Tribute to My Mother

2008 will go down as a very tough year for me. I have been plagued with computer problems, an injured foot, having to move unexpectedly, along with many other problems in my life. If that were not enough, for the past few years I have had to watch from far away my mother slowly decline in health. She has been very ill for the past decade but her struggles ended on November 12, 2008.

My mother was an amazing person and to this day I do not know how she managed to have the energy to do what she did while I was growing up. While working full time and raising me as a single parent, she managed to get a college degree and attend law school. After passing the California State Bar, she got a job with the State Dept. of Health Services, where she moved up the latter to the highest level a person could rise to. The governor appointed her immediate supervisor. Her career was an accomplishment for any person, let a lone for a woman (and a single mother) at a time when women did not become attorney’s. I think my mother would be surprised if she were to pick up a copy of today’s Sacramento Bee and read it.

To read Donna Hyatt’s obituary news story:
http://www.sacbee.com/obituaries/story/1416558.html

The following was sent to me by one of her co-workers:

It is with great sadness that I learned that Donna had passed away. As a 31 year Medi-Cal employee and now the head of Medi-Cal, I want to pass along my thoughts and prayers to you.

During her tenure in our Department, Donna meant a lot to me and was a great counsel and advisor to the program. I personally learned so much from her and she gave great advice and representation.

Donna worked on issues that made a difference to the people of California . Her work made a major contribution to the health of the people served by Medi-Cal, low income families, children, pregnant women, seniors and persons with disabilities. People’s lives in California are better because of the work that Donna did. She is very much a legend in the Medi-Cal program.

I spent many hours working with Donna and will always remember them fondly.

I wish you the best and will always be grateful for the work done by Donna to make the world a better place.

Thank you.
Stan Rosenstein
Department of Health Care Services

Life Comes At You Fast

WOW! Boy has time flown by.

A lot has changed since my last post. If you subscribe to the newsletter then you know what has been going on with me. But for those of you who do not subscribe, I share the following newsletter:

Life Comes At You Fast
By Kiri Christina Hyatt, 2008 ©

Here in the USA there is an auto insurance company whose TV commercials are metaphors for life and has spiritual application. In each commercial something totally unexpected happens to a person’s brand new car. For example, in one commercial a huge can of paint falls from a hanging scaffolding onto a parked car. The fire department immediately shows up, pushes the car out of the way, then goes to work rescuing the painter from the dangling scaffolding. Seconds later a delivery truck slams into the new car totaling it. Then, as in every commercial, the announcer says,

"Life comes at you fast, Nation Wide (insurance) is on your side".

Sometimes life does come at us fast. Sometimes it comes at us so fast we barely know what hit us. That is how 2008 has felt for me.

Unexpected Event Number One

At first the year seemed like any other year. Nothing much out of the ordinary, but by the end of the month I was having some computer problems. Nothing to alarming but all these strange problems prompted me to back up everything on my hard drive: a task I had been neglecting. Then the first week of February my hard drive died.

I spent the next few weeks trying to recover from that catastrophe only to discover something had gone terribly wrong with the back up feature included with Windows. I had never had a problem before using that program, but this time the program had totally failed me. I finally figured out how to solve the problem on a few of my backup files, but even to this day a number of files, including articles I had written for future newsletters, along with medical articles, book reports, the web site, office information, the accounting, and more documents seem to be totally lost. I am baffled as to what happened and will never trust the Window’s backup feature again.

Unexpected Event Number Two

Before I had a chance to fully recover from the hard drive failure, another unexpected event would come at me. I had lived in my former apartment complex for a long time and though I never really liked the place, it was in a good location. The complex needed a lot of repairs but it was just too much work and too expensive to move. During the past year though the physical environment in my apartment complex deteriorated to the point that on February 20, 2008 an announcement was made that all residents would be relocated due to toxic mold. Since moving out, an Environmental Mold consultant was hired who found Stachybotrys in my unit and other toxic molds in other units.

Starting from the day after the announcement was made, my life became extremely hectic and stressful. My former complex has 100 units and all of us needed to find a new place to live immediately. The problem is there was a limited number of complexes from which to choose from. Often over twenty individuals would express interest in a specific complex that only had one or two vacancies available, so a lottery would take place to award the available apartment(s). In the end God answered my prayers and I wound up with a wonderful apartment. But for three weeks my life was in total chaos as I visited complexes, filled out paperwork and packed to move.

Unexpected Event Number Three

On March 12, 2008 the movers arrived and by that afternoon I was in my new apartment. I was thrilled. I now lived in a nicer bigger apartment, a nicer complex, and across the street from a lovely park. I could not be happier. I wrongly assumed that as soon as I unpacked all those boxes and got organized, my life would settle down and I could get back to work. I forget that sometimes life comes at you fast.

On March 13, about 25 hours and 30 minutes after the movers’ left, I twisted my foot. I was simply walking when I stepped into a parking lot and my foot twisted causing intense pain. Eventually I would be diagnosed with a fractured navicular bone and a sprained ankle. I spent several months in an air cast and on crutches, even forced into a wheel chair. Three months after being injured I am still struggling with tendonitis and lots of inflammation, making walking very painful. So far I have endured more then 2 months of physical therapy three times a week.
Breaking a foot is hard enough, but to do it the day after moving is a nightmare. Trying to cope in an apartment full of boxes while unable to walk was a difficulty I do not wish on anyone. All I can say is that sometimes life comes at you/us fast.

When Life Comes At You Fast

If a similar scenario had occurred in your life, do you know how you would react? Are you the type of person who breaks down in tears when life comes at you fast? Or do get angry? Maybe you stuff your emotions? We all react in specific patterns, do you know how you react? Is your way of reacting hurting you and others? Is it displeasing to God?

Like most people, there was a time in my life I simply reacted. I never thought about it. Some frustration would occur and I would react in a very predictable manner. Then I began to pay attention to how I reacted. Only then did I discover my particular pattern for responding to frustration, injuries, etc.

Do you know your particular pattern for responding to life? If you do not know, make a commitment to start paying attention. Ask the Holy Spirit to begin showing you how you respond to life’s frustrations.

Once you began to recognize how you react to frustrations and other life events, then you are ready for step two. Why do you react the way you do? Often there is a specific reason that can be traced from your childhood.

You may know exactly why you behave the way you do in certain situations, or you may be totally clueless.

If you are totally clueless, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you why you react the way you do. There is a reason. It may take awhile but the Holy Spirit will began to show you things about your life you never realized before. Be open to what He has to show you.

This is not a one-time prayer. Even though I had become aware of how I reacted in certain situations, I had no idea why. I knew the way I reacted was not good, but I had no idea why I reacted that way and no idea how to change. I just would react. Then later when I realized what had happened, I would ask God why? Why do I behave that way? Why do I get so upset when ______________ happens. It was a slow process but in time the Holy Spirit began revealing the answer to that question to me.

I am now at a place in my life where I know how I tend to react in certain situations and why I tend to react that way. I still have a long way to go in changing to a healthier pattern of behavior but I am making progress. So on March 13 when I twisted my foot I was angry (I knew my apartment was full of boxes needing to be unpacked so it was a terrible time to be injured), but at the same time I was aware of my old patterns of behavior and with God’s help I was able to make a conscience decision to not behave that way. That was a major victory in my life.

If you have never thought about how you react when life comes at you fast, I pray you make the effort to start doing so. God does not want us to be absent-minded when it comes to who we are. He wants us to know ourselves. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can get to know who we are, change our self-destructive ways, and become more like Jesus.

In closing I just want to state I have only shared the major events that have taken place this year. There have been numerous minor events. One such event was the host for the newsletter temporarily loosing the template for the newsletter and completely changing the site, so I have to learn it all over again. With all these problems hitting me at once and the pain of a broken foot preventing me from spending much time at the computer, I just have not been able to put new newsletters together, as I would have liked. I am very sorry for that. Hopefully during the next few months I can rectify that situation. Until then, the newsletters will be sporadic.
_____

I learned from a friend that hard drives have a warranty that goes beyond the warranty provided by the company that puts the computer together. Since I replaced my own hard drive I was able to check with the manufacture’s web site, which told me my four-year hard drive had a five year warranty. I followed the directions and shipped my dead hard drive off to the manufacturer who promptly shipped me a new in return. Keep this in mind if you ever experience a hard drive failure. Even if you pay someone to replace your hard drive, it is worth it to ask the tech for your old hard drive or for him to ship it off to the manufacture if it is still under warranty.

The 2008 Saga Continues

If you have not read last month’s post, you might want to do so. This really is part two of my last post.

I was hoping February would be a better month then January was, but so far that has not been the case. In essence, On Tuesday, February 5 my hard drive died. I have still not recovered but have made significant progress.

I have learned a few things from this experience. Today I will share one of those lessons. Never trust MicroSoft Backup. If you have never heard of this program, you can probably find it on your computer by going to start, programs, accessories, system tools, backup. But don’t worry about remembering this.

I have been using the backup feature since Windows 95. All backup does is condense files onto another medium. I have been using zip disks since 1998 to store those backup files. I used the system successfully with Windows 95 and 98. Then in 2005 I purchased a new tower and Windows 2000. I was shocked to learn that MS had changed the backup feature in Windows 2000 and it was no longer compatible with 95 or 98. With a lot of help from other people, I managed to restore my data from the zip disks onto a computer with Windows 98, then manually transfer them to the new computer. It was time consuming and laborious, but in the end successful.

I have continued to use the backup feature figuring it will be awhile before I can upgrade to XP. The problem is I have some very expensive software that is not XP compatible. So I reasoned that as long as I am using Windows 2000, using the backup feature was still safe. Well, it was not. Even though the only thing that has changed on this computer is the hard drive, not any of the software, the backup feature is proving to be a failure. The program just simply does not work. It took a lot of prayer and analyzing what was going on but I finally realized that for some reason the computer just did not know what program to use to open the backup files. The problem turned out to be the extensions were missing.

If you notice, all files have a two part name. The name may be "letter.doc". The first part "letter" is what you choose to name the file. Your name of you file is then followed by a (.) and then a 3 letter code that tells the computer what program to open the file with. In this case, Word would open letter.doc. Well, for some reason all my backup files were missing the (.) and the 3 letter extension (bkf) that told the computer these files are backup files. Starting with a file I could lose, I tried renaming the file, adding the (.bkf) to the file. I then went to the backup program to see if I could restore the file to my computer. It worked. So I tried another and another and another-each time it worked.

Since then I have discovered other problems. Not all of the files I backed up onto the zip drive actually made it onto the zip drive. I have never had this problem before, so I am totally baffled as to what happened. I think I have some backup files still around from 2005, but that still leaves a lot of missing items. Needless to say, this is a very frustrating problem and maybe a catastrophe. Some very important documents are missing.

The moral of this story-if you have important documents that you cannot afford to lose, save them to another medium such as a CD or external hard drive, but never never never use MicroSoft’s backup program.

Before closing I want to share something else I learned. While my computer tower only had a one-year warranty from the company I purchased it from, the hard drive itself had a longer warranty. Each hard drive has a label on it that reveals who produced the hard drive and when it was produced. In my case the hard drive was produced by Western Digital in late 2005. Western Digital hard drives have a five year warranty. So I went to their web site, requested a RAM, and sent it back to them. I just checked and they have received it. If all goes well, I will receive a new hard drive in the mail in about a month or two. Since a new hard drive can cost $70 or more, what I spent in shipping is well worth it. The web site says to wrap the hard drive in Styrofoam, but since I do not have it I used a lot of bubble wrap. Keep this in mind next time you have a hard drive failure.

Not My Idea On How To Begin The New Year

Well, The soup is simmering on the stove and I have a few minutes to share what is going on in my life. First I want to say that I am shocked at how much time has passed by since I lasted posted. I knew life had kept me from posting this month but I had no idea I have been so neglectful. I did not realize so much time had passed since my last post.

I had intended to make a New Year’s post but obviously I was unable to do so.

A few years ago I met a woman on the bus while visiting my mother in northern California. This woman is deaf and so all of our conversations basically consisted of passing notes, even though I had two years of American Sign Language in college. (It is true-if you don’t use it you lose it.) Well, I would see her every day on the bus as I went to see my mother and she went to work. I was only in California for a week but sometime during that week we exchanged emails and that friendship continued on after I arrived home.

After much prodding from this long distant friend I finally decided to sign up for Yahoo Messenger. It did make our occasional conversations much easier. Last year I decided Yahoo Messenger may come in handy in ministering to others. Besides being able to chat with by typing, Yahoo Messenger allows long distance voice conversations over the Internet for free. My only problem is I did not have a microphone. So in December I started looking around to see what was available. I also went to ebay, where I discovered I could get a web cam much cheaper then in the stores and it would come with a free mic. So after speaking to a tech friend, I made a bid and won.

For a web cam to work DirectX software is required. Downloading such software should be easy but something went terrible wrong for me. Having several techs tell me they had never heard of the problems that I was having ever taking place before did not comfort me. One tech even said it was impossible. Basically, my computer could no longer find any hardware. The computer still worked, as I was still able to get online, back up my data, and do many tasks. I just could not print, load pictures from my camera or do many other tasks. When I went into Device Manager I discovered it was empty. My computer simply could not find the hardware.

I had tech friends all over the country trying to help me but everyone was stumped. Finally I was left with no choice but to reload Windows. That solved my hardware problem but suddenly I received errors when trying to get on the Internet. After wasting a day trying to solve that problem I finally downloaded Internet Explorer again. In the end, I spend over a week trying to fix this computer. For the most part I am up and running again, though FrontPage 98, which I use to design the web site and another program are still not working. If you are familiar with FrontPage and tech savvy, please contact me.

I have never desired to be a computer tech but over the years the Lord has given me opportunities to learn. The experience does come in handy when I have a problem, saving me from having to pay someone to help me. But lately I have been getting a lot of experience.
In December my neighbor asked me to look at his computer. With the help of a tech friend who lives in Illinois, it was determined the hard drive was fried. I borrowed several books from the library and am now prepared to replace his hard drive, just as soon as he has the money to buy a new one.

In early January a friend from Church complained about how slow his computer had become. I have been over to his house to clean old files and Spam off the computer and look for any other possible causes. He may need a new battery.

A few weeks ago an elderly church friend contacted me asking for help in setting up her new notebook and a lesson in how to do email. I still have not been able to get together with her, but it is on my to do list.

So here is a little update as to what I have been doing. I hope your New Year has gotten off to a better start then mine. And I promise to try and do a better job of keeping everyone informed of my activities.

Back to the reason all my computer problems began. If you have Yahoo Messenger and desire to speak to me about any spiritual issues, I am available by appointment. To do so please email me at ao_communities@yahoo.com and share your desire. We can communicate via email, chat or talk using Yahoo Messenger. But first you must email me and make your desire known. I do not chat with total strangers who contact me out of the blue.

This photo is the view I woke up to looking outside my apartment window on an early January morning.