Brain Frez

As a person who works in law enforcement, I can tell you that the crime rate will not get any better with time. Yes, it may have its downward curves for a few years but it’s guaranteed to go back up. As society sinks further into its self-serving and self-motivated ways, the only result will be unacceptable behavior. I have taken calls while on duty from parents who cannot, or better yet, will not discipline their child. The lie that the Department of Children and Family Services will come and take their child away if they are disciplined properly has placed a choke hold on the naive parent whose child is out of control. I can’t tell you how many times I wish DCF would come take the parent away from the child because they fail to discipline properly. This failure produces undisciplined adults that live a life a crime.

Crime comes in many forms and fashion. Long gone are the days where we could leave the house unlocked and have reasonable expectations that everything we owned would still be left untouched when we returned home. Now days, you’re not safe unless you have locked the main lock on your door and the dead bold along with setting the alarm. And even then, there’s no guarantee that you can come home to your house and have things undisturbed. Whether you have a monitored system or an unmonitored system such as the X10 home security system, your chances of being burgled only decreases.

Unfortunately, home burglaries don’t always happen when you are away from the house. Far too many times have homeowners discovered that something is missing only to learn that someone they know or let into their home, took that item from them. About the only way to prove that a particular person took something is to have proof of it. An X10 surveillance camera would of course catch the thief if it is placed in the correct spot.

Yes, it is a shame that society has sunk so far that we can’t even trust our own family members. I have taken calls from elderly people whose own offspring has stolen items from them or used their identification to obtain items or money. My heart sinks every time I listen to these people explain their situations because I know that most of them were relying on those items to see them thru till their parting. Yet, such are today’s times that we live in. The future is very bleak indeed unless there is a major shift into today’s mindset of “it’s all about me”. I do fear for my children in the days to come. They will have to be tough and stand up for what is right. They will be a minority in a lawless society but they will have to stand. At least I know that they have been brought up correctly and have been taught what is right and wrong. It will be incumbent upon them to enact those standards.

Some of the most widely used computer applications are generally idiot proof and user friendly. A lot of the office packages are great because it makes it very simple to share information from one application to another with little or no hassle. However, if you don’t use these items on a regular basis, any training you had is probably lost in the vast expanse of the useless information file in your brain. I don’t know about you but there have been many times recently where I’ve had trouble with a file and getting it to do what I want it to do because I just can’t recall exactly how to do it. I had training on this software many years ago. It’s aggravating to say the least.

The other day I was in a position where a speech was being given and I was in charge of showing the slide presentation. All was fine until it was time to switch to the next slide and it would not come up. To make a long story short, I had to move the next slide up to the top of the list and then close the application and restart it in order for it to show up. What a pain! Not being able to recall my training on this software was very frustrating.

In order for me to bring myself up to speed on this application, I’m now going to have to sit down at home and relearn it. It’s not such a bad thing but I can think of a thousand things I’d rather be doing. I’ve copied the file to my USB drive and now I’m going to have to transfer it to my drive at home and figure out what the problem is. I may have to recreate the file myself and learn the hard way how this program works.

I have promised myself that if I do indeed have to recreate the file, that I would add some color and embellishments to it. The original file is very “plain-Jane” and not pleasing to the eye. That would give me extra practice on my graphic designing and hopefully allow my creative juices to flow.

Once I get everything back in order, I will try to transfer my file onto the flash drive and reinstall it on the computer where it will be shown from. Part of my problem is that there are two monitors for this particular file. One monitor shows what is currently being shown to the audience and the other shows what is in cue. Unfortunately, I can’t necessarily see the monitor that shows the cued slide and I think that is where the problem lies. Perhaps it’s time to invest in another monitor so that the cued slide can be seen by the operator.

If I can overcome this hiccup, I will have another application under my belt. It will be beneficial to my organization for me to learn how to properly operate this software and a feather in my personal accomplishments cap.

Many people get assigned to lead music for a small- or medium-sized church, not knowing much about what they’re doing. They may have just a little experience, or none at all, in playing an instrument, singing, or leading a congregation in worship. It’s great to be able to serve, but many people feel overwhelmed when assigned to such a position. They don’t know where to turn to find resources to help with their new responsibilities.

Sometimes, there’s someone in the church who can play a keyboard or guitar or other instrument to accompany singing. Sometimes there’s at least someone who can at least plunk out enough notes to help the crowd carry a tune. And sometimes there might be a person or a few who can sing on pitch strongly enough to carry a tune so the whole congregation can follow. But sometimes there’s not even a person with any of these skills.

That is where pre-recorded accompaniment can come in handy. Several sources sell CDs with recordings of familiar hymn tunes to play over speakers to accompany singing. So buying a decent stereo and speaker system can help to provide music.

For those who do have musical talent and the right equipment to record quality sound, this provides an opportunity to make resources available. What about recording hymns and worship songs to an mp3 format and making them available on music flash drives? That way, a church can put the flash drive into a computer that’s connected to the sound system and play the congregational accompaniment from that. Or if they don’t have a computer/speaker combo available in church, they can be allowed to burn files from the flash drive to CD for personal use.

They could have a custom layout designed with access to hymn mp3s, as well as lyrics in PDF format for printing and in Powerpoint for projecting on a screen. Every week, the music leader could plan the songs he wants. He could use them straight from the custom flash drive, or copy the files to a computer, or burn them to a CD for use.

The customer base could be broadened to include large churches, which could request a quantity of flash drives containing the songs they want, to give to music leaders or even a whole choir group so they can have access to printable music. CF Gear could work with a music publishing group or with a church to design a flash drive layout that would include whatever they need for their purposes. They’ve already worked with an independent music distributor, Indiedrive, in creating a solution for distributing music. Who’s to say that model couldn’t be modified for a ministry too?

A ministry could find flash drives a great help in providing music accompaniment for services. Consider CF Gear’s top-rated services for your ministry.