Wanderings – Page 53 – The Life and Times of Joe Suttle

What a Week!

joe September 15, 2008 Family, General

Now that summer is officially over, our home school co-op is back in session. Last Monday was the first day of classes for the “school year.”

We had a trip planned to Oregon to visit Karen’s mom, and so after youth group on Monday, we left, headed north. Our first stop was in Redding where we spent the night and awoke to have some breakfast before setting out for Gresham. Seven hours later, we were checked in to one of our favorite motels.

On Wednesday, we went and did somethings with her mom, had lunch and the boys got in some more swim time. Thursday, we went to Mt. Angel for their Oktoberfest. Good polka music (surprise, one of the groups was from California). Good food too. After a day in the hot sun, it was back to the motel and some much needed sleep.

Friday dawned just like it should, but we wanted to get an early start for a long drive back to Dunsmuir, CA. We had found a fantastic little resort just south of town. The Railroad Resort is made up of old cabooses, all redecorated, but still on railroad tracks. What a way to sleep!

We had a great but busy week, and enjoyed every minute of looking around God’s wonderful country. So glad that we could spend time in Dunsmuir, walking the stream, looking at Castle Crags and just enjoying time with one another.

Descaling Complete!

joe September 2, 2008 General

Interesting how it sounds like I climbed down off some mountain, but that would not necessarily be true. After all, they sing and talk about “scaling the heights.” I gave up leaning over the sides of tall buildings quite a few years ago. Although, if the opportunity presented itself I could do it, but it would not be the first thing that I’d want to do.What this is about is my coffee machine – a gift a year ago for my birthday/retirement from some friends. Saved me a bunch of money and time getting to Starbucks or Peet’s for a mocha or latte. It also meant that no matter the time – day or night, someone’s favorite brew was a few button presses away. Weak or strong, with or without milk or syrups, the machine was there to help.That is until “Descale” popped up in the little glowing window. Seems that even the best waters have some chemicals in them that will build up in the pipes of the coffee machine. Somehow, the makers of the machine figured out how much water could get pumped through the pipes before the machine would start to get clogged up.One of the first things they have you do when the machine is unpacked and installed is to test the water with some of that paper that changes color when it gets wet by the chemical (nightmares of Mr. Tibbetts in high school chemistry!). Once the paper changed color, you changed a setting in the machine, never to perform the paper test again unless you moved to a new water supply.So…the “descaling” was performed according to their instructions. Using a chemical, the machine carried out its function with precision – all I had to do was add enough water and make sure the runoff did not run off onto the floor.Maybe this is kind of like life – every now and then we need to get rid of the crud that keeps us from functioning the way we were designed to. Something or someone holds up a “Get Rid Of The Crud” sign, or the proverbial light flashes in front of us, and we stop a minute (or longer) and flush the system. We run some good stuff through our life that will get rid of the crud. That’s our decision – we don’t have to flush the crud, but if we don’t, at some point nothing flows like it was designed to. Pipes burst (our lives become a mess), fittings leak (we always have problems). Worst of all we don’t accomplish much – we get too busy plugging holes and fixing leaks.

Chaos at the Desk!

joe August 29, 2008 Family, General

This is a recurring theme. My desk, no matter how clean it may be seems to attract things – phones, CDs, books, mail. The list could go on and on, but just when I think I have “IT” clean (or a little cleaner), something pops up (often again) on the desk.

There’s no one to blame, it just seems to happen. While Karen was away at her speaker’s class, the desk was pretty much cleaned off – why I could see at least half the desktop. That in itself was no easy feat – after all, you have to find someplace to put the things you take off the desk. But then my hands started to bring things from other rooms in the house to or back to the desk. Now, there are two stacks of books (yes, I am working on the class I will be teaching). Then there is all that stuff from Linux World that still needs to be sorted through. BTW, Linux World is not were you will find Waldo. I managed to get in a couple days on the convention floor in San Francisco before we went to Mount Hermon.

Just have to start one item at a time – where does it belong, and take it there. And just in case there are multiple items for the same destination, why not save myself all that walking and make one trip. It’s funny, how a simple thing like a desktop can irritate you. I used to like that little sign – “A clean desk is a sign of someone with nothing to do.”

Would you believe, Yahoo and Google give you over two million references when you search for “a clean desk”. I know mine is not on the list! Oh well, time to take some of these things to the garage storage or the “blue bin”.