Category Archives: Engineering

Engineering, freelance writing, Writing

A Scary First on a Successful Day

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It’s rather late on a Friday evening, not a time when I normally make a blog post. But I just did a first for me. When I went to the blog of a fellow Suite101.com writer, I noticed they had a box on their site that showed their most recent Suite 101 posts, with links. I thought that would be rather nice to have on mine, so I went to the forums at Suite 101 and found two threads about this. Neither one told me how to do it. Then I noticed the link, over on the left among the writers tools: Add Suite101.com articles to my web site.

Now, this brought an immediate wave of panic over my still-overstuffed frame and in my somewhat tired mind. Should I do this? What if I mess it up and my blog goes “poof” into the vastness of the Internet forest, never again to find open land? I figured I should at least try, so I clicked the link.

The instructions were easy, so it seemed. A screen popped up with my name and a few default items selected (category of the articles are in and “widget” size). A button said “Generate Widget”, and I clicked it. A text window came up beneath that with the html code in it. Pretty cool, I thought. So I came to this blog to see what I had generated, and soon found out: nothing.

Back to Suite 101, I actually read the directions: You had to copy the html text and paste it in the right place on the web page you were editing. Now the panic had reached a point the New England colonists were in when the earthquake of 1638 hit. I had never in my life done anything with html code, other than to stare at it in amazement and have a deja vu moment of mainframes and FORTRAN code that remained in gray cells not accessed since 1972. Oh well, I pulled up the Blogger editing screen and learned they had an easy way to add widgets. Who knew? So I added it, and went back to the blog, and nothing showed. I had a sneaky suspicion I had to refresh.

I did that, and there was the widget, in the upper right hand corner, above my pic and profile. It was too wide, cutting off some of the text, but the links worked! I went back to the forums at Suite 101 and learned another writer had the problem of the text being too wide, but never received any help on how to fix it. So I went back to the widget generation thingy, and saw where one of my choices was size of the widget. I picked a smaller setting, copied the code (much easier the second time around), pasted it into this blog’s editing screen, checked the blog, and the widget had…disappeared.

The panic I now felt as if I was in the middle of a flood plain, the base flood coming at me in a wave. Then I remembered: refresh. There it was, but unchanged. I went back and forth, playing with two other settings, and finally got it to the size it should be. I even figured out how to move it to the position I wanted it, all my moving a mouse.

But, the widget was now a little too narrow, and had a pesky ad for Suite 101 within it, something about hiring freelance writers and a link. I didn’t want that, and I wanted it a little wider. But the width options in the widget generation thingy didn’t have the right width. However, feeling somewhat confident now, such as someone who has stolen away into an endless forest and has no intention of turning back, I actually went into the html code, found which line had the text for that ad and deleted it, and found which line had the width and increased it from 160 to 175. I clicked save and refresh. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s better now, as you can see to the right. I will probably increase the width a little more, but I’ll give it a day. Too much excitement for one evening. I have edited my first html code. Can twittering and Facebook-ing be far behind?

Oh, and the successes of the day:

  1. My sixth post is up at Suite 101 (still no revenue yet)
  2. My flood plain is mapped! Finally! The full project isn’t quite done, but I feel a huge weight having been lifted from getting this far.
  3. I have gone the entire evening without playing a computer game.
  4. Spent a pleasant hour at Barnes and Noble this evening, drinking the largest house blend, reviewing magazines, and taking notes (yes, I’m batching it again).
  5. My writing productivity has been good this week, especially today.
  6. I got in my noon parking lot laps on a 95 degree day (1 mile instead of 1.33 miles).
  7. I killed two miniature bugs here in the dungeon, the flying kind which you are not sure if they are fleas or chiggers or what they are. Come and get me, PETA!
  8. And, for the first time in over a year, bits and snatches of two poems are rattling around and starting to come out.

Sleep may be a little late coming to me tonight.

Engineering, flood studies, freelance writing, poetry, reading, Writing

Progress as Promised: a shameless commercial plug

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I had intended tonight to post the first part of a two-part review of Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Yes, I finished it last night, well ahead of the schedule I thought I could achieve. The book is long, and deserves a thorough review. On my noon hour, after walking 1.33 miles, I did an outline of my review. Of course, I left the outline on my desk when I left the office.

So tonight I’ll post something else. I’m making progress on a number of fronts.

  • Health: After a few weeks of barely watching what I ate (while continuing a good level of exercise), this is shaping up to be a good week. For the last two days I’ve barely snacked, and have upped my exercise level slightly. Despite 90+ temperatures at noon, I walked 12 laps each day (a mile and a third).
  • Flood study: At the end of the workday, I had pretty much completed the last analysis of the flood study that has been a sword dangling over my head for two years. I still have to get the tech going on the mapping (promised for tomorrow), and must write a technical report (already started) and fill out the FEMA forms (one day’s work). The end is in sight.
  • Reading: As stated, I got more reading done than anticipated over the last month. Perhaps I’m reading more efficiently, because I had great comprehension as I read; I didn’t skim any of it.
  • Freelancing: Last night I spent time preparing a query for another article in Internet Genealogy. No word on it yet.
  • Suite 101.com: Here’s the shameless plug: I have three articles up on Suite 101: two on flood plain issues, and one an overview of Robert Frost’s “Into My Own”, one of his early poems. These three articles don’t have many page views yet and no revenue earned, but that will come in time. What business, you ask, does a civil engineer have reviewing a Frost poem? You’ll have to go to my profile page at Suite 101 and click on the article.

Tomorrow hopefully I’ll begin the book review. Right now, I’m exiting the Dungeon for the upper levels, from the coolness of the basement to the heat of the street level, and will spend a little time reading. The next two books on my reading pile are A Harmony of the Gospels (I forget the author) and East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I’ve never read that, but it’s rather long and I’m not sure I want to read a long book right now. So, for the few minutes of reading tonight, I’ll get back into my son’s philosophy paper “The New Problem of Akratic Action”. This forms a chapter in his dissertation, and is not really a difficult read. At least I think I understood the first five pages.

Engineering, freelance writing

A New Freelance Submittal

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This will be a short post at the end of a busy day. My flood plain study still refuses to cooperate. I’ve got all of the garbage out of my input file (I think), and have worked the six main analyses to perfection. I’ve even started the technical report. However, one additional analysis remains, of encroachments into the flood plain. This is a must. I’ve worked on it off and on since last Friday, but the computer calculated results are not within acceptable ranges. I’m doing something wrong, but can’t figure out what. Will continue to work it tomorrow.

I just made a freelance submission, to be a regular writer at Suite 101. This site doesn’t pay for articles up front, but rather shares ad revenue with freelancers. Others report that their articles generate about a dollar per month, but I don’t know if that is typical, high, or low. The contract will require posting ten 400-600 word articles every three months, which shouldn’t be too difficult. We’ll see what happens.

Edit on June 17, 2009: My application was accepted. Waiting on a web site glitch to be fixed to access and sign the contract. Interesting that I’m accepted to a somewhat regular freelance writing gig on the 35th anniversary of my starting my first job as an engineer.

That leaves me with freelance submittal as follows so far this year:

9 submittals
1 acceptance Make that 2
1 rejection
7 not heard Make that 6
0 withdrawals

Of course, six of those were my short story “Mom’s Letter” to six different literary magazines. And on the first query I submitted for a freelance article, the on-line query letter may not have gone through. I keep meaning to re-post it, just in case it didn’t go through. So, I’m not doing all that bad so far in 2009.

And, I managed to go the entire evening without playing a computer game. I’ll count this as a make-up day for the 40 I didn’t do during Lent. Only 39 to go.

Engineering, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, flood studies, Politics

Bad News All Around Us

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The news yesterday was awful, just awful. We listened to no news on Sunday, preferring to take a “day of rest” from the news. We watched a couple of movies on television in the evening, and did not have news on before that. So yesterday morning as I went to work, I heard what I missed on Sunday, namely the killing of Dr. Tiller. Then, on Monday we had more bad news.

Dr. Tiller, whatever his profession and whatever his status as a legal or illegal provider of controversial abortions, did not deserve the vigilante justice he received. This is not the way to save babies from having their lives terminated before they have a chance to fully develop and breathe. Eliminating service providers will not reduce the number of abortions. Changing the hearts and minds of those who want to have abortions will. You won’t change those hearts and minds by murder.

The bankruptcy of General Motors. Actually, the bankruptcy is not really sad news: the Federal take over of it is. I believe it is unconstitutional for our government to own the means of production. Every time we Americans face a crisis, we look to government to get us out. Each time that government gets a little bigger and a little more powerful and controls a little more of our lives. Shame on us for not taking more responsibility for ourselves.

The loss of the French flight is disturbing. This has all the earmarks of a terrorist attack (eerily like Pan Am over Lockerbee), though mechanical failure of some sort is possible. It’s just sad is all I can say.

I got little done at work yesterday, and little done at home as far as writing is concerned. At work my main task was to get writing on the flood study report for Centerton. I had hopes of major progress. About all I accomplished was to get past the blank screen. I typed a table of contents and made decent progress on the Introduction, but not even close to what I hoped. I’m happy to report that today I’m doing much better, and words are flying from my brain to the paper, or rather to the screen. Last night I got little writing done. I worked some on the new chapter in In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I think I added maybe 400 words. I typed some in the appendix previously started for the harmony of the gospels. I’m now within a hundred or two hundred words of finishing that.

But as far as freelance research goes, or preparation for the Chicago book fair–nothing. When I went to the Dungeon to begin my hour or two of evening work, I was overwhelmed by the amount of papers all around me that should be culled and discarded of filed. Genealogy papers. Writing papers. Bills. Mementos. Etc. The work to get this all done is just immense. I could not, in my inner mind, justify spending an hour researching freelance markets and generating more papers. I couldn’t justify printing out samples to bring to Chicago. It all seemed like so much work that I really don’t have time for.

Or maybe it’s just fear of success raising its ugly head again.

Engineering, Fifty Thousand Screaming People, flood studies, Genealogy, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, reading

4:20 PM, Friday Afternoon

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This has been a full and busy day.

Work wise, I completed the base work on the Little Osage Creek Flood Study. That is, I:

– entered new rainfall data into the hydrology model for the 10-, 50-, 100-, and 500-year rainfall events, and re-ran the run-off calculations. Since I hadn’t run the 500-year before, I had to make adjustments in the overflow structures of eleven detention ponds. By noon, I had a successful run-off model.
– entered the new run-off values into the hydraulics model and re-ran the flood calculations. This was successful at about 3:50 PM. That doesn’t mean I’m quite done with this. I still need to run two phases of ditch improvements and one major future condition, but the hard work is done. Oh, and I still need to write the report, fill out the FEMA forms, and submit it. But with the work today, I consider the hard part done.

I also helped a man in the office with construction site problems.

Personal work wise, I:

– Proofread my article for Internet Genealogy; found a few changes to make; typed the changes; printed the article; proof-read it (in one uninterrupted sitting); found a few more changes to make; typed them; proof-read it and saw it was where I wanted it to be; and e-mailed it to the editor. The article still is not quite finished, because…
– I once again called the professor I wanted to interview for the article, and once again had to leave a message. I’ve found a work-around in case I can’t get a hold of him.
– Mailed my mother-in-law’s income taxes. “So late?” you ask. Yes. She doesn’t owe anything, they don’t owe her anything, she probably doesn’t even need to file at her income level, so yes, quite late, but it’s done for this year.
– Walked a mile on the noon hour.

I approach the end of a day of great accomplishment that made the whole week worthwhile, and somewhat made up for my inefficiencies of the last two weeks, and the two weeks before vacation. I have only 22 pages to go on my reading book, which I will finish tonight and write my review over the weekend. Next in the reading pile is Team Of Rivals, which I am looking forward to. I’m fairly close to finishing the edits on the John Cheney file that I’ve been plodding through a little each night for the last week and a half. I’ll surely have them done by Sunday afternoon, after which I’ll print and file it, file accumulated genealogy papers and clean up my mess in the Dungeon. Hopefully I’ll put genealogy behind me for a while and figure out what to write next. Probably it will be one or two appendixes on the Harmony of the Gospels. Possibly it will be a chapter or two of In Front of 50000 Screaming People. I’ll also consider working on queries for other articles, or fleshing out proposals for the Bible studies I’ve been working on recently.

Too many choices; too little time.

Engineering, letters, Writing

Back, and Back to Normal

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Yes, following my sickness of last week (food poisoning), I’m back to normal. All body functions functioning as they should, the pounds rapidly lost are back on again–and then some, and my energy level is as it should be. This weekend I should be able to tackle some projects.

And I’m back home after a three day conference in Kansas City. This was Urban Water Management 09. I presented a technical paper on stormwater pumping, and chaired a technical session. The conference was somewhat poorly attended, especially on the first day (when I presented my paper). This is my third stormwater conference to attend, and I found few of the exhibitors had anything new to show me. I’ll need to sit out a year or two of going to these things.

And I’m back home to an empty house. Lynda is still in Oklahoma City, watching the grandson while our daughter has gone to Kansas City herself for a conference. I hope the old lady is up to the work for these four days. Ephraim’s dad is there, and his sister, so it’s not as if Lynda is alone and without help. It will be good to have her back, probably on Monday. I suppose that means I’ll have to do my own laundry this weekend, as the draws and closet are getting a bit empty.

I got back yesterday afternoon in time to do a little work at the office. After work I made my pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble where I drank a large house blend, researched in World War 2 magazines, and purchased, off the remainders table, a C.S. Lewis book I hadn’t seen before. I add this to two volumes I picked up in Kansas City at a discount bookstore. One was selected letters of J.R.R. Tolkein; many of them concern his literary life. The other was selected letters of C.S. Lewis; these are his letters to various correspondents wherein he gave spiritual advice. These three books will not go on the top of the reading pile, though I reads some in each of them over the last two days, reducing what had been good progress in Letters From Hawaii.

Last night I e-mailed a query to the target magazine for the story of my dad’s time with The Stars and Stripes. It’s a perfect story for that mag, so I’m hopeful. This is my first submittal of 2009.

Engineering, Writing

Nearing Normal

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I am at work today, feeling close to normal, the food poisoning having almost run its course.

That’s a good thing, because in a few hours I’m supposed drive to the Kansas City area to attend the Urban Water Management Conference. Tomorrow I present a technical paper, “The Problems With Pumped Detention”. Wednesday I moderate a session where other technical papers will be presented. The conference continues through noon on Thursday.

I’ll be trying to meet people on the trip, mainly potential clients, but also vendors and some fellow consultants. So I need to be close to full speed. I’m about there.

So writing will be shoved aside for a few days–unless schedule and contacts (or lack thereof) allow me to spend an evening in a bookstore up there, researching World War 2 magazines. One can hope. Maybe that will be what I do when I pull into Overland Park tonight, and again when I pull back into town on Thursday. One can hope.

Engineering

Successes Bring Hope (even in small amounts)

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One part of my job as corporate trainer for engineering is to schedule and sometimes teach brown bag training sessions every Wednesday. After subtracting holiday weeks, we have about 45 weeks to fill. In the past project management training took up twenty of those, but we don’t have that going on this year. So I have to come up with 45 presentations a year.

So far this year my batting average for having a presentation is not good. After having two good classes the first two Wednesdays, three weeks in a row saw no brown bag (though I’ll blame one of those on the ice storm, even though I had nothing ready that week). I have a vendor coming in next week, and things pencilled in for the two weeks after that. But Monday morning came upon me and I had nothing planned. I knew I couldn’t go another week without a brown bag, so I bit the bullet and decided to do one on short notice.

Based on recent projects I’ve reviewed or consulted on, I decided to quickly pull together a presentation on specifying earthwork. Monday I made an outline and had about 15 minutes to make a few notes. I always try to give these sessions a sexy title–oops, the HR babe says I can’t use that word–oops, nor am I supposed to call her the HR babe–so I titled it “Down In The Dirt: Specifying Earthwork Based on Method of Payment”. I promoted this session on Tuesday.

But Monday and Tuesday gave me no real time to prepare, and Wednesday morning found be grinding away reviewing a project for our Dallas office. So about 10:00 AM this morning was when I began preparing, for a 1:00 PM class. Yet, those three hours did not pass uninterrupted, as the usual phone calls and drop-bys happened. Took my pick-up to the Ford dealership this morning for critical maintenance, and had to deal that in a couple of phone calls. So I had maybe an hour, at most an hour and a half to take my outline and flesh it out into a presentation. The prospects were not good.

We had more people than normal gather in our lunch room, and more offices than normal connect by video conference equipment, with more people than normal sitting in each office. Perhaps the layoffs in January put the fear of job security in everyone, and they decided the ought to attend these training classes while they still have a job.

The class went off without a hitch. I suppose, in discussing construction specifications, I am in my element. The problem turned out not to be a dearth of material, but going faster than I should so as to fit it all in. But fit it in I did. The feedback from the class was positive, as the many questions indicated they were listening and interested. I was glad I did the class, and felt the usual emotional release when it was over. And, I get getting camera time, something I will need when I go on my televised book tour sometime in the future.

In a related success, my truck was finished and the courtesy van picked me up with a minimum of coordination. I’m $360 dollars poorer, but the maintenance is all up to date. Of course, those $1200 dollars of repairs I put off to another time, including a new clutch desperately needed, still hangs out there.

It’s amazing what small successes add up to in terms of hope for the future. I leave the office today hopeful about life for the first time in a couple of weeks. Maybe I’ll weather this economic depression without losing my job or having my salary cut further. Maybe I’ll eventually obtain a book contract. Maybe I’ll get my taxes in well before April 15th and get decent refunds for both state and federal.

Hope. It’s an amazing thing.

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.