A Labyrinthine Journey

Well, I finally got tired of all the comment and referral spammers (200 just last night) that have too easily figured out how to mess with b2evolution Phoenix. So I have returned to WordPress. The main reason I left WordPress was that it didn’t work with the upgrade to php and mysql that I installed on my Debian Linux box. But the latest version of WordPress (2.0.2 at this writing) seems to work wonderfully. Still a few things to do to get things just the way I wanted, but everything imported (with some tweaking of the script) and it is up and running.

For some odd reason I decided to step up a little in the image of “cool” for my blog by giving it the illusion of blogness.

So instead of being a subdirectory of my main linux box (www.gomorris.net/b2evo) it is now labyrinthine.gomorris.net

Unfortunately while I have found a way for you to get here, I haven’t found a way to preserve the parameters you might be looking for.

I hope you remember that patience and forgiveness are both virtues.

The trouble with upgrading your computer for one thing is that you inevitibly break another thing. I have been working a little on my own wiki to be a place to write and gather other writers about Christian Spirituality (still too bare bones to make public yet). I decided to upgrade the foundation programs (php to 5 and mysql to 5). It worked great for wikimedia. But it broke wordpress (my previous blogging program). No matter what I tried it wouldn’t work. So rather than waste more time on it, I looked around and found a program that works and is a nice program as well: b2evolution.

When I have some free time I will make it prettier, but it works and that is what counts.

Maybe I will let you in on the other things in my life that have been going on.

One of the things that I have been considering lately for my programming hobby side has been a web-based, perl based membership management system that also has the capability of helping track ministry visitations. The current programs are way too expensive for my small church (or my own personal donation) and don’t really offer what I want. I hadn’t found anything so had been thinking about how to design and write one myself.

Well, that “old” project got some new life this last week. While digging around in the whole PHP/MySQL world that WordPress opened up for me, I found an open source project, InfoCentral that was very much along the lines of what I was thinking. Unfortunately, the lead designer for InfoCentral had halted PHP development for a Java-based package. His prerogative. But since the code is open-sourced it is possible for anyone to take and fork the project in new directions (just keeping it open source). In digging further, I found two forks already existed. Of the two, Open Source Church (osc) seemed most intriguing and most alive.

So I started working with it and started taking notes of ways to fix it and and extend it. I also started corresponding with Steve McAtee of ChurchLedger.com who is the Project admin for it. The long and short of it is that I am now part of the team and have been fixing the bugs I find. Steve’s focus is on a tithing/financial module to it. My desire is a ministry visitation tool. There are other developers listed, but at the moment they have other parts of life that are taking their focus.

It has been great fun to not only learn a new language (though PHP is similar to Perl in many ways), but also to finally have a place to take some of those ideas I have had for years and have a place to work on them. And I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, 80% of what I want is already there.

Cool.

Especially when the insanity is connected to computer hardware.

I really like my DLink DI-624 router. It routes to my linus box which houses a couple web pages. It routes wirelessly to Linda’s computer, the church computer and my laptop both at home and 50 feet away in my office.

But in the last 24 hours, I think I have had to reboot the router about 10 times. Not sure why, but it goes insane. I think it is just tired. It has worked well for me for the 2 years I have had it.

I thought about upgrading. But I couldn’t find one that gave me something significantly more than I need at the price. So a new one is on order. I suppose if they come up with a faster wireless standard than Wireless-G then I will think about it. But until then, a little counseling and some moments of rest will suffice.

Don’t you just hate when things happen at the worst possible time?

Last week I got up on Wednesday morning to check my email and my computer
displayed an error message that I don’t think I have ever seen before,
“Operating System Not Found.” Without really knowing what it all
meant, I did know one thing. This was Not Good.

Upon attempting to reboot my computer, the hard drive emited a very
strange sound. According to the AOL commercial, it sounded like the
mating cry of the Yeti. Definitely not good.

Hard Drive Crash

The worst part? On Tuesday I had picked up an external hard drive for
use as a backup, but put it back on the shelf. Next time, it is going
into my shopping cart.

A new drive came on Saturday (laptop hard drive), but I was out of
town all day and then Sunday morning is church. So after lunch, I
began the process of reinstalling my hard drive. Things are going
okay, and so far companies have been very helpful in supplying me the
activation keys for the programs I had already purchased.

And since I had completely reinstalled my drive in November, I had a
backup of many files. And most of the ones since then, I can either
live without or easily recreate.

Except for my family’s slide collection that extended all the way back
to 1961. I have been working on digitizing them and then preparing
them for a slide show collection for my family. Over 900 digital
copies of those slides are gone. (they were big files). I still have
the originals and I can get my slide scanner back soon from someone
who borrowed it. So that means this summer I will be back at work on
that project, square one.

Oh well, it is only a thing, and I have only lost time. But I learned
some things that I will do differently. So hopefully I will get better
results.

Back to the CDROM drive.

So Little Time

Been stuck in that awful dilemma of having a lot of different computer
projects, both little and small that I want to do. Then you mix in a
ministry that is in one of those cycles of using all the strange
times, with little free time left. Then you mix in a lovely wife and
growing teenage daughter that actually want to spend time with me and
with whom I want to spend time with. Twirl that all together and you
get projects that don’t get done.

There was a time when I chose the projects over other things. The
memory of having to rebuild lost trust in ministry and the loss of my
first marriage has to be named as the price of those choices. It is
still easy for me to do that again.

Yet I also know myself. If I don’t rein in ministry demands my soul
and spirit suffer energy drain. If I don’t make time for myself (being
the introvert I am) then I become physically ill or the always lurking
dystemic depression sneaks back in.

I am very glad I have projects that I want to do, just for fun. But I
also hope that I can remember the lessons from the past and use them
in balance and with balance.

All this to say that I didn’t get my weekly devotions updated by
Monday (today) like I really want to do. Tomorrow is another day. And
since today was a 12 hour one, I can allow myself some time to do
that.

My wife thinks that all I do is computer work. And part of that is
true. I almost always have a computer with me when I am working. My
laptop goes from home office to church office and sometimes on
adventures. I am close enough that my home wireless connection reaches
the church office, so I just need one DSL line for my contact with the
internet world. But usually, the computer is there and available.

Yet, today, it was the focus of my time all day. I wanted to get
finished with the basics of the church web-site so that project can be
completed. I was able to do that today. So now I can focus on updating
and expanding instead of laying the foundation work. Then I have a
couple financial reports that are to be submitted to HQ by the end of
the week. They involve sifting through other financial reports to pull
out expenses that fit specific categories. And our categories don’t
match the conferences. (That might be changed here this year) The
difficulty is that one of the churches changed treasurers in mid-year
and the reports and records are inconsistent. So a good part of the
day was spent sorting through and reconciling the various reports I do
have, trying to fill in gaps as needed. Nice to be able to use some of
those skills from my college degree in accounting.

Sort of frustrating though. I like computers. I’ve been a computer
geek since high school in the early to mid-70’s (a teletype machine
connected via acoustic coupler to the local community college, then
punch cards at the local college for a summer class). I have been on
the internet as soon as our local telephone company offered it (before
www and even before aol). So I love gadgets and enjoy computers. But
this is a week when I have many other things to do besides computer
oriented things. Besides, I don’t really like paperwork and reports
even though I appreciate their importance. I just don’t like doing
them. That’s really the frustrating part. Don’t even get me started
struggling with tax returns. Uggh.

Maybe I can stay up late and get more done so that the precious day of
tomorrow can be used for more pastoral ministrations instead of
ad-ministrations.

I realized as I am getting this set up that there are a few journals
over the past few months that I could put up here with little effort
(just some formatting and dividing of files). So everything prior to
yesterday (Jan 11) have been pulled in from other places and dropped
into your lap. Aren’t you lucky.

The stories in the spirituality section titled FCS Journal are weekly
journal entries I was supposed to prepare for a class I am taking in Des
Moines at the St Joseph Educational Center in their Institute for
Spiritual Guidance. The class starts up again this Saturday, so expect
more of those.

Oh, and the quote box over to the right will randomly show various
quotes that I find compelling. I don’t always agree with them (a very
small number), but I do
find them all worth reading.

Blessings, David