Do You Speak Geek? Learninge the Language of Technology

Throughout high school and college I studied languages. I studied French all eight years, plus several years of Russian in college, a semester of Mandarin Chinese, an independent study of ancient Greek, and some Spanish and Latin. With each new language, a new world and new way of thinking opened up before me. I loved this. I could have easily continued taking language classes had I not needed to graduate before my scholarship ran out. That was over thirty years ago.

As I’ve tried to learn more about computers and technology, I have felt frustrated and overwhelmed.

“I hate this stuff,” I would complain as I sat at the computer pulling out my hair lest I give into the temptation to throw my computer at the wall.

Our Inefficient God

Efficiency is over-rated. Efficiency experts tell us how to get organized, to only touch each piece of paper once, to multi-task and hence make the most of our time. However even the experts are realizing that effectiveness is more important than efficiency. You can be very efficient at doing the wrong thing, thereby being ineffective. Better to be effective than efficient.

Our God, though, is little concerned with efficiency or effectiveness. Just look at the human body and our need to refuel three times a day and to sleep every night. An efficient God would have designed a body that could go non-stop on only a few hours of sleep and would only have to eat once a week or even once a month. Just think of all the hours saved not sleeping and not preparing and eating meals.

Marriage After Fifty

            Marriage on the downhill side of fifty is different from marriage in my twenties. Back then, death, illness, cancer, retirement, were all far off phenomena, not on my radar screen. Life was long and we had years ahead of us before we would have to deal with such things, or so I thought. Even lack of employment was no concern. We were young and healthy and had many earning years ahead of us to amass a small fortune and retire—not that that had been on our minds either. We were confident in God’s providential care for us.

Praying Through the White-Out Conditions in our Lives

The following is from a column I had published in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on Feb. 23, 2007. In light of the bitter cold and blowing snow we have been experiencing this year, it seemed appropriate to post it again with small modifications. Stay safe!

 

During the extreme cold spell a few weeks ago, with blowing wind causing white-out conditions, I found myself repeatedly on the road. I just missed being in a 25 car pile-up on U.S 27 south of Ithaca. There were cars ahead of me off the road and rescue workers directing traffic, while behind me I heard the sound of cars crashing and saw the car immediately behind me spin out of control.
 
These white-out conditions can appear suddenly as they did that day. One minute you are cruising along, then you are blinded by snow and forced to hit the brakes.

What's in a Picture?

Why is it I can point this stuff out to others but have blinders one when it comes to my own stuff? All of the info I’ve been reading on blogging states you need to include your own picture, not a cartoon character, not one from your childhood, a current picture, preferably of professional quality. And yet I’ve had a cartoon character on my blog for months. And when I thought about other pictures, the first thing I did was go to my childhood pictures for me when I was “pattynicnac” – young and impressionable and oh, so cute.