Lift Up Your Hearts!

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize.  While I don't think well enough of the committee that makes these decisions to be impressed, many others are now suggesting he run for president.  I'll admit I do find him in many ways more attractive than the current Democratic candidates, but I don't think he should join the fray.

For his own sake. (More)

How many times do I have to be taught that technology, while useful, even delightful at times, is not to be depended on?  I wonder if electronic equipment works better in Switzerland, where trains and trams are so dependable that a three-minute deviation from schedule is a notable occurrence?

Once again, I picked up my PDA to find it had lost everything.  This is the third time that has happened in about a year an a half, and I think it's related to alarms going off repeatedly when I'm not aware of them.  I'd love to shut off the alarms on the handheld device, but I can't do that without removing them from the desktop, which is where I really need them.  But this time surprised me, because last I knew there was still plenty of life in the batteries.

Oh, well—I had a backup and only lost a couple of pieces of data.  It would be helpful if I knew which data I'd lost, but I'll manage.  At least this time I was home and could restore the data quickly—the first time I was on vacation and could do nothing till my return.  That's when I learned to keep key information on paper when I travel!

Our nifty electronic devices are still too useful for me to give them up altogether, but it's good to be reminded now and then of the importance of backups and of Plans B.  Of more concern is our similar dependence on fallible sources of heat, light, water, food, transportation, and other basic necessities, but that's another issue and much harder to resolve.

I don't believe I was aware of the launch of the first Sputnik 50 years ago.  I do remember going outside with my father two and a half years later to watch Echo 1 traverse the sky.  That marked the first of many excursions with him to look at phenomena in the sky:  satellites, lunar and solar eclipses, comets.

When Sputnik aroused consternation in the United States and set off furious attempts at educational reform, I was a month into my kindergarten year, so I can't speak accurately about consequent changes in our public schools.  There are some comparisions I can do, however, looking at the three generations I know. (More)

Heather recently reviewed a book called Organizing for Your Brain Type.  According to this article, it might well have been called Organizing for Your Brain.  It seems that "consciencious" people—orderly, dependable, hard-working, goal-oriented, self-disciplined, organized folks—are at significanly less risk of developing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia as they age.

Autopsies revealed that these people did, in fact, have the kind of brain damage associated with Alzheimer's.  What made the difference, apparently, was their ability to cope despite the damage.

In old age, conscientiousness seems to have to do a lot with the risk of dementia. It’s not that it directly affects the underlying pathology. It seems to affect your ability to tolerate the pathology and maintain normal cognitive function.

So there you have it.  Get organized, keep your promises, do good work.  It's not only good for your soul, it's good for your brain.

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.

The movie had been recommended by several people, so when I found it on Netflix I put it in the queue, and last week it worked its way to the top.  I found it an engaging and moving film, but it wasn't until the next day that I realized why it troubled me. (More)

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.

But what if the manufacturer refuses to sell you the part you need to make the repair? (More)

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. (More)

Central Florida is the most dangerous place in the country, at least if it's lightning strikes that worry you.  The tragedy of a girl who was struck by lightning just after descending from her school bus is still fresh in our memories, so it's no wonder the Orange County school board policy errs on the side of caution:  No student is allowed outside until 30 minutes after the last lighning flash, if thunder follows the lightning within 30 seconds.

They are wisely reconsidering the policy, however, after a recent debacle.  A long-lasting storm coupled with rigid enforcement of the rules kept some 2000 students trapped at two schools until nearly 9 p.m.  Snacks were trucked in (the district apparently caring less about the safety of their employees), and no doubt many of the students thought the excitement high adventure—at least for the first hour.  But most of the children—not to mention the teachers—must have been anxious to get home to their families, with not a few kindergarteners crying for their mommies. (More)

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13-15)

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
(Robert Burns, To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough)

I had plans for this week.

They did not include dealing with a computer that refuses to awaken from sleep. My alarm clock went of at 5:15 this morning, and I was up and about within seconds. Not so my computer. (More)

Not really.  I do want my vote to count.  But I can't help finding the Democratic Party's attempt to disenfranchise Floridians amusing.  I do believe they're still sore over Bush's 2000 victory, even though Al Gore has every reason to be thankful he lost that election.

Florida has defied Democratic National Committee rules by moving its primary date into January, a month reserved by party rules for Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Now the DNC threatens to deprive Florida's delegates of their votes at the national convention if we don't change our primary date to suit them.  There is a certain validity to their claim that they're only enforcing the rules, but what they are doing is missing the perfect opportunity to revise a totally antiquated system.  Who can blame Florida, and other states, from wanting a say in the choosing of presidential candidates?  That decision has already been made by the time of the primaries in many states.  It's time to settle on one, national primary date.  The candidates can still get in plenty of campaigning time, travel time from state to state being nearly negligible.

On the other hand, the DNC has also threatened to penalize candidates who would dare campaign in Florida or other wayward states.  This sounds like such a good thing to me I'm tempted to support the Committee's decision.

It's not my story, and it's not my photograph, but it's my grandson!  (Click on the picture for a larger view.)

A true father-son moment.  Could their faces be any more radiant?

Mommy, It's a Renoir! was the title of a book about art appreciation for children that I fell in love with many years ago.  To my chagrin, by the time I decided we could afford to buy the set, it was no longer available.

Thus I was thrilled to discover that the program is back in print.  Once a homeschooler, always a homeschooler, especially when one has nephews and grandchildren to consider.  For reasons I can't imagine, the exciting title has been changed to How to Use Child-Size Masterpieces.  Could they have tried to make it sound more boring? (More)