April 23, 2021
Dear Everyone:
I subscribe to a cable TV service which
includes a “box” with a built-in Video Digital Recorder (VDR).
It’s a very sophisticated device.
It can be programmed to record regularly scheduled shows, such as
Game of Thrones, as well as one-time showings of yet another
Super Hero movie.
A little while ago, I was perusing my selection
of recordings and discovered that I had quite a lot of what I call
“Deferred Viewing”. Movies
that I thought I’d like to watch, regularly scheduled weekly series, the
occasional “terribly important” documentary.
I was mildly stunned to realize that I was eight hours in the
hole on one of my favorite network series.
I had always assumed that I could watch all of
this entertainment while enjoying working on one crochet project or
another. Yet I didn’t seem
to have any time to spend on either TV or crochet.
Where does all the time go?
I considered how I usually spend my time and
one thing quickly became clear:
Almost the entire morning is devoted to exercising.
There are a number of isometric exercises that I learned from a
multitude of Physical Therapists.
Some are for the legs, after getting my hip replaced.
Others are for the back.
And a lot of them are good for both.
Many of these routines seem to consist of twisting one’s self up
like a pretzel, then holding that position for a set amount of time,
such as “30 seconds”.
Ever try to stay completely still for
half-a-minute? Really?
That’s the equivalent of a standard TV commercial these days.
Go ahead, try it. And
do it for the other side.
Now do it all again for a complete set of three.
Great! Now go on to
the next of a dozen or more.
In all, these physical therapy exercises take
about an hour to complete. I
usually listen to an audible book during this time.
And I use a special timer that can be set for a number of
seconds.
Next up is “Seymour”, the exercise bike.
I had originally dubbed it “Murgatroyd”, but “Jeannie” objected
as she had once owned a small stuffed toy with that name.
So I changed it to “Seymour” after one of the main characters in
the musical, Little Shop of Horrors.
Seymour also takes about an hour.
It occurred to me that I could kill two birds
with one stone if I could figure out a way to watch Deferred Viewing
while peddling away on Seymour.
Seymour is set up in a corner of the dining
room. I could watch the TV
in the kitchen while peddling.
In fact, I’ve done it on Sunday mornings with the usual political
talk shows. However, I have
to turn the volume way up to be able to hear it from a room-and-a-half
away. Not something the
neighbors would appreciate.
At this point, I could see two possibilities.
One, get wireless headphones for the kitchen TV.
That would take care of the noise.
But seeing what is happening on a relatively small screen from
that far away can be doubtful in itself.
Two, use the same tablet that I use for audible
books to download recordings and watch a show right in front of me.
In fact, that was the original reason that I got this tablet:
So I could watch Outlander while walking on the treadmill
in the (currently closed) Fitness Center across the street.
Only one problem:
How to hold the tablet onto Seymour’s central console while
peddling. There is a tiny
little “shelf” near the top of the console which could hold a cell phone
(sideways) or other media player.
But it’s too small for a 10-by-7-inch tablet, plus it’s too high
for me. I’d get a crick in
my neck trying to watch it.
Naturally, being the Do It Yourself (DIY) kind
of person that I am, I started thinking about a solution.
Could I crochet a holder of some sort?
I already had a kind of “sling” that I used for
the Kindle eReader. Not big
enough for a tablet, but it was a start.
I threw together a possible prototype with a wash cloth, two
metal skewers from the kitchen drawer and a lot of safety pins.
As a concept, it was a possibility.
First, I went rooting around in the Sewing Box.
I found that I had quite a lot of white felt, leftover from
several Christmases ago. I
think I bought it for making individualized Christmas Stockings and, not
knowing how much I would need, bought far too much.
No matter. Felt and
cotton muslin are two of the “staples” for sewing; you can use them for
a host of things.
I could fashion some kind of a “backing” for
the tablet. Now I needed a
way to hold the backing onto the console.
I started thinking, “dowels”.
You know, a long piece of cheap wood about a half-inch round and
however many feet long.
I’ve been to the Big Orange Hardware Warehouse
Store many, many times, but I’ve never figured out where they hide the
dowels. This time, I was
prepared. I went to their
website and did a search.
The wooden dowels were in “Aisle 32, Bay 017”.
Of course, I could have ordered them online and
had them waiting for me at “Curbside Pickup”.
But it seemed rather silly to buy a 95¢ dowel with a credit card.
Plus, I wasn’t sure what size would work best for me.
Armed with this acquired
knowledge, I quickly learned that “Aisle 32” was in the far back,
well behind the larger selections of sliced wood.
And “Bay 017” was actually a wooden box, divided into vertical
cubbyholes, each sprouting a variety of dowels and small moldings.
I had already measured the depth of the little
shelf on Seymour’s console.
I picked out a ½-inch by 4 foot dowel (95¢) and a ¼-inch (77¢) one for
good measure. And some
sandpaper for smoothing cut ends.
Before you could say “Alamogordo”, I had a
“Proof of Concept” in place.
I’ve used it twice so far, watching two episodes of a TV series while
peddling 9.3 miles at an average speed of 12 mph.
There is definitely room for improvement.
But that’s for another day.
Love, as always,
Pete
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