All posts by David Todd

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: The Good Life by Charles Colson

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I bought The Good Life [2005, Tyndale, ISBN 0-8423-7749-2] by Charles Colson at full price at Borders about six months ago. I bought it because the small group study our Life Group was about to start, Wide Angle: Framing Your World View, said that the two were companion books. I didn’t like the Wide Angle book, so I bought The Good Life, thinking the two together might work. The $25 price tag on it, though, I knew was excessive for our Life Group.

However, having the book in hand, and it being a companion to our study we were about to do with the video series only (no book), I decided to keep and read it. I’m glad I did, even though I didn’t think it went with Wide Angle as well as the latter book suggested. Colson, with his collaborator Harold Fickett, did his usual excellent job. The subtitle of the book is Seeking purpose, meaning, and truth in your life. It is a follow-up book to Colson’s How Now Shall We Life, a worldview book I blogged about previously (and again here). That was a great book, so I entered this one with high expectations.

The book is full of stories. Colson/Frickett tell stories to illustrate points. It begins with the Normandy graveyard scene from Saving Private Ryan, where the older Ryan says to his wife, “Tell me I’m a good man.” Most of the stories are from real life, however. Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco is the poster child for corruption. Jamie Gavigan, a Washington DC celebrity hair stylist, is the poster girl for excess consumerism. Nien Cheng, an educated Chinese woman who ran afoul of the Cultural Revolution, shows steadfastness and honesty under duress. John Ehrlichman, a colleague of Colson’s on President Nixon’s staff, shows how a life without repentance and acknowledgement of wrongful deeds can be anything but the good life.

With each story, Colson/Frickett give many annotations of the points being illustrated. Frequent mention is made to How Now Shall We Live?, indicating how the worldview of the person in the story is illustrative of a right or wrong worldview—or perhaps I should say of a beneficial or destructive worldview. While some of the same themes span both books, The Good Life is not a re-hash of How Now Shall We Live. It is a different book. The authors are encouraging us to adopt a Christian worldview and make it a real part of our lives. In this way we will live the good life, make our lives count for something. Thus, the book is evangelical in intent and content.

I will probably read some or all of this book again. Certainly, when we return to the Wide Angle study in our Life Group after the fourteen week interruption for an all-church study, I will be seeking to pull illustrations from this to go along with the video lessons. But one of the reasons I’ll read it again is that, by the end of the book, I had forgotten the beginning. No joke. In many of the latter chapters the authors would say “Remember the story about ___________”, referring to an earlier chapter, and I would have no idea what that story was. Rather than go back and find and re-read it, I just plowed ahead, knowing I’d be going back in support of our Life Group study.

That forgetting so completely the early parts of the book concerned me. The reading is easy. Did I read in a distracted manner, thus not retaining? I had some time gap between the first part of the book and the latter parts, but not that long. I shouldn’t have forgotten it so easily.

Were there too many stories? I wonder if that’s true. The book contains a lot of stories. Perhaps retention of so many is difficult. Or was the book written in such a way that the words and organization did not facilitate retention of the stories? I know as a writer I shouldn’t blame the reader. If the reader doesn’t get it, blame the writer. That’s one of the mantras of the poetry critique forums I’ve been in.

But sometimes the reader doesn’t get it, despite clear and excellent writing. I suspect that’s the case here. For whatever the reason, my retention was lacking. I won’t lay that on the authors, though I do mention it for consideration of my readers.

By all means pick up a copy of The Good Life and read it. I don’t think you will be disappointed. Then, if you haven’t already, find How Now Shall We Live? and read that. The two are related and supplemental, and worthy to have in the Christian’s library.

Engineering, flood studies

Stymied at Work on a Saturday

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This morning I had a busy time at the house, doing the usual Saturday chores/ maintenance/ operations. I had a lengthy to-do list, and I did a lot of it. Some remains for tonight, but that’s okay.

About 12:30 PM or so I headed to the office, a little later than I wanted. I had five things on my office to-do list, things that just never seem to get done during the work week. I had two letters to write documenting construction items that are either done or decided, from more than a month ago, which I reported verbally to the responsible party, but which I’d never documented in writing. That is now done, with the letters sitting on the admin assistant’s desk for Monday mailing. I created a form that will help a client receive reimbursement from the highway department for our water line relocation project. This is outside the contract scope, but the client seems to be as busy as I am, so I decided to help him out. That is done and sent via e-mail.

I have a nagging item to help a citizen fill out a form for a floodplain protest. I’m not in favor of the protest, but the City has asked me to help them fill out the form. I printed everything I need, but set it aside to do a larger item, getting back to the floodplain project in Rogers that I had to lay aside the last three weeks due to urgent items on other projects.

So I began my floodplain work, and discovered what I had a CAD tech do to help me with this is not really in the format I need. The data is probably correct, but I need her to 1) check the location of an improved city street within the cut cross-sections, and 2) adjust her ground point horizontal stations to what I already have in my computer model. Once she does that, I should be able to enter the data in the model with no problem. I have another item or two to do on this model, not related to the cut cross-sections, so maybe I’ll jump on those.

Or maybe I’ll just go home. I had a certain order in mind of what I wanted to do on the floodplain model. Entering data for those cross-sections was first. I’m not sure I want to do the other items before the cross-sections. Maybe I’m just out of pep. I’m feeling slightly under the weather today, weak and with a rumbly tummy, as Winnie would say. Maybe the best thing for me to do is head to the house, accepting what I was able to accomplish and not regretting what I couldn’t. I can take a few minutes to complete that form for Centerton, then be on my way.

I have much to write about on this blog, about three or four items. Let’s see what the next day and a half yields.

reading

Thirty Minutes of Foraging

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So yesterday I had a delivery to make in downtown Rogers, a set of engineering drawings to the Rogers city engineer. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity, a trip to Rogers on my own, so that after my business was up I could take time to visit The Friendly Bookstore, also located in downtown Rogers. I had not been there since they moved to a new location almost three years ago. Downtown Rogers is not far from our office (a little over 6 miles), but with gas prices the way they are I just don’t drive 6 miles out of my way. The bookstore turned out to be a mere three or four blocks from the City Admin building.

This is the bookstore run by the Friends of the Rogers Library. It is an outstanding store. Prices are close to what you expect at a thrift store or yard sale, but the supply is huge, more on the lines of a for-profit used book store. I never go in there but that I come out poorer in dollars and richer in volumes. Yesterday was no exception.

Of course, book buying for me is like therapy, or comfort food (and with my restricted diet I need all the alternative comfort food I can get). It boosts my spirit. Yesterday I dropped $17 there, but am the richer for it. Here’s what I found:

—Orthodoxy: The American Spectator Anniversary Anthology. 491 pages of conservative essays from 1961-1986.
—The Hogarth Letters. Some letters from the early 1930s commissioned by Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Not sure what this is really about—hopefully literature—but the price was right.
—The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Vol 3 1923-1928. I’m not a big fan of VW, but I am a fan of letters, and of writing and writers, so this should be good.
—Coleridge: Poems and Prose Selected by Kathleen Raine. I already have a fair amount of Coleridge material, but nothing to keep at the office. Now I do.
—The Writings of Arminius.

The Arminius book was pricey at $6.00 (well, pricey for me), but it will hopefully turn out to be a treasure. Arminius was a theological influence on John Wesley and the Wesleyan/holiness movement. It’s something a wannabe Wesley scholar should know something about. Today I began reading it, and am not disappointed. Except, I am disappointed that it is only Volume 1 of a three volume set. I can get the entire three volumes from an on-line bookstore for a mere $44.00 plus $4 shipping and handling. That would bring my total investment in James Arminius up to $50.00 I’ll have to think about that.

None of these will go in my reading pile, which is in desperate need of reshuffling. They are more resource books and occasional reads when nothing else tickles my fancy. I won’t touch the letter ones till I finish the letters of A Conan Doyle, begun a year ago but set aside for other things. Still, I’m looking forward to this comfort food.

Health

Blog Topics Wide Open

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The siege within the whirlwind is still winding down, enough so that I can at least begin a post during an afternoon break. I’m not sure how much time I have or when I’ll post it.

My problem is what to blog about? What would hold the interest of my 13 followers and four or five regular viewers? I could blog about my writing: the new on-line magazine article assignment I received, or the problems at Suite101 due to the Google Panda update, or the little bits of progress on various projects. I could blog about my foraging half hour in a used book store this afternoon, coming away $17 poorer in cash but much richer in volumes. Or I could blog about the engineering work I’m doing. I could also blog about how my short story is not selling on Kindle, but I’d also have to say how I’ve been way too busy to do anything to promote it.

But instead, I think I’ll talk about my health, because of the major change that occurred at my last doctor visit. I’ve had Type 2 diabetes for about 10 years, normally under control, but lately with blood sugar edging upward. Two visits ago he told me to begin testing sugar once or twice a day. I didn’t get going on that however, and last visit (Mar 1) my blood sugar was very high, so he put me on Lantus, a long-acting insulin that I have to inject every evening. That wasn’t what I really wanted, but I’ve only myself to blame for being so long about getting serious at fighting the disease.

I waited to begin until Lynda returned from her extended trip to Oklahoma City. Plus, as busy as I was at work, I didn’t have time in the evenings to do my homework and know what I was doing. So it was March 31 before I began sticking myself and April 1 before I began taking the Lantus. The good news is that the shots are very easy, much easier than I imagined they would be. The bad news is the blood sugar testing procedures are a little harder than expected. I think I’ve finally got the routine down, but I lost a few days of proper testing.

My sugar is on the way down. I’m not where I need to be yet, and I’m not happy about taking the medication, but I think I’m on the right track. I made a recording form and am using it. Hopefully when I go for my next appointment on May 24, the results will be good.

In other health related news, I’m finally losing weight again. I reached some kind of set point at 254 pounds. It seemed that nothing I did would get me below that. I’d hit that then bounce up three pounds; hit it again and bounce up five; hit it again and bounce up two. It’s been like that for more than a year. I’ve been bouncing around in a narrow range. Finally, two weeks ago (before the start of testing/insulin taking) I dropped just below that. In those two weeks I’ve lost 5 1/2 pounds, and I’m at my lowest weight since 2001.

I’ve read that everyone’s body has these weight set points, and that dropping through them is difficult. I don’t know if this is true; I haven’t done real research on it, but it has seemed to be a reality in my weight loss attempts. I hit one around 280-282, and it took me time to lose to below that. The next one was 254, and I’ve hit that twice in the last decade. Finally I’m past it. It’s time to lose twenty-five pounds in a year. I’m sure I have another set point, most likely around 230 or so pounds, at which I’ll find it difficult to lose more. That’s okay. I won’t mind losing 25 pounds this year and leaving more for another.

All of which may be of no interest to anyone reading this except me. That’s okay. It seemed a good topic on a day when I couldn’t take a lot of time to write.

Engineering

Trying to do Things Right

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The siege has not lifted, nor has the whirlwind subsided. But today I actually see a little bit of light through it all. One major project hurdle is complete. A date is out there, probably predictable, at which my workload will return to normal. Hence, I take a late afternoon break to write a post here.

As I work on this drainage project in Rogers, Arkansas—a hurry-up project with future project consequences, I’m reminded of how important it is to do things right the first time. A former senior employee of ours, who came to us from a large developer for a transition job into retirement, had a sign in his office, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when are you going to have time to fix it.” So true.

As I rushed out the drainage report upon which the drainage additions are based, I made a mistake in my spreadsheet. The area of flow in a ditch was incorrect, resulting in the spreadsheet indicating a larger ditch was needed. Now, I proofed all my formulas; yet the drainage report went out the door with the error. The reviewer at the City caught it. The error was not large, but it was still an error. The smaller ditch will save some money while still functioning as required. Also in the drainage report were two other errors: one where a spreadsheet printout did not show all the information the City needed to make their review, and one where one of four handwritten flow rate on one of eight storm sewer profiles was not correct. These were presentation problems, not calculation errors, but they also made a less than optimum presentation to the City. Correcting these three items took time, time that kept me working an extra hour or two.

So, when I came to the point of preparing the project specifications, I had some decisions to make. The project includes a precast reinforced concrete box culvert. I dumped our guide construction specification section for these into the project file (along with 25 other guide specification sections). Eventually I opened the document and looked at it to see 1) was it suitable for our project, and 2) was it a good specification. The answer was no to both questions. It didn’t contain the right box culvert standard for the project, and the way the spec was written did not provide the kind of provisions we want to give to a contractor to get something built with the right materials in the right way.

Decision time. Simply changing “AASHTO M 273” to “AASHTO M 259” would give us the right product for the project. But that didn’t answer the six or so questions that the purchaser of these critters is supposed to answer. Is fiber reinforcing allowed? Are both deformed and smooth reinforcing bars allowed? Which design table within the manufacturing standard is to be used? What type of gaskets shall be used? And so on. Also, since that is a manufacturing standard but I’m writing a construction specification, what about the description of how installation of the box culvert segments is to take place? I decided that I did not want a half-baked (kind word substitution here) spec, so I took the hour or so to write a good spec, complete with research on the options.

But then, what do I do about the guide specification, still sitting there on the corporate intranet, waiting for the next person to download and use it, possibly a person who doesn’t know as much about it as I do and will use it without thinking or editing? To turn my project specification into a proper guide specification would take at least another hour, maybe two. Already working 7 AM to 7 PM, how could I justify the time it would take? I would do what I always do in these circumstances: Add the box culvert spec to the list of specs that need improvement, mark it urgent or non-urgent, and go back to my project work.

But I realized I never get to those guide spec to do lists. In fact I couldn’t even find in my office the last one I made out. So I decided to just do it. I worked an extra two hours, did a bit more research, wrote the spec to include the various options to be decided upon, wrote a great installation section, and added many “Note to Specifier” entries, providing those less experienced than me with some idea of what the decisions to be made are and how to make them. That was two days ago (I think; the days are running together). I have the revised guide spec printed out, on my desk, slightly buried under the urgent items of the last two days but with a corner still visible.

I think I will take that printout home tonight and do my proof-reading there, in my favorite reading chair, a cup of coffee at hand and slippers on my feet. Then tomorrow I’ll type any required edits and upload it to our guide spec database. Who knows when it will be used next or who will use it. It might be me, a year from now. It might be one of our engineers or designers tomorrow afternoon. But it will be available, and it will be done right. None of which furthers my writing career, other than the little bit of piece of mind it gives me, which should help everything in my life.

ETA: Something has gone haywire with my blogspot settings; the paragraphs didn’t display. I had the same problem with the bullets on the last post.

rant

The End is Still Not Yet

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    • Spent the last hour working on income taxes: the beginning.

 

    • Spent the day working on warranty items for CEI, plus a little bit of my own projects: ongoing.

 

    • Spent a half hour this evening proof-reading/editing Documenting America: on chapter 9 of 30.

 

    • Have three other prospective members for my church’s writers group: a pre-beginning.

 

    • Will now go and work on stocks a little: never-ending.

 

    • Have two bills to pay tonight: also never-ending.

 

    • The tunnel: no light in sight.

 

    • A writing career: not on the near horizon.

 

  • Must go.
C.S. Lewis, Engineering

Exhausted after a long week; the end is not yet

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I was planning on writing a serious post tonight, but I haven’t the gray cells left to do so. I put in about 75 hours this week at the office. My timesheet says 72.5, but I didn’t count every hour. And the end is not yet. I spent a good chunk of my time there today finding out that what I did yesterday was only partly correct, and finding the way to make it fully correct. And writing the engineering report to demonstrate that it was correct. This is fixing a problem that occurred in one of our projects in 2002. This week I spent 20 hours on that, and the end is not yet. That’s 20 hours I didn’t get to spend finishing my Bentonville floodplain project or making a sizable dent in the work to do on my first of two Rogers floodplain projects.

I got home tonight about 9 PM, after eating supper with my mother-in-law. I read, or rather re-read, the C.S. Lewis essay “Christianity and Literature”. I posted before on a quote from this essay. I suppose it’s never a good thing to try to read C.S. Lewis when you’re brain dead. I finished the seven page essay (smallish font), but got little out of it. I shall have to read it again. Maybe several times for what he’s trying to say to sink in and properly edify.

I’m really tired. Years ago I posted about Emerson’s statement “There is time enough for all that I must do.” I’m starting to think Emerson was wrong. Until I can get over this hump at work, I know he’s wrong. Today I barely made any progress getting over the hump. And I drove home thinking of all those “piles of work not done,” and I remembered two or three e-mails I planned on sending today, but didn’t for concentrating on that 2002 project. I guess I’ll have to get started a little early on Monday, for the contractor needs one of those e-mails first thing Monday morning.

So what shall I quote to end this post? “The end is not yet,” or “There is time enough for all that I must do”? I suppose both could be true. Oh, wait, I’m supposed to teach adult Life Group tomorrow and I haven’t begun to prepare. Oh, and the announcement is going to be in the church bulliten tomorrow, about people contacting me if they are interested in a church writing group. Sigh.

Documenting America, Writing

A Few More Tasks During this Time

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As I mentioned in the last two posts, I’m in an interim time presently. Documenting America is done; the next project is to be decided. During this time I’ll be proofreading Documenting America, working on my income taxes (okay, not writing related except for my writing income and expenses), and deciding on my next writing project.

However, as I’ve thought about it, that’s not the only things this writer will have to accomplish over the next month. Here’s a few more I’ve thought of.

  • File my many source documents for Documenting America. I printed off a lot of pages of as many as twenty documents. These are in piles here, piles there, in my carry to work portfolio, and some who knows where. I have a small hanging file box ready for these, so this should be a relatively quick project. File the obvious ones immediately, and move the others there as I find them.
  • Set up my writer’s web site. My son has been bugging me to get this done, says he’ll even help me. Said if I made him an administrator he would be able to do updates. And he promised not to post any communist/socialist propaganda on there. This is something I know I need to do. With freelance work in four different publications, engineering articles in three others, plus a few newspaper features, I need to get this done, now especially that I have “Mom’s Letter” up for sale. I haven’t felt like going to the monthly hosting expense until I was really, really sure I needed it. I think it’s time, probably past time.
  • Format “Mom’s Letter” for the Nook reader, and any other e-reader (Sony, Apple) that could generate a sale or two, and get it listed.
  • Related to that last one, some better research into the whole self-publishing arena. I’ve crossed the first hurdle in Kindle eSP, but I’ve far from mastered it. The other e-readers may all support Pubit, which would be nice. Then there’s the paper self-publishing as print on demand books. There’s a couple of different platforms available: Smashwords and CreateSpace are the two I know by name, but much more research is needed. After Documenting America goes up as an e-book, I plan to make it a POD book. Plus others in the future.

As I said, I’ve no shortage of things to do. None of this is going to be done quickly, and income taxes take precedence over all things writing, with my proofreading tasks holding second place. It’s good for me to list these, however, lest I think I have some free time available and goof off.

Writing

Other Writing Projects

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Well, I received a couple of comments to my post about the next writing project. Still looking for more, is anyone else wants to make a suggestion.

Writing is fairly far from my mind right now. The siege is on at work. I’m working late, late into the evening on flood studies and water line construction and drainage fixes. I have a hump of work to get over. Once that’s done, maybe I can get back to writing. For now about all I have time for in the evening is to proof-read a chapter or two in Documenting America and do the early work on income taxes. I don’t have the energy or desire to read for research, or outline a project, or write even 500 words on a project.

But this too shall pass, and before long I’ll be writing again (something other than quick blog posts, that is). In anticipation of that, I’m still brainstorming writing. In addition to the projects I mentioned in my post on 14 March, I have a couple of other directions open to me. These are:

  • Format Doctor Luke’s Assistant for self-publishing, first as an e-book but then as a print-on-demand book. I could read it again, but I think it’s ready for this next step.
  • Expand Life on a Yo Yo small group study into a short book, and POD-self-publish it. Because of illustrations, it won’t work as an e-book unless I know html, which I don’t.
  • Expand The Dynamic Duo small group study into a short book, and POD-self-publish it. Same deal about illustrations.
  • Expand Sacred Moments small group into a short book, and POD-self-publish it. Same deal about illustrations. Are you sensing a pattern here?
  • Take my Isaiah small group study notes and build it into a book of some as of yet undermined length, and e-self-publish it. I can’t remember how extensive my notes are. I know I prepared a few sheets for the class, but will have to look and see what I have.
  • Begin work on another small group study I’ve been pondering, From Slavery To Nationhood, a study of Israel’s wandering in the desert, plus before and after. I’ve been thinking about this one for a long time.
  • Begin work on Volume 2 of Documenting America. Strike while the iron is hot, that sort of thing. I’ve developed a rhythm of sorts, and might be able to churn out another in the brand with less work than any of these other projects. This one is also tempting. In writing volume 1 I have come across many things I’ve bookmarked to go in volume 2. This one is also tempting.

So, I have no shortage of projects to chose between. And I’d appreciate any reader’s thoughts on these projects.

Look out writing world. As soon as this work hump is over, I’ll be back.