The Life of Lou Ruppert

Happy Easter, everyone.

I had a fun time today. An old friend who I once let stay with me returned to church today. It took me most of the service to remember his name! I hadn’t seen him in a few years, so my brain had put his name into storage, and I had to wait until my mind found the key to where it was kept. First his first name came to me, about twenty minutes into the service, and then his last name came ten minutes later. Finally, much later, I uselessly remembered his middle initial. It was fascinating how I had completely forgotten it, yet was able to recall it over such a long period of time. I couldn’t even begin to guess the biology of how that all works.

I went down to visit my family after service. They live a good hour or two’s drive out of town, all the way into another county. There is no mobile phone reception out there, because it is so remote. It’s out there far enough that the road near our house isn’t even paved yet. It’s a gorgeous drive, all through farm country, past horse farms, dairy farms, forests and logging operations, big plastic yuppie mansions, little dilapidated trailers and so on. It’s also in a colder climate zone, so it’s like driving back in time a couple weeks. There was still snow on the ground in places.

I am so thankful for the family God gave me. I could have been born to any family in the world, but I was placed in mine. They’re all good smart people, with practical skills and lots of creativity. With all of the bad families and broken families out there today, that really means a lot. We hung out for a few hours, guaranteeing I wouldn’t get any homework done tonight, but it was worth every minute I spent. I got there just in time for my parents’ first skype call. We talked with my youngest brother, who is still in college. Next holiday we’ll probably try to connect to my aunt and uncle who still live in New England. But that’s one more skill my parents have picked up as they approach retirement age.

My father was using the last of their winter squash today. That was perfectly timed, as the spring greenery should start coming up soon for them. None of the vendors at the local farmers’ market seem to have been able to produce squash that would last more than a couple weeks in my basement storage, but my father’s squash lasted as long as I kept them for. I don’t know why that is, but I was impressed to see one on their counter tonight, looking as fresh as it was on the autumn day it was harvested.

It was hard to leave to go home, but I always try to leave before dark so that I don’t have to worry about hitting big game on the way home. Deer tend to move about at dawn and dusk, and hitting one at highway speeds can total a car, if not kill the driver. I was lucky. I didn’t even see a deer, but I did have to stop for someone’s escaped goose who thought it would be a good time to hang out on the warm pavement. It’s a good thing I’d already slowed down because of the boneheaded yuppie in the late model Toyota that was tailgating me for a mile before. I slow down for busy farms anyway, but the unsafe behaviour of my pursuer made me slow down slightly more, making the difference between a somewhat urgent but comfortable stop and slamming on my brakes at the last minute. Sometimes even life’s annoyances can be blessings in disguise.

I had a great day today. I slept in until around 8am. I studied Arabic vocab until the noon church service today, and then I hung out with the people who wanted to hang out afterwards. We have an odd cliquishness amongst some of the people I know, which unfortunately played out today when the pastor couldn’t make it out to lunch. I won’t get into my opinions on cliquishness, since I’m trying to keep this positive. But what I will say is that it was a lot of fun, and very liberating to just have people around me who wanted to have fun, who don’t center their lives around a person or subset of persons, who were only interested in sharing the day with others, regardless of who they are, or who they know. We got our food quicker with 1/3 of the people missing. We all mixed with each other and enjoyed our time without being scolded away from empty seats or trying to connect with people who are too busy craning their heads to see what is at the other table.

OK, maybe I will say something about cliquishness and exclusivity: I don’t understand it. I’ve never needed a particular person to be around in order to be happy. Even when I’ve been in serious committed dating relationships, I’ve always been able to find fulfillment in whatever group of people I happened to find myself with. I guess in a way I feel sorry for people who live lives so limited that they never try anything new, who stagnate in the company of only those people who think exactly as they do. I’m thankful I’m a recovering nerd who always hung out with whoever would have me, because now I’m that “whoever” to anyone else who may need me.

So, today I feel kind of connected with Jesus. He was that “whoever” guy to a lot of total freaks. In fact the only “presentable” “important” people we read about in his life were the people who ended up betraying him. So, in that sense, I’d have to say that this was the best Good Friday ever.

I watched TV for a couple hours last night, and took a long lunch today. (Normally I eat it at my desk while reading blogs and wikipedia.) The nagging question I have is whether that counts as wasted time, since I’m behind on my projects as it is, and am always complaining about not having enough time to do everything, or is it needed recreation in order to be able to stay focused at all during the other portion of the day?

My inner bean-counter is screaming about the two hours of television. I might as well be an executive returning from a business trip with receipts for an all you can eat caviar bar and a whorehouse. My vocab tonight, by comparison, took just over an hour to enter. If I hadn’t made the extravagant “time purchase” of two hours of staring at the television last night, I could have been done with my Arabic vocab and could have spent tonight studying it or working on one of the eleven assignments. Or is that not true?

I was pretty exhausted last night, and pretty burnt out from two hours of class in the afternoon. It’s doubtful I would have gotten the vocab entered in only a bit over an hour, if I’d attempted it last night. Chances are, it would have taken two hours easily, and with a lot of mistakes. Meanwhile, I would have been soured on the whole study thing and probably wouldn’t have bothered to do any of it tonight, if I only had an hour to spend on it, and would have ended up worse off than I was by taking the time out to unwind. But did I really need two hours, or would one have sufficed, allowing me to get to bed early and rest my tired brain?

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Even God, master of the protestant work ethic, demands that we take one day out of seven to relax and unwind and spend time being thankful and unburdened. Jesus would frequently take time out of his speaking/miracles schedule to go unwind and check out nature, or pray, or catch up on some sleep. Laziness, or sloth, is a sin, but you could also argue that overwork is too. We’re only human. The time to smell the roses isn’t just when we’re weeding under them or rocketing past them on the riding mower. It’s good to stop from time to time and enjoy something with the same purity of focus that we spend on our work.

I may have squandered two hours last night, and probably an extra one for lunch today, but in the long view of things, I’ve probably more than broken even. Things are still in working order.

I wrote my first complaint letter tonight. A local supermarket seems to have a security compromise that resulted in me getting spam email to the account I created for my shoppers club card. They didn’t answer the email complaint I made a few weeks ago, so I wrote them an actual paper letter and cut up my card to put in it. I haven’t even mailed it yet and I feel great already. Really, I hope they can find a way to assure me that they won’t mess up my private information again, but at least I’ve said my piece. I’ll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, I’m only a third of the way through making the flash cards I won’t have time to study this Easter weekend, and haven’t even begun to review the eleven assignments my Arabic teacher decided to give us, or study for the test on Wednesday. And now two friends have called to beg up rides to tomorrow night’s Bible study, because the guy who normally drives them has decided he wants to do something else. At least I can honestly say that I haven’t felt unneeded or bored in a very long time!

Despite being behind schedule from a busy day of working at half capacity due to some cold or allergy that’s been killing my sinuses, I still found time to talk to my mom on the phone tonight. So many people blow off friends and family in order to squeeze out an extra ten or fifteen minutes’ productivity, only to find years later that their lives have passed them by, and that they won’t get a second chance to spend ten minutes talking with their mom, or an hour having a pint with an old friend. I’m busy most of Sunday afternoon for my church Easter pot-luck, but I’m still going to make the hour drive afterwards to visit my parents, and try to catch the uncle and the brother I never see. Recognizing what is irreplaceably important while I still have it is what I hope will prevent me from spending my retirement years in bitter regretfulness.

So, my Arabic homework is not done, and my house isn’t as clean as it could be, but I know how my family is doing. And I lent my church key to some friends who needed a quiet place to pray. And I talked with another friend who is feeling under the weather, and we encouraged each other about the great times we’re going to have this summer, and this month. So, though my to do list would beg to differ, I got everything done today that I needed to.

I finally got my invitation written for my annual Dandelion Wine party. Each spring we introduce the previous year’s wine at a party that takes place a week or two before the dandelions bloom. Last year, I experimented with making a written invitation to hand out to friends and acquaintances, and it was a huge success. So, this year I did the same thing. It’s a combination sales pitch and cartoon, so it takes a fair amount of work.

I also got caught up with all but the last three exercises of the twelve assigned to us last week. And I did my grocery shopping, and picked up coffee. It’s great being able to catch up with things that have been piling up. I even got a chance to watch some TV.

None of that compares to being able to sleep in until after 8am. Cashing in a vacation day is worth it just for the rare experience of being able to wake up rested on a weekday. What a difference!

I didn’t make it online last night because I was busy decluttering my living room and dining room. It is so good to be able to sit on my couches again and to not have to tiptoe over boxes on the floor! I put on some good music and just decided to work on it until I got bored. All told, I think I put four hours into it, including fixing an old chair that I’ve been using as a footrest.

Today, the weather got unexpectedly nice, and I was able to go outside and walk around my yard a bit. I emptied out some old planters, sat in the sun for a few minutes, and discovered that my violets are in bloom. Inside the house, I discovered new shoots on my winter savory plant. Winter savory is like a fruitier version of thyme. My mother swears by it in her bean soups, and is always asking for more plants since she seems to use hers to death. If I remember correctly, mine is a cutting from hers, which was a cutting from one of mine that I killed. If that’s true, it will be fun to give her a cutting of a cutting of a cutting this spring. But in the meantime, it’s always exciting to see new growth on a plant that’s been dormant for months. Unexpected blessings are great kindling for hope.

Sometimes we just need to count what we’ve gotten done instead of obsessing over what we didn’t get to. Things keep coming up that bump the things I’d planned, but I still end the day ahead of where I started. I like that. Today I may not have done any homework, and certainly didn’t make any major strides at work, but I did drop off my taxes, finally.

And when I came home, there were two white crocuses I didn’t spot yesterday, visible even in the rain, and one gorgeous variagated blue-white one in the middle of my lawn. Where did that come from?! And my compost permit showed up, which means the next time I have a free Saturday, I can go load up on free compost at one of the county recycling centers.

It was a good day, even if I might not readily admit it to myself.

It was a beautiful day today, and I was glad to have five minutes of time to walk around outside and enjoy it. Both groups of crocuses were in bloom. The lighter ones were still going a week or more after their first bloom, and the darker ones around the birch stump were more vigorous than I’d ever seen them. It’s definitely the best crocus show I’ve had so far.

[caption id="attachment_298" align="alignright" width="300" caption="And there are so many of these guys this year, and such intense colors!"][/caption]

I love nature! It always has a few surprises in store, and reminds me that life isn’t all about planning and failure to plan. Luck and providence can also play a role too big to ignore.

Arabic was brutal today, and the teacher actually assigned more homework for the coming week than I struggled with last week. And you know what? I love it. Everyone needs a seemingly hopeless challenge to struggle against, and I’m lucky enough to have one that won’t impact me personally if I fail at it. But if I succeed, I’ll have the tools for a cheap Mediterranean retirement, and the means to write notes to myself that nobody will be able to read. That’s a pretty good tradeoff.

I am trying not to talk about work here on my blog, but since the subject is in the news, I have to say “told you so” about the Conficker thing. The virus and the botnet it connects to are an extremely impressive technical feat, but nobody’s going to do something that would jeopardize the spam-sending credit-card-stealing cash cow they already have.

Speaking of notes nobody can read, does anyone recommend any good web resources for explaining things like public key cryptography and filesystem encryption to fairly non-technical people? It dawned on me that I might save some time next time I do a privacy consultation for a client if I don’t have to translate the geekastani into normalish on the fly. Normally I’d mention Schneier’s book, but it’s a lot to read for one small segment, and might still be more in-depth than average people would understand.