A big day yesterday, very fraught from beginning to end.
In the morning I went on a short training session at the diocesan office to help prepare for my stint as a Companion in Ministry. A team of four people (three priests and me) will be assisting a parish not too far from here in making some changes and getting focussed on worship and engagement with their area. If I didn’t hate the term so much, I’d call it a “Fresh expression of church”. I knew two out of the three priests on my team, but none of those on the other team (which is going to another parish further East).
I enjoyed the day, and will find the new parish something of a personal challenge, as they are extremely Evangelical (in US-Episcopalian terms, very “low”): Eucharist three times a month (two Sundays it’s the major service, and there is one 1662 Prayer Book service on another Sunday), Family Service (whatever that is) twice a month, and Mattins once a month. They have an interesting patch of an interesting area, and if they play their cards right will be growing rapidly as their area regenerates.
I would say that if anyone wants to give a Powerpoint presentation, they should try to understand how to use the computer. When I came in the moderator and one of the attendees were trying to “fix” the computer. They were about to give up when I asked, innocently, “Have you put in the password?” (There was a BIOS password set, and they weren’t entering it.) So of course when the moderator had a bit of difficulty switching from the LCD display to the projector, I had to help him out there. I end up being the computer expert wherever I go.
But, some expert I was. I came home to find that my second copy of Microsoft Office had arrived. When I transferred everything to this computer, Office had come too, but of course without another license it was hopeless to continue. So I thought, blithely, “Just stick the new Office CD into the computer and reinstall.”
Oh, no!
I spent about 4 hours with the bloody thing. I got an error saying something like: “[program name]. This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.” No matter what I tried, the damned thing wouldn’t go any further. I tried:
- Deleting the Office files off the computer;
- Deleting every reference to [program name] from the Registry (I used to be coy about slashing and burning things in the Registry; I’m not any more.);
- Doing Google searches to try to find out what other people’s experiences had been, but couldn’t find many and the only one that seemed germane had a price tag attached (ie, I’d have to join a support website at US$12.95 a month to find out);
- Repeatedly cleaning my Registry with several different tools;
- Uninstalling Microsoft .NET 2.0.
I was effing and blinding and HWMBO, who is a gentle soul and still recovering from a nasty cold, was very upset. “You’re grumpy again!” he’d say, repeatedly. I tried not to swear, I really did. But Bill Gates made me do it.
Eventually, while trying to delete .NET 2.0, I found it to be repairing itself. Once it had repaired itself (not that I had broken it, mind you), the install went through cleanly.
So, although this is Friends-Only (in deference to the fact that the parish I’ll be serving in still doesn’t know we’ll be there), make a note of the solution–you too may need it someday.
Bangers and mash for dinner, homemade (of course), but the bangers weren’t very nice. Not that they were cheap, mind you, nor were they “off”, just not a nice taste. Unfortunately, they were one-half of a twofer offer, so there’s another packet of them in the freezer.
Then to bed, after an exhausting day. But, no!
The Nigerian neighbours (not clients of the mental health agency who support 4 of my neighbours, but those in the maisonnette [=US duplex apartment] across from me who pay market rents to assist in financing the aforesaid clients) decided to have a very loud party, at which they were playing African pop music at ear-shattering and sleep-defying levels. At 1 am I had had enough and discovered that (1) the police do not come out to loud parties unless there is disorder or underage drinking going on and you yourself have seen that, and (2) the noise pollution people from the council are overworked.
HWMBO had a difficult time sleeping and I was trying to help, but ended up not sleeping myself because of waiting for the noise pollution people. When the party was over and it was clear to me that it was over, I phoned them again and said they shouldn’t bother to turn up, as the noise was gone. I got ready for bed and turned off the light, and just then the doorbell rang.
You guessed it. The last piece of noise pollution was the council workers, ringing my doorbell. I told them that they were 10 minutes too late and that I’d rung their office to tell them that and not to turn up, but they left and said, over their shoulders, “So you’re not bothered about the noise, then?” I said, “Twenty minutes ago I was, but they’ve stopped. I did ring your office, as I was told, to say that the noise had stopped…”
I shall be phoning the housing association to tell them about the noise, in the slim chance that they might actually mention to the other tenants that having loud parties after, say, 11 pm is probably anti-social. Very slim chance indeed.