Enjoying the Tour de France for 2025

I have not bothered watching the Tour de France for the past 15 years. I really felt let down when Lance Armstrong admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs. While everyone suspected it, I had hoped he was beyond such tactics. This year I got back into it because of my youngest son. While not a cyclist, he is a runner and appreciates the athletic effort required for such an event.

A lot has changed in the last 15 years. Back then I had a cable television subscription and could watch the Tour on one of the many stations that came into my home. Since then I have ditched cable and rely on Internet streaming for most of my video entertainment. Fortunately NBC Sports is providing 2 levels of coverage on YouTube: Short 10-minute segments with the highlights and stage finish or 40-minute segments with more in-depth action. That is a far cry from waking up early and watching 4 hours of coverage every day for 3 weeks. I have to say that I prefer the shorter highlights.

I originally started following the Tour de France a year before Lance Armstrong started winning the race. I wanted to see how any of the Americans did. I feel myself doing the same thing this year but also enjoying the success of riders from other countries.

One thing I have enjoyed this year is watching the climbs through some of the most difficult terrain suitable for a bike. Here in Utah there are plenty of mountain climbs that rival those in Europe and so I know how difficult it is to get a bike up those hills. Watching the climbs is always part of the highlights. I just wish they would show equal coverage of the descents as that is where the speed is. Back 15 years ago there were some spectacular downhill specialists that really poured on the speed and it made for quite a show. Perhaps I just need to watch the longer segments and will see more descending.

Yes, the tour has been enjoyable this year so far and I am happy I am making the time to watch it. It is probably something I will continue in future years. Being able to have it on in the background while I take care of routine tasks makes it so much easier to watch. 

Putting Away Christmas

I am one of those fortunate few who didn't have to go back to work today. My company gave us all the day off and I used the extra time to put away Christmas. While I waited for my son to come over so we could go skiing, I took down all of the Christmas lights on the outside of my house. Then when we returned from skiing, I continued to put things away.

One nice thing about Christmas is that you get all sorts of new stuff. The problem with that is that you have to find a place for everything. One tactic I have employed is getting rid of old stuff. Yesterday my wife and I went through the garage and found a bunch of boxes that we no longer need. We filled our large 100-gallon recycle bin with broken down boxes and Styrofoam. Today I continued cleaning things out. I realized that a wire TV antenna works better for local television stations than cable. I pulled little digital cable receivers from my bedroom and wife's sewing room so I could set up plain-old-wire-TV antennas. Some people used to call them rabbit-ears. I still have a large cable box in my TV room. This works for us because we really only watch the local news in the other rooms. In removing the small cable receivers, I also discovered I had stashed a bunch of spare stuff behind the TV's. I probably pulled out half a dozen extra cables from my bedroom alone. I also rearranged my PS4 and soundbar in the bedroom. The soundbar is one of those Christmas gifts I had to find a place for and now it looks like it belongs.

This evening I have to find a place for my wife's new record player. I had no idea where my wife could put it. Her sewing room is full of stuff and there is no room in there. I asked my wife where she wanted it and she gave me a great place. So now I will make room for it in my TV room.

The only thing left from Christmas that I have to find a place for is my new climbing rope. Fortunately it is small and I can store it on the floor in my closet. I just need to push it under where my pants hang and it should be out of the way. I just need to remember I put it there when I go to use it as it is well hidden.

Troubleshooting an Internet Connection

I am in Japan this week because of the Tokyo Game Show. That means I am using Skype to talk to my wife every day instead of running up a huge phone bill. I went to call my wife today but couldn't get through to her home computer. When I used Skype to call her cell phone she answered and said that our home Internet was down. Naturally she was rather frustrated. I asked her to reset our cable modem to see if that helped. Nope, it didn't. There was not much else I felt I could do to help as I am over 5,000 miles away.

Later in the day I got a text from her saying that not only was the Internet down, but also the cable television connection. A few minutes later she said that the soonest the cable company could get to the house wasn't for 2 days. I thought about it for a few minutes and remembered a similar problem several months ago. So I called my wife and had her check a few things for me.

I used to get a really strong cable signal and then my cable company did something stupid. Since then I have to have a signal amplifier inside my house. That amplifier requires power and I had my wife check to make sure the power was still on. Nope, it wasn't. I had her check the circuit breakers and they were all set correctly. The power for the amplifier comes from a single outlet in the basement that is tied to a GFCI outlet in my main-floor powder room. I had her reset that and power was restored. Once the signal amplifier had power, the cable television connection started working as did the home Internet connection.

I'm glad I was able to help my wife get our home Internet connection restored without requiring the help of the cable company. I know I feel really stupid when they come out and it is as simple as a power connection.