I arrived back in Bella Vista about 10:30 PM Friday night. Grandson Ephraim (visiting us with our daughter, the young business woman) was in bed and daughter Sara was out. I unpacked quickly and went to my reading chair beside Lynda’s reading chair. It was as if I never left.

Except my mind was, and still is, full of things to do at work as a result of the conference. I attended a full schedule of technical sessions. Most of them were good, though, as with any conference, a few did not live up to the publicized expectations. I ducked one technical session to attend a meeting of the Professional Development Committee. As I told them, if I were a member of the organization, and if I were active at the committee level, this is the committee I would gravitate towards. It was quite interesting to see them at work. I learned they have a program to review abstracts and papers for the next conference (Feb 2011), and it appears I can join this program, even as a non-member, and get free conference registration next year.

My mind is full of things CEI needs to do better with our designs to prevent erosion and control sediment. We do some things well, but have large areas for improvements. This is especially true in our construction specifications. We have very poor construction specs as far as erosion and sediment control are concerned. We rely on the State construction general permit, which is not a construction spec. It hasn’t bitten us so far, but that is probably because enforcement is so lax.

My mind is full of papers I would like to write and present at the next conference. I began, evenings in the hotel, making some notes. I’m up to four papers I think I could write, although two of those probably need to be combined into one. Three abstracts to submit would be enough, I think. If they were all accepted, that would almost be too much to present at one conference. Still, I should probably pursue that many and see if I could spread them out over a couple of conferences.

My mind is also full of articles I would like to write about some of this stuff. So much of it is of general interest that I think I could translate the knowledge I have and expanded during the conference and crank out ten to fifteen articles in three weeks. Whether they’d be money-making articles I don’t know, but they would at least fulfill dual roles as writing credits and professional credits. Among the exhibitors at the conference were five magazines or publishers. I was able to speak to four of them. None of them pay freelancers, relying instead on the writers’ desires to obtain professional credits to submit work. Bummer; I don’t know if I want to pursue professional credits like that.

Well, on to other things for the evening. Coulson’s book awaits me, as do the Carlyle-Emerson letters and the Wesleyan Theological Journal. If I can’t make any money writing at least I can enjoy reading.