I'm sick.

I managed to catch the cold that's going around. I think I caught it on the plane on my way back from CO. Or maybe it was from standing at the top of a mountain with a wind chill below zero. Could go either way. But I definitely have it. For the last three days I've had a head full of gunk and I've been coughing up things of all sorts of colors, shapes, and sizes.

Last night Lyndsay and I got free tickets to go see the Predators play. We couldn't turn down free tickets! We went and had a great time (though the preds lost in the shootout)...but by the end of it I could tell I'd been in a cold arena too long. By the time I got home, my head was filling up with fluid...especially my ears. I took all my medicine and went to bed, but I knew an ear infection was imminent. Ever since I was a kid, just about every time I get sick I end up with an ear infection. It comes from having tubes in my ears as a kid...the left one worked, but the right tube came out early, and now the ear doesn't pressurize correctly when I fly on planes and always gets infected when I'm sick.

So I was able to blow the fluid out of my left ear...but my right one stayed clogged. I began praying that I wouldn't get an ear infection. It's amazing how I've been known to mock (at least to myself) people who pray things like "Lord, heal my hurting finger or foot" or something like that. But when I'm the one facing the pain...I just prove my hypocrisy. Or selfishness...one of the two. But...as I was praying, I began sneezing uncontrolably. Like...8 really loud, painful sneezes in a row. I don't think I've ever sneezed that much. Lyndsay woke up in a sleepy stupor and yelled at me to go blow my nose (which was pretty funny, she doesn't remember it at all). But with each sneeze, I felt pressure leave my ear. It was pretty awesome. And by the time I was done sneezing, the pressure was almost gone. I went to bed, and woke up this morning feeling great (in the ears...not that great in the head).

So I took some more medicine, and hopefully I'll be back up and like myself by tonight.

The very sad (and thorough) death and autopsy of my iPod.

As I said in my last (rather long) entry, at the peak of my bad day last month my iPod went for a swim in our washing machine. I tried to save it. It looked like a scene out of (insert favorite TV medical drama here)...except on the floor of my bathroom. And the patient didn't live.

But it was quite an experience. I estimate it was underwater for about 20 to 25 seconds. It was wearing an ipod "skin"...but it wasn't waterproof. And the headphone jack was unplugged after it fell...so I think that's how most of the water got in. After hosing it down with a hair dryer and getting the exterior dry, I cracked it open. I had to change a battery in a friend's iPod a couple years ago, so I learned how to get into one back then. Luckily, mine was the same.

In the first picture you can see the iPod with the face off. I had my hair dryer in hand...there were water beads all over it...the screen...the hard drive...all of it. The yellow thing you see in the bottom right is the battery...a good bit of water around it too (since it's right next to the earphone jack)

In the second picture you can see the hard drive a little better. They actually put a little rubber shock absorber around the drive. Kinda neat.

I got it dry and pushed the button...

and got nothing. No power...no spinning...no nothing.

So I let it sit overnight and thought about it.

The next morning I was looking over it and i realized that there was a small cable running from the battery to one of the circuit boards that looked loose. I unplugged it and plugged it back in...and it started to spin up!!

Then the screen lit up! ...though...I couldn't really read anything. And it was just lines. But it did light up. I found that as I clicked through stuff, I could see the lines on the screen change, meaning it was still responding to my input. Very hopeful.

So I decided to get brave and plug it into my computer, just to see what would happen. ...Nothing. It just sat. I was sad. Some seconds passed, and I got bored and decided to go check my mail or do something else.

Then from nowhere...the iPod started spinning again! It was like Frankenstein waking up for the first time. My computer actually recognized it, started iTunes...and low and behold:

It synced! I couldn't believe it! It was like nothing ever happened. So then I got really excited...I decided "I'm gonna save this thing! I just gotta put it back together and..."

So I began putting it back together and I went to move the hard drive and *SNAP*

...I broke a ribbon cable. I don't know if you can see it in the picture or not, but that little brown tape looking thing should be all one piece. I'm not 100% sure what that does, but I think it puts the audio out to the headphones.

So now I have a 30 gigabyte sweet looking portable hard drive...that just took a swim so I'm way too scared to actually put important data on it, thus completely eliminating any need to actually own it.

I haven't brought myself to throw it away yet. I have a pretty hard time throwing away broken electronics any time...so this one will probably stick around and clutter my desk long after I've replaced it.

I had to drive around today for the first time without it. It was very...quiet. I tried the radio. It was terrible. I tried CD's. They were all pretty old, because I haven't had too many CD's in my car in the last year.

So I'm not too sure what I'm going to do. But I don't think I'll be able to make it too long without it. It's funny how much I feel like I miss the thing.

I immediately react to the thought of "needing" electronics and try to talk myself out of it. "You only listen to it in your car, Scott. Not when you're out and about and you could be enjoying life and interacting with others." True. I guess I like the idea of having my entire music collection, along with several different sermons and other podcasts, available for me to listen to as I make the 100 mile trek from home to work to school to home.

Today

Today has been one of those days that I wish wouldn't have happened at all. But...it did. And now I have to learn from it.

It's Saturday. I had anticipated relaxing...doing nothing...taking it easy. Eh...not so much.

So I woke up around 10:30 to the sounds of Lyndsay doing the laundry. As I rolled out of bed, she was about to go running. I need to be running, and I hate doing it by myself so I decided to join her. So within 10 minutes of waking up, I literally hit the ground running. As soon as we got back we went to work finishing the caulking and painting job on the crown molding we put in two weekends ago. This project is one that has sucked up our free time...and still isn't even halfway done. As I was working on the caulking, I felt myself getting irritated and tired. It wasn't going very quickly. So Lyndsay and I talked about it, and she decided she would caulk, since she actually enjoys it...and I would work on this massive project that I'm doing for Accounting class (it's due tuesday and I have a loooong way to go).

As I'm about to get started, I find myself irritated with the way the day was going. I wasn't relaxing. I wasn't having any fun...heck, I hadn't even stopped to sit since I woke up 3 or four hours ago! I was not very happy. So I decided to watch an episode of "The Office" to help me relax. At the 11 minute mark, I heard a "pop" come from downstairs and the music Lyndsay had been listening to stopped.

I ran down...and to my shock and horror...saw my iPod floating just below the surface of the water in my washing machine! I had left it open on accident, looking for one last pair of socks to go in the load that I never found, forgot about, and walked off. Lyndsay had come over and changed a playlist, not noticed the open washer, and set the iPod back in it's resting spot...teetering precariously above the washing machine plugged in to some speakers.

I freaked out and started running around my house. I whipped out some screwdrivers and popped my iPod open, grabbed Lyndsay's hairdryer and started frantically trying to dry out the pieces of the iPod. It was soaked. The screen, the hard drive, the battery...the WHOLE thing.

As if I hadn't already been moping around enough already, feeling sorry for myself and all...now it went to the next level...as if my favorite pet had just died or something. Woe is me, my life is terrible, and so on.

Lyndsay was a trooper. She kept on caulking and actually finished the rest of the house! (Now all we have to do is paint it all!) The whole time she could have told me what a Debbie Downer I was being...but she just ignored my whining and kept working diligently.

So here's the lesson:

So then we went to church (yay for Saturday Night Church!!) and read Nehemiah 3. It's possibly the most boring book in the bible. Go read it. It's worse than Matthew 1. But we've been studying Nehemiah...so this was the week for chapter 3.

Anyway, it was all about rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. The city was being rebuilt, and everyone was pitching in. They decided it was time to do get the job done, and they did it. Men and even women, entire families and groups from different areas working together. Except one group. In verse 5, the Tekoites made repairs to a section of the wall...but their nobility wouldn't do any work.

Way to rain on the party Tekoite nobles! Most everyone who was in Jerusalem volunteered to travel to Jerusalem initially to rebuild the city...so why are these people not okay doing the rebuilding they most likely signed up to do?!

Who knows their reason. Were they tired because they'd worked a hard 40 hour week and planned on taking that time to relax? Were they upset over the recent failure of their personal music device? Could have been. I mean that's devastating to a person, right?

Yeah--if you're a total pansy. As I read through that scripture and it began to sink in, I immediately began to feel bad for being the whiny loser I had been all day. Whose idea was it to start the crown molding project two weekends ago? Me. All me. Who should have been helping today but wasn't satisfied with the slow way things were developing, so he quit? Me again.

So at this point I feel bad for copping out on the job after I'd only done half of it and dump it off for my wife to work on the other half (side note: Lyndsay turns out to be better at caulking than me anyhow). And I feel bad for being so pitiful over the loss of "stuff"...something that is replaceable (even if it's not cheap). I let my own self pity completely cripple me.

But as guilty as I felt, I still felt tired. I never got a break the whole day. I went straight from iPod CPR to church. So if I could just get the breaks that I need when I think I need them, I'd be able to handle everything, right?! That's what I told myself, refusing to admit that I may not have been justified in my desires to relax on this day that I had predetermined was for relaxing, and not "working."

So as the final blow to my pride and my selfishness, God gave me an evening devotion from "My Utmost for His Highest" (an excellent daily devotional if you've never read it). Today's excerpt was about spiritual exhaustion (Isaiah 40:28). He made a couple of interesting statements that caught my attention because I agree--and it's not cliche stuff you'd expect from reading too many devotionals. First, "Spiritual exhaustion never comes through sin but only through service, and whether or not you are exhausted will depend upon where you get your supplies."

So...it's not my fault I'm exhausted. But it IS my fault that I'm still exhausted. Another interesting point: "Jesus said to Peter - "Feed My sheep," but He gave him nothing to feed them with." Hm...So what then shall I do, Oswald? You have my attention.

"Has the way in which you have been serving God betrayed you into exhaustion? If so, then rally your affections. Where did you start the service from? From your own sympathy or from the basis of the Redemption of Jesus Christ? Continually go back to the foundation of your affections and recollect where the source of power is. You have no right to say - "O Lord, I am so exhausted." He saved and sanctified you in order to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that your supply comes from Him."

Ah yes. The ever present reminder that maybe just maybe the fact that I spent so much time worrying about myself and about the things of life like my job and my iPod...that I totally forgot to spend time asking God what I should be doing. Because in all my busyness this week, the one thing that I almost completely neglected was to spend time with God...reading the Bible, praying, etc. And so when I got "worn out"...I had no way of handling it.

Hm. Such an interesting idea for me to ponder. And do something about.

You know, it's pretty late right now...but I already feel better.

:)

I'm a big nerd

I normally don't blog during work, but...I had to today.

It's a well known fact that I'm a big nerd. I love technology about as much as Kyp from Napoleon Dynamite.

Today I looked around my little office and realized that my office is a place where technology goes to die. In my office right now, there are:

6 computers (3 laptops, 3 desktops)
of those, 3 are broken. 2 are irreparably broken, and yet they continue to inhabit my office.
3 printers
of those, two are also scanners and fax machines
4 phones
4 keyboards
2 monitors
2 routers
4 boxes for vonage phone lines
AND
a the office phone system, which is about the size of R2-D2.

yup, I'm a big nerd.