Cable, Bikes, and Podcasts

I cancelled cable Monday. I was amazed at how liberated I felt. Interestingly, the Brighthouse lady hassled me offering discounts if it was too expensive, asking if I had children and wasn't I concerned about them, and what were we going to do with our time? We went to the library yesterday and checked out books. I am personally reading Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged" right now and that will keep me busy for a while. I plan to teach the kids to play chess and card games like cribbage.

For clarity, because I cancelled cable we did not give up television. Instead, we have Blockbuster.com and at thelibrary we found we can get DVD's for free. Among those are entire television series like "Lost" which we never saw. So, we can watch 42 minutes of a single episode on our time with no commercials. If we ultimately tire of that I discovered that most of the major networks have archives so we can retrieve shows.

Most important - we are FREE!! Free from the time waster coming into our home. And, we save $100/month! Think about it, think about canceling cable.

Second, I started riding again. It feels good. I am training for the Spacecoast Freewheelers Century at the end of October

Third, podcasts. I have an iPod Touch (http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/). I have subscribed to several podcasts such as: NBC Nightly News, CNBC Mad Money, Science Channel, and one I really wanted to share with you. This is the "KunstlerCast". The details are: James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Geography of Nowhere" and "The Long Emergency," takes on suburban sprawl, disposable architecture and the end of the cheap oil era each week with program host Duncan Crary.

You can visit his web site at http://www.kunstlercast.com/ and subscribe to the podcast. I subscribed - they are 15 minutes. The last two episodes from last week are Part 1 and Part 2. They are 30 minutes and 20 minutes each. He takes a tour of Saratoga, NY and describes main street America with a retreat from suburbia. Also, his personal blog is availble here http://www.kunstler.com/.

Last but not least, remember you are not tied to using your iPod. You can listen on your laptop with iTunes (which I do too). So, I balance out using my iPod and my laptop to listen to content.

JOHN