Talk of cutting the cord, giving blood
Hope everyone had a great holiday season. My family and I did, and managed to make it through (so far) without any serious winter illnesses or viruses of any kind.
Santa was good to us, better than we likely deserved.
I wanted to share with you a couple of things recently that have come up in my life, one of them relatively unimportant overall (but good financially) and the other literally a life or death situation.
Cutting the cord
One thing my wife and I were able to do late last year was finally find enough time to make the transition from DirecTV satellite television service to YouTubeTV.
We had used DirecTV at our rural home mostly out of convenience and the best available option, but when we got great WiFi service a couple of years ago we knew it was a good move to make the switch.
I was actually sold on the notion when visiting some friends of mine just before Thanksgiving, who had made the same switch and were very happy.
We chose YouTubeTV basically on their recommendation, although there are other similar services such as Hulu Live, Sling and Tubi.
From the reviews I’ve read, ours is the most-liked and we’ll stick with it something better comes along. I’m embarrassed to say what we were paying for satellite service, but our new $64.95 bill (plus $15 for HBO) is a $110 savings from our previous bill.
Want to make this switch? You have to have two things:
1. Great WiFi signal
2. Smart TV
If you don’t have both of those, don’t bother yet.
A Smart TV is basically a TV and a huge iPad combined into one, and you watch through apps on the screen.
There is no cable box, no DVR (all content is saved on server of your company) and very little work to do.
Someone asked recently if I have all the channels I had on DirecTV, and I have to admit that I don’t.
But I have all the ones I really like, including local channels, and to be honest we had more channels before than we could possibly watch. Since my personal leisure time has been severely curtailed lately, paying for unwatched channels makes no sense. (I will admit we got our money’s worth at the higher rate during the lockdown, when nobody went anywhere and we watched an inordinate amount of TV).
It’s something we should have done a long time ago, and we are glad we did.
If you want any tips, drop me a line at editor.braziltimes@gmail.com. I’m not an expert, but I have learned a little in the process.
Giving blood
I had never given blood before Monday, but I decided to do so after reading about the huge shortages.
Our Brazil Rotary Club sponsored a blood drive at the YMCA, and I was a little apprehensive at first. When I was a teacher, students would come back from their session of giving blood relating stories of people passing out or getting ill. Some came back far longer than it seemed necessary, although the teachers all knew they were just milking it to get out of class.
The process was very easy, and the actual removal of the blood was no big deal.
From all the blood draws I’ve had in the past year, it was really easy and similar to all of those.
The lab people at my doctor’s office in Terre Haute tell me I have “great veins”, and the ladies from the Red Cross agreed.
Once I was done, I got a nice treat at the snack table and was able to sit and talk to Dave Crooks (also a donor) while waiting to make sure I felt well enough to drive home.
I had not researched it well enough in the past, and wasn’t sure I could give because I am a diabetic.
That wasn’t a problem, and I would highly recommend giving the next time an opportunity ariess.
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