Going Mac...

Technology wise, our home has gone through some pretty big changes. 

We used to be a home dominated by IBM.  We had Microsoft everything.  In a little more than a month we have totally switched over and are now running all Mac products.  (With the exception of my school notebook computer, which I can do nothing about.)  

It’s a whole new world.  

I had no idea technology could be so clear or user friendly.  

Not to mention the fact that I had to call in for some set up help with one of our new Mac products.  The details of which really don’t matter.   The first guy was unable to solve my problem, at which point he transferred me to his superior.  

The second guy was also unable to solve my problem, but vowed to do some research and get back to me in a day or two.  

Now, while I’m sometimes a bit overly trusting, I’m also not fresh out of school.  I’ve heard promises like this before and knew not to hold my breath.  However, this guy gave me his direct line phone number and told me to give him a call in a day or two if I hadn’t heard from him.  I was very impressed. 

To make a long story short, if that’s still possible, he solved the problem and everything’s back up and running like it should be.  

I think what I was most impressed with was the fact that this “Techie” could not only understand all the technical stuff, but he could also communicate with a non-techie.  This is not a common skill in the world of the truly computer literate.  

Like I said, my house is going Mac…

 

And once you go Mac, you never go back!

I just knew it

I’ve been going to church, a Baptist church, my whole life.  I don’t know when this strange thought first crossed my mind, but now I think about it whenever my church has communion.  

Unlike some denominations, that have the congregation move in rows up to the minister and he or she puts the communion wafer on your tongue and gives a sip of wine or juice, the Baptists bring both parts to you. 

When you’re a young boy who is still not ready to partake in communion, but who wants to very badly, the idea of having crackers and juice in church is more than a little appealing.  While I couldn’t have them, I always wanted to make sure I got to at least touch the communion trays as they were being passed down the pew.  

I remember as a young boy at First Baptist Church of El Paso Texas how massive the communion trays seemed.  Well, not so much for the first tray that held the tiny communion wafers (the body of Christ), but second tray that held the small cups of juice (the blood of Christ) was big and heavy and I was not allowed to hold them as they passed.  

Maybe it was because of how small I was.  Maybe it was how big they were.  Maybe it was the fact that accidents involving beverages were all too common around my house.  Who knows?  

Whatever the reason, somewhere back in my early childhood the idea of someone dropping that communion tray full of tiny glasses of juice seemed like the worst spill accident I could ever imagine.  

I know it must have happened somewhere to someone.  I mean, in the history of the Baptist's “take it to the masses” style of communion, you would think that at least one of these trays must have hit the floor…right? 

I’ve asked many people, but to date none have ever witnessed such a disaster.  In college, I even asked about 80 people in a Sunday School class, but nothing.  I mean nobody had even seen one glass of juice fall to the floor, much less the whole tray.  

Today, at Wilshire Baptist Church, all that changed. 

We were sitting about five pews from the back and I had just taken the juice tray from my daughter, gotten my cup and passed it to the usher, (being quite thankful that I hadn’t dropped it of course) when somewhere behind me the sound of a tiny cup bouncing on the tile floor caused me to whip my head around.  

I couldn’t see the actual cup and I couldn’t really tell which person dropped it, but it hit the floor all the same.  I must admit I was a bit relieved to see that no small kids were sitting on that pew.  Because of course they would have been blamed. 

I turned back around and tried to refocus my mind on the real reason for communion.  But I couldn’t get the thought of that falling glass out of my mind.  

I was somewhat amazed and quite pleased at how little attention this falling glass had received.  Melissa and Macy didn’t even know it had happened.  I dare say only a handful of people even new anything was wrong.  

I knew that kind of thing had to happen. 

 

I just knew it!  

I give up...or do I?

Back when gas was only about two dollars a gallon I enjoyed a large vanilla latte from Starbucks pretty much everyday.  It cost me about four dollars per latte, or twenty-eight dollars a week, but I didn’t mind.  However, as the prices at the gas pump started to skyrocket I, like most Americans, started looking for places I could cut back.  You know, things I could give up.  

When I realized that I was grumbling about spending right at $4.00 dollars for a gallon of gas, but then would happily pop into Starbucks and spend $4.17 for a 20-ounce latte (which works out to $26.69 a gallon!) I knew I had to give up my daily Starbucks fix. 

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t totally given up my venti, vanilla latte, but I have gone from enjoying one a day to only having one or two a month.  

Now what I do for my caffeine fix is either make it at home, or go to Exxon where a 20-ounce coffee is only about one dollar.  

This morning, I was standing in line at Exxon waiting to pay a dollar for my Bengal Traders Gourmet Coffee when I became nosey and started paying attention to the guy in front of me.  

It seems he only had ten dollars and wanted a snack, some cigarettes and some gas.  

After finding out that if he purchased both the snack and the cigarettes he wouldn’t even be able to buy a single gallon of gas he started trying to decide what to put back. 

Now, the choice seemed obvious to me and I desperately wanted to step forward and offer this poor man some of my newfound “latte give up” wisdom.  I didn’t, but the teacher in me was chomping at the bit.   

If he had given up the cigarettes, at five dollars a pack…that’s 1.25 gallons of gas.  That means he would have been able to buy his snack plus two a little over two gallons of gas.  

As it turns out, he slid the snack across the counter and purchased the cigarettes plus about $4.50 in gas.  

What really got me was the fact that this guy wasn't millions of miles away in some poor third-world country.  No, this was a guy living right here in Dallas and he was having to make financial choices that to me seemed rather trivial.  

That’s when I realized that things aren’t bad for me and I really don't have a clue what the rising means to most people.  Sure, I had to stop buying an expensive latte each day, but did I really?  

Truth be told I didn’t have to, I chose to.  Why did I choose to?  I think I decided to give them up because it makes me feel like I was being financially responsible, or something like that.  

As I walked out to my car with my coffee, I topped off my gas tank and looked over to see that I had just added $69.66 worth of gas to my mornings purchase.  And I felt a little strange.  

When it’s all said and done, do I complain about the price of gas?  I don’t go out of my way to, but when the topic of conversation rolls around, and it always seems to these days, I’m quick to report on the gallon price of a Starbucks latte and then mention how I gave them up to save some cash. 

I think I'm becoming a democrat right before your eyes.