I replaced a computer at church recently and without funds to actually buy equipment or software I’m working with what I have to give or what others are donating.
The replacement of computers and the addition of high speed internet went well with one exception. The secretary had a MS Access database but there was no disk to be found that included Access. There was a retail version of Office 97 standard. The secretary confirm she was using 97 and that is all she needed but Office 97 standard doesn’t include MS Access.
So for a couple weeks the secretary has been asking for MS Access to be loaded and no one can find a CD with Access and no one wants to pay $200-300 for a new version of MS Access or the new MS Office suite. Then a thought crossed my mind.
What about all those people who do upgrade to new versions of Office? If they have a retail version of Office 97 Profession what do they do with it? It turns out that some people sell it on eBay.
With a quick search and the ‘buy it now’ option the secretary now has a retail version of Office 97 Professional (for a modest price) and is happily working again.
Thank you eBay and to the guy in Washington that stays current with his MS Office software.

I helped get DSL working at church tonight. The DSL setup went fine and all the computers were easy to setup except for one. Why is there always one? And why does the one take 3 times the time as the rest of the work?
I plan on replacing the offending PC soon so that it can do no more harm.

A glimpse into the good times we had at our youth lock-in.

Jenga!

Last weekend, we attended our church’s annual winter camp at Highland Retreat. Saturday, the day was ridiculously cold (and so was my shower that morning, by the way), but I donned my earphones and took a walk with Alison Krauss to enjoy the rustic beauty all around. Springsteen came along with us, too, just for kicks.

Saturday, we drove to Roanoke with 22 youth and 4 other adults from church to go to Winter Jam at the civic center. I’m wishing I had pictures to post here, but alas, we didn’t bother with our camera. We all had good times nonetheless, and I think the youth would say that the fun factor only increased when their youth leaders were being obnoxious while using a megaphone. I’m pretty sure that me yelling in their ears had nothing to do with them wearing ear plugs.

Skillet was my favorite band of the night. Mercy Me, Barlow Girl, NewSong, and Mandisa were also there with a few lesser known bands. You can’t beat paying just $10 for all that riot!