Don't Let the Devil Win

I was driving to work this morning when I pulled up behind a car with numerous bumper stickers on the back. Usually it's an amusing sit at the stoplight trying to read all of these but this morning I was more disturbed at the anger the owner of the car in front of me must have been feeling.  Let's just say the decal and what it expressed was aimed at protecting a woman's right to contraceptives and/or abortions. 

I felt immediately sad that this person first of all felt so angry they would display this decal on their car and secondly wondered what made them feel that way? 

The anger and tension in our society keeps growing and getting worse. It doesn't seem to matter that we live in the most prosperous and free country in the world. Our sense of righteousness seems to know no bounds so we even wear our anger on our vehicles.  Is that what you want people to see you as when I sit behind you?  An angry person?

The devil is winning his war against humans by dividing us up into compartments, having us take sides and get into boxes we cannot get out of.   We cannot help each other inside a box, we cannot have discussions when we stand on this side of a fence or the other, we cannot make peace without shaking hands.

Let's shake hands, not fists. Let's agree we ALL have a personal reason for the choices we make and with some compassion hear each other out.  Jesus didn't condemn people for making mistakes or even turning and walking away from him.  He reached out with love, and when sinners didn't take his hand he let them walk away, not yelling at them, but still loving them.  We need to do the same.  Stop condemning each other, pray for one another.  Reach out in compassion, not anger.  Let there BE peace on earth and it should begin with me and it should begin with you.   Declaring our stand or our side on the back of a car is not the way to get people to heaven.  Don't let the devil win.

Tech versus Fiber

I am an old world nerd.  I love teckie stuff but I also love making my own yarn from alpaca wool and knitting socks and scarves.

I love getting a new computer or a new smart phone, but I hate the time it takes to get it all up syncing and working.

I love beginning with a new yarn, feeling its softness and admiring the color, but I hate finishing the toes on the socks.

Today I had a teckie victory!  Despite the fact that everyone in my office considers me a teckie wiz, I am not. I cannot compete with my son-in-law who actually writes code for apps you get on your phone or your television.  But sometimes the technicians at the computer company we use at our office to  do really techie things like install our server network, think a little too much of my teckie skills. I mean I appreciate their confidence in me but it is sorely misplaced in regards to my ability.  It is during those times I would much rather be home beginning a new soft alpaca fiber sock.

Take for instance this morning. My boss came into my office with his electronic key fob which unlocks the doors on our campus.  "It stopped working." He said and handed to me.

This normally wouldn't be a huge problem, I have an app on my computer that connects me to the server where I can key in a new fob and have it working for him in a jiffy.  But today that wasn't going to happen because the program I needed to key in the fob was sitting on my old computer which was unconnected and under my desk. My office had to undergo upgrading all of our computers to using Windows 10 because we were still using 7.  It worked to do that on almost all of the office computers except mine.  My computer was too old to accept Windows 10 so I had to get a new computer.  Cue happy face on me because isn't it always exciting to get new technology?  Aren't I the one who loves new teckie things?   Yes, I am unless new means a giant pain in the arse when you are on the phone for hours at a time with tech support because Office doesn't want to accept my activation key, or find my iTunes account or let me have a signature in email or any number of things I was constantly calling our tech company for.  I am positive they are rethinking their admiration of my teckie skills by now.

 But finally, once all the bugs were out, my new computer has been purring along for almost a week with no knowledge it should have this program on it's hard drive.    Even though my  technology friends tried, they could not get this program to move over to my new computer.  I told them it was no big deal, I hardly ever use the program to key in new fobs so they could take their time trying to figure it out.  Their short term answer was I could always unplug my new computer and hook up the old one and use the program I needed to key a fob when needed then unhook that one and hook up my new one again. 

Cue Murphy's Law to jump into action.  And it did.

I look at my boss and smile, "I will get that done for you!" "As soon as I can figure out how I will do it." The rest of that response was totally inside my head.  My boss is not a teckie person. In fact he is a self proclaimed Luddite, someone who doesn't deal with technology.  He doesn’t understand anything about computers except that they cost us a lot of money but they are a necessary evil.  Considering the fact that we both work in a church office and he is a priest doesn’t take away any of the irony of this opinion he holds.  I know I work with necessary evils all the time.  We have to deal with evil in all its forms around here let me tell you and technology can look a little devilish at times.  But for crying out loud, the man doesn't even own a cell phone!!

He left my office and I dropped to my knees to the floor.  I know I should have been praying to St. Isadore of Seville, the patron saint of computers, but I was trying to get under my desk to pull out my processor  and figure out how I was going to switch back and forth between these two computers. 

I unplugged the new computer and plugged in the old. I put the network plug from the new one into the old and changed monitor plugins and viola, my old computer was up and running again. I searched for the program and got Father his new fob!

I could not believe how easy it all worked.  So I had figured that out thankfully, but  I immediately got on the phone to call the company who had the software for that program to get them to come install in on my new computer.  "Gee whiz lady, we're busy…it's been had a hard week, lots of customers with problems," was the answer I got.  So I graciously replied, "Okay I can wait."

 I once again got back to work when the phone rings.   Yup, you guessed it, someone else had a fob go down.  Well, it's back under the desk I go!  That software company wasn't the only one complaining!