Simple computer stuff really sucks!

I use Eudora as my email program, both on my desktop machine and laptop, which I keep going side by side for various reasons, and today I had to add another email personality to both machines for magazine management reasons. Four hours later, after enormous frustration and a few breaks to vent steam with a walk down to the chicken coop, I succeeded. There were a few other long-lingering email problems that I also resolved, but basically it was my frustrating inability to deal with simple technology that exhausted me mentally by flat out pissing me off.

But why do I have to deal with technology that can’t be dealt with reasonably? Why doesn’t this stuff just work? Why do you have to be a computer geek on the side just to get your job done? I have other stuff I need to do, and now my day and composure have been wrecked by Eudora’s techno/geek quirkiness. How stupid can this computer technology be!

I’ll tell you what I think! I think we need a “throw your computer through the window” day. I’m so mad I could spit!

My friend, Pat Ward, the grand lady of Fall Creek Ranch, which straddles the Oregon/California border, died Saturday. Her beloved horse of many years, Navarro Prim, was found dead in a field by a family member just a few days before Pat’s death. Earlier this year, John Silveira wrote an article about her ranch (Jan/Feb 2007, Issue No. 103) “The modern day small family ranch.” In the article is a photo of Pat Ward, at age 79, on her horse as she took part in a cattle roundup.

The family will have a pot luck at the ranch this Saturday to celebrate her life. John Silveira and I will attend. I’ve posted a photo of Pat in her kitchen from the 1980s. I was in that kitchen many times in the 1980s as I built a house about a half mile from hers that essentially launched BHM. Pat was a marvelous lady. Silveira has been in frequent contact with her in recent months as she battled cancer.

Death becomes a more frequent visitor as we get older. I’m 63 and I’ve seen a lot of friends die. Those of you who are my age know what I mean. It’s just the natural order of things. Still, it’s very sad and disconcerting when nature changes everything so drastically. I don’t mourn people anymore; I celebrate their life with the friends who are left. I’ll be especially glad to get together with my good friend, Gerry Barry, Pat’s brother, this Saturday.

I think hard work is the key to success in all endeavors in life. Since we arrived home late Friday night, we’ve been doing house and yard chores: vacuuming, sweeping, and washing clothes inside, and mowing, weedwacking, gardening, and watering trees outside. My family likes a tidy place, inside and out, so we do this sort of family work project every time we come back from a trip. It took the five of us most of the day today. The boys each have a machine they like to operate: Jake the weed eater, Robby the power mower, and Sam the blower. Lenie likes to work in the garden, of course, and I like riding my big mower. As we were finishing up our many chores today, you could feel the family’s group satisfaction in a job well done. It occurred to me that these work projects, and the gratification my three boys, Jake, Rob, and Sam, get from them are probably the most valuable lessons Lenie and I could be giving them. They have seen us work very hard all their lives, and we have made comfortable lives and a good business with our hard work. Now we are showing them how to do the same. They recognize hard work as an essential ingredient of a successful life. I got my work ethic from my parents, as did Lenie. My parents were of Irish immigrant stock, but their hard work enabled them to meld into American society well. They never got rich, but their five kids never wanted for anything either. Their children–me and my siblings–applied the work ethic learned at home to their own lives, and now Lenie and I are passing on the same teaching to our children. I think it becomes a personal thing: I want my property and my business to reflect the view I have of myself as a hard working person, just like my father and mother did, and just as I hope my children will. What could be simpler. Hard work underlies success!