Category Archives: career

career, expatriate life

Homesickness

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Our company has a couple of project opportunities in the Middle East, specifically in the United Arab Emirates. From 1988 to 1990 I made about two dozen trips from Kuwait to the UAE for business purposes, sometimes with business stops in Qatar or Bahrain. That’s what my trip to Phoenix was about a couple of weeks ago.

Today I met the two men who are putting our share of the marketing package together, my second meeting with them. After completing our work, I took ten or fifteen minutes to share with them anecdotes from my five years in the Arabian Gulf region. We talked about mosques and dress code and brutal judicial punishment and rubiyan (local shrimp), etc. I don’t know that either one of them wants to make a trip there as a result of my reminiscences.

But it made me homesick for the Arab lands. Only those five years of my life were spent there, but I enjoyed it then and talking about it now, I miss it. After the meeting I went to see a Pakistani man who works for us. He spent some years in Dubai, and we frequently share a few Arabic phrases and joint experiences. That just deepened the homesickness.

I lived twenty-two years in Rhode Island, seven years in Kansas City, two and a half years in Saudi Arabia, four years in Asheboro, North Carolina, two and a half years in Kuwait, another half year in Asheboro, and now over eighteen years in northwest Arkansas. Whenever I have left one place for another, homesickness has set it.

For in truth I have loved every place I’ve ever lived, and almost every place I’ve ever visited. Each place had a richness to be explored, tapped, and consumed, adding to gray-cell-stored data that now gives me a full set of memories. Some of this data is actually becoming fodder for writing. One of the scenes in Doctor Luke’s Assistant, where Luke and Augustus visit the camel souk, came from our visit to the camel souk in Jahra, Kuwait. My short story “Mom’s Letter”, while ostensibly fiction, actually follows very closely how I learned, as a 13 year old boy, that my mother was about to die. I have captured this, and other aspects of my Rhode Island boyhood, in other poems.

I guess for me, it’s a takeoff on the old song, love the place you’re in. I do, and I hope I always will.

career, Writing

Our Light and Momentary Troubles

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Some years ago I was involved in Teen Bible Quizzing. This was an inter-denominational program (though each denomination had its own sub-program) that tried to make Bible study fun while making it competitive. Teens studied the scripture specific to that year, many memorizing it entirely. We practiced twice weekly, and went to tournaments monthly. Teens sat on “jump seats”, some kind of pad or contact device that, once the contact was lost (as in when a teen stood to answer a question), an indicator indicated at the quizmaster’s table. As the quizmaster read the question, a quizzer jumped–well, the best ones only needed to twitch–as soon as they could figure out the answer. Only the teen who “jumped” first, as indicated by the indicators, was allowed to answer the question. These tournaments were a great time for teens to socialize as well as demonstrate their Bible study skills.

But I prate. I bring that up to say that during those years as a Teen Bible Quizzing coach I found a special Bible verse each year. In the year we studied 1st and 2nd Corinthians, this verse stood out:

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2nd Corinthians 4:17 (NIV)

I found this incredibly insightful, and took it for my life motto. Whatever troubles we have in this world, no matter how bad they are, no matter how long they last, are light and momentary when considered against where the believer will spend eternity. This, I believe, is the best way to look at that portion of our lives we spend on earth.

This blog does not record my spiritual journey. I touch on events and issues of my Christian walk from time to time. But my life is not one of preaching on street corners or shaking sinners by the shoulders and screaming at them to repent. About ten hours a day are my engineering career. Almost an hour is commuting. Seven hours (or a little less) are for sleeping. The evening hours consist of family and house matters and trying to branch out into a career in writing and in that manner nudge a lost world closer to Christ. A tiny amount of time is spent on my hobby of genealogy, which I usually do in chunks of time widely separated.

What I’m saying is, the majority of a man’s time–of this man’s time–does not consist of overt or bold or in-your-face Christian living. Rather, it consists of every day moral, ethical, legal behavior; of tending to the needs of his business and family in a manner that draws people to Christ and does not turn them away.

Given this, my blog is about my life journey, most heavily the journey as a wannabe writer (since I see that as my best way to influence the greatest number of people), and less about other specific areas. I have also decided not to sanitize that journey. If the good times come, I say so. If the bad times come, I say so. Last post was about some bad times; the one before that was about good.

But always, even when I fail to mention it specifically, the bad times are always light and momentary troubles in my life compared to eternity.

career, Engineering, Health

Power Failure

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This morning at work we experienced a brief power failure. This is a blustery day. As I arrived at the office about 6:45 AM the wind was fresh and from the east. By 9:00 AM it was from the south, and the front was almost upon us. Radar showed a line of storms heading our way from the west, likely to last most of the day.

Shortly after I checked the radar on the Internet, our power went out. Only for a second; then it came on for a couple of seconds; then it went off for five seconds; then on again and has stayed on. Just those few seconds, but long enough to cause every computer to have to be re-booted manually, long enough to lose any unsaved data, long enough to cause everyone to get up and walk around in frustration. Whether the power failure was due to the front being upon us, or something else, I’m not sure. We have a large road construction project going on about two miles from the office, but if they did something, we would not have come on so quickly.

I’m experiencing a power failure of sorts myself. Since all the work this weekend, which I described in yesterday’s post, which followed close on the work of the previous week and weekend, recovering from the ice storm, I don’t seem to have much energy. My weight is down, the lowest it’s been since June 2003. Saturday I tried on some slacks that were hanging in my closet but not worn for years, and I fit in all of them. I should have more energy than I do, given that I’m at a better weight, almost 50 pounds below my peak weight of a couple of years ago. So what’s wrong?

I have heard it said that toxins are stored in the body’s fat, and so losing weight by losing fat will release those toxins. I did some Internet research on this, and while many people make this claim, I couldn’t find any expert web site that I felt gave a definitive statement saying this was so. Could the mere act of losing weight at a good clip result in tiredness and sluggishness, regardless of whether toxins are released or not? I’m also fighting an injured right shoulder. I say injured, but I suppose it could be just a severe outbreak of rheumatoid arthritis. It doesn’t feel like my rheumatoid usually does, however. It feels like an injury. The pain is almost constant, even when at rest. I’ve learned to avoid using my right arm when I have to move it at the shoulder, and it seems marginally better since I’ve gone to this routine. My regular doctor appointment is in a couple of weeks, so I’m hoping I can get by till then and see what he thinks.

Maybe this personal power failure is partially due to economic conditions. Maybe it is partly due to the growing realization of the futility of trying to publish books. Maybe it is another (or two) life circumstances I am dealing with. More likely it is a combination of all of the above.

God, help me out of these doldrums, that I might better serve You in power and boldness.

career, Engineering

Hunkering Down

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No, not because of a winter storm. That’s what I had to do last week. No, this week I’m hunkering down due to an economic storm.

Last Friday the company I work for laid off about 37 people nationwide. That’s small potatoes, you would think, compared to announcements of thousands of layoffs by some companies. But for us, that was 30 percent of our work force. That by itself would not be so startling except this is our forth layoff since November 2006. We peaked, sometime around May 2006, at about 265 people. We are now 105. Not all of that is specific to the economy, at least not directly. A certain good client cancelled a certain program in February 2006, not for economic reasons but for legal reasons, and 25 people were without projects. We hung on for a while without laying off, even still adding staff in key areas, but it couldn’t last.

After that, we found obtaining new work increasingly difficult. One client after another decided to build fewer stores–or none at all. We experienced a lot of attrition, and did not replace any of those.

This might not be so bad except we don’t know if this is the bottom. Might we go even lower? The economy, to me, looks like it will be in the doldrums until around 2016. Are we at a sustainable staff level, or is another cut in the future?

Oh, I survived and still have a job, but with a 10 percent pay cut, the second cut of that size during these times. The managers took a 15 percent pay cut after a 30 percent cut last time. I work for a good company, well-managed and compassionate. I’m still corporate trainer for engineering, but will have to be taking on more project work.

On a better note, this morning I reached an almost six year low in my weight. Yeah! Of course, with less money to spend for food I shall have to on my dad’s diet: water only, and that just to wash in.

career, miscellaneous

Winter Storm – Part 2

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Well, I made it in to work today. A trip that normally takes 23 minutes took almost 45, which really was not that bad. I pulled right out of Reba’s driveway onto Sherlock Road, and had no problems all the way to Highway 279. I took it slower than I needed to, but I never put weight in the back of the pick-up this winter (since in years past it didn’t handle all that well when I put weight in it), so I knew it wouldn’t take much to get me slipping. Once I start slipping in that truck, despite learning how to drive in Rhode Island winters, I have no way to stop except a ditch.

Highway 279 was only fair from Bella Vista to Hiwasee. Power was out in Hiwasee (a small place name with a general store, bank, churches, and 50 houses), giving an eerie feeling. I turned onto Highway 72, which was a little better than Highway 279. I was able to get up to 35 mph a few times, but the clear parts of the road were few, with it mostly ruts in the slippery stuff. North of Centerton is a 90 degree turn to the left, super-elevated, and it was fully covered with ice. Three of us took that at 5 mph. The next curve, to the right, was dry. The next curve is to the left (all of these curves are at 1/2 section lines, about 1/2 mile apart), and it was sheer ice. An officer was there directing all traffic off the main road, into Centerton. To do so you have to “climb” the super-elevation. I almost didn’t make it, but did, and after that roads were not bad.

I don’t know why they closed Highway 72 into Bentonville. The road has two major dips on tight curves, and maybe road conditions were so bad they didn’t want people attempting it. Or, maybe a bad accident had occurred to block the road. If so, it was far up the road and out of sight. I can believe either, given the conditions I experienced. But, all drivers were taking it slow, being cautious, keeping good separation between cars, and not being impatient with the occasional bumper-to-bumper.

So I’m at work. The strategic planning meetings that were supposed to take place today, with people coming in from other offices, will happen by video conference if at all. Should be interesting.

career, Harmony of the gospels, miscellaneous, reading

Iced In

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Since 5:00 PM Monday, I have barely left the house. As I returned home from work early, the ice storm had already started; driving was already a little slick in Bentonville, but okay in Bella Vista. I parked the truck up the hill, not quite to the brow, thinking maybe I would go to work on Tuesday. All Monday evening and night we heard the roof being lightly pelted, either freezing rain or sleet or ice.

Tuesday I slept in, finally reached the office by phone about 9:00 AM and learned only 5 or 10 people (out of a hundred) had come in. The frozen stuff was still coming down. I walked a couple of tenths of a mile, up to the stop sign to see how the somewhat-major road was. It was sanded and had many tracks, but it was a mess. I didn’t bother to clean off the truck. I spent the whole day being tired doing nothing. Well, not really nothing, as I’ll explain in a minute.

This morning, Wednesday, I was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:00 AM. I walked to the truck, started it, and began clearing windows. Forty-five minutes later I walked a ways further up the road where my near neighbor I work with had parked his pick-up. I put a note on it saying I would like to ride in with him, worked on clearing his windows, then went back to the house about 7:00 AM. I read for an hour, contacted the office and got my near neighbor’s number, and called and left a voice message. I then slept a while.

About 10:00 AM I decided to try to get to work on my own, but couldn’t get the pick-up even up the slight hill remaining (should have parked it OVER the brow, I guess), so came inside. Later, about 3:00 this afternoon, they had sanded our road, so I drove the truck down the hill and around the corner and up the next hill with no problem. I then drove a mile or so, out to the highway to judge its condition. Which was not good, but probably passable in my truck in the morning. On return to my neighborhood, I was not able to back the truck into the place I wanted to, so parked it up at the house closest to the main road, the home of a widow. I asked for permission to park in her circle drive overnight, and she said fine. So, in the morning I will have to drive it 30 feet on our side road, then I should be alright for the 15 miles to work.

These two days, which I will charge against accumulated vacation, seemed lazy, but they weren’t. I worked on my Harmony of the Gospels. I entered a bunch of footnotes, worked on the chapter notes and appendixes, finished typing the edits for typos, misspellings, etc., and worked on getting the proper white space. I did all that in the Dungeon. Upstairs, I did a few more edits, read in The Powers That Be, which is going incredibly slowly, worked on reading for my next Bible study, and had what seemed a leisurely time. But it was productive.

I’m wondering, could this be a dry run for a time in the future when I might actually be a published author, working on deadlines and galleys and multiple projects? Could be.

career, Engineering

Eight years to go, and counting

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At work, and at other places as well, I often give people the number of years, months, and days left until my retirement. People probably think I have a countdown meter somewhere, I do it so quickly. But in reality I can do that because I will retire on my 65th birthday, which happens to coincide withe the last day of the year. So the countdown is easy. I know the year, and I can quickly figure how many months and days left in the year.

Today the countdown reached exactly eight years. That is, unless if economic conditions are such that I have to extend my working days, a distinct possibility the way things are looking right now. Having to work until I’m 67 or even longer is a real scenario.

Of course, I hold a slim hope to the possibility of my writing career taking off, and of supplemental income from that resulting in early retirement from engineering. Yes, I’m not quite free of my pipe dream.

My computer clock now shows it is 8:03 AM, and I must be about my employer’s business.

career, Engineering

Growth and Success

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My thoughts may be somewhat random today, written over a period of time between other duties at work. Last night I worked until 10:30 PM, breaking from 6 to 7 PM for supper with my mother-in-law. The urgent need was the utility drawings and specifications for a road widening project in Bentonville that our transportation group is designing. Another department had designed the utility improvements and prepared the drawings and specs, and our Transportation Dept manager took me up on my offer to check them. I began that late Monday afternoon, but decided to hit it hard yesterday and not leave until I finished checking the drawings, leaving the spec for today.

I did this because our TransDept manager, Greg, seemed particularly stressed out over this. He was handling the stress well, but I could see that he needed some support to get his project out. Greg is one of the good ones, wanting always to do things the right way. He and I have had many conversations in the two to three years he’s been here, always centering on doing engineering the right way. So I offered to check this part of his construction documents. I enjoy doing quality control checks, so the work was enjoyable, if somewhat intense.

Why did I offer to do this? Part of our CEI vision statement says, “…we are committed to the growth and success of each other.” Last week we had some special leadership training concerning “corporate culture”, and the vision statement was the star of the show. So it was fresh on my mind. What exactly does that mean, “we are committed to the growth and success of each other”, or, personalizing it: “I am committed to the growth and success of others [in the office, in the family, in the community, at church, etc.]?

Why trying to fully grasp this statement, I figured it at least mean, “I will assist a colleague who is under the gun and who is having to use staff not under his direct supervision and who may or may not know what they are doing.” That’s an easy application of the principle to actual practice.

I notice that no one ever seems to do that to me, to put themselves out for my “growth and success”. In fact, it usually seems to be the opposite. When I need a CADD tech (since I am not CADD literate), department heads seem to disappear into the cubicles. When I need help modeling a creek, people make commitments then say they never so committed. When I ask for reviewers of a new guide specification, or for someone more knowledgeable than myself to actually write the document, people forget how to read e-mail, though they sure recognize the function of the delete button.

Alas, this is the way of the world. I’m not sure why I’m surprised at that. I guess I’m not surprised at all, just saddened by people’s lack of vision–our specific vision statement.

As I said, today’s entry is somewhat unfocused and rambling.

career, Health

The Skinny on Weight

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As part of my training responsibilities, I coordinate a weekly brown bag presentation to our offices. This is broadcast to any of our nine offices where people want to attend. We use a mixture of in-house and outside presenters as I can schedule them; and I teach a few each year. To promote them, I usually try to come up with a clever title. I used to say a “sexy title”, but our HR head voiced a mild objection to that, so now I call it a clever, attention-grabbing, got-to-attend-just-cuz-of-the-title title. For example, the one this week was titled “Staying Out of Jail”. The one we had back on October 29th was about how vehicle weight affects pavement design. The man who presented it came up with the sexy–I mean attention-grabbing–title: The Skinny On Weight.

That has almost nothing to do with what I’m going to write next. My weight is down, currently at a 4-year low. I’m down a total of 43 pounds from my peak weight. Well, after Thanksgiving I’m not, but I’ll be back there next week. Weight that goes on fast also comes off fast.

You ask how I’ve lost this weight, and what I did to do so? It’s come off over almost three years. I peaked in February 2006, the same peak I had hit in February 2004. After that second peak, I knew I needed to get serious about losing weight, but I wanted to lose it in a way that it stayed off, unlike past times of bouncing up and down. So I made a conscious effort to eat a little less. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, and without pain, the weight did start coming off beginning in March 2006. A little bit each month, not steady, and not without an occasional set back, but I’m losing.

I try to walk in the parking lot on the noon hour. The pressures of work and responsibilities don’t allow me to do so as often as I’d like, but I get at least one day a week in, many times more. Weather interrupts from time to time. We also try to walk on the weekends when time allows. Walking is really my only exercise, except for occasional rebounding with a low-energy bounce. Beginning in May this year, I made a stronger commitment to noon hour walking, and kept it up through the summer. As long as the ambient temperature was not over 95 deg. F, I walked at least a mile, sometimes closer to 1.4 miles. As a result, I showed a weight loss between my May and August doctor appointments of 13 pounds, and I kept it off and lost a couple more for my November appointment.

Now comes the push to lose these few Thanksgiving pounds, not put on any over Christmas and New Years, then keep going. The loss of 43 pounds is the good news; the bad news is I still have about 60 to go to reach the top end of my ideal weight range. I plan to keep on doing what I’ve been doing. Eat slightly smaller portions than I would like. Always bring some of my restaurant meals home. Limit snacks. Eat less fruit (a blood sugar thing). Up-tick my exercise slightly. I’d like to develop the habit of regular rebounding, and maybe use another apparatus regularly. I’m not worried about taking it off quickly. Just as weight that goes on fast comes off fast, so does weight that comes off fast go back on fast. Loosing at a rate something less than 1/2 pound per week is fine with me.

Some people in the company are putting together an in-house program for weight loss, maybe similar to the show The Biggest Loser. I’ll participate, but really won’t be trying to win whatever prize they offer. It will be just for the motivation to add those one of two more good habits to the couple I’ve developed over the last three years.

Skinny? No, and never. But hopefully healthier.

career, Life Group lessons, Life On A YoYo

A New Equilibrium

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This weekend was filled with chores and rest. Saturday morning I raked leaves, used the leaf blower on the rock yard and got all them out of there, on to a tarp and hauled off to the woods on adjacent, vacant lots (in hopes some of them won’t blow back when the wind is right). This somewhat wiped me out, but I went to the eye doctor in the nearest Supercenter to have my right eye looked at. It became bloodshot earlier in the week, not hurting a bit, but giving everyone who had to look at it fits. Since this is the third time this year I had such an occurrence, Lynda thought I should go, and so went.

The doc said there was no injury and no apparent reason for the eye to go bloodshot, except possibly a blood disease. He said to bring it up with my primary care physician, then come back and see him for my regular eye exam, which is over-due. I’m scheduled to see my regular doctor next week.

While I was at Wal-Mart, I took a lawn mower tire in for repair. Sitting in the auto area waiting room, I had an allergic reaction to something: right eye watering; sneezing; right nostril draining freely. This really wiped me out. The rest of the day about all I could do was accompany my wife to town and shop and do a chore or two.

Sunday was a true day of rest. After church and life groups, I had a leisurely afternoon. I typed quite a few pages of my harmony of the gospels, napped, caught up on writing blogs, read in The Day Christ Died, planned four life group lessons in the Life On A Yo Yo series, and worked on my written review of my son-in-law’s paper on Athanasius. All of this with minimal movement, and little exertion. The allergy reaction was pretty much gone by Monday morning.

Not one minute worrying about being published. Not one minute working on a query letter, proposal, poem, text for a book or article or newspaper column–none of these. And I didn’t feel bad about it. In fact I felt good about what I managed to get done. I suppose the Yo Yo series could eventually become a small group study guide, so there’s some writing work there, but very little.

Why don’t I feel badly about this, about a whole weekend gone by with nothing done about my writing “career”? I’ll have to wait and see what another week or two brings before I can answer that.