“The RoseBouquet”

I think I have that cough about wrestled into submission now. It just gives me the occasional little whimper or bark. Mainly I’ve been wearing my new Pashima scarf with some flare to how I arrange it around my shoulders, and coughing into it when necessary. I wore the red one for a number of days last week and then threw it into a load of laundry on Saturday, and started wearing the blue one.

This has allowed me a clear conscience to attend two missions conferences this past weekend. I had a display table up for Western Tract Mission at the one in Neuanlage, my former home church. I was there on Friday and Saturday evenings.

My current city church, together with the sister Alliance churches was having a missions conference too. I managed to attend the Saturday morning and lunch sessions, and then again on Sunday morning, and in the evening we had a Latino supper served before the closing Rally.

Now, I’m not sure how much to go on and on about the missions conferences, (some subscriber always seems to unsubscribe from this list when I use too much spiritual talk), but I’ve got’a say, I’ve always loved to hear missionaries tell their stories, and I really REALLY enjoyed the ones I heard this past weekend.

How about if I just hint at some of them?

There was someone from a new ministry called Rock Solid Refuge, which is like Teen Challenge, but geared for young men ages 14-18 who are having addiction issues.

A young man from my home town talked of going to Rwanda again this November-December to run a kids’ camp for the 4th year, and this time training their own people to run it henceforth.

A young woman from Tennessee talked of coming to the west coast in Canada to work in a friendship center for Muslim immigrants, and loving it.

A couple, friends of mine for the last 20+ years, are also working in that area, and the man focused his messages on Bible stories of Abraham and the Arab hospitality seen there, as they have come to know it working in that same Friendship center - among other things.

In the city sessions I heard two missionaries twice. One young woman has worked in Mexico City for ten years, part of her time with university students who come to her English club and part of it with street kids. She struck me as a great woman of prayer. I asked to correspond with her.

The other was a veteran missionary to Japan, and he described how differently they must go about planting churches in Tokyo, and then at the closing Rally, how they had found ways to help with the disaster relief after the earthquake and Tsunami earlier this year. I was quite impressed!

Maybe the most profound statistic that lingers with me, is that 20,000 people lost their lives in that disaster, but 30,000 Japanese take their lives by suicide each year - for the past 10 years! That is an even greater spiritual disaster!

This is odd. In the last few weeks or so I have given away or sold several laptops. Remember, I said several people had given me their cast off laptops, and I’ve done what I could to fix them.

Three weeks ago tomorrow, I gave a working but rather old one to a new volunteer who is to learn to help me with the website for the mission, but really needed to polish her typing skills. It had Windows 98 on it, but was so old it had no CD drive, no USB port, and could only accept floppy drives. But for typing practice that would do fine.

Then my friend came to see what I had, and she decided she would like to buy the biggest and best. I winced a bit at letting it go, but she was willing to pay me for it, and she is a very dear friend. However, its battery was dying, so I’ve ordered a new one for her. Her purchase price covers all my expenses in upgrading it.

But then she called again, and said that a handicapped young man that she cares for one day a week wanted to know if I had another laptop with Windows 98 on it. He would like to play some old games on it.

Hmm… well, I did have another one, and although I couldn’t get a bigger hard drive in it, it does work, and it has Windows 98, and it comes with a nice case and some extras in the case. I had put my genealogy database on it, but - okay, if he’d pay for my expenses in upgrading the RAM, then I’d let him have this one.

Very often when I give up some things that I thought of as treasures, the Lord brings me newer and better things to replace them. I wonder what He is going to bring in to my life next.

I’m not a coffee-drinker, but my friend Kathy gave me a packet of the hot chocolate from this company she has joined. I am partial to hot chocolate; it tasted quite good, and did give extra energy as she said. It has taken me a while to get around to researching this company, but finally, today I did.

SereniGy puts a mushroom/herb into their products that is known all over Asia for its energy-giving and healing properties. It’s most common name is Ganoderma. My third party (outside of this company) research shows that some people seem to have an allergy to this ingredient, however, the vast majority who try it rave about the benefits they enjoy from drinking this SereniGy coffee/tea/chocolate.

So I’ve ordered some samples that I can give away (hey, Christmas is only two months away as of today!), and I can refer people to my replicated website and - well, I’ll just see whether this can also be an income stream for me. www.SereniGy.com/Bouquet

I don’t want to tell you what you must do, but it looks like a good idea, and you should check it out for yourself. I think I made my final decision when I saw the

video about the orphanage in Kenya this company supports.

What do you pay if you buy fine coffee in a restaurant or Starbucks? Remember, I don’t drink coffee, so I don’t know. I think I’ve heard $5/cup - is that true? Well, it seems these work out to under $1 or $2 a packet or cup.

So if it should happen that you like the flavour, and have no reaction to the Ganoderma, it might be smart to switch, right?

If you don’t want to be a distributor, you can just sign up as preferred customer. (I’m just not sure it is available outside of North America). www.SereniGy.com/Bouquet

Did I mention last week that I was fighting off a head cold and serious cough at the same time as all the fall-out from Mousie’s work, and the events of Thanksgiving weekend were going on?

Well, it got worse, so that by Thursday of last week I was willing to go see my doctor. (It takes quite a bit to make me willing; I only go to the doctor when I’m at wit’s end). I told him that I thought it had become pneumonia, and he did not argue. He just gave me a prescription for an antibiotic, and assured me that I would feel better in three days. His parting shot was “don’t go shopping.” From that I assumed that I might be infectious.

I got the Rx filled right away, and went back to the office. Good thing I work alone, so it didn’t have to bother anyone else that I was slouching a lot, leaning on my elbows, and hanging my head, when I wasn’t coughing fit to snap it off. I got up and made myself one hot drink after another to relax my chest muscles - which were exhausted.

Gradually, day by day I did feel better. The coughing didn’t come from quite as deeply any more, and by Sunday I was feeling quite well, until I tried to speak. That triggered coughing fits. I did go to church but I wore a huge red pashima scarf around my shoulders, pinned with a dramatic broach, and I coughed into the scarf anytime one came on.

A restful afternoon in the recliner was good for me.

Today I dared to walk to the office again instead of driving, as I had the last two weeks; I feel myself again, except for those ‘out of the blue’ coughs that still come. My antibiotics are finished tomorrow night at midnight, and I trust my cough will be all gone by then. If not, I’ll just keep up with more of my supplements and home remedies.

Saturday night I learned on the net that Vicks Vapo Rub on the soles of my feet, then putting socks on can keep me from coughing all night! I’ve done that three nights nights now. What a great tip!

In fact, did you know that when you finish a spell of antibiotics you should really load up on acidophilus (like in Yogurt) and other probotics to put good bacteria into your gut again? Otherwise you’ll just be susceptible to another infection or virus and go through all that again. I know, as that was the chorus to my Mom’s life.

A friend called last night to ask my advice about buying a laptop. She’s recently begun to live alone again, and felt she needed something to check her emails, Facebook, and maybe save some photos. I know her well enough to realize that is the extent of her computer use, so I advised her to go look for the smaller Notebooks or Netbooks. The price of them has come down quite a bit lately, to around $200 and so there is no need to spend $600-800 for a full-sized laptop.

A lot of people buy more computer than they really need, so they spend more than they would have to for their purposes.

In fact, if you can hold off until closer to the Christmas season, or after, you’ll find even better prices and specials as you watch the flyers and ads for the stores you have in your area. Or you could go shopping online too.

The fact is that as the iPads, and similar devices grow more popular, even laptops will come down in price. Desktops are already slipping into the background in some places. It’s all a matter of supply and demand.

For a while people were giving me their cast off desktops. Now I have received a few laptops. They are a bit harder to fix, but it can be possible.

This next weekend I will be trying to attend two different missions’ conferences. I am to set up a display at my former church in Neuanlage village, and I also want to attend some sessions of the C&MA Missions conference in the city.

At my display is where I should have a laptop ready with a powerpoint looping over and over. I must try to set that up by Friday night.

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On Friday evening I turned on my computer and hoped to listen to BBN radio, which is my company and wallpaper and atmosphere all day long, both at the office and at home. However, I couldn’t get online. I rebooted and tried several things and then - I remembered. Once before about 3-4 years ago, a mouse had chewed into my phone line and killed my phone and my computer’s ability to go online.

I pulled on the line behind my long desk, and also crawled under it to check, and sure enough. Another mousie had chewed into the phone line coming from the jack in the wall. My phone was dead and although the computer started up, it could not go online. Finding a very short, but working line I got the phone to work. It wasn’t long enough to reach the router or computer though.

This was our Thanksgiving weekend with a lot happening. So I gathered up that phone line to try to get a replacement AFTER Priscilla and Barry’s wedding on Saturday at 11 am. with the reception in the early afternoon. I was home shortly after 3 and drove around the city looking for a place to get that line replaced. Finally got it downtown, and it was free from Sasktel.

I hurried home to try it. I still could not get online to play BBN radio.

But then it was time to leave for church where we were having a banquet to celebrate the church’s 25th anniversary. It was a lovely, scrumptious turkey meal, (my second one of the day), and the program after wards was well worth it.

However, as soon as I got home I called up Sasktel Support to ask if I had somehow connected the cables wrong. The man said that my router had ‘fried’ from a short on the line. I should swap it for a new one. He pointed out that the jump.ca stores would be open on Sunday.

So Sunday after church, I stopped at the Midtown Plaza, but that kiosk/store didn’t have any. He suggested I go to Circle and 8th Street Mall. What? Clear across the city?

I went home and confirmed with my brother Tom, that I was bringing a turkey meal over about 5:30, and that I could bring along a friend who had no family to celebrate with this weekend. Then I put the turkey in the oven and peeled potatoes for the crockpot and made a dessert. I worked a bit on a newsletter and then I laid down for a bit, as my cold was not completely gone.

At 4 pm I jumped up, turned the oven down, and headed across the city. There are two malls at that intercession. It turned out to be at the second one, but I got a new router, with no questions asked.

Then I picked up Shannon, and went home to pack up our meal to take to Tom’s. (Yes, I considered bringing him over to my place, but my brittle bones are no match for his wheelchair. I find lifting it in and out of my trunk rather hard). We enjoyed the turkey meal there, and then when I finally got home to my dirty dishes, I put off washing them until I’d tried out the new router.

(Sigh!) It still wouldn’t work. So I call Support again. This techie could see that my router was working, so the problem had to be with my computer now. I went to clean up the leftovers and my dishes, but I knew what I had to do.

[continued in "What's New"]

Yes, I know that the Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday of October. But I had been tentatively planning to upgrade my operating system on my home computer, and since that can sometimes take all day, and because Tom is quite accommodating, I planned - as do many Canadian families - to have our special Thanksgiving meal on Sunday evening instead of Monday.

Good thing I like turkey meat as that meant I had three such meals in two days!

It is quite likely that you have a Windows operating system. Maybe Windows 7, or you might still be on Windows XP. About $200-400 of what you pay for a new computer is paying Bill Gates for the Windows operating system. However, I switched to Open Source systems some years ago, and those are free, but generally you do the installation yourself. There are enthusiastic devotees and volunteers who are constantly finding ways to improve and upgrade those systems, (and there are dozens of ‘em!) So maybe once a year or two, I take time to install the latest versions of my favourite openSUSE. Version 11.4 had come out earlier this year, and since I was having several small irritating problems with 11.3 I chose to upgrade yesterday.

It can take an hour or two to do one installation, but if I’m not quite happy with that, I’ll do it over another time or two. In this case the first install went super well, and it intuitively found the new router and connected online, but since it was a basic install from a DVD and not installing from online (as I do at the office), I had to install my favourite programs after that. That took a lot longer. I believe it was nearly 4 in the afternoon when I rebooted again, and hurrah! all my files and emails were in place, and I could get BBN and back to work!

Now I’m back at the office, ready for work, feeling a bit wrung out from the cold. It is now in my vocal cords and slipping into my lungs. I haven’t spoken to anyone yet, but what is there of my voice is very low!

Linux and Microsoft Windows differ in philosophy, cost, versatility
and stability. You pay for Windows systems and programs, except
for Shareware, (which you are suppose to buy once you have tried
it out). Bill Gates has set up with computer factories to install a
Windows system by default. He also pays a large number of techies
to keep designing Windows to be better.

Steve Jobs of Apple, who died last week, did the same thing, but Mac
folks work with a similar UNIX base as the Linux people, except we
don’t have any one person making heaps of money. The man who
invented the linux kernel attached a license which says that you have
to allow others access to the core kernel and anyone can do what
they want to improve it. No one can get possessive.

You may only be familiar with Windows, like the majority of the world.
Though I don’t want to tell you what to put on your computer, I’m can
inform you that Linux is catching up fast.

If you download and install it yourself, Linux is free,
It is much more secure and we laugh at malware that plagues Windows.
The 14 fastest supercomputers in the world run on Linux.
At installation the linux system intuitively recognizes most hardware,
no CDs for drivers are needed. (great improvement in last 10 years).
A linux installation can be customized for each user on the computer.

If you want to know more, check this long page here;
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Windows_and_Linux

Or this easier to read page;
computerhope.com/issues/ch00575.htm

If you’d rather just stick with Windows, but recognize that you need
some help understanding some things, and want that info in plain
PEOPLE-SPEAK, not techie talk, then you’ll be glad to discover the
Newbie Club. Free to join, but they have some good e-books for sale
that can help you get the most out of your computer.
NewbieClub.com

My tree of the golden leaves has gone naked. The other tree in my backyard still has mostly green leaves. No, I cannot explain that.

Saturday I raked up four big bags full of leaves from the front and backyard areas. I didn’t even get to the car area and in the back alley. There’s still one barrel of rain water to carry out to the garden by watering can, but after my good neighbour to the east brought me a wheelbarrow full of compost for my garden I boldly asked him for another favour and he tipped over the smaller barrel under the lilacs where the water had become quite putrid.

Sunday afternoon I gave one hour to stand in the Prolife Chain downtown at Idylwyld and 22nd Street. The sun came out while there, and so squinting into it, I cheerfully smiled at the public stopping at the intersection and then driving on. If they honked in approval, I waved at them to thank them.

I also had friendly conversations with the university student on one side of me, and the woman in a wheelchair on the other side.

A CTV news camera man came around panning us with his big camera, and even set it up on his tripod in front of us for a while. He spoke to some others, not me, but I was pretty sure my face would show up on the 6 o’clock news. We didn’t mind for many other times the media has completely ignored our witness.

Sure enough after church that evening, Lorna came up and said, “I saw you on the news tonight!”

Say, do you believe that if you brag that you have not had a cold for a year, then you get one? I did that after the morning service, and before bedtime I was beginning to have a very sore throat. It was still a problem yesterday morning, but by the evening (after we had finally exchanged those organs), I began to sniffle and drip at the nose. Today I admit to having a full-blown cold.

Considering where all I have been over the weekend, and mixing with strangers, it is probably no surprise, but I have this sinking feeling that I should not have said to Christine that I had not had a cold since I followed my doctor’s suggestion last year in July to increase my vitamin D. Doesn’t it happen that we are attacked at the very point where we have some pride?

But then, now I hear that there is a lot of flu and colds going around. So maybe I just need to carry on with my various home remedies, keep to myself for a few days, and trust that it will all clear up before Priscilla’s wedding on Saturday mid-day, and the 25th Anniversary banquet at church in the evening.