If I was asked to describe my mission in Maine, I would say that it takes place in the dark. It is dark when we go to the archives and it is dark within 15 minutes of us leaving the archives. The only time we get to see the sun is as we enter the building and if we look out through the one and only partly occluded window in the room. Other than that we live like moles…….always inside and in the dark.
Of course it is approaching winter and winter this far north does not have much daylight to speak of and talk about preparing for winter…………..well, there are lots of people here who are ‘skiing’ around the streets wearing these funny little sticks on their feet with a wheel on the front and on the back and they propel themselves around the parking lots and on the streets with their ski poles. They are fully decked out in ski wear and the spandex company is laughing all the way to the bank. I cannot see how these body hugging elastic outfits could be warm enough to be out in the snow for hours doing cross country skiing. I was raised in hot and dry weather and so living in snow country is very foreign to me. I tried skiing once and decided that it is way too dangerous – even more dangerous than being on roller skates and that is a sport where you take your life into your own hands. In Prescott they do not do the snow skiing thing in the streets, they just do skateboarding……….equally not such a good idea.
We are having a real trial at the archive. The Penobscot books are in very poor condition and there are lots of bits and pieces coming off the books as we work with them. The canvas covers are ragged and falling apart and the leather bindings are deteriorating to dust. I am glad that we are here to digitize these records, but it is getting dirty to work with them. One of the archivists said that we should not be wearing good clothes to do this work because of the sad shape of the books. If that was the only problem that we faced it would be ok, but the Rosewill Shuttle that they just returned to us from Salt Lake City has some functioning problems and keeps throwing up pop up screens telling us that we have no permission to use it. AARRGGHHHHH! And so yesterday afternoon, most of the afternoon was spent with emails back and forth with one of the engineers in SLC trying to download a file that he had sent me. It is in XML format and my laptop does not play well with that program. In fact it hiccups, coughs and splutters and refuses to budge. It says, ”If you want to download this file, go find some other computer who will do it for you, I quit!” So I did! I used the powerful desktop they have here to download the xml file and today I will try to access it and have the computer spit out the information contained in the file. The shuttle is another problem that I have to work on. Somehow I have to unlock it………………ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I think it is time to go s hopping!
I must admit that I am learning a lot about computers while on this mission and some days discouragement is my constant companion. However, I have discovered that if I sit there long enough and push buttons here and there and see what happens, I am able to accomplish some things. I guess that is the way I leaned to operate a computer anyway, the hunt, peck and crash method. Works every time! After yesterday with all its frustrations etc., I came home totally unable to think or act and I did not even attempt to do the blog. Learning about computers is akin to learning a new language – in fact it is a new language. When I was on my mission in Japan, some days (at the end of the day) I could not think in any language my mind was so scrambled from the day of Japanese language, culture and missionary work. I was 26 to 28 years old then so just imagine how it is now that I am soon to be 68 years old. I think that the Lord will make me equal to the task, and I hope it is soon.
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