New doors

I think I mentioned that we had been planning to use some inheritance money to buy a flat in a beautiful holiday resort.

It fell through, because they were never able to provide an adequate lease document.  They offered an insurance policy in its place, to cover costs if some unknown landowner were to arise i the future.  But fundamentally the lease didn't clarify which parts of the building we were actually buying.  So we pulled out, and decided instead to upgrade the bathrooms in our house.

but no plan lasts long with my wife around.  She spotted a cheap flat in our own town, and today we viewed it, and put an offer in while we were still walking back down the stairs.

It will be interesting to see what happens next -  will the Lord open the door or close it?

The seething hatreds in the office kitchen

Group A comprises those (mostly) men who only wash a cup (and only their own) at the end of the month if it has visible mould colonies growing in it.

Group B comprises those (mostly) women who will wash every cup in their team fastidiously every time and will polish every tea spoon to a dazzling shine. 

Group A hates group B.  They block up the kitchen and cause queues of thirsty men to build up while they fuss over futile OCD cleanliness.

Group B hates group A - those filthy lazy disease-ridden monsters who infect the whole office with fungal spores - Yeuch!

Of course most people are somewhere between.   I confess I am 95% of the way into group A.   I chain-smoke coffee, so I am only ever topping up my cup, quickly nipping into the kitchen between jobs, and cursing those women that have taken up residence so that I can't get to the boiler.  I trust that the regular flushes of fresh boiling water kill the germs.  Even though I know it doesn't work that way.  I know the women think I am a disgusting pig.  True.  But it's also true that they go over the top and take to long.

Dizzy and anxious

Had to attend a training course at work for a new bit of software on Wednesday.  I went along to the venue expecting someone to talk us through it all.  But after a few introductions, we were set onto doing it via an e-learning package.

Now, I have no problem with e-learning.  But when you are put in a room full of people who are all doing the same course, and who are all clearly romping ahead of you, you start to feel left behind.  You start to try to keep up.  You feel you don't have time to read the screen that the instructions relate to, so you click through the instructions but are really just going through the motions, not learning anything at all.  A feeling of panic rises inside you.  The others are all finishing and leaving, but you still have two modules to complete....   Eventually, you push your chair back and say "It's giving me a migraine".

The tutor was very helpful, and talked me through the key part.

But why did they not just do that in the first place?  If they want us to do e-learning, why not do it at our normal desks so we can go through it at our own pace?

I'm an intelligent chap and computer literate.  I just didn't have time to read each screen.  I think the others were more familiar with the topic tat the software is for than I am, so I was having to learn more than them.  But I did feel really lost, dazed and confused.

Off the rails

So confessed my son in an email.

He is supposed to be handing in his final project report and doing his final exams at a top university, but he has been hit by an attack of medical depression.

I am told there is a distinction between medical depression and lazy.

So over the last couple of days Mrs. and I went to visit him to give a hug.  We will fetch him home this Sunday, and after a rest period look to see what the future holds for him.

Software licensing ethics

My daughter was about to buy a copy of Photoshop.  But of course it was a cheap version, not really legit.  I gave a lecture accordingly.

Later, having just bought a new laptop which I needed (honest(?)), I came to move my Office onto it.  It is a 'professional' version which I bought some years ago because I do small amounts of business on it and so felt I should get a proper license.  But, now that I looked at the disk again, I find that it says 'only for distribution with a new PC'.  I think that this is one of those truths that I have suppressed in my mind, that having gone to the trouble of trying to get the legitimate software I still ended up with a cheap i.e. illegal copy.

Plus, having noticed this while I was loading it onto the machine, I said "well, Lord, if you are going to forgive me for this one misdemeanour, please let it work".   It failed.

So it looks lke I am going to have to spend a further un-budgeted £213.    GRRR!

All religions lead to God ... ?

Such is the teaching of the church I an currently attending as a refugee from my own.

I don't think I will make it my permanent place of worship!

May notice: nativity.

We have just booked to go to Bethlehem this Christmas, as our silver wedding anniversary celebration.

Diocesan response

They are offering my wife the choice to use a conciliation facility to resolve her differences with our vicar.

We will of course look bad and ungrateful and unchristian if we decline. 

But the truth is; this offer is derisory.  If she had been sexually abused, they would clearly not offer conciliation.  It's not the sort of thing where you can just day sorry, there has to be a reckoning.  Similarly, for a woman who has been psychologically abused for ten years, it is demeaning, a further insult, to suggest that it can be fixed by conciliation.  Conciliation will not restore what she has lost.  And even if through the process he comes to allow her more recognition in the church, she will always know that he does this under compulsion not because he talky believes in her.

The offer of conciliation shows that they have not understood the depth of the damage inflicted on her.  But furthermore it holds the subtle but really cruel suggestion that this is not a perpetrator and a victim but a battle of equals, and it implies that she has wronged him as much as he has wronged her and that she has to give ground to him. 

So we shall decline the inappropriate suggestion of conciliation.

The options available to them were:
1) no further action
2) let the case rest on file
3) conciliation
4) apply a penalty with the consent of the defendant
5) full tribunal.

We are pleased that they have not tried to get away with 1or 2.  We are not accepting of the 3 they have selected.  The vicar does not seem to be the penitent type who would accept 4.  So we will press for 5.

Vicar is only 18 months off retirement, so he may try to stri
ng it out until he can leave the organisation and escape it's disciplinary procedures.

Please pray for this process to ultimately bring justice.

Feeling a little better theologically. But not much!

Had a conversation with Mrs last night. Quite tense at times.

She reassured me to some degree that it is only little parts of thhe Bible that she challenges, she still respects it overall. And she emphasised quite strongly that she LIVES the gospel, and so takes issue with my suggestion that she is undermining it. But I can't really agree that it is 'little parts'.

She says:
Daniel is a myth
John's gospel was severely editted and added to by others - so for example the bit about being 'born again' was a later addition
Many of Paul's letters were not by him.
The parts that were written by Paul include his [sinful] prejudices

So basically, what is left?

As Paul says, "He who has broken one part of the law has broken all of it".

New grief

For once not related to my wife.

I found out today that a colleague died last saturday.

He was a really nice guy, with a gentle personality. A pleasure to work with. He was only in his late thrities. It's very sad to see him go.

I suppose death must come to everyone one day and so the only issue remaining is the timing. No matter whether we live 1 day or 100 years, we still live the whole of our life.

But it has been hard to focus on work today.