Archive for July, 2008
When does today become yesterday 4 years ago?
Posted by admin in BJU, Education, Internship, Worthwhile on July 31st, 2008
This one blew me away! I was away from home working on payroll via remote connection on my Mac. This involves setting up an Excel spreadsheet with data I get from a webpage. I simply copy the data from the page into Excel. But for some (yet unknown) reason, I couldn’t access the webpage from my home computer remotely, so I accessed it from my Mac, pasted it into an Excel spreadsheet and emailed the xls file to my home computer. From their I copied the data into a payroll spreadsheet I use every month. But this time I noticed a problem. All of my dates changed to exactly 4 years and 1 day away! At first I thought I must have opened the wrong spreadsheet. After running a simply little test on dates, I discovered there is a difference between the Mac and Windows in the way Excel stores dates. So I started googling (google phrase “excel dates mac windows”) to determine why and how to make it stop!
Of course in order to make storing, comparing and doing calculations on dates, they are stored as a number. Therefore you must establish a base starting point for the number 1. Turns out Mac and Windows Excel USE DIFFERENT STARTING DATES! This is the part that blew me away. Why?
Here’s what I discovered: (source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303216)
How to Transfer Files Between Excel for the Macintosh and Excel for Windows
By default, Excel for the Macintosh uses the 1904 date system, and Excel for Windows uses the 1900 date system. This means that when you type the serial number 1 in Excel for the Macintosh and format it as a date, Excel displays it as 1/2/1904 12:00 a.m. Excel for Windows displays the serial number 1 as 1/1/1900 12:00 a.m. If you transfer files from Excel for the Macintosh to Excel for Windows, this difference in the date systems should not cause a problem, because the date system is stored in each file. However, if you copy and paste between files with different date systems that originated on different platforms, dates may be displayed four years and one day away from their correct date.
In Microsoft Excel for Mac, you can change to the 1900 date system by clicking Preferences (on the Edit menu in Excel 2001 for Mac, or on the Excel menu in later versions), clicking the Calculation tab, and then clicking to clear the 1904 date system check box. In Excel for Windows, you can change to the 1904 date system by clicking Options on the Tools menu, clicking the Calculation tab, and then clicking to select the 1904 date system check box.
The Mother of Hope
For many years, part of our backyard has been the home for a pet rabbit I like to call “The Mother of Hope” (MoH). As one of God’s creations, she existed to bring glory to her Creator and pleasure to her Keeper, my lovely wife Karen. You see MoH brought glory to her Creator by doing exactly what she was created to do – be a rabbit. J And a good rabbit she was. She gave birth to many other little rabbits and took great care of them. She was a strong creature who enjoyed many good years of life under the care of the BEST RABBIT KEEPER on the planet, my dear wife Karen. Thru Karen’s unconditional love she has for her rabbits, I have learned yet a little more about the unconditional love of my Heavenly Father toward his children. Karen took excellent care of MoH, day in and day out. Never did she complain. She enjoys sharing love and kindness with her rabbits. I can see a little bit of rabbit in my wife. She is quiet, gentle, doesn’t like sudden changes, enjoys being cuddled, rarely complains, and takes great care of her children.
God’s timing is perfect, even in the death of a pet rabbit. If he knows when a bird falls from the sky, I am certain he knows when a rabbit dies. You see today was a very big day in the history of The Worthwhile Company. We are moving into our very own building! I have been anxiously awaiting all that would involve and was ready to jump in with all the energies God has given to me. But yesterday afternoon the Lord started preparing for MoH’s departure. I was run off the road by a logging truck. This resulted in my having to take a little extra time this morning to go hunt down the owner of the logging company so I could explain what one of his drivers had done. That put me “behind” in my intended schedule of picking up the moving truck and getting things ready for the big move. I came home to take a quick shower and get going. As I was getting ready to go, that’s when Karen, on her daily, never tiring routine of feeding the rabbits and giving them a bottle of ice to help them coop with the heat of the day, discovered MoH had suffered a serious stroke. I cannot tell you how thankful I am to know the Lord redirected my steps so I would be home at this time! It gave me an opportunity to demonstrate to my lovely Karen, how much she means to me and how much I love her, unconditionally! I was actually amazed at how God has given me a desire to be with Karen, rather than be helping my great Worthwhile employees move the office.
Now some may think the death of a pet is no big deal. I believe God gave us animals for object lessons to teach us how to love unconditionally and to help us understand the reality of life that we must all face death. The Bible says “It is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment.” Are you ready for the day? Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man comes to the Father but by me.” That’s pretty specific. If you don’t have a living relationship with the Creator of the Universe, then repent of your sins and accept the free gift of forgiveness of your sins so you can experience the greatest relationship in all the world – a born again child of God!