Lift Up Your Hearts!

Porter had to get up early this morning for a 7:00 dentist appointment, but that didn't stop him from staying up late last night.  Now his beloved Boston Red Sox have won the World Series twice in his lifetime, which until now few living Red Sox fans could say.  He's been too busy to watch all the games, but he enjoyed a few, especially last night's.

Congratulations to the Red Sox, and to those of our New England relatives who are enjoying this victory!  Condolences to S, the Yankee fan.  (No, not that S -- the other S.  I know the one S is a dedicated Red Sox fan!)  I hope T&B are happy -- I've forgotten where their loyalties lie.

I've been waiting for The Good Shepherds to become available online ever since I read the print version in Christianity Today magazine.  This positive, upbeat story resonates with me in so many ways, it well deserves a post.

[Insert the usual disclaimer here:  This way of life is not for everyone; it not my intention to offend, nor to imply disrespect for other people's life situations, much less push anyone into a lifestyle that is far from mainstream—albeit that it would have been considered normal by most of our ancestors.  But I can't help considering this a very cool life choice indeed.]

I encourage you to read the entire article; it's short, and tells an inspiring story of a small movement to revitalize both declining rural areas and declining family life. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the article:

Once you opt out of the conventional paradigm [of public schooling] and find it satisfying, then you begin searching for other paradigms to opt out of

So we discovered.  If we took baby steps of unconventionality when we decided to become a homeschooling family, our children are now taking full strides, not only in education but also in their approaches to family life, childbirth and childrearing, health and medicine, entrepreneurship, community life, and even running styles!  By no means do I think unconventionality is limited to homeschoolers.  Jon, after all, was not homeschooled, though he thinks in many ways like a homeschooler—if I may be permitted such stereotyping—and his schooling in small-town New Hampshire was unconventional enough, at least when measured against most public school experiences I know of.  Nonetheless, I'm convinced that homeschoolers, having chosen the step outside the mainstream in a big way, are predisposed to thinking unconventionally in other areas.

Scott was skeptical when his wife said that she felt God wanted the family to raise sheep. "Excuse me," Scott replied. "I can't even stand to mow my own yard. What makes you think I'm going to start doing things like that?"

I guess he found out that sheep make pretty good lawn mowers.  :) 

Thirty years ago, 80 percent of all visitors to our farm were hippie, cosmic-worshipping, nirvana earth muffins....Today, 80 percent are Christian homeschoolers.

I've found that the homeschooling, homebirthing, and back-to-earth movements are populated by groups of people that are in many ways radically different from each other; what they have in common is dedication to a particular set of ideas, and the fact that they are even more radically different from mainstream society.

How do I leave my Dilbert cubicle at the end of an expressway...and instead invest in my family, my kids, my community?

Sometimes by combining more mainstream work with farming, like Heather and Jon's friends at Providence Pastures Farm, which is where I first learned the delights of drinking raw milk.  Of course I immediately thought of them when I read the article.  Having a job that can be done primarily from home does help reduce the pressure of trying to make the farm self-sustaining.  I believe that when these folks their motivation was simply to provide healthy food for their children, and the farm lifestyle grew from there.

In our culture today, we've got this mentality that you send your kids off to school to get a good enough education, to get a good enough diploma, to get a good enough job, to pay well enough to work a thousand miles away from home, to accumulate enough money so they can put you in a nursing home when you get old. What I'm looking for is for my grandkids to argue over who gets to spend the day with grandpa.

Amen!  And grandma, too.

Apologies to those of you who are waiting for the story of last weekend's adventures in Sarasota.  That will come, but in the meantime it's been a while since I posted, and I just came upon the essay I wrote for a genealogy contest with the less-than-inspiring title of this post.

The circumstances were interesting, however.  Because the sponsoring organization was Irish, I thought my story might be of interest to them.  Maybe it was, but not enough to win. However, a blog owner can be her own publisher, and since they didn't want it, I'm sharing it here.  :)

Why My Family History Is Important to Me

A few special people develop an interest in history and family early in life.  I was not one of them.  As a child, I was interested in what was close by:  the present, the near future, our immediate family.  Distant things—the past, the future, relatives I didn’t know—impinged little on the circle of my interest.  Most especially and deliberately I was not interested in my ancestry, who my forebears were and where they came from.

A child’s natural self-centeredness played a large part in my lack of interest.  So, too, did a kind of reverse snobbery.  I did not want to be classed with those who bragged that their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, nor with those who joined the Daughters of the American Revolution.  My parents must have had some of the same attitude, because the subject certainly wasn’t of any interest to them, in spite—or because—of the fact that my mother’s grandmother was herself a member of the DAR.

What opened the world of genealogy to me was my college-age daughter's sudden and intense interest in Irish music and dance.  After an exhilarating music seisiún, she would find it disappointing to have no answer to the oft-asked question, "What part of Ireland are your ancestors from?"  As far as any of us knew, she had no Irish ancestors.

But we really didn't know anything at all, so I began to dig, hoping not for gold, but for green.  Lo and behold, there on my mother's side was Robert Henry, born about 1740, in Ireland!  That's all it said on his tombstone, but at least my daughter could claim one Irish ancestor.  In another branch I found Nathan Smith, from County Tyrone, and though I haven't yet found an origin for my Cunninghams and Daughertys, their names give me hope.

Finding Irish ancestors was the goal, but I became hooked on the process.  For someone who loves puzzles as much as I do, genealogy research is more fun than a cup of tea, a new World of Puzzles magazine, and a free afternoon.  The map of my origins now comprises many countries, and each name, city, and date I add is a treasure.

Age and experience have a way of changing one's perspective.  I still have no interest in joining any of the hereditary societies for which I qualify—sometimes many times over—but at last I realize that genealogy is only Honor thy father and thy mother writ large.  Contrary to what I learned in school, history is not dull!  It is the fascinating story of ideas and their consequences worked out in the lives of human beings.  Our people—our ancestors and descendants, whether by blood, adoption, marriage, or some other deep connection—provide our link to that story.  We stand at the point of Now; it is our family that gives us the past and the future as well.

It's been a while since I've posted anything in the RETHINK category, but I was inspired by this article on the differences in chilbirth between the United Kingdom and the United States. As much as I have come to appreciate midwives and the option of home birth, the point of this post is not to tout the British socialized health care system, which I know has significant problems. Nor do I wish to make the all-too-common mistake of assuming that an idea is better just because it's not American—or because it is European—an error which is just as dangerous as its opposite.

What strikes me as so vitally important, especially for Americans who, thanks to the size and historical self-sufficiency of our country, tend to have less contact with other cultures than most educated people, is the great benefit of listening to and exploring other people's views on topics that are so well-ingrained in our own lives we never question them. Ideas that are so much a part of us we imagine anyone who would think otherwise as uncultured, uncivilized, and ignorant: "They do such-and-such because they don't know any better. When they see our way they will know it is best." Most of us wouldn't actually say that, but it's a strong gut reaction. It's a good thing, then for all of us to encounter people who have equally deep-seated feelings that their ways, very different from ours, are superior. Whether we come away from the comparison with our minds changed, or more convinced than ever that we are right, we benefit from the encounter.

Not many people can learn this lesson by living in another culture, as Janet has. But the Internet can be a great eye-opener, and most of us probably have neighbors, co-workers, and church or school friends who would be happy to share a different cultural view.  Not to mention that getting married, even to someone from one's own culture, can be a surprising introduction to the thought that ideas, habits, and customs we take for granted are not necessarily universal. :)

Far be it from me to champion the inane and dangerous idea that all cultures and customs are equally valuable.  But I think most of us are much more likely to make the opposite error.  I preach to myself most of all.

I'm designing a playroom, and have been for years.  I don't ever expect to see it, since (1) our children are grown, and (2) my design takes no account of cost.  Nonetheless it's fun imagining what I'd do if I could, kind of like mentally spending lottery winnings (even though I never buy a ticket).

My playroom would be as much outdoors as it could be while still being usable in all seasons—lots of large windows or sliding glass doors with screens, perhaps, and an indoor/outdoor connection.  The latter could be a door, but wouldn't a tunnel be fun?  There would be a large art/craft section, and music (instruments for playing and a CD player for listening), and a brachiation ladder; well-stocked bookshelves and perhaps a sunken reading pit with comfortable cushions; a timeline all around the room and many maps and pictures on the walls.

The centerpiece of my imagined room has always been a structure of tunnels, ladders, ramps, and steps to encourage crawling, creeping, and climbing.  I was quite excited to discover that such a thing really exists!  However, even if Heather and Jon had room for it, and we could afford it, they wouldn't be getting it for Christmas.  This one was custom-made for a Hong Kong preschool.  Still, maybe the idea will catch on.

I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a man whose children graduated not long ago from our local Catholic schools system.  He mentioned that his son found his college classes much easier than the ones he took in high school.  This man believes that education in the United States in general, and textbooks in particular, have been significantly "dumbed down." As I've written before, I both agree and disagree with that statement.  I find it generally true even though there are notable, marked exceptions.

I'm not one to be overly awed by statistics purporting to show how much better other countries' educational systems are.  It wasn't that long ago that we were sending teams to Japan to discover why their children were learning so much more, yet at the same time the Japanese were sending teams here to learn why American students were so much more creative and innovative.  And yet the signs are screaming like downtown Tokyo, from this tiny preschool to the large population of foreign students on U.S. college campuses, particularly in the hard sciences and engineering:  Other countries take education, effort, and discipline far more seriously than we do.

So far we have survived on our creativity, our intellectual capital, and our tremendous natural and financial resources.  We've also enjoyed political and economic systems that are conducive to innovation and growth.  And we've been lucky.

Would I revamp our educational system to sponsor preschools such as this one all over the country?  No.  But I do wish Americans respected children, valued education, and encouraged self-discipline much more than we do.

And I'm going to keep my eyes open for play structures like that one.

We watched Bridge to Terebithia yesterday, and I've been struggling with what to say about it ever since.  As usual, Porter knew exactly what he liked and didn't like, and had no trouble expressing himself on the issues.  Often I can, too; in fact, I did so easily with the other movie we watched this weekend, the Oscar-winning The Apartment.  (In brief, it started off slowly and the story was unpleasant, but Shirley MacLaine's acting was amazing and powerful.)

I should have known Bridge to Terebithia would be harder to critique, because Porter's commentary—during and immediately after—which I usually find informative and interesting, was more annoying than not.  That happens when I have been very much drawn into a movie, and anything that calls me back prematurely is jarring, rather like being jerked out of a deep meditation by the telephone.  Whenever I am thus entranced by a movie, I know rational analysis will be difficult.

Porter didn't like the movie, and I did.  He could be specific, such as his comment that the transitions between real life and the fantasy world did not work for him—unlike his experience with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  But while I could find things to complain of—I didn't like the music; there were some modern attitudes and stereotypes that annoyed me; there was one event the improbability of which was a distraction, even in a movie where reality and fantasy are intertwined—yet in everything that was important I could say little more than, "I liked the story."  Porter's repeated attempts to get something comprehensible out of that statement only frustrated us both.

So the question kept returning—as I was falling asleep, when I awoke, during church, through much of a lovely afternoon picnic—and I think I finally have an answer.  I deliberately avoided reading other people's reviews, though I think I will enjoy them now.  Bear in mind, also, that I have not yet read the book, but am basing my analysis solely on the film.

Film, books, music, and paintings can inspire me in a variety of ways, but the ones that mean the most to me are those of which the attraction I find hardest to explain, because they reach something within me that is beyond rationality.  They touch my imagination as well as my mind, and the imagination will not be explained, only known; if communicated, it can only be to someone whose imagination has been similarly affected.  I've tried to explain this before by saying that my favorite books and movies are those that make me want to be a better person, though that is only touching the hem of the garment, so to speak.

In thinking this through, I realized that this, precisely, is what I like about the Bridge to Terebithia story.  Despite what I had read in previews, despite what I heard in the DVD's "special features" analysis before we turned it off in disgust, this is not this story of a couple of schoolchildren who create a fantasy world as an escape from their real-life troubles.  In Bridge to Terebithia the fantasy world is far more real than everyday life.  The imagination sees truths hidden from ordinary eyes.

It wasn't till well into my ruminations that I realized that the unreality of the film's "real life" setting and characters was deliberate.  The exaggerations and stereotypes are jarring, like a painting with garish, unreal colors, which effectively highlights the question of where reality lies. 

Imagination without reason is lost, reason without imagination is dead.  Bridge to Terebithia expresses that much better than any words I could ever say about it.

Organizing for Your Brain Type by Lanna Nakone (St. Martin's Press, 2005)

Heather reviewed this book, and generated quite a discussion, some of which was actually related to the topic.  I started adding my reflections as i read it, but have decided it's best not to clutter up her post anymore and have started a new post here.  Below are a few of my reactions copied from her post; I'll add more in the comments to this post as I continue through the book.

1.  The library finally came through with this book, and I've just started reading it. I'm interested to see where it will go, because I've already been surprised by the quiz. I was sure I'd be a cross between the Harmonizer and the Innovator, but my highest score was Maintainer! Actually, I didn't score high enough in any category to fit well: 15, 11, 14, 10 [Maintainer, Harmonizer, Innovator, Prioritizer] -- and you have to have at least 20 in one category to fit that label. Just like me to defy labels, I guess. Maybe I'll get more insight as I read further.

2.  I just took the sensory preference quiz: Kinesthetic=11, Auditory=9, Visual=4. I'm not too surprised, but wish I could take the more official test you (Heather) took in school, because I know the situation is much more complex than the book's quiz can show. As low as Visual is in some areas -- powers of observation, for example -- I'd much, much rather get information from a book than a lecture, and in some ways (albeit weakly) my memory is photographic -- I'll remember the location on a page spread of a quotation I'm looking, for example. Yet if I've talked with someone for two hours and you later ask me what color dress she was wearing, I'll likely not have a clue....

3.  Although I know Dad [Porter] isn't 100% Maintainer, here's evidence that that Force is strong in him:

With your linear, structured style, you focus on details and develop effective methods that allow you to manage tasks and complete assignments, checking them off one by one. Your work style isn't about speed, but reflects a methodical approach that usually requires uninterrupted time to get the job done. Being slow-paced, deliberate, and sequential, your brain type prefers doing things in a way that can appear to others as somewhat boring. But who cares, you do it right the first time and would rather take the time to be right than [be] the first one done!

One of my first memories of Dad is that his programming style was painful (to me) but his programs always worked the first time! (I was much more of an iterative programmer - try this, make a change, try that, make a change, etc. as I homed in on the solution.)

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.

Al Gore has an Emmy, an Oscar, and now a Nobel Peace Prize.  He receives a great deal of respect at home and abroad.  He is doing work he enjoys and believes to be important.  In short, he has good cause to be grateful to the Florida Supreme Court.

Should he become president of the United States, he will be trashed, he will be thrashed, he will be heaped with scorn from his enemies for doing too much and from his allies for doing too little.  What's more, no matter what his optimisitic supporters may think, he won't be able to do much good from the Oval Office.  Despite all the rhetoric and wishful thinking from his opponents, George W. Bush did not cause the world's problems, and his departure will not solve them.  In all probability, Al Gore is doing much more to accomplish his goals right where he is than he ever would from the White House.

Who knows?  I may vote for Al Gore.  But for his sake, I hope I never get the opportunity.

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.

The results are mixed.  I remember my father remarking that I was learning much more than he did, by which he chiefly meant that I studied calculus in high school.  His first calculus course was in college, and the only reason he had been exempt from taking trigonometry first was that he had gone to a particularly good high school.  That our children's first calculus experiences were in early high school was due to their previous home education, not the public school system, but their high school does deserve full credit for making it possible for them to complete half a dozen or more college-level classes before they graduated.  There was no Advanced Placement program when my parents were in high school, and in my day it was limited to just a few courses and open to seniors only.  It's undeniable that the 50 years post-Sputnik have expanded our educational opportunities, and many people are graduating from high school with knowledge far advanced from that of previous generations.

And yet....  In general knowledge I could never compete with my father, and neither could my siblings, our children, nor any of our contemporaries.  In history, geography, and literature the gap was especially noticeable, all the more so since by profession he was an engineer.  He was continually astonished at what people didn't know about things he assumed were common knowledge, such as the location of Hudson Bay.  He could recite great quantities of poetry, understand literary references, and converse about history from ancient times to the present.  Some of his knowledge, to be sure, must be credited to his life-long habit of reading books, but I know he learned much of it in school, and even in his love of books he differs from most contemporary students—how many graduate with the habit of reading to sustain their education all their lives?

Technically, of course, today's students are far beyond his knowledge, even though he had a master's degree in physics to supplement his engineering degree.  And yet, even though he would have been lost in most of his daughter's and granddaughter's mechanical engineering courses, his college courses left him with a gut-level, practical knowledge of the behavior of materials lacking in those "who just plug numbers into computer models."

So—is our educational system better than it was pre-Sputnik?  Certainly yes, and definitely no.  We know more in some areas, but are we better educated? For poor, minority and special-needs students (both low- and high-end), opportunites are certainly greater.  But are our children, in general, better off?  Are they graduating with both the skills and the will to continue learning throughout their lives?  Do they have a sound foundation in all basic areas on which to build?  Are they building on that foundation?

Have the changes been worth the cost?

I don't know the answers.

What I do know is that in our home education program we did not give our children a tenth of the education I had hoped for—and yet it rocketed them to the top of their college classes and best of all left them with the desire and ability to continue learning.  If we, doing so little, did so much, why hasn't our educational system done better, with its vast resources, its near-monopoly status, and its strong community, business, and governmental support?

John Taylor Gatto would no doubt say public education is still doing an excellent job of accomplishing its true goals, but that's another issue.

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.

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.

By the way, lest any of you decide to see the movie for yourselves, I disagree with its PG rating.  PG-13 maybe.  A suicide, a magazine picture of a naked woman, drunkenness, smoking, a wild party, some language I would rather not hear.  Not terrible, but I wouldn't call it PG.

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?

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....

Our friend Chris, the engineer who eschews e-mail and still uses a paper organizer, is fond of saying, "Just call me Ned."  I'm not ready to go that far, but his point of view is currently looking a little more reasonable.