Frustrated

July 14, 2007 (8:25am)
54º F, Rain, S wind, 4 mph.

Good morning,

So much for getting an early start on the day. This machine was messed up some for what reason I don’t know. According to all of the indicators on this thing, it said I was connected to the internet and everything waw hunky-dory, but .... I could not open any network page. After fooling around with it for about 3 hours - it worked! The frustrating thing is I don’t know what happened to cause the problem, or what it was that solved it. Sure would like to know both so I can prevent it or correct it next time it happens. I am sure it will too.

Looks to be a cool and rainy day today. It rained overnight and there have been showers off and on this morning so far. Some have been pretty hard ones too for a short time. We really can use the rain. Yesterday wasn’t too bad of a day. Cool and sunny for the most part. Nice working weather. Now if I had some ambition!

We brought the TV along up this last trip. Had a problem connecting it to the antenna. For some reason I could not get the 75 Ù cable connecter to attach to the TV. Finally did after picking up an adapter that didn’t work either. Tried one more time with out the adapter and everything connected as it should. So now we have TV at Guds Nordtre. Not sure if that is good or not. The stations we receive here are from Marquette and the reception is better than at FISKLAND. It is a bit confusing though. Marquette is in the eastern time zone, so all of the programs we watch generally are on at a different time. The 5:00 P.M. news is on at 6:00 P.M. at the station, but we watch it at 5:00 P.M.! One of the stations we liked to watch at FISKLAND is channel 5 from Green Bay. We cannot get 5 here, but we found that channel 3 here is channel 5 from Green Bay, on a translator. So ... if we want to watch 5's news at 5:00 P.M., we have to find it on channel 3 at 6:00 P.M.! Some of the syndicated programs are on ABC and NBC stations at the same time with the same program. This whole TV thing is way too complicated for this old Norwegian to understand, let alone try to follow!!!

Thursday I opened the National Church’s website to finish registration for the Churchwide Assembly. Much to my surprise and horror, the site was closed! I had thought the site was open until the 15th, only to find out it closed a week before. I had started the registration process a couple of months ago, but needed to get more information to complete it. I got the information, but with the moving and like that, entering it got pushed aside for a while. After a couple of frantic emails, I found out who to call at the National office. So .... as of yesterday afternoon, we are good to go.

The process was complicated too, as I had to get a flight from Sawyer International Airport to Chicago booked too before the registration could be completed. A few more phone calls and we were booked on a flight to Chicago and back. We are flying from Sawyer (American Eagle) on the morning of the 6th at 6:50 A.M. and returning from Chicago at 7:30 P.M. on the 11th. It is about a 2 hour drive to Sawyer from here and we have to be at the airport about 2 hours before the flight leaves. We probably will be leaving here about 3:00 A.M. to get there on time. Me thinks it will be a very long day, as will be the 11th!

I have been to Sawyer ( http://www.sawyerairport.com/ ) before, but when it was an Air Force Base. My ex-step-son, Bill, was stationed there for about a year when he was in the Air Force. We went up to visit him and stayed in one of the barracks overnight. The airport is actually located at Gwinn, Michigan some distance from Marquette. When the base was deactivated some years ago, there was a big rhubarb as to what to do with it. It is a sizable chunk of real estate. The main runway is something like 3 miles long. The tree-huggers wanted all traces of man removed from it and it turned into a wildlife preserve. That would be a shame with the millions of dollars spent over the years to build it. Also most of Upper Michigan is a wildlife preserve already and the Air Force did do a pretty good job of keeping most of the property wild already. The international airport was a good solution and most of the buildings and facilities have been turned into an industrial park. There still is a lot of land in wildlife preserve type status.

We will be staying at the Hyatt Hotel ( http://chicagoregency.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp ) while there. My stay is paid for, but we need to pay for Margriet as well as her seat on the plane. The cost of the room, just for her, is about double what we expect to pay normally for the both of us! But it will be a once in a lifetime kind of deal for us I think. The room we will be staying in is about ¾ the size of the Hobbit Hus! There is wireless DSL hook up for the computer, but for a fee. There also is no complementary breakfast. Lots of other stuff that we probably will not use.

I really thought I had messed things up on this deal. There are a lot of folks who I represent and who are depending on me. The folks at National and the airline reservation folks were very nice, helpful, and understanding. Don’t want to do that again though. We do have a meeting coming up in Appleton before we leave. Sure don’t want to mill that!

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris ><>