A few days ago, the TV networks were awash with the “100 Days Until The End of Analog TV” message. Unless you’ve been living in a desert, you know that the FCC has decided that the current broadcast frequency spectrum is valuable and wants to make money by auctioning it to someone other than the current users – television stations. Before they can do that, they need to kick the TV stations to a new portion of spectrum and everyone is using it as an excuse to transition from analog to digital broadcast signals.
According to the informational commercials, unless you dear TV watcher take action by switching to cable, satellite or internet TV delivery, or buying a digital set top converter and new amplified antenna, you will have nothing but flickering static to view on February 17, 2009. With all the fuss being made, this must be a significant transition. I wouldn’t know…I’ve been a cable, then satellite and now internet based TV viewer – for those few shows I watch each week – for many years, over 20.
Here’s my very own infomercial. In just 45 days, I will travel with my wife and 21 friends from St. Anthony on the Lake Parish in Pewaukee, WI to Piura, Peru. There we will meet the families we help to support throughout the year. We will celebrate their joys, share their sorrows, pray with them, sing with them, deliver food and clothing to their homes, take many pictures and strengthen the bond of Christian love that already binds us. We’ll learn more about their culture and share a little bit of ours.
I’ve been on mission trips before, although never one this far from home, and I know they are life changing transitional events. Somehow I think the Peru transition is going to be much more impactful on my life than the digital TV transition.
What transitions are you working on?