RTI

When I sit down at the keyboard to write for my blogs I generally start by writing a title line which becomes the subject line of the blog entry. What I'm writing this afternoon started out last Sunday and the title was “The Perfect Sunday” but since it has slipped an entire week I am changing the title to “RTI” and I will explain why shortly.

I was originally writing about my “Perfect Sunday” because I knew that everyone particularly those that I work with would all be in a “down” mood the next day because the Steelers had lost last Sunday. I wanted to write about how my Sunday had gone in the hope that the readers would look at the local sports teams loss in perspective.

The reason for the title change is that it is now a week latter and I'm just finishing expressing my thoughts on electronic paper. Computers like the one I'm using to write this are VERY dumb and appear to be “smart” only because they execute very simple instructions at an extremely rapid rate. Deep in the bowels of your computer is a microprocessor chip that make thousands, hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of operations every second. In the computers little world it performs each instruction and then moves on to the next in sequence one after another. Out here in the real world where we live we may demand that the computer do something other than starting at the very first instruction and proceeding forward to the next falling in precise order that they were put down in.

The way the computer handles these breaks in its designed in path are called “interrupts”. When your computer is running some program, a word processor for example, and you suddenly decide the computer should play some music while you are typing and ask it to start up your MP3 player so that you can rock on with Billy Joel as your compose your thoughts the computer has to shift gears for a moment. To do this it saves the current state of what you are doing, starts the new program and then adds it to the list of things that it will be doing in “sequence”. Once it has accomplished this it executes an instruction called RTI or “Return From Interrupt” so that you can go back to your writing.

That is in effect what I am doing today. I was interrupted by other things and have now done an “RTI” returning to my blog and finishing my thoughts of a week ago. You see I have had another “RTI” in that I have returned to work although only for half days as of now. That may change soon and I'll be back full time. That and a few other things have sidetracked me from regular writing on the blogs.

I started writing this last Sunday evening but as you see I got sidetracked and am completing my thoughts on the following Sunday afternoon. It is interesting that when I picked up my wife Linda at work last Monday evening that I made a comment on how much I had enjoyed church services the day before and she said that she had been thinking the exact same thing. Now another week has passed and today we were thinking the same thoughts again this week. What follows is where I left off last Sunday while pounding on the keyboard.

(Return From Interrupt)

Well I am sure that there are a lot of people in the Pittsburgh area today that are whaling and gnashing their teeth because the Steelers loss today. Not only did they lose, but they lost a game that should have been won handily beating themselves with mistakes and bad plays. I have never understood what it is that gets the entire Pittsburgh area on a euphoric high if the team wins and down in the doldrums when they lose. I'm sure there will be lots of people that will have a bad day tomorrow because of the Steeler loss this Sunday. Don't get me wrong. I like it when the team wins. I root for them and watch the games if I have time. I also feel a little sad when they get trounced like they did last Monday night and when they lost a close game that I feel they should have won. Life however does go on.

Let me tell you how my Sunday went. I slept in a little latter than I wanted to but not so late that I managed to get a good hot shower, a bite of breakfast and be at church in time for services. Much as I enjoy church on Sunday some services are better than others. Let me assure you though that those that I don't take the full measure from are though my own faults. Today I left the church uplifted by the usual feeling of fellowship with my congregation and the renewed appreciation of God's grace bestowed on not only myself and my family but on mankind in general. This was amplified by a sermon that delivered a particularly optimistic message about God's love.

After I got home I started working on a few things for my day job, gathering information for a round table discussion that I would lead on ham radio latter that night and thinking about writing some blog entries. About that time the phone rang, it was my youngest son Andrew asking if Linda or I could accompany him grocery shopping as Katie was working and he needed to pick up some items and found shopping with a one year old and a two year old to be somewhat of a challenge.

I had a better idea. I told him to meet us at Riverside Park and that we would take Autumn, the two year old, to the park to play and he could take Kelsey with him shopping and return to the park with her when he was done. So Linda and I spent the next few hours chasing Autumn from slides to merry go round to swings to pipe tunnels and just general running. What a great time we had. Autumn's smile would just light up the area as she ran from one ride to another.

I stopped for a moment and wondered how many people at that same moment were “crying in their beer” about the Steeler loss and thinking about what a lousy day it had been. Maybe I'm looking at it from the wrong perspective but something in my heart tells me that is not the case. I felt sorry for those that might be having those thoughts at that moment as they were losing a day that could be filled with joy by simply appreciating what God had put before them. I hope each of you reading this will take stock of what the really important things in life are and not let those things which are not cloud your vision of the world around you. You will feel much better both in body and mind if you do.


Now it is another Sunday and it has been another good day. The Steelers did not play today having a “buy week” so no one here in Pittsburgh has to worry one way or the other this week. Linda and I have had another great Sunday and I hope you have also.