Month: June 2007

It’s true. I am now a network engineer.

The lesson for us all, do not flush your underwear down the toilet.

Yesterday I received more details about the theft of the air conditioning units at my church. It was only six units that they hit, and they didn’t take the entire unit, but only the coils in it (scrap copper). What’s left behind is worthless, though.

The estimate for the replacement costs was in the neighborhood of $26,000.

Last night they came back and hit the remaining units. That’s probably about $45,000 more in replacement costs, but that’s just my guess right now. (They were different sizes than the first ones.)

Our property is covered with security cameras, so we have video footage of the thieves coming and going. You’ve seen such images on, say, news coverage of a bank robbery. You can clearly see that the suspect has two arms, two legs, one head, etc.

It’s Monday and I am reminded of one of my favorite one-panel cartoons. Two old black men wearing overalls are sitting on the front porch of a house in the country, guitars across their laps, and one holds up a tiny object and complains to the other, “It’s this *&^% Prozac. I ain’t had the blues in weeks!”

I’ve never understood “blue Mondays” or other excuses for being miserable. Oh, I understand being miserable all right. I used to do it whenever possible as a teenager. I wore sunglasses, even at night. I slumped. I wrote sad stories and I played sad songs. “Poor me.” One day I realized that nobody cared that I was so miserable. I thought that they should see me, feel my pain, commiserate, pet me, and admire my nonconformity. Instead they just went on about their lives and I found myself ignored. What a revolting development.

So I grew up, and I find that it’s much better up here. Now I wake up happy that I have another day to live in, and on Monday I’m happy that I get to start another week. Even though the week began yesterday, I have the same clock in my brain as everyone else and I tend to “start” on Monday. Who feels bad on Monday? I can’t understand it.

The morning’s work and study are done. A French-pressed cup of High Point coffee is smoking on the computer desk, and I’m about to hit the road and solve plumbing problems for people who need it badly. (That’s a tautology. By definition, if you need a plumber, you need him badly.) And they even pay me money. The temperature in Memphis was 72 degrees this morning and it’s 73 now. The air was ionized by some front that came through last night. It’s close to paradise.

Except for one thing: thieves came and stole the air condtioning units at our church last night. As I remember, we have about twelve. Well, we had about twelve. We’re at zero presently, and today is the first day of summer school at our K-12 Christian school. I guess if I were over there, I wouldn’t be in such a good mood. Those big honkers cost oh, $3,000 apiece, plus labor (I’m guessing). But that’s how the world has always been. Wherever anyone has been happy, he has been near others who were suffering.