A TED Talk + Improv Everywhere + Computer Crashes = Perfect Recipe for Unexpected Humor

Posted via email from erin bird's web nest

Teammates or Opponents?

Last week I was on vacation with my family, doing the "Family Reunion" thing on LeAnn's side. We go every other summer, and always enjoy ourselves immensely.

Even though the weather was cold, we still got in some skiing and tubing. On the last day, I managed to allow my eldest daughter to convince me to go one more time, even though I really didn't want to go (the air temp was 71 degrees and the water temp was 75). One of the other cousins wanted to tube with me as well, so since I was already wet, I said "yes," and he and I hopped on our tubes for one more spin around the lake.

As we waited for the boat to make it's attempt at propelling us to temporary watery graves, I look at Cody and asked, "So are we doing this as teammates or opponents?" His nonchalant response made me think I was going to only have to battle the boat and waves, but with the rev of the engine, Cody's behavior revealed he was hoping to help dump me as well. (By the way, I stayed dry that round - Cody was the one drinking the lake!).

Company Teammates and Opponents

In the past two weeks, I've had to deal with customer service at two different companies. One behaved like they were my teammate, doing everything in their power to help me. The other company was more like Cody, immediately behaving like I was their opponent who they simply wanted to dump.

The first company was Apple. My original 4GB iPhone isn't working like it should, and since I purchased the extended warranty, I called for a repair or replacement before my warranty runs out next month. Since they no longer have original 4GB iPhones laying around, they are sending me a free iPhone 3G (should arrive today!) with a full year warranty on it. I worked with 3 different people on the phone, and each treated me like a valued client with whom they would do everything in their power to help. The treatment was amazing.

The second company was Zoom. This past week while on vacation, I helped my brother-in-law set-up a new iMac at their home. Because of where they live, his family is still on dial-up, which meant we needed to purchase a USB modem. Since the place we bought the iMac from was out of USB modem's, we headed to Best Buy. The only USB modem in stock was one from Zoom, and it said on the box that it worked with Macs, so we picked it up and headed home.

After properly setting up the modem and copying the settings from the old iMac that they were replacing (by the way, their old iMac was 9 years old and still going strong! Yeah Macs!), we ran into some issues. The phone call was not going through. Because we knew we had all of our settings correct, we feared it could be the modem. So I thought a quick call to Zoom would solve the problem.

In all fairness to Zoom, the call did solve our problem. We learned we did not need to include *70 before the phone number to turn off call-waiting. But to get that information was rather difficult. The gentleman I was talking with acted as if I was interrupting more important things, that I was stupid for even calling, and that I was opposed to him and Zoom's product, so therefore he needed to be opposed to me and my questions. It was rather frustrating. All I needed to know was why the call wouldn't go through and was there something that I needed to do to get their modem to work. But I was treated immediately like I was an opponent to Zoom when I was looking for a teammate to help me.

Applying these thoughts

As I am growing older, living life, and interacting with people, I am realizing that most people prefer to meet and work with "teammates" rather than "opponents". As I pastor people, I want to find ways I can work with them, even when I may have to be opposed to their ideologies or behavior. I look at the Scriptures and see many of the Jewish leaders of the first century acting as Jesus' opponents, which caused them to miss out on experiencing life as his teammate. Yet Jesus could look at people who were living life opposite of God's design, and yet he loved them like teammates, helping them change so they could experience the goodness of God's grace.

How about you? When you meet people, are you viewing them first as opponents? Or do you treat them as teammates? Are you looking to help them succeed? Or do you act like they are an imposition upon you and your time? I think this can be applied to that difficult co-worker, the neighbor next door, your kids (if you are a parent), the people in your small group, your parents, and even your spouse (if you are married).

So let me rephrase the question I asked Cody, "Are you doing life as other's teammate or as their opponent?"

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Update: After typing all of this, but before I actually got it posted, I read the following article by James Emery White with some of the same sentiments I posted above. So follow the link if you want more food for thought on this topic of being an opponent who is quick to argue.

Enriching Lives

I admit it - I'm a Mac nerd. In fact, I almost daily read MacRumors.

But this post didn't hit the Mac side of me - it hit the "follower of Jesus" side of me (which isn't really just a "side", it's more like all of me, but I digress...). Here's the part that really hit me:

In a 2006 speech to an investment group, Johnson recalled the early planning: "If you want to enrich their lives, you can't be in a parking lot, off a highway. You gotta be where they live their life. You gotta be right where they work, where they play, where they live, where they shop. The only way to enrich their life is to be part of their life. They've got to walk 10 feet to your store, not drive the car 10 miles. That's what enriching lives would take."

I believe this is what the Church should be doing - not living life "off a highway" separated from people, but rather being "right where they work, where they play, where they live, and where they shop." This is exactly what Christ did as Philippians 2 so eloquently puts it, as does John 1:14 (especially when you read it in the Message version). And if you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, you are to act like Christ did - leave your "home" and go be where the people are. Or to use biblical language - followers of Jesus are to be salt and light. But the only way salt can enrich a food is to come into contact with it.

As a "professional" Christian, I admit that I allow my schedule to keep me from putting this idea into practice. But I needed this reminder: "The only way to enrich their life is to be part of their life." I just didn't expect a former Apple executive to be the one bringing the reminder to me.

Another Windows Jab from Apple...

A fellow Mac-user popped his head in my office earlier today and showed me an inside joke Apple has built into their OS.  With Apple's current operating system (10.5 aka Leopard), there is this really cool feature called "QuickLook".  While browsing in a Finder window, if you highlight a document or picture, you can hit the space bar which brings up the document or the picture so you can see it without opening the program that actually created the file - in other words, you can take a quick look at what is in the file.

By accident, my friend hit the space bar while highlighting one of the Windows computers on our church's network.  And what he saw made him laugh, and he had to share it with me.

What did he see?  A CRT monitor with the infamous Windows blue screen of death. :o)

Free Software to one lucky winner...

My "luck" could be yours!  I won a free copy of Invoice through MacZot.  I figured if I ever won, it would probably be for something I wouldn't need - and it turns out I was right!

However, I don't want the software to go to waste, so if you own a Mac and could use Invoice (or know someone who could) then leave a comment.  First person to leave a comment telling me how they will use the software will receive the registration number.

For more on Invoice, visit the software creator's site.

This stinks!

I walked in to my office today and was greeting by a horrible smell. I can't tell whether it is dirty diapers, a dead mouse in the wall, or extreme mustiness from last night's rain. Just to make sure my nose was working correctly, I asked someone else to step into my office and confirm the stench. Yep, my office stinks.

After grabbing an ionizer to try and freshen the scent in my office, I unpacked my laptop and ran through the couple of sites I tend to check each day. One of those sites is MacZot.com, a site that sells one Mac software program each day at an extreme discount. I have yet to buy a program - I primarily visit the site to enter their "NextZot" competition. One lucky person receives the next day's "zot" for free. I'll probably never win, but I can dream.

Today's "zot" is just too ironic. With a stinky office surrounding me, I learn that today's deal is for a program called...

Decompose.

If you are feeling rather "punny" today, comments are open. I'm sure the other two members of the Three Readers Club would enjoy your humorous thoughts.

I'm a Happy Mac Man!

As my three readers probably saw this week, I had a bit of an up and down week (it kind of went back down today - my roof started leaking again. Grrrr....).

Some of the downs were because of computer issues. More specifically, the new Time Capsule I ordered from Apple wasn't working right (or so I thought). But after spending 2 hours Saturday afternoon talking with Apple, the situation is golden!

Turns out when I migrated my documents from my 9-year-old G4 tower still on OS 10.2, an old "URLMount" folder migrated over as well, which gave me two URLMount folders - the new one that came with the new iMac, and the old one migrated over. This understandably confused the computer, so it couldn't connect to the hard drive portion of the Time Capsule. Once Alex finally helped me figure this out, we deleted the old URLMount folder, restarted, and low and behold my new iMac could finally connect to Time Capsule.

This problem was extremely rare, and so the first two people couldn't quite help me out, so I ended up talking with 3 Apple employees in my 2 hour phone call. But each one treated me with respect and really took my side in the issue. I felt like they were just as motivated to solve my problem as I was. Apple has done a GREAT job of training their employees on treating customers who call in for support. I've been a long time Mac user, and while I haven't had to call very often, each time I do I leave the phone call impressed.

So many times people complain when they get bad service (as I have done before on this blog), so I thought I would actually do the opposite and publicly let people know when a company actually did it right. So great job Apple (if anyone from Apple were to actually ever read this - which is probably slim to none! :o)

Ok, so apparently some HAVE seen so much wisdom and creativity in one place...

Have you ever seen so much wisdom and creativity in one place?

iPhone Surprise

[sarcasm] Gasp!  I'm SOOOOOO surprised by this article from Time about the Invention of the Year!!! [/sarcasm]

OSome

Has it really been a month since I've blogged?  I knew it had been a while, but not THAT long...

I'm here at East Iowa Bible Camp for the New Covenant Pastor/Deacon/Elder retreat.  I love being with these guys (and gals - we love you Colette and St. Pat Rieck!).  It is so inspiring to be with such servant leaders.

But while some of the presentations were going on tonight, I decided to let my computer do some work while I listened.  Yes, Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) arrived in the mail today.  The upgrade went absolutely flawless (under 50 minutes), and my initial "poking around" (after the presentations!) has left me with a very favorable impression.  It doesn't feel all that much different than Tiger, but that is totally fine with me since I absolutely love Tiger.  Tiger was the best and most mature OS I've ever worked with, and Leopard so far appears to take it to the next level.  It's "OSome" (that's my weak attempt at merging "OS" and "awesome" in case you hadn't figured it out...)!

Great job, Apple!  Once again, I'm a happy customer.

Free Bible Software

I just heard about Bible Explorer, a free full-featured Bible software program. It is PC only, so for you Mac guys like me, you can check out MacSword.

Windows Vista and Mac OS X

As you eagerly await Macworld Expo this week (as I am), here is a video from David Pogue of the New York Times that surprisingly reveals that the new Vista OS from Microsoft is NOT a rip-off of the best OS I have ever worked with Mac OS 10.4. It's quite convincing if you ask this Mac addict. ;o)

Extravagance

I was reading in my MacAddict magazine this morning while eating my scrambled eggs and came across their "drool worthy" page (and I quote: "sexy stuff we can't wait to get our hands on"). Usually they have things like huge TVs, or fancy iPod accessories, or other cool, interesting, rarely seen gadgets. Well this time I saw this digital camera.

My first thought when I saw it: "What a lavish waste! Cameras get used and scratched and dinged - how extravagant to give a camera a gold case with diamond studs around the lens!"

But then the thought hit me - why do I not have the same reaction about gold jewelry as I do about this gold camera? Isn't jewelry just as "extravagant"? (I looked up extravagance in my Mac's built in Oxford Dictionary and it said that extravagance is "excessive elaborateness of style".)

I fear that sometimes people will spend more money for items like this gold camera or a gold necklace to try and increase their personal "worth". Minox has the same camera in a typical digital camera case that is quite a bit cheaper, but many people will buy the Carat camera simply to gain the attention of others, which they think will make them "better".

But this camera's beauty will fade. It won't bring the same sense of satisfaction in a few years. New and better cameras will hit the market. And eventually people will see the real you hiding behind your "extravagant" toys and possessions. And when that happens, will they like what they see? Or for that matter, will you like what you see?

With that said, there is another thing bothering me about this camera. Having just posted about young adults in debt, seeing things like this camera angers me a bit because I know there will be some young adult somewhere who will buy into the myth that he or she will be happy with a camera (or any product) like this, and it will only steep them deeper in debt, keeping them enslaved even longer. I'm a typical male in the fact that I love gadgets, especially ones with a high cool factor, but not at the cost of my financial freedom.

Computer's Back

I just got my laptop back today after it had a trip to the "computer hospital". The hard drive (made by Toshiba - so please no "let's bash Apple" jokes) was going bad. Thankfully it was all under warranty. Now I'm having to go back through and bring things back up to where they were when the drive went bad. Thankfully I had most things backed up, but I didn't have a few apps backed up (so I'm re-downloading them and re-installing them), and worst of all - I had failed to back up my bookmarks! A complete travesty.

And for some reason I can't get my email program to connect correctly to the Exchange server at church. Other than that, it's been somewhat easy (and a bit fun - although a time waster) to get things back into order so I can at least look like I'm being efficient).

Ok, so this was a waste of a blog, but at least you now know the reason for my blogging absence. So all 3 of you can rest easy now - the computer's back, so I'm back.

Material Lust

I have a confession to make. I am currently struggling with lust.

I think I know why God hasn't made me rich. As often as I try to fool myself into thinking I'd do the super spiritual thing and give it all away, I have a feeling I know where some of that money would go.

I am currently lusting for the new Canon Digital Rebel XTi (also called the 400D - see photo at left). And Apple just put out a 24-inch iMac. Our current camera and computer aren't performing at their peek, so it's justified, right? (Oh yeah, the bank account says we can't afford it. Bummer...)

I guess I should thank God for new products like these to help me relearn contentment!

If you'd like to think about finance, possessions, and contentment more, I recommend viewing the newest Nooma film - 013 Rich.

Mac Accountability Software

I'm a devoted Mac user, so I was very glad to get an email today announcing that someone has finally brought accountability software to my favorite platform.

X3Watch is completely free, so you have nothing to lose. It is in beta mode right now, so keep that in mind.

Mighty Mouse

I'm a Mac guy, and while I don't plan to post much about Macs, this one I felt was worth posting.

Mighty Mouse is on his way!

Dumb name, but looks very cool. But it is 5 years too late! $49 isn't a bad price, but they should have put this out more than a couple of years ago (or left the cord off to be up-to-date). Apple (who was recently named by 600+ CEOs in Business Week as the Most Innovative Company) used to ignore the cry for a two-buttoned mouse with scroll wheel, claiming the one-button mouse as more than efficient enough - now it seems they've changed their ways.

But better late than never, right?

Are you an "Apple"?
Some local church congregations act like Apple has with the computer mouse. They refuse to change things. "But we've never done it that way." And something that surprises me is that I've even heard that line uttered by a young adult before! (Remember, I pastor young adults.)

But our God, the God who does not change, is changing everything! In fact, the whole Christian life is about change! We are changed into new creations when we start following Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are constantly being changed and transformed as we mature in Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). And we will be changed yet again when we enter heaven (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). The Christian life is one of constant change. The only thing that doesn't change is God Himself (Malachi 3:6).

So are you afraid of change? If so, why? In what areas of your life do you need to change? In what areas does your church/ministry/life need to be "better late than never"?

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" Isaiah 43:19 (NIV)