We're Back
Shelby - the middle sister - in the
mountains near Creede, CO.
We're back from Colorado. We went to the mountains to relax and to play and to stop being so busy. Mission accomplished! I also wanted to get some writing done, which I did. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow or Tuesday.
I haven't written much about my web design business, and I've resisted the temptation to give you its name and web address. But web design, hosting, and maintenance is a big part of my life. To be honest, before Real Live Preacher I used to wonder how I was managing to be the pastor of a church, the father of three daughters, and run my own business.
Then I added Real Live Preacher into the mix. Don't ask me what I was thinking.
In all honesty, Real Live Preacher seemed to be outside of any conscious choice I made. It just happened, so I'm living with it and seeing where it takes me.
Anyway, all of that is just so you will understand that for the last seven years, I've never been able to take a real vacation. I always had to make sure I had an internet connection and was checking my email. This summer I got a partner for my web design business. His name is Mark. Mark represents my ongoing attempt to simplify my life and make more time for writing. It's going to take about six months before I actually have more time, but I'm trying to make it work. Mark is now running the "business-end" of things. And he handled the email while I was gone, so I got a real live vacation!
We sat on the porch. We hiked in the mountains. We wandered around Creede. Some of us rode horses. (Not me) And I had my once-yearly worship experience at the Creede Community Church. It's so wonderful to attend an intimate worship service with gentle and authentic Christians. I can't tell you how refreshing it is not to be in charge or have to say anything. Here is a picture of the church:
Creede Community Church (UCC)
It was all over too soon if you ask me. We left on Friday morning and were back late Saturday afternoon. On the way home I kept wondering if anything was going to go wrong. I shouldn't have wondered.
First, Lillian (our youngest) opened the door to a Pizza Hut in Mason Texas while wearing flip-flops and crushed her big toe. I don't want to say she "stumped it" because that wouldn't give you any idea of how horrible it was. I got sick looking at it. We had to take her to the emergency room, but she's okay. It's mangled, but not seriously damaged.
About an hour later, the tech guy in my server co-op called to tell me that a hacker got into our Linux box. We've been through this before. It's the digital eqivalent of finding rats in your house. We got lucky in that this guy is a benevolent hacker who just defaced a couple of websites to let us know that he "got root." This guy was even kind enough to make a backup of the files he defaced. Can you believe that?
He exploited a weakness in our slightly out of date version of Linux. Damn. Getting this cleaned up is going to take a lot of my attention next week. We'll probably have to migrate our data to a new box.
Freakin hackers!
And finally, we had car trouble as we were coming into Fredericksburg. A vacuum hose blew and fell into the serpentine belt on our mini van, fraying it badly. I tied up the hose with some leftover gauze from Lillian's accident, and we limped into Fredericksburg. I contacted a friend who lives there and who knows more about cars than I do. He patched the hose and told me he thought the belt would hold until we got home. You have to take apart half the engine to get this belt replaced.
Like I said, we went to the mountains to relax. I had no idea how much I was going to need it!
I've missed you!
rlp
10:08:53 PM 
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