Say it Ain't So Joel

This has been a productive week. I am just about to the bottom of my immediate inbasket! One misfortune though. I was one of the beta testers for the Outlook conversion. I got the program two weeks before anyone else, to practice and to teach the others as they came online. There were a few in every office throughout the church who were offered this opportunity. The only problem was, all of the beta tester's emails got messed up and I had to reenter all my email addresses, because for some reason (a glitch) the name was the only thing that came over in the email. The @ldschurch.org and other domain names were left off. Fortunately, other than a few people who were not successful converting to Outlook altogether, we were the only ones with lasting problems. Those who weren't successfull converting the first time were generally successful on the second or third attempt!!

Today, I finished the first complete draft of the 2009 Area Calendar. The AP will review it and then we will publish it. I still have a lot to learn about the calendaring functions in Outlook. I can't get any visibility on items when I enter more than five on a given day, which is often, without having to go to a second screen! The chief of technology for the church got an email from me today entitled "Say it ain't so Joe(l)." A phrase attributed to a desperate little kid who asked Shoeless Joe Jackson, if the White Sox had thrown the 1919 World Series. Our technology chief's name is Joel.

We were told by our secretaries today that we should not come to work tomorrow. They thought that we should stay home and celebrate the 4th of July. We are going to have a hotdog party with the seniors at our apartment, tomorrow night, but we have too much to do to stay home and play. That will have to wait until Saturday. Chris says she may sneak out a little early to get ready for the crowd.

It probably wouldn't be such a bad idea, since the building maintenance people are painting the interior of our offices this week and next. The first few days they have only been prepping. They hope to get paint by tomorrow, so they can get started in earnest. I sat down at the beginning of the week with the maintenance people to prepare a plan, office by office. Time will tell whether they can execute it as we planned it.

We ate pizza the other night at a restaurant on the street next to the Cokol (pronounced Sokal) metro station, called Maxim's. It was very good. I would describe it as fresh and tasty! Elder Yorgeson and I split a pizza and Jonathan and Whitney split another one. We were on our way to meet at the Mason's for Russian study.

FHE this week was a lot of fun, a great lesson and wonderful homemade fruit pie with apples and berries. We missed the Irelands. They were in the Baltics conducting training for humanitarian missionaries. The McCunes were in Spain on a visa trip and the Gregory's were doing their thing with the YSAs.

The best news of the week was the improvement in Al Price's condition. They hope to take him off the ventilator this week and get him on his way to a full recovery. It looked pretty bleak for a while, but it looks like all of those prayers paid off!! We are still praying Al.

I talked to my dad this week and he wasn't feeling well at all. The smoke from the California fires is really sapping him of his strength. It is an allergic type condition with soreness of throat, infected sinuses, and red and itchy eyes. I told my mom if things don't improve soon she needs to get him out of there and go to the beach. Her neighbor, Bonnie, went to Half Moon Day for a couple of days, to get relief. She suffers from asthma. Dad ssid he couldn't see the houses out their back deck, because of the smoke. Apparently there are approximately 1,000 fires going on at one time, all over the state, started by lightening strikes.

The markets are still in turmoil over the financial crisis associated with subprime loans and credit tightening. The Dow is up slightly at the moment, around 11,200, down from 14,400, less than two years ago. It looks like the beginning of the end for some companies. They are talking about possible bankruptcy for both GM and AMR today. Both stocks are way down. The price of GM's stock hasn't been this low since 1954! In 1954, the most famous slogan on Wall Street was "As GM goes, so goes the nation." I sure hope not!! Other headlines: Oil was up to $143 a barrel. Unemployment is up (but only to 5.5%). The dollar is down. The sky is falling!!!!!!!