Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

I’m frustrated, aggravated, fit-to-be-tied, downright feelin’ a bit ornery and mad at myself for letting my normally placid, imperturbable, never changing, dull, boring personality (yeah, right) get a bit hostile.

In other words, I"m having problems with my computer and I’m mad.

And, I have to say, I follow Apostle Paul’s excellent advice in I. Cor. 13 and am slow to anger.  Well I’m not angry right now.  I’m mad.  There’s a clear difference.  If it should be you slipping, it possibly could be anger, but with me it’s just a tad of mad.  As in moody mad.   

 I had a cute little pin (I love that word "cute" . . . isn’t it just too cute?!  It’s definitely a girl thing and a big Southern thing as well) with a fat Boynton cat (any of you know what the Boynton cats are on the greeting cards and all?) on it sitting at his typewriter writing that said on it "Moody but Cute."

That’s pretty much sums me up.  On days such as today when my computer has been giving me problems.  Well, on a lot of other days, too, because while sometimes I try to be more "placid, imperturbable, never changing, dull and boring" thinking that somehow it is more the "Christian personality," which I’ve decided it really isn’t (I mean I wrote just last week about how excited I am to be a Christian here some 50 years going in and I still am!), I’m always of strong moods and feelings. 

As an aside here . . . what’s your personality?  Are you like me of intense feelings and moods or more laid back and "stable" (ha!) like Tom and my sweet son Mark who lives close by? 

Okay . . . back to the subject at hand.  

It’s been an ongoing problem for a couple of weeks now with my computer ever since I installed the latest "free" version of Norton Personal Firewall 2006 (it’s a year out of date, which was the only reason it was "free!") that came with my new Norton Systemworks.

I’m sure that Norton is a good product and has kept me safe from a lot of bad viruses and worms and spyware and all sorts of other potent terrorist activity, but I can’t handle all the safety nets when they keep me off the internet. 

Or, can any of you relate to internet addiction?! 

Com’n!  Who do you think you are kidding if you said "No."  You’re each and every one on the internet right now this minute reading this!  And I see your hits every day over here at Finding Direction.  I know how many of you are obsessively checking my every word.  Not that I blame you, or anything.  I think that’s a pretty good addiction to have.  I wish Tom had it!  ha!  Hanging on my every word.  That’s pretty cool.  Oh . . . it’s the Comments you come back around for.  I see.  Okay, you’re all right then. . . but still addicted to the internet, nah, nah, nah.

Oh yeah – Norton and the internet.  Well . . . it reached a head between me and ol’ Norton yesterday morning and on a bright, sunny Lord’s Day, too.  I couldn’t access the internet at all!!!!!! Of course, it’s partly Mozilla Firefox’s fault, too, if we’re going to assign blame.  It had decided to take a perfectly good program (this happens to me all the time with computer stuff and I hate it.  Bill Gates is bad about it, too) and to try to "upgrade" it.   So it was trying to do that.  Norton "Personal" (personal as opposed to what?  Impersonal?) Firewall was trying to protect me. 

They ended up in a fierce fight and kept freezing up my screen, not allowing me to access the internet at all.  Oh, I could have gone in through Internet Explorer or Netscape, you understand.  After all a girl can’t have too many internet access passes.  But since since downloading it at the good advice of some of y’all, actually (see – I pay attention to what you say!), I’ve used and worked in it the majority of the time, just occasionally going back in through IE or Netscape, mostly to keep them company.

I’m not one to easily give up.  I’m persistent (just ask Tom), if nothing else.  So I tried it a good six times at least with the same worthless result every time.  So I did the sensible thing.  I tried to go into Norton to change my firewall settings.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do that, of course, so that was yet another building block in the frustration level I was incurring. 

I gave up on that right quick and then just sat here praying.  I don’t know what I expected to accomplish by that except that it seemed to be the thing to do at the moment since I certainly wasn’t in the bathroom checking my hair and makeup to get ready for church. 

Prayers failed so I finally just did it.  I’m computer savvy enough to figure out how to find the "Control Panel" (I need one attached to me, sometimes, I think!) and went straight for the Icon that says "Add/Remove Programs."  And, let me tell you, I zoomed straight down the list to Norton Personal Firewall 2006 and removed that sucker.  Took every tiny remnant out of my computer and "restored the settings" to the previous status, whatever that means.

Well, what it means is that Mozilla Firefox, new updates, upgrades and all, immediately worked perfectly fine and so far I can’t caught a virus, worm or been attacked by a violent terrorist threat.

I’m happy.  Peace and calm is restored.  My calm, placid, imperturbable personality has once again taken back over.

Until next time, I suppose.  I mean – as computers go, mine is now "old" and "slow," as Tom complains all the time.  But, then so am I!!  (I know – I don’t look so bad in my pictures on my profile page, but then I think the "old" and "slow" is mostly internal!)  Besides, I can get Tom to work all the Norton settings and kinks out when he has a little time.  I guess it’s a man thing.  It’s certainly beyond me.  I kind of like things as I know them and as I’m used to them, don’t you?

Y’all have a great day today, hear?! 

Cheers & Blessings to each of you today!  Me – I’m going to sit here a putter away and play on the inernet all day long!  Dee