Windstorms and Whirlpools

Sunday's Vestry meeting included discussions of the dishwasher, which has never worked quite right (the detergent lid has never worked) but which is now also leaking a bit. It was suggested we create a "church wish list," but somebody cautioned that all too often in that situation some well-meaning person will donate something that's pretty worn out. He noted this is a frequent problem in many churches. It was suggested then that we make the wish for a new dishwasher known to the parish.

The question of price came up. Kathy noted that there are some good deals to be had right now on dishwasher+refrigerator combos, and that our refrigerator is also pretty old and, if it were to need more Freon, not rechargeable. She was asked to look into it and come up with a dollar figure for the parish.

It never got that far. One member of the parish offered the cover the cost of purchasing both the dishwasher and refrigerator -- and now they are due to be delivered this morning, sometime from about a half an hour ago until noon. (Don't know if they're Whirlpool, but it sounded good in the title...)

I don't know what features appliances come with these days, but if either has a clock in it (I'm not sure why a refrigerator would, but a dishwasher might have one for timing the wash during electric utility off-peak hours), Fr. Daniel or samebody might want to keep the manual out tonight.

We had quite a windstorm yesterday; I got home to find a tree from my property down and blocking the road. Unusually for us, we had no power outage though many others in the area did.

However, they're forecasting a much more powerful windstorm later today until Friday and it'll be a surprise if we don't lose power. Which means, of course, that the clocks in all sorts of appliances will need to be reset when the power comes back on, and thuis the need for keeping the manual out. If only we had Internet-capable appliances all with NTP (Network Time Protocol) clients... but never mind.

But it's not only the appliances that will be a problem. I don't think the dead (NiCad) batteries in the church organ have been replaced, so Josephine will probably have to reprogram all the stop settings tomorrow, in advance of Saturday's service for Derek.

10:00 AM Update: Appliances are in.
10:20 AM Update: Not Whirlpool, but much quieter than the old dishwasher.