The Destructive Flood: The Crash of the HD

This is another geek-post about how I do my work as a PhD student . . .

In order to farm in the arid world of ancient Mesopotamia, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were used for irrigation. When the rivers overflowed, crops (and, by extension, lives) were destroyed. I've been thinking a lot about the work that goes into farming (thanks to Jayber Crow).

I'm a PhD student, which means that my work doesn't go into maintaining the life-sustaining farm, but it goes into bits and bytes. (A buddy and I have explored this metaphor: if we treat our "work" like farming, we find that we are more faithful to "work hard"––up before the sun, stopping for meals, but then getting right back to it . . . )

My destructive flood? The hard drive crash.

I'm careful that the most important stuff makes it into my dropbox folder, but I still can't afford put everything there.

But what about everything else? As a Mac user, I've always wanted to use Time Machine but I wasn't sure the best way to do it. My external HD isn't big enough for everything that I need it for––especially when Time Machine is included in "everything."

So, I decided to add a second, 1 TB hard drive to my MacBook.
(Other options: replace the stock HD with a SDD which are better. Or, if really pressed for virtual space, one could replace the stock HD (mine is 320GB) with another 1 TB or bigger . . . but who has that much stuff?)

So, I gutted the SuperDrive (MacBook's DVD drive, mine only sporadically worked, anyway) and replaced it with the 1TB HD.

Supplies:
-An external DVD drive at $30 (which I bought a while back because SuperDrive wasn't so super and we NEEDED to play Thomas the Train DVDs in a bad way)
-A holder for a HD at $8 (It even comes with a little screwdriver!)
-An external HD (I bought this one because of it's size to price ratio; at that time it was on sale for $60.)
-Grand total = $100 for 1,000 gigs. Not too shabby.

Then, I watched a few YouTube videos (like here) about the process, which is really simple.

Install according to the videos.

Set up the HD. (I partitioned mine at 600GB and 400GB; my iPhoto library is on one partition.)

Set up Time Machine.

Then, voila. Time Machine backs up on the hour. Every hour. No matter where I am.


- - - - -
In addition, I use my external HD as another Time Machine backup. Pretty cool.

Also, I've noticed that the second HD does decrease the battery at a faster rate.

Using Mellel's Tables with Hebrew Text

Though I know many who have tried and found it wanting, I love Mellel. I declare it THE word processor for mac––and almost necessary if you're doing language work that is RTL (right-to-left), like biblical Hebrew.

Some friends don't like Mellel because it's quite a bit simpler than what they might be used to with Microsoft Word. But the simplicity is the thing that I like most about THE word processor: You're in control.

But there is one area where the simplicity is somewhat limiting: tables. Mellel doesn't offer as many controls with tables as does Microsoft Word, but the ease of use with RTL and the fact that I need to use tables from time to time when using Mellel for my academic work means that I've learned a thing or three about how to make it work.

And, because @ps_byrd recently asked if I had any tips on how I use Mellel to work with Hebrew text, I thought I'd provide a brief step-by-step.


How I use Mellel for doing Hebrew work:

1.) Grab my passage from Logos. ("Copy"or "Export" functions.)

2.) Copy that passage into a spreadsheet program. (I use Excel, but I think that OpenOffice and maybe even Google Docs will do the necessary tasks with right-to-left Hebrew text.) I do this because this copy/paste puts all of the verses of biblical text into their own cell. A simple copy/paste into Mellel puts all of the verses into one cell. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1

3.) Manipulate the cells so that I have a column for chapter and a column for verse. This manipulation is much easier in the spreadsheet program with the drag/autofill feature. I also like for my chapter and verse to be on the RIGHT side of the text, so I move them there. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2

4.) Copy and paste the cells from the spreadsheet into Mellel. Don't paste them into a table, just directly into the document. Also, you'll probably want to change the page properties to landscape, lose any header/footer/page #s. (Use the "Page" palette for this.)

5.) I add two columns to the right and change their sizes. I use these columns to keep track of parsing, vocabulary, or translations and notes. I change the font of the whole table in Mellel to a custom made style set where Times New Roman is the main font and SBLBibLit is the secondary font for the secondary language input, Hebrew. Then I'm ready to roll. You could use footnotes (or endnotes) to make these sorts of notes, too. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3

Questions? I'd love to hear them.

A Person Who Makes Excuses

“Dad, I’m tired.” 

Over the last few days, this phrase has been muttered in the most pitiful voice Than can muster. It always follows correction. 

“Dad, I’m tired.” 

Bill Cosby, that insightful philosopher of parenting, tells a story about how his mother used to tell him that she’d knock his brains out. He says, “I always wanted to get some calves brains and have them in my hand. When she whopped me aside the head, I’d throw them on the ground. But knowing my mother it wouldn’t work. She would have said, ‘Pick up your brains. Have you lost your mind?’”

Bill had to have been an exasperating child––he certainly wants us to think so. But I think his mother’s experience is a fairly universal parenting experience. As a parent I often stumble into truth because of exasperation and exhaustion. For me this show of clumsy mental footwork usually falls out of my mouth and I wish that I hadn’t incriminated myself. 

But in life there is no fifth amendment right. We can try to hide our guilt and sweep it under rugs. We can lie to ourselves and pretend that something didn’t happen. But sin is sin. Even if we believe the lie, at some point exasperation will set in and we’ll stumble into the truth. The self-incriminating truth will fall out right out of our own mouths. 

“Dad, I’m tired.” 

This morning, following this whine, I stumbled into such a truth. My own words convicted me. I just stumbled into it. “Son, we don’t make excuses. We ask for forgiveness.” 

As people who know and experience the grace of God, we are people who don’t make excuses. Rather than hide, sweep the mess under the rug, or believe the lies that we tell ourselves, we come clean. Sin is sin. 

The reason that we can come clean is the truth of God’s grace. We can come clean because we’re not clean. When we understand God’s love for us, we can do nothing except face our sins. We don’t make excuses because we know that the only way that we can become clean is to come clean. “There is a fountain filled with blood …”

“Dad, I’m tired.”

As I’ve become more and more aware of Than’s whiny-excuses, I’ve also become aware of my own. I pray that I might receive the grace to make confessions instead of excuses.