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Is there ever a time when we are free of the requirement to solve problems? How does one solve problems appropriately and why are there more served up once the immediate problems are taken care of, I wonder? The shuttle came in to the Archives 17 days after it was supposed to be here on a 2 day air shipment schedule. As I looked at the box and saw the arrows pointing to the address, it showed that some clerk somewhere saw that the box was not theirs, drew arrows on the box showing the correct place and then possibly called Fed Ex to have them come and pick it up and deliver it to the right address. What was the driver thinking? Possibly he was not thinking and just dropped the box where he was and left. Wonder what adventures the box had while waiting to be picked up? What conversations took place in the incorrect office about the mis-delivered box? What did they have to say about the driver who just dumped the box and left? What conversations took place in Salt Lake when I emailed them with the problem of not having a shuttle for this upcoming week? The emails alone back and forth discussed the possibility of a lost shuttle and the $250 that needs to be recompensed over the loss. Oh what fun takes place when things don’t go right.
This mission is no picnic either. Each day we have to get up, get ready and drive through the roundabout to get to the bridge that goes over the river. Each trip across the bridge I scan the river to see what it is doing. With the ice in place I cannot tell if it is high tide or low tide – it all is masked in white and when the city pushes the snow over the bank and into the river, the snow masks the ability to tell about the tides. I do notice that there are cracks in the river ice and places where ice from upstream has encroached on the resident ice and has built up and now is lying on top of the resident ice. I can also see empty areas where the ice gave way to flowing water. I love the Kennebec River. One thing that is constant is the cold. It has been below freezing for a long time and it is ok as long as there is no wind blowing. The wind chill factor is hard to live with. Yesterday when we went out, it appears that there had been some sort of warm front that came in and melted the ice on the car and as it dripped down the front grille, it froze and it looked like our car had sprouted teeth on its front grille. I notice that there are many cars that seem to have sprouted teeth and yet other cars seem to have sprouted a lacy petticoat on their back bumper. The icicles just hang there and look like they are a modesty screen for the back of the cars. If it was October 31st, we could say that our car is wearing its Halloween costume.
The daily problems of the Archive digitizing are also constant. The big worry is whether we have been able to correctly focus the camera. I guess we just have to trust that the computer algorithm that they use is accurate and go with it. Each time we focus, the lines have to be no more than 2 ½ widths in tonal value. That is, the really dark, next one not so dark and the third one barely there to make up 2 ½ tonal widths on the Grey scale – at least this is how our non technological brains understand it and it has to do. If it is not in focus then we get reworks and those just waste our time having to rework the images. A big problem with these early 1800 dated books is that their spine has disintegrated. The book has to lay flat and when we push down on the glass, the various parts of the cradle have to move in such a way as to present a flat surface flush with the glass and then we snap the picture. If the spine has come apart on one side, then the spine area is uneven and we get folds in the pages that are not good for the pages and do not give a clear image. If the spine is completely gone and removed, then the book is not stable in the cradle and we have a hard time keeping the gutter image centered on each image. I guess I will have to take a picture of this and put it in a future blog to illustrate the point. I wanted to include the description in the blog so that there is a record of the difficulty of doing this digitizing. After all, the equipment we are using is not state of the art but rather still in the digitizing dinosaur age, but I also have to recognize that the other option is to sit and type it all out in an effort to preserve the record and that would take forever for me to get it done. So I am grateful for the cradle. The glass over the book has a scratch in it and we put a note in the system that it is there and that we have notified the Archives and so far they have not replaced it. One auditor in SLC told us that if we did not get the glass replaced she would have to fail each and every submission. That would be really counterproductive to say the least because if we had to re-work every book due to the scratch, then we would still be getting the scratch in the image no matter how many times we re-worked the book. Sometimes people in control of our destiny just do not think clearly enough to help assuage problems….they can fail our work, just because they can………….a power move if ever I saw one. In any case, we are doing our best and crumbling books notwithstanding, we show up each day to make our offering of our time and effort to do what is asked, and we do it to the best of our ability and to the extent that our tools allow.
The Electronic Age is in full swing. Yesterday and Thursday we watched sessions from the Rootstech conference online. I am amazed at the things they talk about – some things are in place, some are soon to be in place and some are way in the future. Guess they are working towards creating “THE BUTTON” that when pressed, a person’s genealogy would all spew out of the printer on the table next to the computer. They talked about what the human population would look like in 2060 (should the earth last that long?) and how that population would look at this culture we live right now and would they speak the same language? One presenter showed a cuneiform engraved disk from ages ago and no one can read it, however it was readable to those who lived in that age. He then moved to our present writing system and illustrated the evolution of this present system and the shift from cursive to printing to most if not all things done on a computer (e.g. who will be able to read my blog in 2060?). I can readily testify to the evolution of English expressions in the court records that we work with. The spellings alone take some getting used to and spelling of names has never been standardized. They showed a computer model that is configured to take into account the variants of spelled names etc. and asked the program to keep track of the variants so that all who come upon the name will be able to recognize it as being the same person. This is one problem we have had in New.familysearch.org. The spelling variations have left people scratching their heads as to whether they have the same person or not.
Communications are also new to us especially in the computer realm. On Monday we are invited to a conference on the internet at Go to Meeting where 5 or more people will be involved in discussing how many more records need to be digitized here in Maine before we leave to our new assignment. I find myself wondering just how it got to be such a mess. Is there no central point where things are organized so that we can clearly know what has been done, what is presently being done and what yet needs to be done? Jeff, records preservation officer at the Archives, put it clearly when he said ,”Thus works a bureaucracy”. This impacts us because it is going to be used as a way to predict how long we will be here in Maine. I guess this is about as accurate as the weather forecast – either we will get it done in the specified amount of time or we will take longer…………who knows?
I guess as missionaries we are not insulated against the everyday comings and goings on in the world. In today’s paper there is a picture of a person skiing on the River in the Randolph area. Guess the ice on the river is strong enough to hold them. He is skiing close to the ice fishing shacks that are lined up. Randolph is a few miles downriver from where we live. In another photo, a diver in full gear has been back in the Messalonskee stream looking for the body of baby Ayla who disappeared on Dec. 17. They have announced that they have found blood in the house where she was last seen and so that does not look good and puts a cloud of suspicion and dread over the whole case. One would hope that this little girl had been allowed to live to maturity but it does not look good as the case unfolds. Why did she have to suffer because her unmarried parents could not agree on her care and keeping? In the Political scheme, Mr. Mitt Romney seems to be given the nod to become the politician to go up against Pres. Obama in the election in November. Political turmoil seems to be all over the planet, not just in an election year here in the USA.
Each Friday we have a Missionary Correlation meeting. I have no idea why Bill and I have to attend this meeting, but we do. Yesterday, the Ward Mission Leader was presented with an area book. In it are charts showing who has been contacted, who expressed interest in learning more and who has dropped out of the picture. There is also a ward membership list and a few other things. He asked if there was such a book available about a week or so ago and there was not, but the young elders put one together for him and presented it to him last night. He held it like it was a hot potato and promptly handed it to Bill with the quip “Well, you might as well keep this at your house since I have not properly organized my new apartment and things are in a mess there.” NO! It is not staying resident in my house because if it did, Bill would be all over it like a rash and he would be calling people, making appointments that we would have to go to and calling meetings etc.etc. He would take over the job, which is what seems to have been the intent of the mission leader. I was emphatic that the leader keeps the book, study it and bring it each week so that he could keep an eye on the missionary progress. The Relief Society president suggested that he keep it in his car so that he would not forget it next week or lose it in the jumble in his apartment (he just moved in about 8 weeks ago). He left our home not a happy camper. I’ve been down this road before and have no desire to see my husband take over someone else’s job and do it for them. In Prescott, they did not call him “Bulldog Bill” for nothing. 37 years of experience has taught me this. We have our hands full showing up each day Monday through Friday and doing the digitizing. We do not need to take on other assignments that are not ours in the first place. After the meeting at our apartment was over, I swept the floor and gathered up about ¼ cup of sand that had come in on people’s shoes. I guess we will have to ask people to remove their shoes so that I do not have to sweep the floor and gather the sand – it migrates so easily into the house by hitchhiking on the soles of people’s shoes.
We talked to Andrea and Stan and found out that there has had to be a reorganization of the bishop’s offices in our Bradshaw building. Their rooms are too small. Bill suggested that the bishops go on a diet so that they don’t take up so much room (they are all thin men to start with). Stan has had to clean out the files that Bill acquired while he was in the clerk position for 12 years. He quipped that Bill threw nothing away. I know that – we have a filing cabinet that is full to over flowing in Prescott of the stuff he has kept for future use – the future is now and it is all on computer so we do not need to keep any of it. But, it will still be there for eternity, I am positive about that. The bishopric wants Bill back because he knew all there was to know about the new move ins – now the leadership has to go out and do the work that he did and they are not happy about it. They were quite comfortable having him do these visits for the past 12 years. Oh well, bite the bullet time has arrived.
Bill went with me to see the reflexologist on Wednesday night and he even allowed her to work on his feet. However, at the end of the day, he decided that it was not for him. I do not know how her system works, but I do know that I am without sciatic pain and I am a happy camper.
After my mission in Japan, I have studied people’s faces to try to discern the Light in their face. Last night Elder Ashcroft was literally shining. I do not know if anyone else noticed it, but he was glowing. The scriptures teach us that all human beings are born with the Light of Christ and that it can be increased by attendance to keeping the commandments, or it can be lost through disobedience to the principles of the Gospel of Christ until it has utterly left the person altogether. I think that his attendance to details and his obedience to the mission rules etc. has had a great influence on him in increasing his light. In Japan, we did a lot of street contacting. We learned quickly to scan faces and look for those that are emitting this elusive light quality. When we found one such person, we were able to take them and teach them about Jesus and help them increase that light which they enjoyed. One day we even contacted a member of the church (we did not know he was a member at the time we picked him out of a crowd to contact.)
This afternoon we decided to do something different. Instead of staying home and doing laundry (we did it last night instead), we went to Skowhegan to attend the Strand Theatre there to see War Horse. All people I talked to who went to see this movie have raved about it. My opinion – Teddibly Briddish my dear!
We also went to a craft show at the Greenhouse on Puddleduck Road in Manchester. Of course they make us all walk through the green house to get to the craft show and even the walk through the greenhouse was a visual picnic. The latest thing seems to be to have a hanging Terrarium and to that end they had loads of glass terrariums all shapes and sizes. They also had a series of small plants that would be suitable to put in them to hang in your window. We do not have an appropriate window to catch the sun to keep the plant alive. They had loads of Orchids in full bloom, African Violets, Cyclamens and primroses among other flowers available to purchase.
The craft show was mainly populated by painters and photographers all along one wall and the bead stringers and 3 dimensional crafters on the other. One lady had a bunch of very original pieces. They were all shapes and sizes. A unique Blow Fish, Veil Tail (fish), original Lobsters, dragons, birds and other amorphous beings from her imagination. I asked her what she had used to paint these items and she said that she had used acrylic paints from Michaels and that she had used heavy muslin that was almost like canvas. I found her work unique and worth writing about. I have too many other projects that need completed before I become too aged to lift a needle, so I doubt if I would ever try to make the stuffed shapes she has on display. The people from whom I purchased my Alpaca Hat were there and they were all smiles to see me walking into the show. They were glad that I was wearing the hat and I really was a good advertisement for their alpaca goods.
I know that this post is long and perhaps arduous to read, but it is a collection of my thoughts that have been precipitated by the upcoming conference call, rootstech keynote speeches and the altercation with the mission leader. Perhaps my grandsons, should they read this journal, will learn that there are many obstacles in life but that all of them can be overcome, in time.
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