Work Testimony

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I'm back home after only one day on the road HALLELUJAH.

I went to the John Deere Technical Center in Moline Illinois
yesterday to do some computer programming type of stuff.  I
picked up my rental car yesterday morning and headed west
from Champaign on Interstate 74 on what is normally a three
hour drive.  My wife and son are coming with me on this trip.
We pray for safe travel.

In Bloomington IL is a goofy interchange where about five
different highways come together, but I'm staying on I-74 so
I don't pay much attention to the exits -- I just stay right
on the highway.

About 45 minutes after leaving Bloomington, I'm thinking "I
should've seen Peoria by now" so I start watching the
highway signs and..... I'M ON I-55!  And I'm HALFWAY TO
CHICAGO!!  For those of you not familiar with Illinois
geography, that is exactly the opposite way of the direction
I'm needing to go (bummer).  So I get to Moline two hours
after I'm supposed to be there, with only about four hours
to do some *major* programming.  I pray "Lord, please help
me get this done quickly so I don't have to stay
overnight."

I type type type, compile -- NOT A SINGLE ERROR!!!!  For
those of you who have done any programming, you know how
incredible that is!  I did have a few warnings about
assigning "const char * to u_char *" and stuff like that,
but a few typecasts fixed that right up.

I try the device driver I just spend thirty minutes
modifying: it all works right off!  The application Deere is
using our communication hardware for is some really slick
stuff; I got the work done and they're happy with the
results.

The task the LORD helped me to do was take a device driver
which was written for a 32-bit uniprocessor machine  and
modify it to run on a 64-bit multiprocessor architecture.
This is *not* a trivial task, and I was fully expecting it
to take at least the full two days I was supposed to be in
Moline and maybe a little more.  Instead, I called my wife
(she was shopping in Davenport Iowa, had the cell phone) and
my wife, son and I took a nice stroll on a walk along the
Mississippi River instead.

The LORD also saved us from what could have been a serious
traffic accident.  I was in the passing lane passing a tank
truck labeled "ANHYDROUS AMMONIA."  In front of me was
another semi passing the tank truck.  The tank truck starts
swerving, I let off the gas and start aiming for the grass
median (a truck carrying anhydrous ammonia would be a Very
Bad Thing to hit -- very noxious stuff).   Just as I think
the tanker is going to hit the semi in front of me -- I see
the two Large Objects intersect in three-space right in
front of my eyes, but for *some* reason there is not a
collision! \o/ PTL!  My wife asks me why I'm driving on the
shoulder :-) 

Richard M.