It's been a tech-filled week for me. Another necessary skill to add to my list of "things they never taught me in Pastoring 101".
I spent most of the day on Tuesday, Tuesday evening, and early Wednesday morning working on a multi-media thing for our Lent experiment. (Yeah, I know. Lent is a tradition. I respect that. But it's not a tradition for me! I've never done it before, and so we're putting our own twist on it this year.)
The presentation was most satisfactory, if I do say so myself. But the laptop it had to run on kept crashing. So I re-formated things, saved them differently, re-started. Crashed again. This continued innumerable times.
Wednesday morning about 6:30 AM, found me on the couch in my jammies, growling "I DESPISE YOU!!!" at my laptop. It was a low point, I admit.
Thursday, about noon, I opened the laptop again and took a deep breath. "OK," I said. "You don't like me and I don't like you. But Ash Wednesday is coming and we've got to get this thing done. So let's just set our differences aside, and maybe we can make it happen."
It stared back at me, refusing to commit to the suggestion.
So I decided to be the bigger person and take the first step towards reconciliation. I perused user forums. I read manuals. I even installed a fake printer. No good.
Finally, a brain-wave hit. This is the NEW laptop (after the other one was stolen). I had loaded all the software on this one, but what if there were updates? Well, yes indeedy, there were. And they had to be downloaded. Then they had to be installed. And then they spoke firmly to me about files in the wrong spot, and "strongly recommended" that they be allowed to move those files. I meekly clicked "OK".
And it worked!
I danced around my office, hollering triumphantly. Seriously. I did.
For this week, I faced a test of technology, looked it squarely in the eye. And I won.
MWAA-HAA-HAA!!!!!!!!!!!!
(P.S. Please don't tell my laptop about this post - I don't want to anger it)
Friday, February 20, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
poetry
They say that what women are looking for in a man is a sense of humour, among other things.
Sadly, if you haven't found him yet, you're out of luck. I married him.
Valentine's Day morning found me sitting on the couch reading the paper. Spike got out of bed, stood before me with his hands behind his back (holding a box of chocolates, of course) and recited the following:
It's also because
But there isn't.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen - I got poetry for Valentine's Day! And chocolate. And a lot of laughter.
To quote one of my favourite bloggers - "I'd marry him again in a heartbeat."
Sadly, if you haven't found him yet, you're out of luck. I married him.
Valentine's Day morning found me sitting on the couch reading the paper. Spike got out of bed, stood before me with his hands behind his back (holding a box of chocolates, of course) and recited the following:
It's Valentine's Day
And I got you a treat
It wasn't expensive
But it's really quite sweet
It's also because
You work really hard
And I guess by now
You wish there was a card
But there isn't.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen - I got poetry for Valentine's Day! And chocolate. And a lot of laughter.
To quote one of my favourite bloggers - "I'd marry him again in a heartbeat."
Monday, February 09, 2009
Gilbert and Stella
Once a month, our church does "Supper & A Story" - a simple supper ($2 a head) for anyone who wants to come, and then someone tells their story of where they came from, how they got here, who they are.
Last night, Gilbert and Stella told theirs. They don't actually attend our church, although we are certainly friends - they are our business neighbours, across the street.
I wish I had a day, or a lifetime, to sit and listen to them.
I am always deeply impacted when someone tells their story, and says over and over again - "Life is good. You have to treat people right. We love people and we work hard."
The impact comes, not from those statements alone, but from the other parts of their story that you almost miss, because they don't dwell on them. "My village back home was burned to the ground ... days in a concentration camp ... didn't know where my husband was because he got across the border, and I got caught ... "
These are the stories we need to hear, I think. Stories of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, who survived things like World Wars and the Great Depression. Who knew that joy isn't at all connected to things. Who were willing to work, hard.
Stories like this are good for me. I am so truly grateful when I have a chance to hear them. A standing ovation for Gilbert and Stella, owners of the same business, at the same location, for 55 years - and for all the other champions like them!
Last night, Gilbert and Stella told theirs. They don't actually attend our church, although we are certainly friends - they are our business neighbours, across the street.
I wish I had a day, or a lifetime, to sit and listen to them.
I am always deeply impacted when someone tells their story, and says over and over again - "Life is good. You have to treat people right. We love people and we work hard."
The impact comes, not from those statements alone, but from the other parts of their story that you almost miss, because they don't dwell on them. "My village back home was burned to the ground ... days in a concentration camp ... didn't know where my husband was because he got across the border, and I got caught ... "
These are the stories we need to hear, I think. Stories of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, who survived things like World Wars and the Great Depression. Who knew that joy isn't at all connected to things. Who were willing to work, hard.
Stories like this are good for me. I am so truly grateful when I have a chance to hear them. A standing ovation for Gilbert and Stella, owners of the same business, at the same location, for 55 years - and for all the other champions like them!
Sunday, February 08, 2009
in case you ever become wildly popular
Saw a great philosophical statement early this morning. Thought I'd share it with you, in case it's helpful.
You've probably heard about the insanely corrupt governor of Illinois. "Allegedly." Am I required to say "allegedly"?
He's been replaced. Apparently by a straight-as-an-arrow guy named Pat Quinn. Not THAT Pat Quinn. Another one.
And he, of course, is quite popular today, seeing as he's not blatantly selling senate seats to the highest bidder. Note: some feel it's OK to sell seats in a once-removed, plausible deniability sort of way. Others disagree.
Anyway - he is handling his popularity with a great deal of wisdom.
He has a philosophy.
It's good to have a philosophy BEFORE you need it. It's hard to come up with a philosophy that works on the day you become popular. So, in case you haven't developed your own "if-I-ever-become-wildly-popular philosophy", might I recommend this one?
You know, just until you come up with your own.
Works for me!
You've probably heard about the insanely corrupt governor of Illinois. "Allegedly." Am I required to say "allegedly"?
He's been replaced. Apparently by a straight-as-an-arrow guy named Pat Quinn. Not THAT Pat Quinn. Another one.
And he, of course, is quite popular today, seeing as he's not blatantly selling senate seats to the highest bidder. Note: some feel it's OK to sell seats in a once-removed, plausible deniability sort of way. Others disagree.
Anyway - he is handling his popularity with a great deal of wisdom.
He has a philosophy.
It's good to have a philosophy BEFORE you need it. It's hard to come up with a philosophy that works on the day you become popular. So, in case you haven't developed your own "if-I-ever-become-wildly-popular philosophy", might I recommend this one?
You know, just until you come up with your own.
Works for me!
Monday, February 02, 2009
a hitch or two
You may have noticed the end of my last post referring to Sunday going off "without a hitch".
HA!!! There were hitches, my friends, hitches hitching wildly and randomly all over the place.
Which brings to mind - in the phrase, "without a hitch" - what IS a "hitch"????
Sunday morning, I turned on the new laptop which I had spent a good part of my Friday night and Saturday loading up for Sunday morning.
Hitch #1 - Spike briefly mused that he might change one of the songs. I very kindly suggested that he reconsider that thought, since I had only had time to load what was absolutely necessary for Sunday morning. He responded to my calm demeanour, recognized the panic underneath, and agreed. So that wasn't really a hitch. He's a good guy, Spike is.
Hitch #2 - Bass player is sick.
Hitch #3 - Laptop has a 6-second delay from the time you tell it to change the screen, until the screen actually changes. Doesn't sound like much, you say? Count it out, imagining yourself trying to follow the words on a song as it's being sung. one-mississippi ... two-mississippi ... three-mississippi ... four-mississippi ... five-mississippi ... six-mississippi It's long, isn't it? In your imagination, you got irritated with the operator of the laptop, didn't you? Yup.
Hitch #4 - Laptop is also not translating properly to the screen, in that the bottom line is being chopped off. "Change the margins," you say. "It seems like a very simple solution," you say. "Yes," I say, "but what is on the screen, is not what is on the laptop, and it certainly doesn't reflect the margin settings that are there, so I don't think that's really the issue. But if I need to go through every single screen and set the margins in some ridiculous way to solve a problem that is not about margins, I can do that, as long as we start the service 15 minutes late."
Hitch #5 - The person who handles my tech panics on a regular basis arrives. He is also a bass player at times. Poor guy walks in the door, and gets hit with - "The computer isn't working! The bass player is sick!" He listens calmly to the whole thing, then holds up the paper towels in his hand. "That's fine," he says, "but my daughter just threw up in the car on the way here, so I have to deal with that first." Throwing up in the car always wins. I respect that.
Hitch #6 - Halfway through practice the keyboard drops out. Not the player - the actual instrument. Cue the applause, please, for the wonderful people that labelled all the cables and cleaned out the closet, so that there is a working, labelled, easy-to-find patch cord just waiting to be used, for such a time as this.
There were other hitches too, but as I jogged throughout the building, up the stairs, down the stairs, into the offices, across the platform, up to the balcony, down to the basement, over and over again, two things occurred to me:
1. I really AM a running pastor! :)
2. All these hitches were going to lead to an interesting post, right here, on Monday morning.
My tech-friend finished cleaning up his car, went home to get new clothes for his daughter, and returned, having figured out the solution to my computer woes in his head. Click here, click there, change this, maybe it's the resolution - presto! Delay is gone, screen is not cutting off words anymore. I hugged him.
Spike did just great without a bass player, of course. He's a very talented guy, Spike is.
The laptop operator happily danced to the music while she transitioned the screens perfectly.
The first-time teenage camera operator folded his long legs under his seat, and maneuvered the camera with ease. (The 8-year-old that had trained him told me later, "He did a good job.")
And as I leaned back in my seat, hysterical giggles threatening to bubble to the surface, the service came to a successful conclusion, "without a hitch".
HA!!! There were hitches, my friends, hitches hitching wildly and randomly all over the place.
Which brings to mind - in the phrase, "without a hitch" - what IS a "hitch"????
Sunday morning, I turned on the new laptop which I had spent a good part of my Friday night and Saturday loading up for Sunday morning.
Hitch #1 - Spike briefly mused that he might change one of the songs. I very kindly suggested that he reconsider that thought, since I had only had time to load what was absolutely necessary for Sunday morning. He responded to my calm demeanour, recognized the panic underneath, and agreed. So that wasn't really a hitch. He's a good guy, Spike is.
Hitch #2 - Bass player is sick.
Hitch #3 - Laptop has a 6-second delay from the time you tell it to change the screen, until the screen actually changes. Doesn't sound like much, you say? Count it out, imagining yourself trying to follow the words on a song as it's being sung. one-mississippi ... two-mississippi ... three-mississippi ... four-mississippi ... five-mississippi ... six-mississippi It's long, isn't it? In your imagination, you got irritated with the operator of the laptop, didn't you? Yup.
Hitch #4 - Laptop is also not translating properly to the screen, in that the bottom line is being chopped off. "Change the margins," you say. "It seems like a very simple solution," you say. "Yes," I say, "but what is on the screen, is not what is on the laptop, and it certainly doesn't reflect the margin settings that are there, so I don't think that's really the issue. But if I need to go through every single screen and set the margins in some ridiculous way to solve a problem that is not about margins, I can do that, as long as we start the service 15 minutes late."
Hitch #5 - The person who handles my tech panics on a regular basis arrives. He is also a bass player at times. Poor guy walks in the door, and gets hit with - "The computer isn't working! The bass player is sick!" He listens calmly to the whole thing, then holds up the paper towels in his hand. "That's fine," he says, "but my daughter just threw up in the car on the way here, so I have to deal with that first." Throwing up in the car always wins. I respect that.
Hitch #6 - Halfway through practice the keyboard drops out. Not the player - the actual instrument. Cue the applause, please, for the wonderful people that labelled all the cables and cleaned out the closet, so that there is a working, labelled, easy-to-find patch cord just waiting to be used, for such a time as this.
There were other hitches too, but as I jogged throughout the building, up the stairs, down the stairs, into the offices, across the platform, up to the balcony, down to the basement, over and over again, two things occurred to me:
1. I really AM a running pastor! :)
2. All these hitches were going to lead to an interesting post, right here, on Monday morning.
My tech-friend finished cleaning up his car, went home to get new clothes for his daughter, and returned, having figured out the solution to my computer woes in his head. Click here, click there, change this, maybe it's the resolution - presto! Delay is gone, screen is not cutting off words anymore. I hugged him.
Spike did just great without a bass player, of course. He's a very talented guy, Spike is.
The laptop operator happily danced to the music while she transitioned the screens perfectly.
The first-time teenage camera operator folded his long legs under his seat, and maneuvered the camera with ease. (The 8-year-old that had trained him told me later, "He did a good job.")
And as I leaned back in my seat, hysterical giggles threatening to bubble to the surface, the service came to a successful conclusion, "without a hitch".
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