Category Archives: Writing

Health, home improvements, Writing

Improvements in Body, Mind, Outlook and…Pick-up Truck

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When I wrote here last, on Sunday, I was in the midst of a difficult weekend. Pick-up truck—in the shop, uncertain problem. Wife—in Oklahoma City on the way back from Santa Fe. Arthritis—flared up to the worst it has been ever, I think. Writing—not doing well, as it was too painful to type, almost to write.

On Sunday the rheumatoid arthritis fare-up was on the mend, but not yet gone. By Monday evening, it was gone completely. I couldn’t get into work on Monday, due to having no vehicle. So I completed installing the top rail on the deck, and cleaning up from the project. The joints between boards aren’t professional, but they look acceptable to me. With all the work with my hands on Monday, you’d think I would be hurting by evening. Yet I felt better than I had for months. Go figure. Saturday I should complete the second coat of deck stain and be done with it until spring, when the top rail will have seasoned enough to add the stain. Oh, I have a few more screws to drive in the top rail.

Tuesday through today I’ve been working almost exclusively on the flood study for the City of Bentonville, related to our street improvements for SW “I” Street, and adding two adjacent road projects done by the highway department (for which they should have done a flood map revision but never did). This has been a particularly frustrating job. I finished the computer modeling some days ago, and have been working on the mapping. Of course, as I did the detailed mapping, I discovered that some further tweaking of the computer model was justified. Almost all of that is done now. I might be able to finish the map-model-map iterations tomorrow, leaving the engineering report and actually making a submittal for next week. The tunnel end is getting closer. Of course, at the opening of that tunnel is the Perry Road flood study for Rogers, Arkansas.

Today, in a mere hour, I was able to write my next article for Buildipedia.com. Later I proofed and tweaked it, and sent it to my source for review. Tomorrow is the deadline, and it’s good to not be writing it at the last minute. Tonight, after posting this and reviewing one other blog, I’ll work on writing for another hour. I might do some typing on passage notes for my harmony of the gospels, or write an article for Suite101.com. I have four or five in various stages of development for them.

And last, on Monday I got my wife back and on Tuesday I got my pick-up back. That’s the right priority, don’t you think? The pick-up problem was the battery cable terminals, which were shot and wouldn’t hold contact. While the darn thing was in the shop, I had them fix the driver side door, putting a new handle on it. Now I don’t have to crank down the manual window and reach outside to open it. This makes it less of a redneck truck, but should do my left shoulder a world of good.

Well, I must be about other business now. I had a more serious post planned for tonight, but will save it for tomorrow.

home improvements, Writing

The Mind is Willing, but the Flesh is Weak

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I have been mostly off-line since I posted to this blog last Wednesday. On Thursday, after an off-site meeting in mid-afternoon, I rushed to a rental place to see if they had a pressure washer. I’d already called and learned they didn’t have one for the weekend, which was my preferred time to do it. I hadn’t asked about one for that evening, since I didn’t think I could get to their place before their 5:00 PM closing time.

My meeting ended a little early, so I rushed to the shop and arrived at 4:58 PM. Yes, they did have a pressure washer, but it was scheduled to go out at 7:30 AM the next morning. I decided to take it. It turned out to be one of the big ones, requiring two men to lift it into my truck bed. Traffic was awful, and I didn’t get home till 5:55 PM, leaving me an hour of daylight, plus a half-hour of dim twilight, to get the thing unloaded, figure out how to use it, move hoses, hook it all up, and wash the stupid deck.

Somehow I got it all done, despite pulling the hose off the quick coupling and separating the 0-ring from the hose. I got the o-ring back on, miraculously, and finished the deck new the end of twilight. I then dropped the wand over the deck, went below and washed the lower decks—in the dark, with only the lights from The Dungeon windows letting me see what I was doing. I was pretty sure daylight would show this late washing marginally effective.

But washing a deck on Thursday means painting/staining it soon thereafter. On the way home Friday I stopped at Lowes and bought semi-opaque stain and a roller. Got home at mid-twilight. Saturday was the big day. I pounded down loose nails, scraped a couple of areas, and, while the workers were working on the insurance-funded repairs in The Dungeon, I stained the deck. At least, I did the bulk of the flooring. Since this was two or three years overdue, and since rain was forecast for Monday (today), I decided to leave the trim for later and get the lion’s share of the flooring done. It needed it badly.

Last time I stained the deck, probably four years ago, I used a 3-inch brush. Took two days and about killed my back and knees. This time I decided to roll it, using the long-handled roller Lynda bought. I’d never have spent that kind of money on a tool, but this one is a good one. It even had an extension on it. I barely had to bend, although standing erect and rolling I felt that I didn’t have enough control over the roller. Took two hours, and left me tired enough. The trim and rails were left for another day.

It would have been nice for that to have been the only maintenance needed on the property that day. Alas, clean-up and dishes (I’m batching it again, for two or three weeks) and clearing deadfall also needed attention. Then there was the neighborhood block party Saturday evening to cook for and attend. By Saturday evening I was in no shape for anything, except watching a little college football and reading less than my weekend day quota in Children of Dune.

Sunday was better. Good rest. Good worship. Good Bible study. Good lunch fellowship with a good friend who was also a temporary bachelor. Good afternoon reading. No access to computer until about 7 PM, however, as the workers were still at it in The Dungeon. I finally got in there about 8 PM, but the fumes were so strong I didn’t want to stay there and breathe in all those solvents and all that dust. Back upstairs, where I divided my time between pro football and catching up on Children of Dune.

So it was a weekend of little writing accomplishment. I researched my next Bible study, read some in Poets and Writers, read in CoD, which is sort of research for sci fi writing, and filed some writing business type stuff. Would have liked to do more, but that was all. Hopefully this week will be more profitable.

Writing

It’s October 1st – I Should Blog

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Fall is in the air, as the saying goes, and this is my favorite time of year. There’s something about the transition in Autumn that appeals to me more than the transition in Spring. Since I tend to like colder temperatures more than hotter temperatures, perhaps it’s the anticipation of those cooler temperatures and actually feeling a little bit of it.

Why, you ask, if I like colder temperatures, did I sojourn in the Arabian deserts for five years, and now lived twenty-four years in the South? In truth I’ve found I can be happy in all temperatures, though I have my favorites.

Today has been a good day. Over the last several days at home I drafted an article for Suite101.com, on construction dispute mediation. In mediation on Monday; article written by Friday. Art imitates life, I guess you could say.

On The Writers’ View 2, a Yahoo e-mail loop I’m on, the current discussion is on excuses to doing what needs to be done in order to succeed as a writer. The answers are fear (both of failure and success), busyness, lack of skill, lack of industry contacts, etc., etc. Lots of excuses, none of them that should be made. The discussion leader had some poignant words for us, the great unpublished masses of writers: butt in chair, fingers on keyboard. And, on occasion, eyes in book.
So I have no excuses. I just need to get at it harder and get it done. Write articles. Work on my novel. Capture ideas in a retrievable way. Update my submissions log. Research the market. Submit some poems and short stories to literary magazines. Work on my Bible studies, especially the new one in research. Read to improve craft. Read to be inspired. Hobnob with writers (probably less than I’ve been doing on-line, more IRL). Get my weight down and my body better in tone. Finish the downstairs bathroom. Finish preparations for the new downstairs carpet. Trade some stocks.

The first of the month is always an occasion to begin anew, not quite as much as the first of the year, but still a time to focus on doing things better, smarter. One thing I’ve done better and smarter, at least I think so, is to finally come up with a writers diary of sorts.

I’ve tried journaling, and usually do that in fits and starts. I’ve tried weekly log sheets, with a little success, but usually set it aside after a while. In July I developed a monthly writing log. It’s just a table, 32 columns across and about 20 rows down, with lots of white space at the bottom. I use a row to identify a writing task (which will include whatever reading I’m doing), and check the day I worked on that task. I use footnotes when necessary to explain exactly what it was I did concerning that task. I’ve used this log for three months now, and like it. Here’s to many more months of documenting my progress.

And here’s to a good October, enjoyable in season, fruitful in tasks completed, abundant in words assembled into sentences, paragraphs, lines, chapters, and sections. May computers work, the Internet remain stable, modems and routers not fail, the electricity not hiccup, and all things writing-related work in harmony.

home improvements, Writing

The Leaners Are Down

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Some posts ago, earlier this year, I talked about a leaner tree that I was trying to bring down to the ground. This was at the back of our lot, actually on common POA property. There are three leaners there, or maybe only two since one was bifurcated right at the ground. I took out the smaller of these, about 7 inches diameter, early this year. The bigger one was 12-14 inches diameter. This is the one I wrote about earlier. I cut it all the way through except maybe a 1/4 inch. It fell a little, but a major branch kept it from going to the ground. I sawed on that major branch, but it’s up high about at the end of my reach. Let me tell you, that’s tough sawing. I had it sawed 3/4 of the way through but the branch gave way a little and close up the sawcut. At that time I just left it.

Why do I want that tree on the ground? It’s far a way from the house, not even on my property (though easily visible from the house). My only half-way reasonable answer for that is I want it to come down in the way I want it to so that it doesn’t take out a struggling pine tree on the way. We have so few pines around here, with the oaks taking over and crowding out everything, that I work to save the pines. The on-so-good answer is I just wanted to do it. It was my project—kind of like the stump in Shane. It’s not that it needed to come down but that I wanted it to come down.

The third tree, a 10 incher that is leaning the other way from the bifurcated pair, can stay or not. I may saw on it through the fall and winter or I may not. It’s not as if I don’t have outdoor work without worrying about that.

Well, I looked out the back of the house last weekend and saw the leaner was on the ground. Or, not really on the ground, but fallen off its stump. It appears to be wedged between the pine and something, a few feet above the ground; I haven’t yet gone down there to look. At least it appears to be at a point where I can say “mission accomplished”, with the help of wind and rain.

That brings me to the leaner I haven’t talked about, a 8 or 10 inch diameter oak on the wooded lot south of us, the lot that came up at auction but I was unavailable to bid on it that day. This tree was leaning towards our lot. I began sawing on it, got a third of the way through, or maybe half, then thought I’d better check and see if it was tall enough to reach the house when it came down. I used the various methods I learned in boy scouts for determining the height of a tree, and decided it was a little too short to miss the house. But, would it take out another tree on its way down, and that other tree hit the house? That I couldn’t tell, so I decided to leave this tree alone for a while. To cut it higher up would take a ladder and much arm extension, and I wasn’t interested.

Friday I noticed that this tree had come down as well, again thanks to wind and rain. And to vines, which had grown up the tree, choked it, and perhaps pulled it some. It did not split at my partial cut, but rather fell from the roots, as I feared. The top of the tree landed about eight feet from the house, and it took out a branch or two on the way down but not a tree. So I was right in my assessment. I spent a little time yesterday cutting the top of the tree away. How thick the vines were up there!

Widowmakers. That’s what the folks in the Piedmont area of North Carolina called leaning trees. They treated them with respect, but never hesitated to take them down and use them for firewood. Our fireplaces don’t burn wood, but I do cut the downed trees and stack them in a woodpile. It seems a worthy thing to do.

So that yard work is done. No, wait, on the lot north of us I see two more leaning trees that seemed straight before. Maybe that will be next year’s needless project. Meantime, I shall keep writing my articles. From this blog I will go to MS Word and type the last article in the series of construction contract administration. Then, what? Maybe work on my novel a little. Or read some in a writing book. Or go to Absolute Write and critique a poem. So many paths to take.

Buildipedia, Engineering, home improvements, Suite 101, Writing

Improvements to Body, Home, and Writing

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The “hit by a bus feeling” I wrote about on Monday has ended. By bedtime on Monday I was much better. Woke up on Tuesday with the normal morning stiffness, but my right wrist and arm felt much, much better than it had for several days, perhaps even a week. When I weighed in at work on Tuesday I was down 5 pounds week over week, back on track for a net loss by the end of the year. Maybe the better eating, more exercise, and general level of activity did something positive.

Monday evening I was able to write an article for Suite101.com, the next in my series on stock trading. Tuesday noon I was able to finish the article on the Crystal Bridges Museum for Buildipedia.com and submit it. That leaves me two still under contract at Buildipedia, and of course as many as I want to write at Suite. The money at Buildipedia is nice, at Suite not so much, but I see little signs of improvement there. Perhaps these recent articles are generating ad clicks at a higher rate than some of my early ones.

Last night, instead of writing, I finished the primer coat in the downstairs bathroom. Well, almost finished. I found some places I missed on the trim, and other places I had failed to wipe away the dust of sanding. With wet paint in the room I didn’t dust and paint those. So looks like tonight will include a little more painting, maybe no writing.

And on both Monday and Tuesday, as the day ended, I had enough energy and brain power to read a good amount in Athanasius. I really liked Monday’s reading. It was in the place where Athanasius speaks about the Christian’s attitude toward death, basically that he despises rather than fears death. This was so close to one of John Wesley’s sermons on death that you know this is either a source work and derivative or the treatment of the subject hadn’t changed much in the 1,450 years between the two. I found it interesting reading.

So what will today hold, in this adventure called life, juggling devotion to God, being a husband, being an empty-nest father and grandfather, an engineer, a writer, and trying to maintain a house and property? I’ll be writing today, items needed for one of the papers I’ll present in February. So that’s good: any writing is worthwhile writing. I always feel good when I make progress in whatever I do.

Engineering, Writing

New Assignment – am I a glutton for punishment?

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A couple of posts ago I wrote about how I was preparing (or maybe had already prepared) a pitch to Buildipedia.com for a long article about asphalt solar collectors (ASC). This was a bit of emerging technology I came upon, somehow, that looks to have a lot of potential. I began looking at it and saw some advantages and pitfalls. In three on-line articles, two on-line research summaries, and a press release by Worcester Polytech I didn’t see any mention of the things I thought of. Immediately my mind said, “If you don’t see an adequate article on-line, write your own.”

So I made the pitch. This morning I had a call with the editor, and he assigned the article to me. A bit smaller at first than I planned for, but with two potential follow-up articles covering the other things I wanted to say. This will be a feature article, so for the better money they pay.

The research on ASCs (which, BTW, should really be APSC for asphalt pavement solar collectors, since it’s the pavement that we’re interested in) seems to be in its infancy. WPI has done computer modeling, and lab-scale tests, and larger-scale tests of the technology. They’ve determined the potential is there for significant energy recovery from asphalt pavement. But are ASCs economical? Or do they have the potential to be economical? That question has not been answered. Much research will be required, including a full size demonstration project with the asphalt under load and energy being used.

Given what I’ve written the last two days, with my work and home time about to be under a busyness siege, why would I take on such an assignment? Well, the article won’t be published until November 4, and the due date will be October 21 (or 28th if I need that long). It fits in well with a theme they planned on for November. I need the money. I need the writing credit. I suppose I need the goal to keep me on the straight and narrow of time management. And I see considerable spin-off type articles coming from this, coming over several months or a year.

So, all things considered, I pitched the article and accepted the assignment. I don’t have a contract to sign yet, but I should receive that on Monday. Looks like my writing career isn’t dead. I just hope all this magazine article stuff someday pays off with creative writing assignments.

Engineering, Writing

Under Siege Again

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Yes, the siege has begun. It seems all areas of busyness come together in life. At work, I have almost missed a FEMA deadline and in the next two days need to rush a submittal to avoid having to re-pay a fee. At the same time, the next FEMA project is about to start. Well, I’ve started it, but have been waiting on CADD tech help to both do it better and save a bunch of hours. That help is about to arrive, and then I’ll have to hit it quick.

Also at work, a fairly good sized water line relocation project got the go ahead yesterday. This one I will only be managing, not doing, but I’ll be writing the specs for it and doing a few other things. It will consume hours.

The biggest hit of all will be having to do a large chunk of another man’s work for some time. That won’t start right away, but surely within a month, lasting for at least three months.

At home, we have about resolved all issued related to the water damage, other than completing an inventory of damaged books and furniture and sending it to the insurance company. We have pretty much shown there is no more water damage occurring above the fixed ceilings in the basement, so we need to proceed with getting that work done. Then we can get the carpet replaced, then put everything back in place. Four of the movable bookcases sit directly on the floor with no false bottom. Those I want to set on a board of some kind. I’ll have to figure that out, buy the boards, and stain them. Not a major project, just symptomatic of the siege.

For sure work is going to be busier than home. I anticipate some extra hours, probably in mid-October for a couple of weeks, probably longer. My writing assignments and desires are not terribly burdensome at this time, so I should be able to maintain that work. This blog is the easiest thing to give up if the siege gets too great, but I hope to keep posting, maybe shorter pieces.

So, today is not earth shattering news; just an interim report, a diary entry, if you will. Let’s see if I can do things more substantial over the next month.

C.S. Lewis, Emerson, reading, Writing

New Books or Old Books

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Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” 1837

Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. C.S. Lewis, Introduction to On the Incarnation by St. Athanasius, 1944

So, two eminent scholars seem to disagree! Why am I not surprised. Emerson says read the modern books. The generation right before you, after they observed the world and digested it, shared the knowledge they had for my generation. C.S. Lewis says not so; read first the old books, then if you have time and inclination read the modern as well.

This came up because, at my last foraging in a thrift store, I found the Athanasius book. I might not have bothered with it except I have an interest in the early Christian writings, and thought this slim paperback would be a welcome addition to my reference library. Also, in 2005 I first read a seminary paper by my son-in-law on Athanasius’ de Incarnatione Verbi Dei. I didn’t understand it, put it down, picked it up again almost exactly a year later, didn’t understand it, put it down again, etc., until finally I was able to glean enough from it to understand it (I think) the discussion and write a review. When I saw the book I thought, “I’ve read about this writing of Athanasius; now I have the chance to read it in modern translation.”

When I got it home I read the Introduction. C.S. Lewis’ words stood in stark contract to what I remembered reading in Emerson. “The American Scholar” is actually the only essay of RWE’s I’ve gotten all the way through. Others I’ve picked up and put down, but that one I really liked. Emerson’s words had seemed true to me. That’s why every American generation writes another biography or two of George Washington, and why the shelves of our local libraries are constantly rotating books, selling off those more than fifty years old and replacing them with newer distillations of the same subject.

Lewis has more to say about this than does Emerson. He goes on to discuss the importance of reading the original sources. Commentaries on Plato are more confusing than Plato, he writes. Just read Plato. He’s not so hard to understand in modern translation. Since that is exactly what I am attempting to do with the Athanasius book, I could understand Lewis’ remarks. And, as a writer I’d better figure out how to write materials for the next generation while at the same time directing them to the old books.

We’ll see how this goes. I’ve read about fifteen of the 95 pages of Athanasius, and sort of understand what he’s saying. I haven’t gotten to the meat of his argument yet. Of course, when he began by saying, “In our former book”, I had to divert to various on-line sources to see what that book was and what it is all about. That led me to some letters he wrote. That led me to some biographical materials, and even a compilation of his works. The tentacles of research are at work.

It is taking me much concentration to read De Inarnatione. I can’t do it while also watching television, or even while that noise is on in the house. I can’t read it if I’m also thinking of articles to write or blog posts to post or bills to pay or work issues the morning will bring. So I may not finish it quickly, may even put it aside and go to some other book in my reading pile. We shall see. The experiment is on.

Buildipedia, content writing, Suite 101, Writing

Writing writing writing

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Well, my third article is up at Buildipedia.com, the second in my five part series on construction contract administration. These are shorter articles and pay $100 each. I have also submitted my second feature article but they haven’t posted it yet. These are longer and pay $250 each. I’m quite pleased with the site, and hope they keep giving me assignments at a similar rate as now. I’m under contract to do three more contract admin articles, and one news article on the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

I’ve also been preparing a longer article pitch (or could be three feature articles), on asphalt solar collectors. Not sure how I came across this concept, but I’m intrigued by it. Use existing and new asphalt pavement as solar collectors, with required retrofit. Worcester Polytech (the university I was accepted to but couldn’t afford to attend) is doing some good research into this, though the data I found is about two years old. I hope to make this an interview article, as well as research and apply good old common sense and engineering judgment.

At work today I wrote also. Item 1 was to re-write a contract for a water transmission main relocation. We are already under contract for this, but since the Arkansas transportation department is paying the bill, we have to restructure our contract in accordance with how they want to see it. As I worked on that, I had to retype the whole thing because the electronic file mysteriously disappeared. And I found the description of the work to be performed very inadequate. Item 2 was also marketing related, a brief scope of work to go in a proposal for a major development in the Tulsa suburb of Catoosa. Naturally the developer wants to destroy a floodplain and wants us to assist him. I wrote the scope for the flood study portion of the project.

Ideas for articles for Suite101.com continue to flow into my head faster than I can capture them on paper. The Catoosa flood study has given me ideas for about three articles I could write—and that’s before we do the study! The flood zone we will be working in is a Zone A, which has the least degree of attention to establishing it of all the regulatory flood zones. Consequently it is least written about of all the flood zones. I have an excellent FEMA manual on these zones, but it’s a difficult read. I could see doing a Frequently Asked Questions type article, or the three I mentioned, and doing a real service to the regulated community, maybe even my wallet.

My other area of concentration at Suite is in stock trading articles. I have four or five planned, and maybe over the next week I can get a couple of them done. I feel good about these articles being better earners than my US history and Robert Frost poetry articles. The ads Google puts on the pages are all relevant and reasonably attractive. A couple of Suite veterans (I don’t consider myself a veteran there yet) have said I ought to write about 20 trading articles and see if that makes a difference in my revenue. Since I earn less than 50 cents a day there on average, a hub of 20 articles should tell me something.

We, I’d better run and do some of that. Those articles don’t get written when I practice Internet writing on this blog. Also better add the checkbook since I paid some bills tonight. And, St. Athanasius and a NatGeo issue are beckoning to me.

freelance writing, home improvements, reading, Writing

Oh for a Holiday Weekend

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Labor Day weekend is upon us. My supervisor, the CEO, usually comes around early afternoon and tells us we can leave early, somewhere around 3:00 or 3:30 PM. I usually don’t, but might do so this time. While it’s a holiday, with one extra day, I have much to accomplish. Here’s a sampling.

  • We had a strong rainstorm last night, and one of the skylights leaks in our living room. It was a slow drip, but it followed the ceiling slope to the wall and then down the wall. We protected the carpet right away, but now I have to deal with this. Water in the living room, water in the basement. What’s a homeowner to do?
  • Speaking of water in the basement, we are in a testing phase right now. Had the plumber out yesterday. He couldn’t find any water, but wants us to watch it for a while before we do the ceiling re-installation and then the carpet installation. Another week at least with The Dungeon torn up.
  • Speaking of The Dungeon, I’m going to at least clean up the mess in it this weekend. We put down plastic sheets to catch the sheetrock and dust, but the sheets were so old that they kind of crumbled. Who knew? So I’ll get them out and vacuum up all the stuff that fell through the sheet cuts.
  • Speaking of cuts, it would be nice if I could finish taking out that leaning tree this weekend. The cut I made through the large branch that is preventing the tree from falling is mostly through the branch, but it closed up under the weight and I’ve got to start a cut from the other side. Weather is supposed to be good this weekend for working outside.
  • Speaking of working outside, I’ll have a little grass to weed-eat, and maybe I’ll take out those two bushes Lynda wants taken out. That will take an hour. And a few other bushes need trimming. Another hour.
  • Otherwise, I have two Buildipedia articles under contract that I need to finish or at least work on. I have three others under contract that I should start on. And it would be nice to write two for Suite101. Ideas are on my mind; I need to help them find an outlet.
  • Otherwise, I plan on reading, reading, reading. 150 or more pages in the book I’m working on, three or four newsletters, one Geographic, and one Poets and Writers.
  • And last, it would be nice to begin work on the next Bible study that’s on my mind. Actually, I started it last Sunday, but quickly saw it was a lot more work than I had envisioned, and so laid it aside.

That sounds like enough. I’ll perhaps make a couple of posts to this blog, get a few walks in, play Scrabble with Lynda, and enjoy the weather on the deck.