Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Is it really necessary?
You know what's beginning to annoy me?
I'll tell you: the ubiquitous jug of hand sanitizer.
I was visiting a church away from home the other Sunday and before communion all of the lay assistants making their way to the altar pumped the big hand sanitizer jug on the back altar and rubbed their hands. I suppose the thinking is that the germs will go from the assistants hands to the communion wafer to the recipient. Okay, fair enough, but do we really need the jug of goop behind the altar? I don't know why this annoys me so much and if I were a more devout person I would be considering the mote in my own eye. But it does.
Maybe it's that we have blue-jean clad lay-assistants in the first place. That's certainly a part of it. But it's also the smugness related to this line-dance at the altar, as in "I'm going to make sure you don't get any of my germs." It's the faux pre-occupation with public safety when in years gone by common sense did just fine. Mind you, I have been known to ask the deli counter worker to take off the stupid rubber gloves while making my sandwich.
What if Michelangelo had included the hand sanitizer jug in his "The Last Supper." Or even worse, our Lord himself before breaking the bread pausing to pump.
I remember doing mission work centuries ago in Mexico and being invited into the very modest adobe home of a local family for lunch. Grandmother was making fresh tortillas, and as she was standing at the glass-less window looking out and rolling the corn meal she reached over and brushed away some dirt that had gathered on the window sill and then in one motion went back to tortilla making. I smiled and thanked God for a real human being and the dirt.
I do have one question though. What happens to the germs that go from hand to pump before they are sanitized? I assume they rest on the pump nozzle for the next person to get those germs and on and on until the pump nozzle is filled with 10x more germs than when you started. I'm just sayin' . . it's weird.
It's the disproportionate concern for trivialities that annoys me most. Rend you hearts not your garments the old prophet said, I agree.
I'll tell you: the ubiquitous jug of hand sanitizer.
I was visiting a church away from home the other Sunday and before communion all of the lay assistants making their way to the altar pumped the big hand sanitizer jug on the back altar and rubbed their hands. I suppose the thinking is that the germs will go from the assistants hands to the communion wafer to the recipient. Okay, fair enough, but do we really need the jug of goop behind the altar? I don't know why this annoys me so much and if I were a more devout person I would be considering the mote in my own eye. But it does.
Maybe it's that we have blue-jean clad lay-assistants in the first place. That's certainly a part of it. But it's also the smugness related to this line-dance at the altar, as in "I'm going to make sure you don't get any of my germs." It's the faux pre-occupation with public safety when in years gone by common sense did just fine. Mind you, I have been known to ask the deli counter worker to take off the stupid rubber gloves while making my sandwich.
What if Michelangelo had included the hand sanitizer jug in his "The Last Supper." Or even worse, our Lord himself before breaking the bread pausing to pump.
I remember doing mission work centuries ago in Mexico and being invited into the very modest adobe home of a local family for lunch. Grandmother was making fresh tortillas, and as she was standing at the glass-less window looking out and rolling the corn meal she reached over and brushed away some dirt that had gathered on the window sill and then in one motion went back to tortilla making. I smiled and thanked God for a real human being and the dirt.
I do have one question though. What happens to the germs that go from hand to pump before they are sanitized? I assume they rest on the pump nozzle for the next person to get those germs and on and on until the pump nozzle is filled with 10x more germs than when you started. I'm just sayin' . . it's weird.
It's the disproportionate concern for trivialities that annoys me most. Rend you hearts not your garments the old prophet said, I agree.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
A pretty-smart phone
I bought a smart phone yesterday, or, as I say above, a pretty-smart phone. I would have bought a really-smart phone but I just can not justify spending $100+ per month to make phone calls and send a text message or two every week.
I have been using a normal phone-calls-only phone forever and a couple years ago signed up for the MetroPCS $35 worst-service-in-America deal. MetroPCS is (deservedly) the Rodney Dangerfield of phone companies but what do you want at that price.
But to the smart phone. Saturday night I couldn't find my phone and after searching into the night I gave up looking figuring it was outside in the dark somewhere with a dead battery. Sunday morning, in my car about one mile out of my driveway and at 40 MPH, I heard something roll off the roof and, through the rearview mirror, saw a little black dot hit the pavement and splatter. Phone found. On Monday, I rolled into the local MetroPCS gave the brother handshake and asked to see the advertised $40 a month deal with a $99 smart phone: the Huawei Activa running Google's Gingerbread OS.
Smart phone conclusion: the more made-up words in a title the worse the product. For instance, words like "Activa" and "Gingerbread" actually mean "this is not an iPhone so don't expect too much." "Huawei" is Chinese for "cheap as sh**."
And there you have it. A pretty good, pretty smart phone. Actually, I kind of like it.
.
.
I have been using a normal phone-calls-only phone forever and a couple years ago signed up for the MetroPCS $35 worst-service-in-America deal. MetroPCS is (deservedly) the Rodney Dangerfield of phone companies but what do you want at that price.
But to the smart phone. Saturday night I couldn't find my phone and after searching into the night I gave up looking figuring it was outside in the dark somewhere with a dead battery. Sunday morning, in my car about one mile out of my driveway and at 40 MPH, I heard something roll off the roof and, through the rearview mirror, saw a little black dot hit the pavement and splatter. Phone found. On Monday, I rolled into the local MetroPCS gave the brother handshake and asked to see the advertised $40 a month deal with a $99 smart phone: the Huawei Activa running Google's Gingerbread OS.
Smart phone conclusion: the more made-up words in a title the worse the product. For instance, words like "Activa" and "Gingerbread" actually mean "this is not an iPhone so don't expect too much." "Huawei" is Chinese for "cheap as sh**."
And there you have it. A pretty good, pretty smart phone. Actually, I kind of like it.
.
.
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