Garage sales, computeritis, life in general

My goodness it's been busy. When last heard from, I was licking my wounds after computer security problems. The situation went from bad to worse when an online technician, attempting to figure out why a program wouldn't load, inadvertently deleted the wrong things and killed the old Gateway laptop. There's not much that can be done about this and absolutely no point in getting mad. Computer technicians do not carry malpractice insurance, so lawsuits are unlikely to be profitable for anyone involved.

Actually, the laptop possibly could be fixed --- at considerable expense. However, since no data was lost (only a couple of photo processing and design programs I was fond of that no longer link to the devices that make them useful) and the laptop was old, it's not worth it. I'll extract what I want from it, then give it a decent burial.

I spent far too much weekend time on the phone, however, with technicians and getting the backup computer (only a year old) ready to go --- then learning how to run a new design program. Since I had a newsletter due at the printers today, that was the top priority.

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Our garage sale at the church went well on Saturday, despite the fact it was raining buckets as the day began and that discouraged customers all over town (it was city-wide garage sale day). But by mid-morning, the rain had let up and we had a good run of customers until closing down about 1:30 and I had to haul home only five of the several items I'd taken out.

We were raising money to buy bicycles for Anglican priests in a new parish in one of our two companion dioceses, Swaziland (the other is Brechen, Scotland). And we did just what we set out to do. Can't complain about that.

Most of Monday was spent at the museum dealing with the great storeroom crisis --- a crisis I inflicted upon myself, by the way. In order to make room in the museum office for a work station and new equipment (grant-funded) we'll be using for a new "living history" project, a hulking storage unit had to go somewhere. That somewhere was the store room off a gallery some distance away, already piled to the ceiling. The theory here is that if the office storage unit is in the store room it will become easier to shelve and actually find the contents of the storeroom. (These are not precious artifacts in storage, by the way, but items needed to run the joint as well as worn out or wounded display accessories and other junk --- mannequins with severe head injuries or puncture wounds, for example).

The storage unit is now where it's supposed to be and the task of hauling hopeless stuff across the driveway to the basement of the Stephens House (the last ray of hope before the landfill for such items as hopelessly wounded mannequins) has begin.

After a productive board meeting this morning and with many strong backs on hand, we moved Walt Thorne's wonderful wooden clock out of a corner behind the counter in the entry area  and into a position of honor near the registration desk (actually the old pulpit from the Lucas Methodist Church). This clock, well over six feet tall and entirely hand-made (Walt even made the tools used to make the wooden gears that run it) is not only remarkably ingenious but also a spectacular piece of folk art. Now it needs to be leveled, fiddled with, dusted and cajoled and perhaps it will start running again as well as it was Monday afternoon before the move.

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Our annual parish picnic (including Grace Church in Albia) will be this Sunday at West Lake Park in Corydon --- unless it's raining buckets again, which it very well may be. In that case, poor Bill is going to have a houseful. I'm taking green magic salad again, based upon the philosophy that it isn't a church picnic without something that contains Jello.

Both the Dry Flat Reunion and the museum Arts Fair are the following Friday, June 18, a kind of double whammy that should be lots of fun.

And then there's the lawn --- that blessed grass just keeps growing and growing and growing with all this rain. Since the lawn dries in varying parts at differing rates, I've divided it into three segments and try to do one each day that it doesn't rain or at least doesn't rain for a few hours --- the front, side and immediate back yards first (they drain fast), the upper back-40 second and finally the lower back-40, which remains squishy after all else as solidified.

Now I'm going to go finish watching my movie. My brain needs a rest.