Our Grandson Landon, the Music Critic . . .
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Brandi said that the other night she was in bed with Landon watching one of his favorite shows and singing along with the theme song. Landon reached over, put his hand over Brandi’s mouth and said, “Calm down, Mommy!”
Out of the mouth of babes, so to speak.
They’re making more progress on Brandi and Lowell’s new house. The first coat of paint is on the walls and some of the kitchen cabinets are installed.
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We spent most of the day waiting for the DirecTV guy to get here with our new HD DVR. He was supposed to be here between 8 and 12, but didn’t make it until almost 2 because he got hung up at another job.
We upgraded to an HD DVR, but not for the HD service.
Our Winegard Carryout Satellite Antenna doesn’t work on HD, but since it was free, we wanted to upgrade to the HD model because it holds so many more hours of video, over 400 hours compared to our old R-16 which only held about 70. Plus I can plug in an external HD that will allow it to hold over 1600 hours. Neat.
But we did run into a problem in setting it up. Although the DVR will work just fine on SD channels, it can only be activated while connected to an HD capable antenna. So he had to take it back to his shop, hook it up to his HD antenna and activate it, and then bring it back here.
Which of course made him late for his next appointment, so I couldn’t complain about him being late for mine.
But finally about 4pm it was up and working. Now we just have to go back and reprogram it for all the shows we want to record.
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For dinner we had the leftover pizza from our visit to Organ Stop Pizza the other night. Still really good and very cheesy.
About 6:45 Jan and I headed out for our walk. We did about 1.25 miles before calling it a day, using RunKeeper to keep track of our time. It’s nice to see that we keep picking up our time a little bit every walk.
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If you’re a history buff, I’ve been reading a really good book that you might be interested in. It’s called The Battles that Changed History and is an excellent read. It cover 16 battles from Alexander the Great against the Persians, through Jeanne d’Arc, and ending with the Battles of Vicksburg and Midway.
One of my favorite of literary subjects is Alternative History, where one historical event unfolds differently, and changes things afterword. One famous turning point used is Lee’s Lost Orders.
A copy of the orders, detailing Lee’s battle plans for what became known as the Battle of Antietam, was lost by a Confederate courier and recovered by a Union corporal. This led to McClellan being able to blunt Lee’s attack and force him back out of Union territory. Although not really a Union victory, Lincoln used it to justify his issuing the Emancipation Proclamation which discouraged Britain and France from recognizing the Confederacy.
In Harry Turtledove’s How Few Remain, the first book in a 14 book series, the Lost Orders are not found by the Union, the Battle of Antietam is not fought, the Emancipation Proclamation is not issued, Britain and France come in on the side of the South, and the Confederacy wins its independence. Of course he takes a whole book to tell you this.
Even a luminary such as Winston Churchill wrote a ‘counterfactual’ as he called it, detailing how Lee won at Gettysburg, thus changing the course of the Civil War.
Sorry. It seems like I took the long way around to get back to talking about “The Battles that Changed History”, but the battles described here are perfect examples of where a small change could have major consequences on history.
Check it out.
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Thought for the Day:
Live your life in such a way that the Westboro church will want to picket your funeral.
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