What happened?

Went with Kristin today to go buy her a scooter to ride around town on. She basically said "I will get whatever you tell me to get." I wish everyone could be that easy to get along with. :)

As we sat in the dealer talking over options, we had narrowed it down to the one we thought was best for her. I asked the salesman how long the 'booking period' was for that one. He said 20 days. He then asked what color we wanted. We said Dark Grey. "Oh (said in that slow ooooooh, bad choice kind of tone), that one takes longer." he said. How much longer? "Another 10 days." What colors are available sooner? "Only Black and Silver." We will take Black.

He comes back a few minutes later, and say the best he can do is 15 days for a Black one. Fine, we will take it. Write up the paperwork. "You want to take it today?" he asks. Somewhat confused, I said "Yes, we want it today."

"Okay, it will take some time for fitting the accessories. Can you wait?" (he walks away)

Kristin now looks at me and says "Did you flex your muscles or something that I did not see? How did it just go from 20 days at first, to 15 days to you can have it today in such a short time?"

I have no idea what happened there, but we ended up paying for the vehicle and I am assured that tomorrow morning at 11 am they will have it all ready for me to pick up and drive away.

Things here are never the same thing twice. Keeps life interesting and full of surprises.

The joy of learning new things

This last few weeks have been quite busy. We had several guests in and out, sometimes within hours of each other. All good things, but combined with all the 'normal' things going on, it has been pretty hectic.

In the midst of all that, I have learned once again the joy of picking up a new skill or talent or being able to do something you did not know how to do even a few weeks ago. For me, this has come in the area of software.

We are working on some software projects and in the course of this I have been working as a kind of bridge between the techies and the non-techies. A translator of sorts. Take the techno-babble of the development team and put it into normal-man-speak. Or vice versa. In the process I have learned even more (this part I already knew for the most part) how things that seem easy can often times be the hardest to accomplish and the hardest things can sometimes be easy. That, and even one misplaced character in the code and it all goes caflooie (ka-flew-ee).

One of the newly acquired skills I have picked up is being able to actually read the code behind software and with reasonable accuracy be able to tell not only what it does,but also to see where it is wrong if it is not working. If I had to write it from scratch I could not . . . . .yet. But I can take fuctionality that works in one place and make it work in others even when there is a reasonable amount of adaptation needed. The scary thing for me is that is it actually fun at times. I already spend enough time with my computer, so I hope this does not turn into a hobby.

Quotable quotes

Every once in a while I hear a saying or a phrase that strikes a chord in me. The one that struck me recently was:

“If you can't be nice, be vague.”

In my ongoing effort to only say what I mean and mean what I say, this has proven to be helpful and is pretty funny at times as well. Thanks Crystal.

Interesting Thought

“When I am talking to somebody there are always two conversations going on. The first is on the surface; it is about politics or music or whatever it is our mouths are saying. The other is beneath the surface, on the level of the heart, and my heart is either communicating that I like the person I am talking to or I don’t. God wants both conversations to be true. That is, we are supposed to speak the truth in love.” Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz, pg. 221.

This thought struck me. I can be talking to someone and saying one thing with my mouth (Oh, it is so great to see you!) and saying something entirely different with my heart (I really could not care less if I talk to you or not.). This is not speaking the truth in love. Often we misunderstand being ‘nice’ to someone as showing them love, when in fact, showing them real love might be telling them things they don’t want to hear. Speaking the truth in love is hard because it is risky. We might be perceived as being mean. In many ways it depends on how we do it. I don’t have to be mean while telling the truth. But I do have to be honest. This idea of two different levels of a conversation happening simultaneously helps me to think about what I am saying with my mouth as well as with my heart, which gets me further down the road towards saying what I mean and meaning what I say.

WOW! Has it been that long?

So I finally got the point today. It has been a loooooooooong time since I posted anything. I am now going to try to make more of an effort to put some things here more often. Let's see how that goes.