By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

New Year's Day is a big day for folks around here. We look forward to this day all year long, but not for your typical reasons.

Jan. 1 is the first day of the New Year, which signifies a time for a new start. Some of us look forward to the New Year as a time to start that exercise program to lose those holiday pounds. For others, the coming of the new year is a time to stop smoking, or start a new job.

Teachers and students see it as one of the few last days of Christmas break; a last chance to relax before they start back to school. I don't know who needs the break the most - the kids or the teachers. (If you ask my wife the teacher, it's the teachers.)

But a few close friends and I have looked forward to New Year's Day for none of these reasons. No, our reason for anticipating the first day of the New Year is far more important. We now have a new satellite dish, theater Surround Sound system and are gonna watch sunup to sundown, wall-to-wall football. Ah yes, but first we had to install the new system.

Over the holiday, my son and I spent two days putting together our new entertainment system. We installed the new 18-inch satellite dish on the roof, running cables and phone line through the attic and down the walls and into the living room.

We had all the cables ran in a day, but it took an additional three days to patch the ceiling where I fell through. It took another week, and four trips to the stereo store, to connect the TV, VCR, satellite dish, and theater surround sound system correctly.

My son thinks that the best part of the theater system is the six speakers. We installed the speakers in the four corners, above the TV, and hid the sub woofer behind the couch.

Even if you don't know your woofer from your tweeter, Surround Sound brings movies or sports events right into your living room. When you sit in the middle of our living room you can hear explosions in front, rear, on either side, and behind the couch.

But I think the best part of the new system is not the great sound, nor the crystal clear reception that the satellite system brings; no, the best part of our new entertainment system is that it comes with four remotes.

There is just something about having a remote in one's hand while watching one's favorite movie or football game that makes everything right in the world. My wife says it's a guy thing; I say it's a rite of passage. A good example of this 'rite' is that my teenage son and I battle constantly over who is in control of the one remote for the TV. He says it's his and I say it's my "right."

Now, with four remotes, could there be any peace at our house? Yes, there will be, for I have come up with perfect system no, not the stack and pile system. I give him one of the remotes, minus the batteries, so he just thinks he is changing the channels.

He looked at me in horror when I told him, "At our house, thirty years ago, the only way we changed the channels was to get up, walk over to the TV, and turn a knob. We watched TV with only three channels, all of which had nothing on."

He answered, "Yeah, Dad, I know, you told me you had it hard when you were growing up. Was that about the same time you had to walk to school in the snow, up hill, both ways, barefoot, and backwards? Things sure are a lot different now than when you were growing up. With our new satellite, we have 300 channels and nothing is on."

I just love teenagers.

Our friends started to arrive early on New Year's day ready to watch eight hours of football, unaware of the sacrifice that I had already made for the occasion. I had promised my wife that if the guys could come over, I would go see the new "Kate and Leopold" movie with her. This was without a doubt not a guy movie. There was not one explosion, spacecraft, or laser beam during the entire show.

On the other hand, the football game was great; the Surround Sound system made it sound and feel like we were right on the field with the players. We could hear every bone-crushing tackle as they rumbled from behind the couch. The coaches sounded as if they were yelling right in front of us, and the cheers of the crowd reverberated all around the room as they followed the action on the field.

At the end of the game, all agreed that any sacrifices made on my part for the sound system and to have them over was well worth it. I did not have the heart to tell them that I actually liked the movie that was without a doubt a "chick Flick." (My wife says there's hope for me yet.)

During the game, my son found out that his remote did not have batteries. He said, "Dad, it's not fair to give me a remote that doesnít work. It doesn't have any batteries."

I said, "Sure itís fair. When I was your age, my Dad also had four remotes for the TV. None of them needed batteries, and he had no problem getting them to change the channels or the volume."

He asked, "How did he get the remotes to work without batteries?"

"It was easy," I said. "The remotes were Mike, Richard, Edward, and me."

He just smiled and went into the kitchen to search for two AA batteries.

[Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at saferick@bellsouth.net.]

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