The Sound of Music

            I came down here in search of something but now I am preoccupied with finding adequate lighting.  I can hardly see where to step let alone grope around for whatever it was I was looking for. 

I came upon the above sentence just moments ago.  I don’t remember when I wrote it or where I was headed with it, but for whatever reason I chose to not delete it, so here I am, now facing it again.  The light is better here which is maybe why I came upon it.  Could it have been that sentence that I was looking for all along?  I can see why it was difficult to locate it the first time.  It is a relatively short sentence, written in black ink - no wonder I couldn’t find it in such dim light.

OK, so with that mystery solved, let’s get onto something a little more substantial.

Not long ago I had to reconfigure my entertainment system.  One component, a receiver, had given up the ghost, which is to say – it died.  After a few trips back and forth to several stores I finally located a receiver.  While it was still on the dining room table I connected all the speaker wires, making sure left connected to left and right went to right.  According to the owners manual I had done everything correctly.

Now, when it came to actually connecting everything to everything else I had to scrunch myself into a small corner and with a flashlight between my teeth and my knees up to my chin, I made the connections to the television, the speakers and the DVD player.

The next step, of course, was to learn how to use the remote control that came with the receiver.  (Some day when I have more time, I’ll write a piece about the companies that make remote controls out of black plastic and then use tiny black letters to identify which buttons do what).

Once we got everything working smoothly, and I could again straighten myself out from my scrunched up position, I began feeling good about myself.  I had successfully performed major surgery on vital organs and the patient was doing well.

Things not found under: Frequently Asked Questions

When we did discover an issue with the system it turned out to be so unique that nowhere could I find such an issue listed.  It seemed that we were the only ones on the planet to ever experience such a problem. 

Here’s the thing; we’re playing a movie, a dance scene comes on, we see people dancing, we hear them talking to each other but there’s no music.  At first we think – well maybe they intended the music to be implied.   We try a different movie.  Again there is no music.  We try a TV program, and again a sound track seems to be missing.

Is it me?  Did I miss a wire someplace?  Is it the receiver itself?  Did I purchase a faulty unit?  How would I know?  How do I track something like that?  I consult that manual’s trouble shooting guide.  Nothing listed under missing soundtracks.  I go on line and look up the company that made the receiver.  Again, there is nothing that mentions this issue.

The only option left to me is to once again scrunch myself up and squeeze into the small corner behind the television and retrace each wire.   OK, I came down here in search of something but now I am preoccupied with finding adequate lighting.  I can hardly see where to step let alone grope around for whatever it was I was looking for. 

I never found a wiring problem but as you

can see, I did find a place for that sentence.