I’m at the point I want to throw my 40-lb computer out my third-story window. Yesterday afternoon I set it to back up my terabyte of internal hard drives (1000 gigabytes) to my external terabyte drive. Sure enough, it took 20 hours … and was within 2 minutes of finishing when I went to the bathroom. When I came back, it had quit the program and the computer sat dormant. When I checked the log, it had the audacity to tell me “User cancelled backup.” There’s nothing worse than flippant software that blames the user for its own internal flaw; it’s infuriating.

This development may also explain why I’m so out-of-touch with non-Chicago people at the moment. I’m still unorganized from all my summer travels and work, and now I’m in the middle of my academic quarter. I have one of the best collections of classes I can remember:

• Arts of Ministry: Preaching   with Cynthia Lindner
• Practicum (Field Education)   with Kevin Boyd
• Paul’s Letter to the Romans   with Hans-Josef Klauk
• Sacraments II: Eucharist (at Catholic Theological Union)   with Ed Foley

I’m also overloading my experience at my teaching parish by working more hours than I should. Luckily it’s a choice I willingly make – and enjoy!

I also know several people expect more of my mass e-mails. They’ll come … eventually. I’m taking tons of pictures, and have plenty of stories, I’m just not investing the time to record all of them. Plus, I think I’m going to put some different sections in my e-mails (like technology tips, food ideas, etc.)