My Day In The Business Office

Hello to all. This is Floyd and I wanted to share a bit about my first day in the business office here at New Hope. Surprisingly, there is a great deal of technology being used here at New Hope. Look around and one will see steel towers about the height of a two story house with WiFi routers on them. The entire property is covered by at least one of several different WiFi accounts so it is possible to get online, almost anytime... as long as there is power. For the second night in a row we don't have power so this blog's length will be determined by battery life at this point.

Anyway... There is a gentleman here (Uncle Dave) who is the resident technology guy. Actually he is really an accounting guy who works on technology when he can. He is very knowledgeable with regard to networks and wireless technology, as is evident by the coverage of WiFi on the property. He is also great with software. Unfortunately he knows very little with regard to hardware and that is where I come in. I do know quite a bit about hardware and so I began with a pretty tough project. I had to try and recover some data from a crashed laptop hard drive. He had done some research and had tried several things so I really had my work cut out for me. After connecting it to USB drive that pretty much turns hard drives into external working drives via a USB connection, it was pretty clear that this drive was suffering from a mechanical failure. The drive would not spin and only made a beeping noise.

After taking it apart and checking some things I saw that the control arm was damaged. I played with it a bit and was able to get it moving and the drive spinning again. YES!!! I bet you are all waiting in great anticipation for me to share with you how I was now able to get all the data off the drive... Nope... still not being recognized. The control arm is obviously damaged and there isn't another one lying around anywhere, so we are basically at a standstill minus one last option. It does appear that perhaps the drive stopped due to getting overheated, so we put it in a freezer tonight and will try it in the morning ice cold. It has worked for me before and it really is our last hope for retrieving any data. But enough about all of that...

There is much to do with regard to technology and so my primary job is to essentially stage a computer clinic. People that work on the property (and there are many) will bring their computers to me (primarily laptops, which are used as opposed to desktops in order to save on power consumption) to be assessed, diagnosed, and fixed as needed. From what I have heard, there are many issues and the expectation is that it will take several weeks to get through them all. I also have some other projects I will be working on, but this is the primary technological work I will be doing for this first stint at New Hope.

Tomorrow I will meet with the New Hope Director (Tal) to discuss the goals and objectives for our team over the coming days and weeks and to perhaps discuss how we could fit into the long-term picture here. Walking around the property I could see us living here. I could see it for Kim too as we sat in the guest hall sipping on some tea earlier this afternoon. I think she was thinking it too but I won't speak for her. But I saw something there. A little glimmer... a little smile.... she was at peace and that can say a lot for and about a person in a place like this.

Well... it is after 10 pm here (2 pm back in Texas) and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Hope all is well for all of you. Mukama Malungi!!!