About

Sometime in 2019, I became very aware of how much time I spent on my phone. I would read news, I would read about the news, I would discuss the news, and I would react and read others reactions to the news on social media. My hyper-awareness of every little awful thing that happened kept me glued to my screen, and I began to realize just how much this arrangement was a benefit to news and social media organizations, and just how much of a detriment it was to me. It is imperitive that we stay in tune with and informed of the world around us, but I was lacking a healthy balance. In short, I needed to log off, and so do you, probably.

As I started to step back from being so plugged in, I immediately saw what I had been missing out on. Colors were brighter and nature was louder. There were things happening all around me that I had been previously oblivious to. I continued to further simplify my life, and happiness followed.

How on Earth does this lead to buying a bunch of old hotel cable TV equipment off ebay?

Well I started daydreaming about just how simple my life could be. I work remotely, I could sell my house, buy an RV park, and live in a cabin in a rural area. I could find like-minded folks to live in other cabins on the same land. We could grow some of our own food. I found a wikipedia article called “Permaculture”, it sounds pretty neat. It would be a private community. Isolated, but not alone.

Around the same time, my wife and I started watching Star Trek: Voyager. It doesn’t get much more isolated than that. I started thinking about all the self-contained systems on board that supported their life. It’s kind of like a cruise ship, only in space. Well sometime around season 5 my mind hopped on a train of thought that went something like:

“Do they have TV on Voyager?”

“It’s 2020 and all the shows I enjoy watching are in 4:3 standard definition.”

“I wish I had watched this in its original run.”

“I wish I could subscribe to a cable company that was stuck in the 90s, commercials and all.”

“Hmmm, how does cable TV work, anyway?”.

I paused the show, did some light researching, and with more arrogance than I have ever mustered before, I decided, “I can make my own cable company”.

Let’s see how I do.