The DVD Recorder Saga

About 3 weeks ago I purchased a Sony DVD Recorder because my VCR went belly up when I tried to record the BYU v. TCU game for Big Lug's birthday. I waited another week or so before trying to set it up amongst my other electronic equipment. The good people at Sony had sent along a pretty picture of all the cords and plugs needed to hook up the recorder to your cable box and television. I used those trusty three prong cords because the pretty picture said that was what I needed. After about 25 minutes of trying to get the whole mess of electronics to work, I called Big Lug to talk me down from throwing the stupid machine out my 5th floor window.

Big Lug was driving on I-69 towards to Chicago when my frantic phone call came through. I figured if anyone was going to help it would be him since I was doing this whole project for his 30th birthday. In my frustrated voice I told him that the machines were not working and I couldn't figure out why since I had followed the pretty picture directions implicitedly. Big Lug, in his calm and patient voice, proceeded to direct me in the proper way to hookup the recorder. The most amazing part of this saga was that Big Lug had no pretty pictures, manuals or even the equipment itself with which to direct me. He did it all from his vast knowledge. Luckily we didn't get frustrated with each other while he directed my hands. This is a huge step for us because in the past we would have ended up throwing rocks at each other. Remember the badminton and ping pong, Big Lug?

The saga didn't end with the hookup. I finally had a spare 3 1/2 hours to record the football game yesterday. I changed the record mode based on the lenght of the game to insure that it would fit on one DVD. Well I had to leave about an hour into the recording and came back to no sound coming through the television. While I was trying to figure out why there was no sound, the recorder promptly stopped recording at the beginning of the 4th quarter because the DVD was full. WHAT?!? How could it be full? So what do I do? I called Big Lug while he was driving towards Detroit to help me figure out why there was no sound and if I should re-record the game so it fit on one disk. Again, the patience and wisdom of Big Lug helped me to record only the 4th quarter on another disk and figure out how to finalize both disks so they would work in a standard DVD player.

This birthday project saga is finally out of my hands as the FedEx package with the two DVDs (both with pure sound coming out) has left my office building. I must give props to Big Lug for talking me down from the ledge a couple of times in my quest to master the DVD recorder. Now I am ready to take on any BYU games I might be asked to record. The moral of the DVD Recorder saga comes from the timeless words of G.I. Joe..., "knowing is half the battle."