Minister, Photographer, Computer Programmer
I woke up this morning to a great new feature from Gmail. Automated responses! This is exactly what my Dad tells me I need to do more. This feature’s genius. I even liked the j to k ratio for conversations full of j/k. 
If only …
… we’d be one step closer to AI!
Another chapter in my life is closed. Today was my last day in CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education). Whenever I think “well, that wasn’t long at all,” I put it in context by remembering that my hospital internship started the Monday after Heidi’s and my honeymoon in September.
A month ago my supervisors checked in with the group of interns and asked if we were getting sad because our time was coming to an end. I said no because I was really looking forward to “time off,” or, at least time not spent in an internship. Now that I’m done, I already know I’ll miss much. I’ll miss my group mates (Conner, Leah, Kifah, Robin and Ben). I’ll miss my supervisors and the great hospital staff (Rosi, Ron and Kevin) who I’d see almost every shift. And I’ll miss the regular practice of praying with hospital patients. Those visits will probably never happen as often as I go forward in life; even as a congregational minister I doubt I’ll pray in hospital rooms like I did this year.
Today I turned in my badge and threw away my shoes. Those shoes have been through a lot (as their guts illustrate). I bought those shoes in Ft. Worth the day before Daryl Schmidt’s memorial service at TCU almost 3 years ago. All of my dress clothes were back home in Iowa, so I went to the local Men’s Wearhouse and bought a new suit and shoes. They’ve lasted a long time. Those shoes endured through an intensive summer of conferences and conventions, through two internships, and through traveling around 15 states.
The weather is horrendous and I didn’t even to attempt the drive to and from Hyde Park for my afternoon class. So I’m trying to make up for it with productivity at home, which at the moment means lots of reading. Heidi’s also home and in the mood to cook something …
Heidi: What about lentil soup?
Adam: I’ve never had a lentil soup I’ve liked and I’ve never had one of your homemade soups that I didn’t like!
Heidi: Ummm … there’s always the broccoli and cheese packets in the pantry if it turns out bad.
Life is good at the moment; busy, but good. I have three weeks left in my hospital chaplaincy and then it’s an intensive period of finishing the research for and writing my senior thesis. I’ll write another blog post once my hospital internship finishes, but until then, everyone please stay warm and safe! -A
This weekend I joined Heidi and some of her parishioners at the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago’s annual Diocesan Convention. In the process I was recruited to take some pictures, so more to come on those. But tonight, Heidi and I are enjoying the quiet time with a oven-cooked deep dish pizza and a movie. Her sermon’s done and during dinner, here’s what happened:
A: “Can we watch Ocean’s Twelve?”
H: “Yes dear. But I think I need a transition from starving children and poverty to Brad Pitt and George Clooney.”
A: “Ummm, I’m not sure there’s much of a transition there, H!”
H: “I guess you’re right …”
Hopefully the classical music and cat escapades will help change the mood! -A
On Sunday I woke up in the hospital (don’t worry, it was the end of my shift! – I wasn’t a patient). Then I drove out to Lakeview, a neighborhood on the north side of Chicago. St. Peter’s Episcopal church was celebrating the end of their multi-year capital campaign and also hosting an organ recital with their new instrument. The music was great. The liturgy was great. The people were so welcoming.
Check out the pictures!
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| From St. Peter’s Episcopal Church |
I’m tired of commuting! Thursday afternoon’s commute, from Hyde Park to Bolingbrook, took 2 hours. It’s 35.4 miles … sheesh!
On an good week, when there’s no traffic, and there aren’t extraneous meetings I have to attend in Hyde Park — on a good week I can get by with only driving 9.75 hours. But when there’s traffic, or when there’s a busy CPE schedule, it can get closer to 14 hours a week. And I definitely can’t stay connected with people by doing all this commuting. My friends in Hyde Park lament how little they see me. Heidi and I have to carve out time to sit together where her church schedule and my work/school schedules don’t fight. And I’m starting to take a professor’s advice seriously: I need to configure my laptop for voice commands and then I can type audibly as I drive. (He claims it’s what got him through a long commuting schedule last summer when he was teaching at a different location).
I’m also dropping more out of shape than I expected. Last year during my internship I gained 15 pounds. Just think: what if I could use those 10 hours a week to work out instead of drive? I’d feel amazing!
I’m SO eager for the time (foreseeably in June) when the commute will stop.
On another note, I learned a huge benefit of in-laws the other day. I got out of a meeting a block away from Heidi’s parents’ house. It was raining and I still had to walk a mile. So I called Larry, who was home for lunch, and jogged over the block to get an umbrella!
Yippee!
So I completely forgot to finish the series on my computer rebuild! Oops!
The update went very well, finishing just hours before Heidi and I left for the wedding. My dock went from a long, endless 50 icon strip
to now sporting a set of clusters that fan their icons at the touch of a button.
I even have a stack of icons for programs that I’m using on a Trial basis (now up to 8!). I’m going to make this shift on my MacBook sometime … just not quite yet. I still like at least one of my screens looking a little chaotic! 😉
I’ve been married for almost a month and I still haven’t written about it. Yikes!
Heidi and I married each other on Saturday, August 30th, 2008. It was a fun morning ceremony with many of our favorite people there with us. Like Claudia and Kara … who officiated for us. Kara witnessed our vows, Claudia preached, and both of them presided at the eucharist.
This is a fun accident – but I don’t remember much about being at the church besides the ceremony! I remember waking up that morning, bustling about at DDH while trying to get me and my groomsmen ready. I remember rushing Heidi over to St. Paul and the Redeemer for her hair appointment with my aunt Peg, and then I remember the photo shoot. The details of the photo shoot aren’t vivid without the aid of the pictures (so the pictures are perfect and do exactly what they’re supposed to do: remind and remember!) The service details, the emotions and the feeling of worship are what remain vivid about the ceremony. Our picnic afterwards is a rush and whilwind for me — in our first moments as a married couple, Heidi and I spent them being whisked apart to see and meet people. But no worries: we had times together with family and friends as well. Beyond the time in the church, what really sticks out to me was the joy of jeans and a white t-shirt as I changed for the car ride up to MN for our honeymoon.
It was fitting that the worship service is the part I remember best. Most family members told us afterwards that it was also the part that seemed most important to them. The rehearsal dinner was casual. The picnic was casual. The worship service was formal, and set apart.
For those of you who were there, what do you remember most? Leave a comment below. And don’t forget to check out the wedding albums for more pictures!
After Day 1 of rebuilding my computer
I thought that a full erase of my primary hard drive would solve my problems. Mid-installation I figured out that it would take more. Here’s the odyssey up until this afternoon:
Old Tradition
Back when I used Windows computers frequently (~1999-2005), I had a bi-annual tradition: I backed up and then completely erased my computer. I did it so frequently I didn’t even bother with anti-virus or anti-spyware software. I didn’t need to defragment my hard drive either — I just kept starting over again.
In August 2005, weeks before flying to Florence, Italy, I sold my Windows computer and focused on my Mac. I feel like I haven’t looked back. Gone were the needs to avoid viruses and to massage life back into my hard drive with full-wipes. So since April 2006, when I went with a desktop Power Mac, I haven’t done a full erase on any of my computers. They just haven’t needed it.
Past six months
Imagine your computer crashing – the Mac equivalent of the Windows “Blue Screen of Death.” The screen is normal until, during a random activity, an opaque wipe moves down the screen and an error pops up to tell you to physically restart your computer. That’s right: it’s bad enough that the computer couldn’t restart itself. It always seems like it might be coming. The computer’s two fans sound like the space shuttle getting ready to take off.
In the post-op recovery, the Apple error report kept telling me it was a kernel panic – the Geek-speak equivalent of “OMG, something just happened and I don’t know what. You have to fix it! I’m going to just sit here until you do!” It’s almost like the computer is throwing a temper tantrum.
Serious problem needs …
a serious backup solution. Apple’s Time Machine software does great for sequential backups and the most dazzling interface to track the evolution of a hard drive, but I wasn’t confident it’d be able to restore my documents and files without restoring any “funky” settings causing the crashes. And with 1TB of data (already logged by Time Machine on the 1TB external hard drive), I wanted a safe external drive I could shuttle my data to while I rebuilt my system.
In the past two years a side hobby has been assembling my own drives. But each time I want to add an external, it means a new case. My computer can’t handle more USB devices – and it shouldn’t have to. So my serious backup solution became Drobo . Seriously, check it out: I think they care about my data more than I do — and how many times can you say that about your hardware manufacturer?
This afternoon:
Complete the Backup … check!
Erase the computer … check!
Install the Leopard (OS 10.5) … check!
Install all software … … … … a crash?!? WHAT?!?
My computer went into its kernel panic in the middle of installing my video software. How lame. Luckily, since the software took 3 hours to install (had to cycle through 6 DVDs), I delved into Google by parsing out the error codes and finding out “exactly” what was wrong.
It seems that my RAM is starting to fail. I almost went into my own kernel panic when I thought about how tough that would be to diagnose and convince Apple to send me new chips. I thought the process would take over 48 hours of tests and documentation before they’d be able to send me new hardware. Then I impulsively went onto OWC and found that I could get twice the RAM I currently had for only $100. It was a no-brainer. It was worth that just to avoid a two-week process with Apple … especially when those two weeks go through our wedding and into our honeymoon.
Once I have the computer back to normal I’ll share screen shots of my new application organizer. Let’s just say I have too many icons …
Just before erasing Power Mac
My Power Mac G5 has been giving me problems the entire summer. (Actually, it started in the spring, but became consistent during the summer!) So it’s time to show it who’s boss — me! I’ll tell the whole saga once I’ve succeeded, but for now, this picture is enough to show my mood.
