How did I end up in cyber hell and how do I get out?
I imagine you have heard that when you are on the path God wants and doing the work to build His kingdom, that the devil will come after you with all he has got to impede and discourage you. Well my friends, I have been in preparation for a mission trip these past few weeks, and each and every thing I have needed to do, the enemy has showed up to test my resolve.
This is how I ended up in cyber hell.
It all started with the discovery of over 7000 system errors on my computer, which prevented my antivirus from running. I had already acquired a larger computer that I planned to migrate to after the trip, so at least I was not at the center of cyber hell, only on the fringes. So began the migration project with a computer on either side of me, downloading files to an external drive on my right, and deleting all of the unnecessary files on the “new” computer on my left – about 170 GB of them. I brought that computer back to its pristine state without the aid of those convenient system discs. Then moved on to about 100 GB of stuff on the old computer to move to the new one, including passwords, bookmarks, address books and such. That was my first 2 days in cyber hell, and the enemy was pretty p – o’d that I came through it so well.
The “new” computer had precious little RAM for my multitasking, and of course the extra memory card I had in my old computer was not the correct one, so I ordered a 2G set from Crucial, and got back to my mission trip preparations while I waited for the memory cads to arrive. That was when I started setting up a new laptop computer to be taken to a pastor overseas. This laptop replaced the old computer to my right, and as I tried to install a few things while catching up on 3 days of email I was behind from my previous adventures in cyber hell, it took me to cyber hell again. Every time I turned around, that little notebook was rebooting… critical updates, more on that later.
What should have taken just an hour or two was dragging into the wee hours of the night again. I was feeling pretty lucky if I got 6 hours of sleep a night through those several days of cyber hell. Fast forward to Wednesday and my RAM has arrived. I am so pumped knowing how awesome the computer will be once I get that RAM installed! So I crawl up under my desk to open the box and pop in the cards, and to my amazement everything goes perfectly (except some funkiness with the connector latches) I slide the panel back in to close up the box and get ready to get back online. I push the start button and… black screen with blue box says no signal… back in cyber hell! .
I was convinced it must have something to do with all of the trouble those pesky latches gave me, and so I opened the box up to remove and reinstalled the cards a bunch of times with no success getting the computer to run. By now I am freaking out. All that work to move the files and now this computer is dead! This, I am convinced, is the deepest center of cyber hell. Next I called the IT manager where I work on his cell phone even though I knew he was probably cooking Wednesday night dinner for his church. He walked me through some troubleshooting steps and determined it was probably the video card and told me to bring it in in the morning and he would take a look at it. I was devastated.
As I was closing up the case to pack it into the car, my hand brushed by a yellow plastic button with a black arrow on it and it moved. Hmmmm, I wonder what that thing is… so I pushed it to see how far it would move. Click, buzz, hum, the system fired up and worked flawlessly! Thank you Jesus! Imagine that, a reset button. I was free from cyber hell… but not for long. It was time to get back to the pastor’s computer.
Back to a computer on my right and another on my left. As I was organizing my “new” computer I was setting up the one for the pastor, loading some programs he wanted and getting all those windows updates that you need when you fire up a new one out of the box. I was back in restart cyber hell. I would be in the middle of loading software, and while I stepped away for just a second, windows would do it’s automatic restart and I would have to start my install over gain. I don’t know how many times that happened, but it was 2:oo am when I finally got out of cyber hell and off to bed that night.
Finally I was ready to start on the last computer… another one that was being sent overseas to a pastor in need. I thought I was done with cyber hell, but noooooo… after the easiest setup of all on a quite old Dell netbook, I thought I was done. I was doing a final run through of settings and such, and navigated to the mic and speakers to set the volume levels. You will never guess what happened… I was right back in cyber hell again! The system could not see the sound components. I wrestled with it for another couple of hours, finding drivers and updates and troubleshooting tools, all to no avail, and at midnight, I packed it up to take to a pro I know the next morning, to see if he could make it behave. Long story short, I had a perfectly running deaf mute computer and that would not do. Would my time in cyber hell never end?
On my way home from work that day I started making calls to find another laptop donation. I scored! This one was even older, windows 2000. I was told it had some bumps and bruises, but ran fine and everything worked, so I ran to meet my friend that had it and brought it home to get started. I had less than 24 hours to get it done and delivered to the gal that would be taking it overseas… and the lions share of that 24 hours would be needed for sleep and work the next day.
I was getting used to cyber hell by now, so I checked the obvious stuff first. It took me 10 minutes and a frustrated phone call for help just to find out where the power button was. Within about 15 minutes of powering it up I discovered that the right hand side of the qwerty keyboard (that doubled as the calculator on those dinosaurs), was frozen on numbers and would not release back to letters. I could not expect the pastor to get much use out of a computer that only supported half of the alphabet, and there I was in cyber hell again, and running out of time.
Did I mention that with all of this going on, I had not made a blog post in close to two weeks and my rankings were visibly sliding lower. The time had come for drastic action, so I did what we Americans do best. I got out my WalMart card and I went shopping! If Satan was that dead set on this pastor not having a computer, then I knew I had to make sure he got one.
After I got home with a new Compaq and set it up, I started downloading updates hoping to correct a little glitch on the new computer. I had set it for the correct time zone, U.S. Eastern time, but it was four hours ahead of the correct time for reasons I could not begin to understand. Maybe that’s what time it was in cyber hell. I was ready for bed as it was well past a working woman’s bed time yet again. I stopped at the refrigerator to get a glass of water only to find the bread dough that I had gotten out and put back several times over the evening as my plans had changed… (I know what you are thinking, who in their right mind would try to bake bread in cyber hell) the bread dough had swollen to well past the limits of the pan it was in, for the second time. My choices were clear, throw it out, or stay up and bake it.
So, I am completing this post as the bread bakes. I am just too stubborn to let Satan steal my bread. The pastors will have their computers, and while I eat a fat sandwich on fresh baked bread, Satan can eat my dust!
Blessings & Adventure,
Lynn “lynnibug” Rios
I have been to cyber hell and with God’s help I have conquered it!
This video, praying from abundance, has been on my mind for a very long time… for the past 7 days it has been an all consuming passion, and finally, it is done!
Enjoy this video designed to deepen your expectancy
You read that right! Get Ready for the Future of Food.
On May 12, I had the honor of meeting a small group of visionaries whose mission is to revolutionize our understanding of the processes that take place inside the body when we eat, and with that knowledge, begin to shape positive changes into the future of food
Over 20 years of ground breaking science and trials, in the hands of a team of leaders, all experts in their specific disciplines, driven by a passion to stop the epidemics of obesity and diabetes that has become the norm, all openly praising God for what He has blessed them with, has resulted in what I believe to be the dream team of our age.
The future of food is sooner than you think!
Now I don’t normally speak in such superlatives, and I am not easily impressed, but after listening to them one after another, my gut is telling me that this IS the REAL DEAL! What I am about to share with you is so new it is in a category of its own. It is about re-engineering the foods we love, naturally, making the future of food healthier, without having to sacrifice the flavors and textures we have grown to love… and not changed with chemicals, but with other foods, to be healthy so we can eat what we want without accumulating fat and poisoning our bodies with tons of sugar. Imagine the possibilities! That is huge, and the market for it is limitless. Face it, we are all going to continue eating and drinking. (more…)
Just in case you have been reading my posts for a while and have primarily been exposed to my “spiritual side”, I feel that I should preface this post by confessing that marketing is my profession.That being said, I have come to understand that I am on a spiritual journey seeking wisdom and understanding, and must be able to define the keys to my success, both material and spiritual, from that spiritual vantage point.
You may want to read that over a few times until it sinks in. In many ways it appears to be a paradox, and frankly, I had to re-write it several times before it captured what I really wanted to convey. I am on a spiritual journey seeking wisdom and understanding, and must be able to define the keys to my success, both material and spiritual, from that spiritual vantage point.
My goal is to acquire and share the wisdom that will carry me, and everyone who will go with me, to a life of abundance for body, mind, and spirit, victorious over an uncertain future that looms large and foreboding.
We humans often have lofty goals and we naturally desire success. It may seem at first like you can’t get there from here, but the only (more…)
There has been an interesting discussion going on in recent weeks about what exactly will qualify a person to inherit eternal life. I have come across as much watered down doctrine as I have over the top legalistic doctrine, which has left me asking why so many people seem to be set on doing “just enough” to get to heaven? While the over the top doctrine pushers would have you believe that you must believe exactly as they do, the watered down faction seems to be seeking the quickest, easiest, cheapest ticket that will be accepted at the pearly gates.
In any endeavor, when you seek to do “just enough” rather than to excel, you may technically succeed, but you are only cheating yourself when you give less than your best. Here is a real world example – French Toast.
If I take the eggs and beat them just a little, then quickly dip the bread in the eggs and fry it on up in a really hot pan, I will technically have French Toast. It will be dry in the middle and have crusty egg white on the edges, and maybe a few charred spots, but it will have about the same nutritional value as it would have if I were more attentive to the details. (more…)
One thing common to people who achieve a high level of success is their willingness to take risks. One of my early mentors always posed these two questions when I was considering a risky move. “What is the worst thing that could happen?” and “If that worst thing did happen, what would the damage be?”
The point is that in most cases, if the risk taken did not result in success, it would have left me in no worse circumstances than if I had not taken the risk. In business, for example, let’s say you have a very promising prospect that becomes unresponsive and won’t take your calls. You know your product or service is exactly what they need, and you could go over your prospects head and call the CEO, but you hesitate because that could damage your relationship if he takes offense. What is the worst thing that could happen? (more…)
Many wise people have observed that the curse of our generation is our busy-ness. So many things to do, so many deadlines, always driven to do more, be more, and have more, but do we really move ahead being stuck in this dynamic? Do we derive any true satisfaction from the work that we do?
I would offer this definition of success. Success is finding something that you love to do so much, you would do it for free, then learning to do it so well that people will pay you well to do it.
According to Kahlil Gibran,
“Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night”
Just a little something to ponder… It might serve us well to re-examine our priorities.
Finally I was ready to start on the last computer… another one that was being sent overseas to a pastor in need. I thought I was done with cyber hell, but noooooo… after the easiest setup of all on a quite old Dell netbook, I thought I was done. I was doing a final run through of settings and such, and navigated to the mic and speakers to set the volume levels. You will never guess what happened… I was right back in cyber hell again! The system could not see the sound components. I wrestled with it for another couple of hours, finding drivers and updates and troubleshooting tools, all to no avail, and at midnight, I packed it up to take to a pro I know the next morning, to see if he could make it behave. Long story short, I had a perfectly running deaf mute computer and that would not do. Would my time in cyber hell never end?
