Ethics, values, clean living and what I like most about traveling with my Macbook Air!
Monday, November 10, 2008 at 8:55PM Today I flew to Johannesburg for some meetings about our 'Unashamedly Ethical' campaign - it was not a very long day. We flew out of Cape Town at 6am, had meetings set up from 10am (thankfully we gave ourselves a little extra time since the flight was delayed, as is often the case on a Monday morning flight out of Cape Town). We met with the folks from 'Heartlines' plus some folks from a number of other values and ethics based organisations (including the South African government). Our aim and intention is to address the scourge of systemic corruption in order to deal with systemic poverty.
After the morning meeting we made our way back to OR Tambo airport where we met with some folks who have developed a great idea to connect Christian businesses and business people - God's business. I like what they do and would love to see something for persons of all different faith persuasions who choose to operate according to the principles of the Kingdom of God (whether they know they are doing so, or not) so that we can deal with the rising levels of corruption in the private sector and public sector in South Africa. I firmly believe that in order to honour God's will and desire to see society transformed it will take more than the average 'nominal' Christian to do so! In fact, I think that it will take ALL of the people whom God loves, even those who don't yet know that God loves them, or have not yet experienced that love through Jesus! God's principles are good, regardless of who follows them, and God's love for all people is the same regardless of who they are!
Anyway, the day was productive and worthwhile. I truly feel like I am part of something great! I feel a sense of excitement about the scope of what we're doing. The potential of this project, and the manner in which it is being done, is so much bigger than anything that I have ever been a part of! It is bigger than one group, or Church, or denomination, it is about different sectors of society working together to achieve something truly good - I have frequently 'dreamed' about how incredible it would be if we could significantly alter the economic and social systems of our country to uplift the poorest of the poor and help the richest citizens to find freedom from their wealth and influence through becoming truly generous. What a wonderful place that would be!
Well, I travelled with my Macbook Air again today. It is a remarkable little machine. Mine is not the latest iteration of this superb piece of engineering from the Apple corporation - I have one of the first generation Air's, a 1.6Ghz, 80 Gig (hard drive) based model. Regardless, it is fast, light, and so useful!
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o, what do I like most about travelling with my Macbook Air!? Well, the answer is EVERYTHING! I get at least 5 hours of battery life (with wifi off and the power settings cranked up), so I could work for most of the day in and out of my meetings as well as working on the flights to and from Johannesburg. Another great feature is that it is very thin and light. It weighs just over 1kg... I have an neoprene sleeve in which it gets zipped (with a thin Moleskine paper notebook inside the sleeve with the computer). Carrying this into a meeting draws no attention and I have my WHOLE computer with me all the time (ALL of my email, documents and a whole lot more). It is great to be able to refer to something, call up my calendar, and do everything that I need on hand (and not worry about how much battery life I have left, or suffer from a broken back for carrying a HUGE laptop). The screen is lovely, it is bright, clear and large enough for word processing. I spent about three hours (in the airport and on the flight home) editing a paper for Prof. Jan van der Watt to publish in a journal. It is comfortable in an economy class seat, and since the keyboard is full size I can type for ages without even noticing it.
On Wednesday I go back to Johannesburg to speak at a Christian business gathering with my 
friend Graham Power. I'll take my Air with me. It will be loaded with my notes, powerpoint slides, and the videos that we use. Perfect!
I'm grateful that I have such a useful tool! It sure makes life easier when I am away from home! Oh, and did I mention that I can use Skype video to chat to Megie, Courtney and Liam at home (with wifi, or 3G via my USB modem)?
Reader Comments (2)
The kind of networking you are doing (people not computers!) is incredibly powerful, isn't it? But I guess quite costly in terms of both money and personal energy.
I think there is hope. Thank you!
Thank you for your reflections. I enjoyed reading this blog and especially the Mac Book Air. But I also was taken with 'God's Business'and what they are trying to do. We need more of that in the UK as well.