Sometimes I have things that I want to do but don’t have the desire to put in all the work to do it. What I mean is that I bought a splitter and some extra cable so that I could split the signal from my AM antenna on the roof. I am thinking of adding an additional input to my scanner.

Right now, the scanner is in my office but in the future I am setting up a radio area elsewhere in the basement. I think the attached antenna to the unit works ok most of the time but given that I am in a basement, I cant help but think that there is an impact on reception. I have found that weather (or something) is giving me significant feedback at times.

I have two places to split the signal. One is outside somewhere along the house and the other is in my office. The best place to split it would be at the source but who wants to get out a ladder and make another penetration in the wall? But there is another devil out there, the penetration into my office is buried behind all of the Christmas decorations. Given all I had going on this summer, I bought the stuff but I didn’t have the desire.

Since I had to drag all the Christmas stuff out last weekend, I thought that would be the perfect time to get access and string the wire I bought over the summer. Like all things, it turned out that the process didn’t go as smoothly or quickly as I hoped. I had to drill another hole and use fish tape and monkey and fiddle around. But I got it.

The point I want to make is, being prepared and taking the opportunity saved me the work of moving all of the bins out of the way. This is not an insignificant task. It was two hours of hauling stuff upstairs last Saturday. Granted, the first time I did this, I just moved everything out of the way in the basement. But, it is still effort and it takes a lot of Tetris to get everything back in its place. I usually have to make several attempts each year as things trickle back in after the season.

The same logic goes when we were re-siding the house. I wanted to add some more energy efficient windows in my wife’s office so I ordered them as soon as the job was starting. I wanted to upgrade the skylight in the upstairs bathroom when the roof was replaced. The best time to do the job is when it is in progress so it can be flashed properly.

Our ancestors were opportunists. Yes, sometimes they set out to hunt because they were hungry. But, it is better to take advantage of a situation when they came across it. As long as they had the capability to process and preserve or hold their fortunes. I think that we have lost some of this recognition with places like always stocked grocery stores or widely open home centers. We don’t recognize opportunity when it occurs.

End Your Programming Routine: I know that our culture values constantly work. I am just as guilty of that myself. But, I don’t think our ancestors thought that way. We have shifted from doing just enough to ‘just do it’. In this case, I don’t think it is a big deal but it is that mindset training that is valuable. Unfortunately, if we don’t practice looking for opportunity then we will think about it after the fact. Then we are stuck in the ‘just do it’ mode.