Category Archives: career

books, career, Engineering, Genealogy, memories

Weary Work

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Into he trash went my engineering seals, lead sharpener for engineering drawing work, and service anniversary pins.

The main work I’m doing now—work at home that is, but not including my writing and stock trading work—is shedding possessions in anticipation of future downsizing. It’s wearying work. Not so much physically wearying, but mentally so. For a couple of months we’ve been pulling books from the basement and listing them for sale on Facebook Marketplace. We’ve sold a fair number, though have many more to go.

We have cleared out a fair number of things. We donated 400 children’s books to a church function. With our son’s and daughter’s help, on separate trips here, we took at least three loads of donation stuff to Goodwill. That included some odd pieces of furniture.

Some day I’ll have to actually read this old probate document and see how it fits in with family history.

One thing I was doing, but which was delayed by my hospitalizations and recuperation, was scanning my genealogy papers, saving them electronically in a retrievable manner, and getting rid of the paper files. This week I got back to that project, and over three days got rid of around 50 sheets. Some of those sheets were probate records from Massachusetts in the 1600s and 1700s that I had my son research years ago. The sheets are difficult to read, and I don’t really remember how some of the people fit into our family tree. I’ll have to transcribe the probate documents and figure out exactly who the people are (ancestors or relatives). That’s something I can do from the electronic files better than the paper files, because I can enlarge the e-docs and read them easier. But when will I ever take the time to do this additional step?

You know dis-accumulation cuts deeply if I’m getting rid of Carlyle books.

Another thing that we did in the storeroom was pull out our daughter’s old bedroom set, unused for at least 10 years, and little used for 20 years before that. We snapped some photos and I listed it for sale. Only one person showing interest so far.

With the bedroom set pulled out and on display, this allowed me to reorganize stuff. I moved an old entertainment center and restacked stuff around it. That allowed me to see what stuff we have, and gave me an idea of what we can get rid of soon with the greatest reduction in volume. Those would be the old VHS tapes.

Some of the things I’m going through are cutting deep. In a box of things I brought home from the office, I found my professional engineer seals. It took me a few minutes to make the decision to put them in the trash. The seals meant a lot to me when I was a practicing engineer, but that ended close to four years ago (retirement followed by two years on retainer. I also found a large roll of discarded engineering drawings that I salvaged with the intent of using the backs to draw big genealogy charts. But I now know that’s not going to happen, so the paper roll is moved to recycling staging. Last week I tossed twenty-five years of continuing education certificates and a couple of stacks of my old business cards. Next will be my many organization membership and annual licensing cards.

One big space keeper is my old stamp collection. After years of storing it in the storeroom, I’ve decided to get rid of it. I don’t know if it has any value these days. Does anyone still collect stamps? Are dealers out there and are they buying? Or is it possible to find a private collector?  So much work to do.

Downsizing, which requires dis-accumulation, has become more important now that I’ve had health issues. My recovery from heart surgery is going well (including three days a week in cardio-rehab), recovery from my last stroke less so. But clearly my health is not what it was a year ago. We’ve got to cut deeply into our possessions, got to. We are leaner than we were a year ago, and significantly leaner than we were four years ago. But we have much much more to do.

All this is quite wearying. Dealing with the genealogy papers is more wearying than anything. Each piece of paper I toss in the recycling basket feels like I’ve parted with something I should keep, something that someone among my descendants may want or benefit from someday. Ah, well, in the future the Internet will contain so many records and resources that my paltry files may have no value.

Tonight, after dealing with books for about an hour, I pulled two genealogy notebooks off the closet shelf and went through them. They were mostly forms for copying information on. I kept two of each kind of sheet and discarded the rest. I did keep any lined sheets without writing on the front or back (maybe 20 of them), as who knows what I could use them for someday.

career, Doctor Luke's Assistant, Documenting America, Headshots, Preserve The Revelation, self-publishing, Writing

2017 Writing and Publishing Plans

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So, as stated in my last post, 2016 was a dismal year for book sales. And, actually, I had only one new item published in 2016, plus a couple of re-dos, and one print book added to an e-book that was already out. But now it’s 2017. Time to make new plans to feed old hopes. We’re 16 days into 2017, and I’ve already made progress.

I’m going to give two lists. The first is the new material I hope to work on this year, without regards to priority. The second is a sort of to-do list for the first few months. I can’t really see beyond that right now. I’ll need to update that to-do list based on what I actually achieve. I might do that quarterly.

Here’s the first list.

  • Finish my novel-in-progress, Preserve The Revelation, and publish both as an e-book and in print. When the year started I was about 80 to 85% done (best guess).
  • Finish my non-fiction book-in-progress, Documenting America: Civil War Edition, and publish both as an e-book and in print. I believe I’m about 40% done with this.
  • Finish my workplace humor novella-in-progress, The Gutter Chronicles: Volume 2, and publish both as an e-book and in print. I think I’m around 30% done with this.
  • Write a new story in the Danny Tompkins short story series. I think this will be the last. But, then, I also thought that about the last one. I’ve put a few words on paper, but haven’t yet typed anything.
  • Write a new story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series. While this series hasn’t sold, I want to stick with it for a while. I know where in the world the next story will take place, but a plot hasn’t yet come to me.
  • Finish Carlyle’s Chartism Through The Ages, a non-fiction work. It’s close to 80% complete, but the last 20% is going to be a killer.
  • Continue working on Thomas Carlyle Chronological Composition Bibliography. I’m not sure how close I am to finishing. I plan on working on it a little each morning at work. Perhaps I’ll finish it some day, perhaps not. I’m going to plod away at it for a while.

Here’s the second list. Some of these will have target dates, some won’t. The order is approximately first to last, though with plenty of overlap.

  • Jan 1: Begin reading for research for Documenting America: Civil War Edition. I achieved this. I’m reading a little almost every day for this.
  • Jan: Complete the first draft of Preserve The Revelation. I actually did this Saturday, Jan 14, at 8:10 p.m. It’s now with a beta reader while it simmers for a week or two before I tackle the edits on it. However, don’t think I’m ahead of schedule on this. My original goal was to finish it in 2016. I came close, but missed it.
  • Jan 31: Edit Doctor Luke’s Assistant and republish it. I re-read this in 2016 with an eye toward making edits in it. I’m ready to go with typing. This schedule should be doable.
  • Feb 15: Edit Preserve The Revelation once
  • Feb 28: Edit Preserve The Revelation again, which I hope will be the final edit.
  • Mar 15: Publish Preserve The Revelation. Much must be done for this to happen, some of which I’ve already set in motion.
  • Apr 1: Publish Headshots as a print book. I’m unclear of where I stand with this. In 2016 I edited and re-published the e-book version of this. I don’t remember how I did my edits, whether to a master file or to the e-book file. I’ll know more when I get back to this, probably early to mid-March.
  • Apr 2: Resume writing on Documenting America: Civil War Edition. Actually, I hope to write some on this much sooner than that. But I’ll be satisfied with not doing so until early April. My guess is I’ll have two months of writing to do on it.
  • Blog on a regular Monday and Friday schedule. I’ve already missed a couple of those. I’ll be satisfied if I have 40 to 50 blog posts for the year.

So, that’s my first quarter to-do list. How close I’ll come to achieving it the posts of this blog must tell. Stay tuned.

career, miscellaneous

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

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I went home on Sunday. Several people who came to church from out my way said the roads weren’t too bad. Then I called out neighbors. They said they had been getting around just fine, although our circle and the road leading to it had not been plowed. They said I would have to park up the hill, near their house.

I went home about 2 in the afternoon. All roads were clear until the collector road leading to our neighborhood. It was awful, though drivable with caution. But the two streets my neighbor said weren’t plowed had been plowed between our phone call and the time I got there, plowed very thoroughly, in fact, down to blacktop in most places. So I parked on the street near the house. The sun was just beginning to show through the clouds, so I shoveled half the width of the drive, gave it a couple of hours of sunshine, and pulled the pick-up in, knowing I could back up the slope in the morning.

Since then, all roads are good, except for that collector street and the road leading to our office. But yesterday we saw improvement in limited sunshine, and today we should see good melting in sun and 42 degrees. Tonight should be a cinch, and hopefully we will have writing critique group.

It’s the second of the month. How did that creep up on me. Time to see how I did on January’s goals and set some for February.

career, miscellaneous

Into the Storm, and Hopefully Through

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Well, I’m the last person in the office today, at least on this side. I think the Big Cheese is still here on the other side, but is fixin’ to leave. I have completed everything I wanted to do today. The four business items and four personal items on my To Do List are crossed out. Time to head out.

Not home though. I’ll go once again to my mother-in-law’s place, for at least one night and possibly two. Since she does not have a computer, I will be AWOC for a couple of days. No posting possible.

It has snowed without ceasing since I got here at 7:20 AM. I think 3 to 4 inches, though I’ll know for sure when I exit the building. If any of my snow driving skills learned in my Rhode Island boyhood, and expanded by some years in Kansas City are still active, I should be out of the storm in thirty to forty-five minutes. I have a couple of writing pads and a thousand ideas. And no place to go. Perhaps I’ll get a little bit done this weekend.

career

Packing, Packing

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Our corporate headquarters moves on Friday. The word from on high is that we must have everything in boxes and those boxes and all furniture marked before we leave the office on Thursday. I’m in pretty good shape. All the furniture I’m taking is marked. I have thirteen boxes packed, and I estimate about eight more boxes–maybe nine–should finish me up.

Yesterday I finished packing the library. I think I blogged about this effort before. First I spent a week organizing the library, which was in sad shape from almost nine years of neglect. Then I took a week to cull through the materials and eliminate duplicates and out-dated material. I probably discarded close to fifteen percent of the documents therein. Constantly I was fighting things dumped in the room by those too lazy to properly take care of things, such as: surplus office hardware such as staplers, three-hole punches, tape dispensers, filing/storage trays; empty notebooks; and library materials I asked to be brought back there a month ago.

I beat my expectations of when I would be done by a day. As I was preparing to leave the VP over Operations came by my office and said he didn’t think I would have it done on time. I said to him, “Oh ye of little faith.” Today I sent an e-mail to the coordinator of the move, with the title “put a fork in it”. Ah, satisfaction.

The day remains dreary and my mood is better than last night. Have writers guild this evening, and need to decide what to take. I have nothing recently written to show them, so I’ll probably take the next installment of In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People.

career, Writing

My Kind of Day

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The rain started yesterday, Sunday. Never heavy, and not steady. Just enough to make you not want to leave the house on a walk. Gloomy clouds; fresh north wind; temperatures falling. Just the kind of thing to perk me up from a gloomy mood.

Last night, after dark but while we were in the Dungeon at our computers with the night shut out, the heavier rain came. By this morning the heaviest rain was over, and we had steady drizzle through the day. No sun. Dark clouds. The north wind persisting and freshening.

I had a huge day of accomplishment at work, getting stuff done a day ahead of schedule, and surprising people in the office.

Then came the evening. As the rain ended my mood worsened and disappointments came. I guess I should just learn to be an engineer and not worry about being a writer.

books, career

Books to the Dumpster

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No, not my books, but some CEI books. We will be re-locating to a new building the end of this month, and I volunteered to take responsibility for the library. Before I can back it up I need to delete duplicate and out-dated materials. Before I can know what materials are duplicate and outdated I need to organize it, for materials are scattered due to a faulty systems of original organization and to ten or so years of neglect. Before I can organize it I need to reorganize it to correct the original faults.

Last week I spent parts of four days on it, and managed to pull all the manufacturer’s catalogs and brochures together and alphabetize them. I say “all” because I’m still finding some hiding in places. The shelves the catalogs were on did not have enough space for them all, so I had to move them but first had to move some things to make room for them. Then I misjudged the extra space I’d need by about 40 percent. Hence I moved the catalogs beginning with “A” about five times. Last week I also mostly finished pulling all the Federal regulations together and the consensus standards.

Today I worked on State and local regulations and standards. These are the most difficult of all, for it was with these that the original filing system was faulty, IMHO. I won’t go into how it was faulty, but it was. I’m probably only a little more than halfway through this task, even though I worked seven hours on it today. I should finish tomorrow and get on to reference materials and project documents.

But this post was about discarding books. Even though I’m not ready to discard duplicates and out-dateds (coined a word), I’m still discarding things. Means’ construction cost data from 1999 is kind of meaningless now, so I’m tossing those in a barrel. Broken notebooks don’t make sense to keep, so I’m taking them apart, recycling what I can, and discarding what I can’t. A few other things are obviously unsuitable for keeping, so those are going. The discard barrel is close to full.

At noon today, instead of walking I decided to carry the 2004 Thomas Registers to the dumpster. I don’t know the distant equivalent. It took me four trips from library to dumpster, with about as many books as it was possible to carry. At the end I felt that I’d had an adequate workout. Even though these books are outdated (we have 2008 and 2009 ones), I was sad to see them in a common morgue with the garbage from the break room and the pencil sharpener dumpings from individual trash baskets. These are books, and deserve a better fate than a common morgue followed by a common grave in a dry-bed landfill, to sit there for a hundred years barely decomposing due to lack of moisture.

But we can’t keep everything. I’m almost thinking it’s foolhardy to even have a library, in this digital age. Surely we can do better than to kill trees for things that become outdated in a year or two. Oh, well, tomorrow I’ll begin carrying the barrel contents to the dumpster, before I begin crying over them. At least I get to keep all the textbooks.

career, Engineering, miscellaneous

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

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I worked till 6:30 PM yesterday. I had planned to work longer, reviewing a set of construction specifications before they went out for bids on Monday. But the design team did not get me the drawings, just the specs. I did what I could without having the drawings, but ran out of stuff to do and so packed up shop and plunged into the storm.

For those of you not in the lower mid west, we were (and still are) in the midst of a huge rain storm, some lightning and thunder too. On Tuesday they were predicting floods for Thursday and Friday, that’s how sure they were of their computer models. It began raining lightly Wednesday night and continued off and on, then hit us hard mid-afternoon on Tuesday, but had periods of light rain sandwiched with downpours. At 6:30 PM it was light rain–or none–so I headed to the Bentonville library to do some research for an article for Suite101.com. When I arrived at the library it was still barely raining, but the sky was darker than ever.

As I arrived at the library so did Scott, a friend from church. He rode up on his bicycle, which he rides everywhere. He has a car, but he prefers to go by bike. He rode his bike to church on Wednesday night. As we left church it looked like rain could start, and I offered him a ride. He said no, he thought he could get home before the rain hit. We went our separate ways and the rain hit a few minutes after we parted. No way could he have made the 5 mile ride home in the dry.

I went straight to the reference books I needed and Scott went straight to the computers. I could see him in my peripheral vision, his back towards me. Hard rain drummed the library roof. When I got up to get one last book to check one paragraph, Scott was gone. I finished my work, checked out a book, talked with the librarians a minute, and headed to the exit. I ran into Scott. He had been somewhere else in the library. I quickly said to load his bike up in the back of the pick-up and I’d take him home. He accepted this time, the rain coming down in buckets (sorry for the cliche).

The route to his place took us along a state highway currently under construction, being widened from two lanes to five. The drainage was not working and we were constantly driving in three inches of water. We got to his duplex subdivision and power was out. He got in to his house, and I headed the twelve miles home from there. The power was out all the way, and it was at my house too. Lynda is in Oklahoma City (drove there yesterday in a seam in the storm, praise the Lord), so I made my way through the dark house, found flashlights, and sat and read.

A most enjoyable time. But only for an hour. The power came on and stayed on, so it was off the to computer for my evening rituals, the dark drive and dark hour not forgotten, but pushed aside. I did all I wanted too then headed to my reading chair where I ate a very late supper and read for an hour under the glare of an electric light.

The dark and stormy night was quite enjoyable.

career, freelance writing, Writing

Normalcy

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Everyone’s gone. The kids left with Ephraim about 3:00 PM on Monday. My mother-in-law left about 6:00 PM Monday. It’s back to me and Lynda again. Last night was quiet. After a supper of Sonic burgers on half-price night, I tried to balance the checkbook (off by $0.36, which I’ll find tonight) then went walking, about a mile and a quarter. Lynda didn’t join me, as she is still recovering from the effects of the stomach virus that hit her over the weekend. Then I entered about a month of finances in my budget spreadsheet. I was a good boy, and didn’t allow myself to check e-mail, work on writing stuff, or play any computer games until I had finances up to date. The checkbook is only part of it. Then read in Team of Rivals from about 10:30 to midnight, getting my ten pages read to the backdrop of a Clint Eastwood movie. Not the best way to read history, or get your needed sleep.

But I’m kind of wondering what normalcy is any more. As I’ve said before, I’m now working for about 68 percent of what I was making a little over a year ago, with no hope of any raises anytime soon unless I change jobs, something I don’t want to do; now is not the time. But I see some deflationary signs. Our weekly half gallon of milk costs 82 percent of what it did a year ago. The grocery bill has dropped some, maybe 10 percent. Our prescriptions continue to trend down just a little bit. Gas is going back up, but is still well below where it was when the salary cuts began. And we got rid of one car (that Charles had but wasn’t using), so insurance will go down.

Inflation is not gone, however, and I’ve had two recent negative hits to the budget, one small, one big. The small one is the cable TV/Internet access bill, which just went up 3.22 percent. How can they justify this increase when times are so hard? The other is our mortgage, which went up a whopping $120 dollars due to an escrow deficiency. This is due to the imposition of city taxes. We voted to incorporate as a city (sorry all you Rhode Islanders who have no idea what I’m talking about, but we have territory out here that is in the county but not in a city; so were we until) November 2006, and the resulting City property taxes are now kicking in. So we have to pay. And I’m good with that; I voted in favor of incorporation. It’s still a big budget hit, however.

So I’m kind of looking at my new move into freelance writing from a different perspective: not just to build a writer’s platform and demonstrate literary competence, but also generate a little income. Emphasis on little, because in two hours a night and more time on the weekend, I’m not going to earn much. Still, if I could get an average of $100 a month, which is probably within reach, I would make up for that budget-busting mortgage.

Is this the new normal? Rather than pursue writing withing the abundance of my day job, to now pursue it via the freelance route as a near economic necessity? Perhaps that’s a good thing. I can quit playing and become more serious. Time will tell.