Monday, June 20, 2005

Too busy for things to actually happen, lately

Okay, I know this is a little odd, but I've been too busy for things to actually happen lately. I've been working on online help and some book stuff, but I've been having nine yards of problems with all the computers in the house to one extent or another. The #1 computer keeps blue-screening and going off into mumble mode, the #2 computer has been randomly locking up solid for months (necessitating pressing the reset button), the print server keeps losing track of its hard disks (disk problem? motherboard? power supply? who knows???), and even Susan's Dell (aka "the POS") won't boot anymore. I'm waiting to hear from the local store about the arrival of the motherboard and other parts for my new computer.

Saturday, we had a big party for the choirs we're in at church. We had a wonderful time and it was a treasure to have everyone over. It also triggered us to get the house cleaned up and a bunch of art hung on the walls for the first time, which has a lasting and attractive effect. Great salads and lovely people. Lots of people had very silly songs to sing (it was something of a requirement)

Sunday am, I played as part of a Pete Seeger Appreciation service at church. One of the people putting the service together had known Pete Seeger when she was a little girl and he'd show up at UU summer camps in the Midwest and she'd follow him around with the other children and he'd sing them songs and tell them stories. And our minister was taught "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" by him (again, at a UU camp, decades ago). I learned to play banjo from his book, so everything I do is a tribute to him. I even have his signature on one of my banjos. I'm very proud of that.

We had a couple of speakers talking about their experiences with Pete Seeger and his music, a guitarist who's also in the choir played a piece of his, I talked about learning to play banjo from his book and played a banjo piece, and we heard a short bio. The offertory was a recording of him doing "Turn, Turn, Turn" and the closing hymn was his recording of "We Shall Overcome" which had a lot of us in tears. It was a nice service.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to keep the computers together long enough to generate online help for a client, get some other things underway, and do Society for Technical Communications Board of Directors work, which has been coming on thick and fast lately. It's good work and necessary work, I'm not complaining; it's just that there's a bunch of it on top of everything else... well, mostly the dying computers. I hate when the computers are being cranky. It makes me very frustrated.

To end this on a light note, take a look at the Church Sign Generator. Its purpose is actually not supposed to be a joke (although most of us will certainly think of things to use it for that are outside its intended purpose, I'm sure); it's supposed to be for people who want to see what a slogan would look like on a church sign. You can try things out for size, so to speak. In addition, there are dozens of examples of funny or clever church signs that people have photographed and sent in, such as "God so loved the world that he did not send a committee." Nice stuff, lots of it, and worth the 10 or 15 minutes it'll take to go through the site. You can also get church magnets of the signs you create at $5 a throw.

BTW, the FAQ for the site offers a link here to a wide variety of church signs that folks have generated. These are almost certainly not safe for the office or for the easily offended, so view with care.

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