Lift Up Your Hearts!

This morning I did as I usually do several times a day—I went to Google to perform an Internet search.  This time the front page informed me that Google is now celebrating its ninth birthday.

I'm not sure what to think about that.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. 

If you think about that too much, you can find yourself ranking it among the world's most terrifying statements.  Not that it in any way diminishes the value Google and other search engines have added to our lives.  But whether for good or for ill, the Internet and Google have wrought radical changes.  I'm old enough for nine years to seem but an instant, and find it hard to believe the pre-Google world was less than a decade ago.

Because I'm usually the last to see a film (this one is from 1989), I won't worry about spoilers, but if you haven't seen it, be warned that this post will reveal both too little and too much of the story.

That mindless conformity can be stultifying, especially in a school setting, I heartily agree.  Robin Williams is convincing as the new English teacher, Mr. Keating, whose oddball antics at an elite prep school finally begin to teach his students to think more independently.  It's hard not to cheer at the end, when after giving in to pressure from their parents and the school administration to accuse Mr. Keating of misconduct and get him fired, they turn around and give him a modest show of support that indicates his work was not all in vain.  But this visceral response does not stand up to rational analysis.

C. S. Lewis said (somewhere) that each age and culture works assiduously to stamp out the sins to which it has the least tempation while being blind to its own particular weaknesses.  Dead Poets Society is like that.  Urging most teenagers to rebel against their parents and other adult authorities is like urging a fish to swim.  Had the focus of the movie been on peer conformity it might have been more useful, though not as well-received.

As winsome as Mr. Keating is, and as much as I approve of some of his ideas and see the value of his methods, there's no getting around the reality that he turned a lion loose and learned too late he could not control it.  He did not give his students the education their parents were paying for, and encouraged them in actions that were contrary to their parents' wishes.  As easy as it is to hate the one-dimensional, villainous parents as they are presented here, it shouldn't have required forced confessions to fire Keating—he wasn't doing the job he had been hired to do.

Coercion from parents and school administrators is portrayed as bad, but pressure from fellow students as good.

And the most-quoted line from the film, carpe diem?  Do we really want to tell young people to "seize the day"?  Seeing the present merely as preparation for the future is a fault, to be sure, but it's not one to which young people are especially prone.

Nonetheless, throughout the movie I found myself rooting for rebellion and cheering signs of independence in the students, despite the fact that it showed itself in actions I would normally call wrong.  Now that's scary, and shows the power of a moving story.

For those of you who have been following our computer woes (here and here), this is where we are now.  In limbo.

The very good news  A friend lent us his device that turns an internal hard drive into an external, usb device, and we were able to copy the data to a new one-terabyte backup drive.  (Time out for a sigh of amazement.  One terabyte?  We used to do our backups on 5 1/4 inch floppies with a capacity of 110 kilobytes.)  Losing the hard drive would not have been a total disaster, as I have several layers of backup, but they are a bit spotty and it was really, really nice to have access to the files as I had left them the night before all this started.

The related bad news  What's the point of having backed up the whole C drive instead of just my own data, if one can't transfer all that information over to a new machine?  Apparently the way the Windows Registry works, all the programs will have to be reinstalled anyway—which of course means not only a lot of work but that I lose whatever came preinstalled with the original machine.  Oh for the days when they gave you the original disks—even for the operating system—when you bought a computer!  I guess that will save me backup space from now on, unless someone can tell me there's reason for backing up anything other than my personal files.

The lovely news  We've been studying The Five Love Languages in a class at church.  Porter has been exhibiting "Acts of Service" at a great rate with regard to this computer problem:  making phone calls, doing Internet searches, driving across down....

The very frustrating news  The Internet search for the appropriate motherboard was fruitless.  According to the people Porter talked to, that board is very popular right now; many people are trying to find it.  I wonder if it had an expiration date and everyone's is going bad?  Like sour milk or stale bread?  Getting anything other than the correct motherboard would require getting a new case for the machine and kludging things together, as the Gateway motherboard is not a standard configuration.

The absolutely ridiculous customer "support" news So Porter broke down and called Gateway to see how much an out-of-warranty repair would cost.  Guess what?  Not only will Gateway not sell the necessary parts, they won't do out-of-warranty repairs themselves!  I guess one is supposed to buy a new computer, but I don't see how that helps Gateway, since there's no way I'm buying another computer from them...unless all the major companies are in collusion.  But I'm not a conspiracy theorist—yet.

The temporarily hopeful news  The Gateway tech recommended a website for finding the correct motherboard.  It was one Porter had found, and indeed they had the right board, but it was "out of stock."  Buoyed by the Gateway recommendation, Porter called the company, which appeared to be helpful.  Yes, that board was out of stock and they didn't know when if ever they would get it again.  It was a very hot item, and they had another Gateway motherboard that was similar which several people had bought instead of the correct one.  We could buy that and try it out, returning it if it didn't work—they'd even waive the normal 15% restocking fee.  So Porter ordered one ($200) and we had a "party" at the home of the above-mentioned friend who lent us his hard drive enclosure.  Now this is a guy whose life is in large part computers, both his vocation and his avocation.  He had built every one of the uncountable computers in his house, except for the castoffs he as adopted, and I suspect he's done a lot to modify them, as well.  So it was encouraging to see him and Porter settle down to installing the new motherboard.

The discouraging news  At first it went well, thanks to our friend having some spare parts, such as ribbon cable, that had somehow been lost while the machine was at the repair shop :( , and despite the fact that the motherboard came with absolutely no documentation at all, and looked as if it is used, not new.  :(  :(  But it was a case of "almosts."  The board doesn't quite fit so some of the ports wouldn't work.  One capacitor is too tall, so the heat sink doesn't quite line up, so they ahd to monitor the CPU temperature while working.  If it ever works, we'll have to rout out the heat sink some.  But we didn't get that far.  After much twiddling, Windows boots!  Sort of.  But only in safe mode; otherwise it hangs.  After much effort and frustration, they gave up and we went to dinner.  So that's where it stands now:  in our living room, in pieces.

The dilemma  So what do we do now?

• Pour a lot of time and energy into trying to get Windows working, followed by making all sorts of kludges to get other things to fit/work, and (probably) reinstalling all my programs?
• Pay to send the motherboard back and hope we get some of our $200 returned?
• Buy an inexpensive new computer with space for good working parts (e.g. DVD drives, hard drive) from the old machine?  Easier said than done—the "basic" computers I've looked at tend not to have a lot of expansion space.
• Invest (again!) in a fancy desktop computer and hope this one lasts longer?
• Take advantage of the opportunity to get a new laptop and hope it lasts?
• Give it to Jon as a Christmas present?  After all, it has a (probably) working motherboard, a DVD read drive, a DVD write drive (both very nice), a 250MB hard drive, a high-speed, dual-core Athelon processor, a GB of memory, and a few other bells and whistles. (My suggestion)
• Don't give it to Jon, as a Christmas present for Heather.  (Janet's suggestion)
• Use it as a boat anchor.  (Porter's suggestion)

The interim solution I'm using our (old) laptop, having devised a scheme for keeping large quantities of data on the Maxtor 60G portable hard drive I take with me when travelling.  The immediate reason for this is that the laptop's hard drive capacity is only 20GB (actually less) which is woefully insufficient to hold my data alone—and Porter and I share this machine.  I think I like the idea, and plan to continue using it even when/if we get another machine, because then I won't have to worry about synchronizing data when we travel.  The interim solution is actually working fairly well, my primary frustrations being (1) I can't burn CD's or DVD's; (2) I can't read DVD's; (3) there are only two USB ports, and (4) the USB ports are old and slow—not only does data transfer take forever, but I'm heartily sick of having Windows tell me, every time I plug in a device, that it would peform faster if only I had a USB 2 port, when it knows quite well that I don't.

Stay tuned.  I believe it's time to write my friend Bill McCollum a letter.  It's a little early for Christmas cards, but I think he's due one in his capacity as Florida's Attorney General.  I need to vent about Gateway to someone besides my faithful, but small, blog audience. 

What would you think if you bought a top-of-the-line piece of equipment, and 19 months later—seven months out of warranty—it completely stopped working?  I wouldn't be happy even if it were a $25 item.

What if it cost over $1000—would you be a bit annoyed?  What if it was a piece of equipment necessary for much of the work you do?

But hey, sometimes things happen.  That's what repair shops are for.

We've been loyal Gateway Computer fans for many long years; I think we've had five of them all told.  Cow boxes = excitement around here!

Nevermore.

In January of 2006 we bought our latest Gateway, a lovely high speed machine with lots of bells and whistles.  We did not opt for the extended warranty, since we've never had a bit of trouble with any of our Gateways—we only replaced them when they grew hopelessly out of date.   It was, indeed, a lovely machine, and did everything it promised.

Everything except last.

As I've written, last Monday it entered the machine-equivalent of a Persistent Vegetative State.  After trying several tricks, none of which did any good, we took it to a computer emergency room.  Diagnosis:  a failed motherboard.  If we would get a new Gateway motherboard, they would gladly replace it and get us up and running again.

Good news?  I thought so.  I mean, it was going to cost money, but that's life.  We spent $500 in car repairs over the last two weeks, too.  I was just glad that the diagnosis was not:  Your hard drive crashed and you've lost all your data.

I did think it was a little funny that the repair guy said we had to order the motherboard.  But now I know why.  Gateway doesn't sell them!  If your computer is under warranty, they'll fix it, but otherwise you're on your own.  The tech's recommendation?  "Google it."  Find a motherboard somewhere in cyberspace.  He even kindly provided the specs.

What kind of company won't sell replacement parts for a high-end, critical machine that's less than two years old???

Porter went down to Best Buy to ask them what they do when someone brings in such a machine under their extended warranty.  Um, guess what?  They Google it.  They dig around, looking for someone with the right Gateway motherboard to sell.

Je ne comprends pas!

What I do know is that I need to RETHINK.  How can I take advantage of what computers have to offer—they wouldn't be so important to me if they didn't have a lot of value to add—without being so dependent on them?  Do I go back to paper for critical information?

Should we get two of everything, to have a backup?  We sort of had that—our older Gateway still works, mostly.  But it's a Windows 98 machine with some funny quirks, and it lacks the power to do what I want to do.  So for backup purposes it's not really good enough.

Do I transfer as much as possible of my work to the Internet?  That's not possible with much of what I do, but if I used GMail I'd at least not lose e-mail messages when something like this happens.  That makes me a bit nervous, having all my e-mails stored elsewhere—but having them on my own machine didn't work out too well this time.

Any ideas?

Oh, and if I haven't answered an e-mail you sent me before last Monday, I'm probably not deliberatly ignoring it.  I just can't get to it....

After much internal debate, Porter decided to invest in an air card, a device that plugs into his computer and allows him to connect to the Internet from anywhere.  Well, make that anywhere with Cingular—oops, I mean the New AT&T—cellular service.  Unfortunately, that excludes some important locations, like Granby, Connecticut.  But it does include a great many places.  I tried it out on the way home from the airport a few days ago, and only lost service once on the 45-minute ride, and that for no more than a second.  The speed is not as fast as our normal broadband connection, but it's really not bad, especially if you use the accelerator option, which reduces the quality (and thus the downloading time) of images.

I foresee several uses of this new device in addition to the obvious business benefits that were the excuse for its purchase.  The one that is emblazoned in large letters at the present time, however, is that the major lightning strike of about an hour ago, which took out our cable connection, has not left us without Internet and phone service.  Ironically, I only two days ago I filled out a survey stating that Bright House's cable service has been very reliable and its customer service fine.  I still don't fault the cable service—a lightning strike is bound to wreak havoc.  But Bright House customer service can offer us help no sooner than next Tuesday!  That really is unaccepable.  If they were only offering cable TV service, that would be one thing, but when people are depending on you for Internet and phone service—especially phone service!—you need to be more attentive to repairs.

So I'm very grateful for our backup.  Thanks to the air card, we not only have Internet access, but were able to connect to CallVantage and have our phone calls forwarded to Porter's cell phone.

With this coming on top of my own computer being in the shop—status currently unknown—I'm once again feeling a little nervous about our dependence on technology.  There should always be a Plan B—and probably C, D, and E as well.

Throughout my school years, I hated the study of history.  Perhaps that's not quite accurate; I remember in elementary school enjoyable units on Indians and on Early Settlers, and a large and informative project on Ethiopia.  Progress after that was mostly negative, however.

A 10th grade World Cultures teacher was fairly inspiring, despite his other incarnation as a baseball coach.  Other than that I'd have to say that my history teachers could hardly have done more to make the study of history dull and tedious.  On top of that, I somehow picked up the idea that one was either a "math and science person" or a "history and English person," and it was not possible to be in both camps.  I staked my claim squarely in the math and science camp.

It was not till well after I graduated from college that I discovered that the story of our past is vital—in the sense of being full of life, as well as in the sense of critical importance.  I also learned the foolishness of limiting one's interests by someone else's categories.

I'm most definitely hindered by my lack of historical background. Dates and events are lost on me that are so ingrained in Porter he has difficulty imagining my ignorance.  To be fair, I believe it was more his own interest than his school experiences that gave him that knowlege, but in any case, he has a clear historical framework into which any new information neatly fits, which makes it easier to remember.  I have none of that.

But the foundation is growing, brick by brick and fact by fact, even though the required mortar seems to be many repetitions.  I can live with that—I'm learning, and that makes me content.

Perhaps the greatest help in my quest into our past has been my recently-acquired hobby of genealogy.  I, who had previously had no interest even in relatives beyond my immediate circle, now delight in dredging up information on even the remotest ancestor.  That I have discovered some to be famous, royal, and/or historically interesting thrills me.  To the best of my ability to determine, my joy is not that of snobbery; in fact, one of the reasons I eschewed any ancestor interest in the past was my annoyance at such organizations as the DAR and other people's bragging about their ancestry.  I truly would rather have found Native American ancestors than Mayflower immigrants.

But now I talk about them all, myself.  What excites me is having a connection to historical times, be it through my late-19th century Western Pennsylvanians, or distant kings of England.

Which brings me, at last, to the inspiration for this post.

Don't ask me why I'm reading a 1000-page book on the history of the Crusades.  I'm not sure myself, except that the Christianity Today review of Christopher' Tyermans' God's War was intriguing, and the book was available at our local library.  I'm currently on page 19 of the Introduction, and so far, it's fascinating.  Especially when I'm struck by passages such as the following.  Don't worry about understanding it, since it's completely out of context:

As a result of dynastic inheritance and a military and political victory in a long English civil war, in 1154 the situation was further complicated when Henry, count of Anjou, also duke of Normandy by inheritance from his mother and duke by marriage of Aquitane, became king of England.  Henry II, the first of the Angevin (i.e. Anjou was his patrimony) kings of England, was overlord to far more of France than his supposed French sovereign Louis VII:  Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, Brittany, Poitou, the douchy of Aquitaine, the Limousin, Gascony and parts of the Auvergne, with unachieved claims to parts of Languedoc.

Sounds pretty dry, right?  Not if Henry II is your distant grandfather, Eleanor of Aquitaine your distant grandmother, and Maine a part of France you visited last spring, where you stood on the mount of one of Henry II's fortifications. Which just happens to be on part of the home of some friends of yours.

Connections!  That's what it's all about.  The more you learn, the more you know; the more you know, the easier it is to learn, and the more you want to learn.  The very best part of education is to inspire that victorious cycle.