Week Roundup
This week’s roundup comes a little early – I’m taking Good Friday off from work.
Sunday – After worship I went to the Adult Forum on the capital campaign which included a manse tour. The manse tour included lunch. This solved a problem for me – Carolyn was in North Jersey at a wake for a cousin-in-law of hers. Later in the evening I went to Sr. High youth group where we prepared further for Youth Sunday. I have an assignment – I need to find Old Testament scripture(s) to match up with the Prodigal Son. (Feel free to suggest some in comments or e-mail)
Work this week has been quiet. My boss passed her Project Management Professional exam on Monday (on the first try!) and we celebrated with donuts and bagels on Tuesday. The entire group is taking her out for lunch next week. Other than that I’m doing design work for a project.
Planning for the moderator candidate event is progressing. I’m finding a huge disparity in how presbyteries handle the list of commissioners. Some are treating it like I’m some kind of identity thief and insisting on forwarding the event information to their commissioners. One stated clerk said that he’d look at the invitation and determine whether or not it was “appropriate” for the commissioners. Other presbyteries are being very forthcoming and giving me all of the information that I ask for in minutes. I have to wonder who abused the list of commissioners at some point and how that caused the very prickly reaction in some places.
Monday evening at church Project Open Door met (well, actually at the manse – it solved a child care issue for the pastor). Most of the meeting went very well. Then we got to the subject of whether or not racism is an issue in our church (which is 90+% white) and whether or not we’ve introduced bias into our visitor survey. I’m amazed at how passionate people were about their positions (given that it was a room full of white people) and at how much disagreement there was. After this painful experience we’re going to revisit it again later – probably with the help of an expert. Ironically, Barack Obama covered all of the issues that we discussed in his speech the next day.
Tuesday evening I ended up serving as the pick-up Net Control Station for a ham radio weekly drill. This was the weekly Mercer County SKYWARN/RACES/ARES net – to test radios and procedures in case our services are needed due to a disaster or severe weather. It went relatively well given that most of our members were attending a club meeting at the time and were unavailable.
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Tonight I plan to go to our church’s Tenebrae (Maundy Thursday) communion service. It will reportedly be very powerful. They gradually dim the lights throughout the service and end in darkness and silence. With the strong winds that we’re going to get it should be interesting.
Friday evening we’re off to see the Trenton Devils play the Dayton Bombers with my sister Laura.
Saturday evening we go to the Philadelphia Wings vs. New York Titans lacrosse game at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton. My friend Jill has a crowd coming. My sister bought two tickets and after a friend dropped out Dad is coming with her – they’re riding with Carolyn and I to the game.
Sunday morning’s Easter service will probably be Catholic this year – we did Presbyterian last year. Sunday afternoon we’re hosting Easter dinner with the Smiths and Brennans at our house (anywhere from 9 to 13 people depending on who comes).
Happy Easter!
KC2SMS
For those of you who don’t recognize it, KC2SMS is a United States amateur radio call sign. It’s used to identify the station and operator of a “ham” radio station in the US.
It also means me.
I’ve been interested in radio for many years. During college I was a member of the Rutgers Amateur Radio Club (WA2NPP), but I never got my license. I just didn’t want to go to the effort to learn Morse Code.
Earlier this year, the FCC (and ITU – the international body governing radio) eliminated the Morse Code requirement for all amateur radio licenses.
When I decided to stop flying, I looked for a less expensive hobby that could be done on my schedule (flying is clearly neither). I tried some online version of the ham radio tests after doing 20 minutes of looking at a study guide and to my surprise I passed both the entry level (Technician) and middle level (General) tests. I seem to have learned a lot of the information over the years from one source or another. I decided to do some studying and take the tests. It only costs $14 for a testing session and you can take as many levels as you pass for the same fee.
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Yesterday the paperwork went all the way through and I was issued my call sign and license. I have a Yaesu VX-6R handheld VHF/UHF radio on order that should arrive later this week. In the future I’ll look into a mobile (car) radio that handles all bands and can be used at home as well. I don’t think I plan to install a major antenna farm or tower at home – I’ll probably get field antennas and put them up when I want to use them.
I have already contacted the ARES/RACES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) folks in my area. I’ll start working with them soon, though there is a pause in activity for those groups in December every year. I also may get involved in traffic nets – the passing of short messages via radio from members of the public to other members of the public with the intent to train for the need to pass important messages in an emergency.
Besides, being an IT person by day, being heavily involved in church, and flying airplanes wasn’t nearly geeky enough.
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