The Happy Path

A few weeks I took a three day, online class for work.  The subject it covered was an IT documentation process called “Use Cases.”  And, yes, it was as boring as it sounds.

Use Cases detail the sequence of events that a person or system does to effect the desired outcome.   They are most often used in creating or modifying software, but really could be helpful for all sorts of processes.

Think about using an ATM.  Someone, somewhere probably wrote a use case for accessing it:
Customer inserts card
System reads card
System displays PIN prompt
Customer enters PIN
System validates PIN
System displays main menu

During the class the instructor talked about “the happy path”.  These are the steps, when executed, have no flaws or exceptions.  The machine was working properly and able to read the card.  The customer entered their PIN correctly.

For some reason that phrase, the happy path, really annoyed me.

Did I mention that the class was a bit boring?  While I was in this class, I had the Cavs victory parade streaming on my other monitor.  The Goodyear Blimp was there and several times the TV station cut to a view of the crowds from overhead.

One point three million people.  Celebrating.  Happy.

Then I knew what was so annoying about that phrase.

Since when does something go just so, absolutely perfectly?  In my life it doesn’t.  Go back to that ATM.  I’ve dropped the card.  Entered the PIN incorrectly.  Put the card into the machine upside down.  But, in the end, I got my cash.  And that's just a little thing.  What about the bigger ones?

I watched that parade.  There was no flawless path to victory.  LeBron came to Cleveland.  Then he left.  And then he came back.  Last year when the Cavs made it to the playoffs, and ultimately the finals,  injuries – a dislocated shoulder in one player and a busted kneecap in another – hampered their abilities.

It almost looked like this year was going to be a repeat of last when a major player had to sit out of one of the final games due to a concussion.  Not again.  But persistence, hard work and faith in their own abilities paid off.

Northeast Ohio held their collective breath the last two minutes of game seven.  That victory was fifty-two years in the making.

Don’t tell those one point three million people it wasn’t a Happy Path.

AMDG

TToT (16): June & July

Sneaking this one in just under the wire.  There's lots for which I am thankful since I last wrote, let's see if I can remember May, June and July so far!

 

one:  I'm so very glad nobody seems to mind if people pop in and out of this link-up.  I'm nothing if not inconsistent when it comes to writing these.

 

two:  If you somehow missed it, The Cleveland Cavaliers won the Championship!  That's the biggest thing in NE Ohio since I don't know when.  The last time a Cleveland team won a major sports title, I was just a few weeks old.  And, that my friends, was a long, long time ago. 

 

three:  I had a week off at the end of June for vacation.  It was one of those "stay-cations" and it was lovely!  I futzed in the gardens, played putt putt, hiked, and did a whole lot of nothing. 

 

four:  Christine mentioned last week that while she was in Ohio, we got to get together and visit another lovely lady, Melody and her family.  What a wonderful afternoon that was! 

 

five:  Sis and BIL have a pool in their backyard.  One of the days that we over there, it was a little too cold to swim.  But, that didn't stop up from dippin' our toes in and splashing around a it.

 

six:  We enjoyed a lot of hikes in our local county parks.  Jack liked going off-trail and into the stream.

 

seven: While on vacation, we pulled out the hammock.  We've been enjoying cold beverages, good books, naps, and the choir of birds while lounging on it.  We feel sorry for PWH.(**) 

 

eight:  The view from said hammock has been quite beautiful of late - blue skies and puffy white clouds.  It never gets old trying to figure out what the clouds look like.  Today we had, among other things, a dragon, a puppy and a baby. 

 

nine:  I have been reading a lot lately and have had many good books from which to choose.  Two I am currently reading, Divine Mercy for Moms and The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder,  I was given copies so that I could read and review them.  I'm a little behind, but soon.

 

ten:  I love a lazy Saturday or Sunday.  Between going to work and just doing normal errands, I sometimes feel like I'm always in the car.  Recently, I have been trying to make it a point to have "go nowhere days" and I love them!

 

Check out more goodness at one of these hosts:

 A Fly on our (Chicken Coop) Wall, Amycake and the Dude, Considerings, Finding Ninee, Getting Literal, I Want Backsies, The Meaning of Me, Thankful Me, Uncharted, The Wakefield Doctrine .

 

 ** PWH - People Without Hammocks

 

AMDG

Blessings

I ate my lunch at my desk today while reading one of the latest Patterson novels.  As I sat there, I heard something from a nearby office. 

I got up and stood at the door and listened.  My coworker, Nori, was singing quietly to herself.  I couldn't understand the words she was singing, but it was lovely.  I felt like I was intruding on someone's prayer. 

And, in a way I was.  The song she was singing is Blessings by Laura Story.

It seems every which way you look these days, we hear of pain, suffering, tragedy, things happening that shouldn't be.  It doesn't matter how much we pray, we live in a fallen world and those things will be.  But, we pray on, seeking God's mercy.

This was a song I needed to hear today.

Blessings

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

CHORUS:

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

(Repeat CHORUS)

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

AMDG

Funny Foto #18 - Dead or Dying???

We haven't gotten a print newpaper in years.  It seemed that whatever was in it was stale or old news, things we had read on the net several days earlier.  But, maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.  It gave the writers and editors time to think and review their articles and headlines.

This is from a local news site.  Makes you go huh?

AMDG

First Photo: July 2016

As June progressed the rain of the prior month was quickly forgotten.  The gardens turned green and purple and orange and yellow and so many other colors.  Birds and bugs became frequent visitors.  It was a joyful month.

 

I expect this month to bring more of the same.  There is much to admire.

"The main point of Christianity was this:  that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister.  We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate."

- Orthodoxy GK Chesterton

 

AMDG