This weekend my poor benighted Kyocera Smartphone pretty much gave up the ghost. I had to contort it every which way for the headset to work (I’d given up on using it without the headset months ago). I had originally intended to hold out for the Sony Ericsson P900, but then finally admitted to myself I really didn’t need it, so I got the same phone I picked out for my parents, the T616, a little Bluetooth phone that syncs nicely with iSync on my PowerBook.
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Year: 2004
Dino and Jesus, my DirecTV Satellite Installer Team, arrived Monday about 11:30. They made quick work of the install, running the second line into my den and fishing the line into the guest room with ease. The Phillips DirecTiVo unit is very nice, and I love the Season Pass feature. Having two tuners is also very cool…can record Coupling and Aqua Teen Hungerforce at the same time while at rehearsal! The only drawback I’ve noticed so far is the lack of a 30-second jump forward button like I had on the Dishplayer…will just have to manually fast-forward through the commercials; oh, the torture! 😉
Subbed at Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church this morning for Sampy Wall. They had seven infants baptized at the 11am service. When the Rev. Nutter asked if anyone else was interested in joining them, a girl of about 12 or so stepped forward and said she would like to be baptized. When he asked her why, she replied that she wanted God to be always with her.
It made me feel really good to see her get baptizied this morning. I believe God is with each and every one of us, whether we acknowledge Him or not, whether we realize it or not.
The Bach Choir performed a song two years ago by Michael Horvitz, Even When God is Silent, the text of which came from a poem written on a basement wall in Germany by someone hiding from the Gestapo:
I believe in love, even when feeling it not.
I believe in God, even when God is silent.
(Our recording of it from the Thomaskirche in Leipzig in 2001)
I’ll be the first one to admit that I have been extremely blessed in my life. I have been given many talents, parents and a brother whom I couldn’t have chosen any better, friends who are kind, caring, and supportive, the list goes on and on. But even with all these advantages I still experience periods of questioning and doubt when things don’t go as I hope or I meet with obstacles or disappointment. But deep down I do know that He is there. Another one of my favorite quotes, from de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America:
I cannot believe that the Creator made man to leave him in an endless
struggle with the intellectual wretchedness that surrounds us.
[…]
I am ignorant of His designs, but I shall not cease to believe in them
because I cannot fathom them, and I had rather mistrust my own capacity
than His justice.
The installer scheduler, Terry, called me on Monday asking me to let him know when my package arrived, and we could then schedule the installation. Thebox from Direct Satellite arrived on time on Wednesday, so I called him up and he said he’d have a guy over in the morning, so I rearranged my clients so I could be there in the AM.
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Costanza and I stopped at Starbucks on the way to the funeral, since neither of us really knew what we were in for. The first part was held in a mosque in a converted church gym (or so it looked) in Patterson. There were seperate entrances for men and women, but both led to the same big room, with a divider down the middle. There was a tape of a muzzein playing, and men seated on floor all around the perimeter. I knew no one, since Eb and all his brothers were downstairs washing the body, and Costanza, his mother, his sister and sisters-in-law were all on the other side of the divider.
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