Another Day, Another Plague

The girls have been out sick for three days now, and that's exactly the amount of time necessary for this season's Plague (Black, Blue, or Otherwise) to descend upon my head like a sack of nails and strike me down.

I felt lousy all day.

But being the staunchly loyal, hardlyworking person that I am, I did my job, attended to my post, pulled my weight, tended to my garden, and earned my daily bread. By sitting in a software laboratory, pounding on keys all morning to convince those little bits and bytes that they should be attending properly to their own business. Which they did. Mostly.

But it was a struggle. My internals were doing some weird new kind of dance which involved alternatively pulling, punching, kicking, and biting themselves until they'd worked themselves into an absolute frenzy of indigestion, at which point they signalled me, though nefarious means, that it was Probably Time to Go Home.Which I did. Promptly.

At home, I consumed mass quantities of analgesics and caffeinated, carbonated beverages in an effort to calm the storm (so to speak), then watched part of a documentary on Ray Harryhausen which put me right out, after which I awoke only long enough to crawl upstairs and ooze into bed to simulate a Dying Whale. My most convincing performance, if I do say so myself.

Hours later, not wishing to absolve the day of any responsibility in getting Things Done, I went downstairs and ripped a huge hole in the drywall in an attempt to resolve the issue of the Hidden Plug. That is, my feeble brain finally figured out how to move the wall outlet which is completely in the wrong place at the wrong time: Since this particular outlet rests between two other outlets, I shall simply remove the offending outlet from its offensive location, re-install it in a slightly more useful position, then place another outlet on the other side of the wall, thus stretching a new wire between them. Which means I won't have to remove all the drywall in order to effect the repair. Only a six-foot by six-inch strip near the base of the wall.

Meanwhile, Deb felt well enough to go out shopping for a prom dress (and some shoes), and Mary felt well enough to eat dinner with Cheryl and I. And the cat felt well enough to fill my lap with her fur.

Too Many Projects to Count

"Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb."
- Batman (1966)

Spring has finally arrived in Michigan. Almost. The temperatures aren't quite what they should be; Old Man Winter worked hard and doesn't let go easily. Just when we thought he was ready to disappear back into his northern hideaway, he came swooping back in for one final (we hope) pass through the midwest. But the forecast promises that the real Spring is just around the corner.

Which means that all those long-delayed projects will now come due with a vengeance.

I've already been working on the basement, of course. There's no temperature restriction on indoor work, other than the pain of moving all the tools from the frigid garage to the downstairs. So I spent some time this weekend putting together the new (to me) table saw, pulling out some old, unnecessary temporary wiring, putting up some bedroom wall frames, and making plans for all the other things that need to be done.

The first part of the project is my favorite part: the wiring. With the replan on the basement split, the placement of the overhead lights has to change. Also, there's a new 20-amp line to run out to the garage, for the welder. So I can fix (replace) the rusted-out spots on the cars.

Hand in hand with the wiring is the new framing. We completely changed the bedroom wall to incorporate the new kitchenette and move the closet. Ran into a little bit of a hitch on the southeast basement wall that had been built a few years back; I'd forgotten that two of three sections along that side wall were framed with 2x2s instead of the standard 2x3s, so I'll have to rebuild them to be consistent -- and also to increase the insulation factor.

Then there's that issue with one of the original outlets on the south wall just above the thingie. It has to move, since we're not allowed to put outlets behind wall intersections. To move it properly, I have to tear into the drywall and pull the wire that connects it to the other outlets. Unfortunately, the outlets are wired horizontally instead of vertically, which means I have to remove horizontal sections of drywall. And, even more unfortunately, the original drywall is glued onto the studs (with Liquid Nails), and there's no easy way to remove it without completely destroying the drywall. So looks like I'll be doing a lot more drywall work than I'd planned.

At least the overhead lighting was easy. I just wired in some outlets in box extensions and plugged in my flourescent light panels. Since we're putting in a drop ceiling, I don't have to worry about the final lighting for a while.

As for the other projects, they just keep coming.

Mary's laptop died. Figured out the video chip had overheated and melted the solder that was bonding it to the circuit board. It's possible to re-heat it and try to reflow the solder, but that's kind of dicey. Probably easier just to head over to the PC recycle place and pick up another one for a couple hundred bucks. Which we have lying around here like so much popcorn. Not.

Adam's car is leaking again. We had it in the shop a month ago so they could replace the water pump. It was fine for three weeks. Now it's leaking again. So we have to find a time when he won't need his car so we can take it back and have them fix it again. Oh, joy.

I had my car in the shop last weekend so they could replace the right front bearing and the ball joints. It's still not driving properly. I think they messed up the brake somehow. I hear scraping. And they didn't tighten the drive belt because it screams every time I start the car. Do I take it back, or fix it myself? And if I fix it myself, where does the time come from?

Work is rapidly running out at the office, so it's time to polish up the ol' resume and start sending it out all over the place. No telling what'll happen next. Kind of makes me nervous when we've just started a major basement project and now this uncertainty arises.

Oh, well. That's the kind of adventure that makes life worth living, right?

Four Score and Keep 'Em Coming!

My dad is going to be eighty years old this week.

I have so many wonderful memories of my dad, of the times when he took me in his big, strong arms and carried me around; of the times when I walked in his bootprints in the snow; of the times when I sat in church and listened to him preach; of the times when we visited folks from church and I sat and listened to him as he talked with them in that kind, gentle voice that was so warm and friendly and encouraging; of the times when we'd be out in the garage working on a project and he'd try to teach me something when my head was in the clouds and his patience would be wearing thin but he'd keep trying anyway.

When I think of my dad, I think of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. My dad serves other people just like Jesus served, and serves, his. It's how he loves people. A lot of people in this world are wanting to serve themselves, buying lots of fancy toys and going on expensive vacations to places where they are waited on, hand and foot. My dad buys tools so he can make beautiful things for people, and he takes "vacations" to places where he gets to visit the people he loves.

That's another one of my favorite life memories: going on trips with my dad, visiting friends and relatives along the way. Seems like he has friends all over the place, so there's never a lack of places to stop and visit.

I wish we could be there at his birthday celebration. Truth is, I'm kind of upset that I can't be there. But we have obligations here in town with the Marching Band; Deb is performing downtown with the Grand Rapids Symphony, and if there's one thing my dad taught me, it's to support your kids in what they do. And I try to do that when I can. I love my kids, even when they're in those difficult years when they can't stand being in the same house as their parents and they can't wait to get out. I remember feeling that way when I was in high school, so I don't let it get me too stressed out (other than worrying that they'll make a wrong decision and I won't be around to fix it). I encourage the kids to be independent, to prepare for the day when they (finally) go out into the big, wide, scary world on their own. I'm thankful that my parents prepared me for that step.

We had lots of adventures back in the day. Trips to Yosemite, Mariposa, the beautiful brown foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Columbia. The Ozarks. Reunions in Indiana. Riding through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Trips to the coast, Nag's Head, Kitty Hawk. Driving out to California in Bill's VW bus. Seeing the Milky Way at a rest stop. Seeing all those relatives I didn't know, whose names I could never remember - but you always did.

My parents instilled in me a strong sense of adventure. Always looking out for the next opportunity. And it served me well, getting me all the way out to Seattle, then back east to New York, Baltimore, Joplin, looping around to Seattle again. And now Michigan!

And dad instilled in me a few other things that I treasure to this very day. A love of woodwork (although I'm nowhere as proficient). A joyful anticipation every time I pop the hood of my car to work on an engine. A deep appreciation for old movies. A desire to serve others. A passion for singing.

Most of all, he instilled in me a desire to teach Jesus. Not to adults, though; I'll never be comfortable teaching adults because they're always wanting to get into arguments about things that seem more opinion than doctrine. But I love teaching kids. There's nothing in the world like the feeling when you see a light go off in a child's eye when he "gets" it, when he understands what Jesus is all about, what God's love means, why the Bible is so important. When all those stories come together like a giant puzzle and click into place.

Thanks for teaching me about Jesus, Dad. So I can share the love and the wonder and the joy with all these amazing kids. They are all a part of your legacy.

And Happy Birthday!  I love you!!

Glass in the Parking Lot

I was a bit rushed in my Sunday School prep today. Mary and I found a section of the church parking lot covered in broken glass, and it was necessary to spend twenty minutes cleaning it up before everybody else showed up.

It was not in my plans this morning.

My first assumption when we saw the glass was that someone had thrown a rock through a window at the church (which has happened in the past). But this glass was mirrored. I wasn't aware of any mirrors being thrown out, so had no clue as to where the glass came from. But there were big shards of it all over the place, and knowing that the little kids run around the parking lot quite a bit, my imagination ran wild, and I ran to get the broom.

Consequently, my room wasn't as ready as it could've been. But the kids were gracious enough to forgive my muddled state of mind. And we enjoyed discussing how the Apostles starting spreading the Word.

But I couldn't stop thinking about that glass.

Skype Hype

We had a Skype session with James and Tabea today. It was kind of weird.

I assume you are familiar with Skype, which was predicted way, way back in the 1920s when radio was barely old enough to stand on its own feet. Before television, before the Internet, before eBay.  It didn't really take off due to the bandwidth limitations of the old copper wire; that had to wait a few more years, until optical fiber came into play and it was actually affordable to run those new lines outside of Cincinnati and New York. AT&T did have a few video conference lines in place when the first communications satellites went up in the Fifties and Sixties, but ordinary people couldn't use them. Yet. And things got even more muddled in the Seventies and Eighties when cable came into its own, and the first cell phones came into use, and no one knew if the wired videophone was a dead concept.

But it wasn't. It just needed to have an affordable medium, a network of connections from everyplace to everyplace else. Like the Internet! And as soon as that took off, suddenly there was method to the madness.

So long as you already had an Internet provider. And a high-speed DSL or cable connection. Because passing a video stream over those wires, even a low-bandwidth stream of 320x200 pixels, was impossible over the old-fashioned pre-Internet telephone lines.

But enough of the history less. Skype is here to stay. And since we have a kid in Germany, we're going to figure out how to use it.

Downloading Skype was easy. The hard part was getting the silly webcam to work.

I had an old webcam sitting around the house doing nothing, so we plugged it into Cheryl's laptop. I got another one from the PC recycle place for only $15, and we tested it by calling one another's computers.

It worked.

So now I have my webcam hooked up on Skype. And I can play with it when I get bored.

See?

Sometimes I forget the webcam is on.And I'm sitting at my little desk in the corner of the basement talking on the phone (the regular phone) and suddenly realize that the stupid webcam is on.

Then I feel really stupid.