to the fact that I was lost as a customer and disconnected us effective today.  We even have told the kids that we are going to take the $39.92 / month that we are saving and putting that in the offering plate at our church.

Well, the bath and shower time is over now in my home and it is time to spend some time with the family.  The son wants more Texas Hold 'Em and the wife wants us to read another chapter (out loud) of Prince Caspian so I have to go cast the deciding vote.  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon