"CLEANING-UP" THE LAPTOP

Like everything else around here, this laptop finally became so cluttered and packed with cyber-dust-bunnies that I caved in and took it to our unofficial guru, Greg.
He dumped everything, reinstalled the essentials, dosed me with some encouragement and sent me home with precise instructions which turned to vague fog before I mustered the courage to began pecking away at the little tasks of restoring data for programs I had purchased over several years.
The worst irritant was the penchant of the touchpad to be wildly erratic and the cursor to jump madly about during typing. Apparently this well known phenomena has plagued others since there was a lot of advice and commentary which led to another driver download that seems to have mostly cured the problem.
The process, which some call a "dusting" others call "detox" and other terms not suitable for this family blog site, I am calling "rehab." The fix is mostly in place, but over time I will still have to deal with the erratics and minor glitches one at a time; for example, many of the windows look different in size and font than I have been used to, and some windows are different in appearance than before.
I just mention this to explain why there have been recent gaps in my blogs, e-mail responses, and follow-ups for some folk. Next week, to deal with one peculiarity which has stumped me, the computer will do another overnight on Greg's bench for what I hope will be the last necessary tweaking.
Why is it that these computers, which promised to save us so much time and effort, require so much time and effort to maintain? Why do these superfast devices consume so much of the time of our lives without improving significantly the times of our lives? That seems "oxymoronic"!!

TIME TO CLEAN-UP "THE FALL"

It's Fall, i.e. Autumn, and the leaves are falling! These two street-type maples dropped almost everything in a couple of days after a cold spell and a heavy rain.

We have a several dogwoods and they are quick to drop their leaves too, taking turns according to their specific variety. That helps with the raking/mowing chore the mess requires.

The larger trees - ornamental cherries, the zelcova sawtooth (a type of elm), the Chinese elm, and others - are just getting started. These take their time and dribble loads like this for two or three weeks, so they take a lot more time to clean up after. Worse yet are the Austrian Pines which hold dead needles until a strong wind blows which causes them to foul the lawn with needles and cones. Ugly mess.

Finally, is the interesting ginko biloba tree, said to be an ancient contemporary if the dawn redwood, both of which come from somewhere in central Asia. Long thought to be extinct, once rediscovered they have become quite popular as a landscape tree and the leaves are reputed to be an aid to memory. Ask any herbal pill shop. The curious part is that our tree will cling to its odd shaped leaves until the first heavy frost and will then drop them all (99%) overnight. We haven't had a strong frost yet, as you can tell.

We love the brilliant hues of this season, and 2009 has been especially colorful. Still, all the leaves eventually come down, must be gathered, and eventually end up as compost for the garden or as fodder for a nearby worm farm. Would it sound too morbid to point out that this is pretty much the story of our lives? We start out as seedlings, struggle a while as we grow tall, eventually come into a more or less colorful prime, worry all the time about broken limbs and such, and at the end we all become compost. Hmmmm. Were it not for God's intervening Grace, we would have no hope at all. I prefer thinking about what our creator's wonderful craftsmanship can make of us if we conform to the touch of His hands. You can become a work of beauty if you conform to His will. Our destiny can be in a place of honor and splendor; it need not be a worm farm after all.

OUR BIRTHDAY BOY!

Without a doubt, I love my sons, and that includes this bonus one my daughter married nearly twenty-two years ago. He's a fine hubby to her, a great dad to their three girls, a good provider, and he is quick to lend a hand wherever needed.
As to that birthday, Edwin is only slightly over-the-hill today - just a couple of years. [Trivia: He shared the date with my mother who would have been 90 today, but he's not that old.]
We all enjoyed a special dinner tonight at Outback. My joy is seeing how caring and gentle he is with the girls, especially "Twinkie".
The plan is for him to enjoy the camping / recreation chair that was in that great big birthday package.

CONGRATULATIONS, Son, on another year.

READING REPORT #3 - Books I plan to read soon.

Should I list all the books I have on hand - in the "to be read" line, so-to-speak - the list would number several dozens, I suppose, but many of those are mysteries or pulp fiction that only take a day or two to finish and are often by authors who turn out a book or two annually. I may never catch up on these authors. However, there yet remains a list of books for which I am still searching, and this list steadily grows even though I make periodic rounds of favorite bookshops and websites. In other words, the rate of gathering the books never seems to match the rate of adding new possibilities to the list, so I am always on the lookout for books, but the specific titles keep changing as targets are acquired and read.

Next I must decide whether to keep the book - to be reread someday, to become part of a collection by that author or on that subject, or for other future use. If I decide not to hold on to a title, I must figure out whether to give it away, resell it online or to a local book dealer, or donate it to Goodwill or a similar outlet. Even the list of book sets I keep is flexible since my tastes change, the quality of a writer's work may decline, or I occasionally thin the book holdings for various reasons.

OK, Time to refocus and return to the purpose of this entry. Here a few books that are physically actually stacked up and destined to be read next.

3:16. The Numbers of Hope by Max Lucado. Actually, this book has been on the someday list since it was mentioned to me last year (and because I am selectively collecting other books by Lucado). After struggling with my own opinion of Max Lucado's doctrinal anomalies, I realized that he does not always inject into his writings the aberrations to which I do not subscribe. He does have a wordsmith's way of identifying describing some of the fundamentals of faith I hold to be essential - for example, the purpose and particulars of the Passion of the Christ. When he focuses on that without becoming mired in random storytelling, I find I enjoy the story and detail of the salvation saga wrapped with Lucado's language and emphasis.

The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel. Clearly, Creationism is a hot topic in modern times and is under severe attack by the scientific thought police. Since so much effort and energy is being put into trying to discredit the concept of an "Intelligent Designer", and to destroy the the case for creation, these realities are clearly the strongest foes of the "evolutionary camp". Strobel is a journalist who once he examined the facts became convinced that ... Well, look again at the title. I understand that this book recounts his re-examination of the claims of evolution and his dual conclusion that there is indeed convincing evidence for a Creator and that a host of flaws exist in the data to which the opposing camp clings. If you read Christian Apologetics, join me in reading this one.

Made in America; An Informal History of the English Language in the United States by Bill Bryson (who earlier wrote A Walk in the Woods). What retired English teacher could resist? Looks like a great subject by a good writer. If you like words and word histories, Bill Bryson will delight you. I'm looking forward to this one.

Seldom Disappointed; A Memoir by Tony Hillerman. Just about the first mysteries, and certainly the first mystery series I ever read was the Hillerman collection which features two great fictional lawmen in the Navajo Southwest. Then I worked through all the non-fiction I could find, waited impatiently for subsequent stories to be published, and fell in love with Hillerman's work. Now I am eager to read his story about himself and compare it with my impressions of the man and his mission and the half-dozen magazine articles I have come across during the past twenty years or so. What I already know about his writings and his other accomplishments lead me to think this was a remarkable fellow. It should be an interesting read.

You only Die Once; Preparing for the End of Life with Grace and Gusto by Margie Jenkins. What I know about this book and the author is in the title and on the back cover. I'm going to tackle it now because I am teaching a class for the Senior Saints on the loosely related topics of death and the hereafter sometime referred to in ecclesiastical circles as "last things" or "eschatology". I plan to mine this book (and others) for some practical applications as to how each of us should prepare for the inevitable, both spiritually and in terms of pre-death decisions and paperwork. (I am open to receiving helpful materials in this area if you have anything useful.) Vital Papers? Cherished memories and possessions to pass along? Medical care options? Plan your funeral or memorial and get in the last word? live to the fullest meanwhile? Gotta start somewhere, and this book seems to have possibilities.

As always, I reserve the right to change the books in the stack and opt for another book which catches my fancy. In fact, I'm already working on the second in John Dunning's series that starts with Booked to Die. Thanks, Ted!

READING REPORT #2 - Books I'm Reading Now

Actually, blogging on my current reading is rather like baking bread on a galloping horse (or something equally complicated). I can't pre-select the books on hand in precisely enough in advance for the subsequent blog to be completely accurate since I'm reading furiously, as always, and often behave like the little red blood cell who lost contact with his companion because he abruptly changed streams in the middle of the horse. OK, that's a really crummy pun, but... I rarely read all of one book without reading from other books in the same time frame, and I don't read every page of a ho-hummer anyway, preferring to pick up something else that catches my fancy instead.

Nevertheless, here are the main books I am currently reading at various rates.

The Song of Hiawatha by William Wadsworth Longfellow. This edition is the renowned publication that features illustrations by Fredrick Remington of scores of American Indian artifacts and Objects d' Lore. Since I was kid I could quote snatches of the epic poem and now I am seeing them again in context somewhat different than my childhood images. I'm really enjoying it this time.

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. From the Isabel Dalhousie series comes the first story featuring a lady who edits an philosophical ethics publication in Edinburgh.
This inquisitive woman seems to pick up on seemingly inconsequential events and soon finds herself enwrapped in a mystery which draws her into the secret aspects and lives of those around her. I am assured that the series gets much better after the first couple of books in the set.

High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver. In my search and deliberate effort to explore the works of more women writers, I have been intrigued by this author's Poisonwood Bible and particularly by her ability to turn a catchy phrase. "High Tide" is a collection of personal essays written after several of her novels, and it gives an interesting look into Kingsolver's worldviews and attitudes, many times touching on topics and observations of high interest to me. I'm pretty sure this will impact my reading of her fiction work as I get to them later.

The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey. Sometimes a book manages to hide on my shelves for years before it comes to the top of the list. Because a good friend once recommended Yancey to me I have not previously culled this text, always intending to get to it someday. Finally looking into the opening chapters, I am still looking for the hook I had been given to expect. Still, I suppose, any material that causes me to reflect upon the life of Jesus and compare the validity of its content to the truth found in scripture will be worth the time spent. It's too soon to render an opinion.

The Development of the New Testament Canon by Stanley Paher. Such a deep, complex and scholarly topic for such a small text. This is difficult, even ponderous scrubbing for facts and chronology and not at all designed for pleasure reading. The author openly reveals he bears bias against the common fundamentalist viewpoint about the assembling of the twenty-seven NT books, before he sets about a systematic consideration of the important major manuscripts and significant other portions from which the contemporary New Testament has been compiled. As always, one should compare each new source with proven and respected material as revealed in other trusted texts.

Here is my usual disclaimer: In a couple of weeks this list will likely be out of date, and a new set of books will probably have replaced most of these. Meanwhile, even if I compared these titles to what is actually on my shelves and at chairside and bedside, the lists would not be identical. Every errand day, and each visit to bookstores (or Goodwill) will bring home another handful of selections I will be eager to dive into. In fact, when I get to the list of books I am planning to read next, I have to face a stack of maybe twenty books which will conspire to complicate my decision.

Ain't it grand?