Sleep Came Early...and the Smoking Television

No blog last night... I was really tired and the kids were sleeping by 9 pm, all of them.  The youngest had fallen asleep around 8 pm.  I didn't realize how tired I was, until I looked at the clock and it was a little after 9, and then I woke up at 10:45 pm.  It had been a long week, the trip home on Monday was exhausting, and then putting in 40 hours of work over the next 4 days.  I just needed to sleep and I wasn't going to fight it. 

When I woke up at 10:45 pm, I turned on the television, expecting to put on something boring so that I could go back to sleep quickly.  The complete opposite occured.  I turned it on and David Letterman was on my screen, but in a completely distorted view.  I kept looking at it for several seconds, tried to turn up the volume to see what was going on, and then tried to flip the channel.  The sound didn't go up, but the channel did change.  It was a Spanish channel, but still completed distorted.  The screen then started flickering, with a rainbow looking flash in the middle.  This all happened within a minute of turning on the televison. 

I turned off the television, and in all my wisdom, turned it back on.  I thought it was just a momentary problem that would correct itself.  I was sadly mistaken.  There was no picture, except for the flickering, rainbow thing in middle of the set.  Then I started to smell smoke... the scent of an electric problem radiating from my television. I turned it back off and unplugged it.  Then I posted a note and hung it front of the television stating not to plug it in, that it was ruined and smoking.  Just in case one of the kids wanted to watch TV this morning and I didn't notice. 

I had many strange dreams about televisions once I fell back to sleep.  It is odd how those kinds of things can cause the subconscious to unleash.  I don't know that I have ever actually dreamed about a television, until last night, when I must have dreamed at least 5 different times about different television scenarios. 

When I woke up this morning, I went and got our older television out of my sons' room (they had it in there for their Nintendo 64 console), and hooked it up out here, after moving the broken one off the stand.  I wouldn't want to cause the children to not watch the Nick saturday morning cartoon lineup.  As I sit here writing the blog, they are watching TUFF Puppy. 

Today, I need to get some housework done, including laundry.  It is not ever my favorite thing to do, since we need to bring it to the apartment complex laundry room, which is on the other side of the complex.  I drive over there, because I am not going to walk with a ton of laundry, and toss it in.  Leave my vehicle there, walk back here, go back and toss it in the dryer, walk back here, go fold it, put it back in the vehicle, and drive back here and carry it up the stairs to the apartment.  Not fun, but necessary!