Tad's Life

I left early Monday morning with Jane and Jonathan to meet with the Executive Committee of the Dakar Academy Board. This has been my Monday morning for several years now. With Jane teaching, it works out nicely for me. We leave early to get her to school for staff devotions. I hide myself in the staff lounge while the staff is up in the library and I have a half-hour by myself. It is quite nice to have some peaceful time with God before beginning the week. And it’s air-conditioned in there, too!

Anyway, our EC meeting went for a bit. Long enough for the power to be cut at school and the Director’s office to become quite warm! But we had a number of important things to discuss and we just kept at it.

I took the car, then, and speeded back home just long enough to check in at the UWM office and to pick up the package notice and some money. The Phare had power. That was good. But Rodney asked me a strange question. “Why won’t your computer turn on? Is there some secret?” There isn’t. I kept moving because I had an errand to run right away, but I’m sure you can imagine that sinking feeling I had when I, too, tried pushing “ON” and nothing happened!

Normally, Jane has done the running into town to get packages in recent years. But with teaching and all, this one fell to me. It was a bit dated, so I had to get to it right away. The notice was odd, too. It was paperwork from the downtown, small packet Post Office, but with a note that the package was at the large package Post Office part way into town. I figured they ran out of forms and were sharing and that I was off to get a big box of Christmas presents or something.

Well, traffic right now, most of the day and on most major roads is crazy. Yesterday was no exception. I fought my way through several traffic jams and in the end to avoid another, I parked the car and walked the last few hundred yards! I got to the package window and immediately walked back to the car when I realized I left my passport under the driver’s seat! In the end, the process of getting the package was fairly quick. Well, by historic standards, I mean. I wasn’t in there more than 30 minutes, I don’t think. And I only paid $4 to get the package. But it wasn’t Christmas presents, as you have already guessed. It was a simple 8½ by 11envelope with Sudoku puzzle inserts from the newspaper and comic books and other fun stuff that Dad collected for us. Road construction is so bad that I suppose they shifted the small packet postal work out to the large box Post Office. Ah, well. I do enjoy Sudoku!

By the time I got back, I was way too tired and hungry to go near that computer. I had lunch. I did a Sudoku puzzle. I even had a 15 minute nap. Very mature, don’t you think? Or I was trying to avoid a nightmare!

Anyway, I did finally get to the computer. It wouldn’t even flash little lights at me more than once. And even then, only if I unplugged the whole unit and plugged it back in. I’m sure that would confuse most folks. But I knew that the night before the power had cut and come back on at least 3 times. I figured I may have slept through other times. I guessed that one of those cuts and restorations had sent some kind of surge through the line. I pulled this power supply out and put in the one from my previous computer (deceased last January and finally declared hopeless a couple weeks ago). To my great shock and joy, that was all it took. I was up and running! No, I’m not a wizard, but I guessed right on that one.

// posted by Tad @ 11:38 AM