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.

Headshots, miscellaneous, reading

Tatamagovich Trail

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This has been a busy weekend. Yesterday, Saturday, we spent a good chunk of time at my mother-in-law’s house in Bentonville. We cut limbs that had fallen in the recent ice storm, dragged them to the street, and cut them into 6-foot lengths. The City is supposed to pick them up this week. Then we raked the leaves in the back yard. Well, not all the leaves, but probably 70 percent of them. I took four pickup loads to the compost facility. I would have taken the limbs there too, but the City says they will pick them up.

My pick-up bed holds a lot of leaves in bulk. Raking them on to a tarp, dragging the tarp to the truck, hoisting it up to dump in the bed, then get ’em all out at the other end is work. Years ago, when we lived on NE “J” Street, I would take eight loads of leaves to the compost facility in that pick-up. Now, three loads wear me out.

We rested yesterday evening, and slept in a little this morning since we were having only one church service, at 10:30 AM, and no life groups. This was our annual Upwards Basketball service, held in the gym, and we had a good group of visitors. This is a good outreach program for the church.

After church, we again went by my mother-in-law’s house, to meet the man who bought the organ for him to load it and take it away. We loaded a few things in the van to take to our house (which I guess I need to go unload), and headed home.

Except, we decided to stop by the walking trail at the north end of Bentonville, close to Bella Vista. We had done that once before, and I was intending on doing about the same walk. However, Lynda wanted to do one of the forested trails. So we took off down the Tatamagovich Trail. Although listed as difficult, we did not find it so. It is narrow, normally only wide enough for one person, and it does go up hill, but the grade is easy. The entire trail is about 2 miles long. We did a mile of it, found an old farm or logging road, and cut back to near the beginning. During all this time we encountered only one person, a mountain biker, who passed us.

It’s hard to believe that this trail exists in built-up Bentonville. Kudos to the city planners and officials who put this all together. Kudos to the person who arranged for the city to get this land (purchased or donated, I’m not sure). We enjoyed it, and it’s a nice feature for the city and area.

Now, an afternoon nap finished, I’m ready to go tackle The Powers That Be, and see if I can get 40 pages closer to finishing it.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Harmony of the gospels

To Post or Not To Post

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I should post today, but I sit here at my computer in the office, 32 minutes before I start my work day, with a mostly detached mind. It’s not writer’s block, for I can think of twenty things to write about, but none of those seem well enough developed in my thinking to begin writing for public consumption.

My evening writing time for the last three or four weeks has been devoted to the Harmony of the Gospels I’ve been working on for some years. Right now I’m entering the NIV footnotes (my base text is NIV). This has been a tedious task. Sometimes the footnote will say that it applies to the noted verse and several other numbered verses in the passage. Since I don’t have numbered verses, I have to alter the footnote. I began the footnote work with Matthew, then Mark, then Luke, and am now to the 13th chapter of John. With each gospel, as I got to a parallel passage, I found fewer notes to enter, the same footnotes typically applying to the multiple versions of the passage. Also, as I typed much of the unique passages from John, I entered some of the footnotes as I went along. So, tonight I should finish John.

As I entered footnotes, I found a couple of places where I had missed something in the harmonizing. And, I left two or three places up in the air as I did the original work in manuscript, passages that were particularly difficult to blend, or to establish a most probably timeline, so I put them off to a later date. That later date arrives this weekend, it looks like.

Also, one difficult part of harmonizing is knowing how to fit the unique passages in John into the approximate timeline presented by the synoptic gospels. John Chapter 5, for example, a trip to Jerusalem. Where does that go in the synoptics? Assuming John’s gospel is chronological and not topical (a dangerous assumption!), all we know is it goes between Jesus’ second miracle in Galilee and the feeding of the five thousand. That puts it anywhere between Matthew 4:13 and 14:13, or Mark 1:2 and 6:30, or Luke 4:38 and 9:10–assuming each of those is chronological, again a dangerous assumption. The same can be asked for chapters 7 through 12 in John; where do they fit in?

In general, I followed the chronology suggested in the NIV Life Application Bible. After I was about a third of the way through my original harmonizing, I checked the harmonizing of events in the NIV-LIB, and found that we had exactly agreed up to that point. So from that point on I just followed the NIV-LIB order, rather than develop my own chronology. However, I now think I need to shift John chapter 7 to a later point than I have it. I also need to figure out what to do with Luke 9:51, which seems to upset much of my chronology.

All of this will not likely lead to publication. But it is fun; it stimulates my mind; and should produce something useful for Bible study, even if only for me.

I think, however, when I come to a good stopping point in the Harmony, which I see coming in about two weeks, I will shift back to In Front of Fifty-Thousand Screaming People, and try to finish that.

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.

Bible study, critique group, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Documenting America, goals, Harmony of the gospels

February Goals

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After my blistering pace last month (just kidding), I’m going to establish fairly moderate goals this month.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times.

2. Monitor the five blogs I’ve been monitoring on a regular basis.

3. Complete as much of the Harmony of the gospels as I can. This will include:
– All NIV footnotes entered
– Formatting for reading completed
– Introduction written and typed
– Passage notes cleaned up and typed for a few key passages
– Appendixes identified, and one written

4. Market “Mom’s Letter” to someone; includes marketing research

5. Attend one critique group session; present a Documenting America column

6. More fully capture, for future development, a couple of Bible study ideas that have recently flittered through my mind and managed to make their way on to a capture list.

7. As time allows, work on my essay on the Resurrection.

Bible study, critique group, goals, Harmony of the gospels, reading

The January Report

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As always, I begin the new month with a report of how I did last month relative to the goals I set. Here ‘t’is.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times. I far exceeded this, coming in at 16. Of course, having not met some other goals, maybe I spent too much time here.

2. Complete my review essay of T.B. Macaulay’s essay on the History of the Popes. For whatever reason, I did nothing on this at all. I’m not sure why, but after working on this diligently in December, and having only a few paragraphs remaining to finish it, I forgot about it completely.

3. Return to typing the Harmony of the Gospels I wrote in manuscript over a several year period. If I finish the typing this month–and that is easily possible, I can start the editing process next month, including adding a bunch of notes. This I did in a big way. I did indeed finish typing it this month, and proof-read it once and made those corrections. I also began laying out the introductory remarks and the passage notes and appendixes, writing some of them. I also began going through and making sure I had all the NIV footnotes typed and properly referenced. I estimate I’m 60 to 70 percent done with this.

4. Come close to finishing my current reading project, The Powers That Be, by David Halberstam. Only 453 pages to go as of last night. I worked on this, but only on the weekends and not as much as I should have. As of last night I am at page 549, leaving about 180 pages to go.

5. Work on Life On A Yo Yo, which I begin teaching this coming Sunday, as a publishable Bible study. I did a little bit of this. I’m in the midst of teaching it to our adult Life Group, so obviously I’m working on it. I haven’t done a whole lot to turn it into a publishable idea, but did some.

6. Monitor five websites regularly…. I did this, even posting a couple of comments and receiving some feedback. I think having narrowed my reading down to these few sites regularly, and a couple of others occasionally, I have reached a doable reading list.

7. Critique 5-10 poems at various places, both public and private. I met this goal, critiquing seven poems publicly and one privately. This feels good, and at a rate sustainable from month to month.

In addition to these, and maybe in place of some, I actually completed some other things related to writing that were not on my to-do list.

8. Attend one critique group meeting, presenting “Mom’s Letter” (a short story) and receiving good feedback.

9. Captured some new ideas for Bible studies/small group studies I think I could write.

10. Began research and writing on an essay on the resurrection. This was sparked by a discussion thread at the Absolute Write Christian writing forum, and became a real activity after a little research. I’m not sure where I will go with this, but I like the start. This is engaging my mind right now more than anything.

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.

Carlyle

The Sweetest Fruit

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I am today continuing to draw nuggets of wisdom from Thomas Carlyle’s 31 March 1829 letter to Henry Inglis. I wish we had Inglis’ letter to Carlyle that spawned this letter, but we have only Carlyle’s response. Inglis must have asked for some advice on writing, for Carlyle responded:

As to writing, for the present, I will neither advise nor dissuade you. If you have any heartfelt interest in any literary matter; any idea that gives you no rest till it be uttered, commit it to paper, and if circumstances favour, to the Press, the sooner the better. Only if you have no such interest, no such idea, do not in any wise regard it as a misfortune (most probably it is a blessing, for the sweetest fruit is longest in ripening) but simply as a sign that your vocation as yet is not to impart but to acquire. Meanwhile tell me always what you project and accomplish in the way of study and reading; and for your own private use, keep plentiful Notebooks, on which let your pen be often occupied.

Ah, Thomas, you write to me! You say you don’t provide any advice, at least you will not “advise nor dissuade” in the matter whether to pursue writing. But you say to commit to paper any idea which seems good to my mind as a potential writing topic. Good, this accords with what I am doing. Just this morning I made a list of the Bible study/small group study guides that have been rolling around in my mind. I have most of these on a capture sheet, somewhere (probably in a certain, unlabeled notebook on my closet shelf; I can picture where that is.

You also say “commit…if circumstances favour, to the Press”, i.e. seek to have that idea published. That’s exactly where I am, writing but not seeking publication. Perhaps this effort in this time will result in sweeter fruit. If not, it should result in my sweeter disposition.

Meanwhile, Thomas, for my own private use, I am keeping plentiful notebooks, on which my pen is frequently occupied.

Carlyle, Writing

Perseverance?

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I continue today with Thomas Carlyle’s letter to Henry Inglis, a young man 11 years his junior. Carlyle continues with the advice he had given earlier in the letter.

My earnest often-repeated advice to you, therefore, is: Persevere! Persevere! In all practical, in all intellectual excellence think no acquirement enough. Throw aside all frivolity; walk not with the world, where it is walking wrong; war ad necem [to the death] with Pride and Vanity and all forms of Self-conceit within you; be diligent in season and out of season! It depends on you, whether we are one day to have another man, or only another money-gaining and money-spending Machine.

So Carlyle tells the young Mr. Inglis not to give up. We find no end of such advice in the world. Persevere. Don’t give up. Keep going. Run the race faster, stronger, longer. Even the Apostle Paul got in on this type of advice.

Yes, in whatever endeavor we undertake, we need to do so having counted the cost, knowing what will be required of us, and persevering to the end. But what happens if the cost is too much? We are also cautioned in scripture, by the Savior himself, against beginning something we don’t have the wherewithal to finish—towers and war and such metaphors applying.

In the matter of writing, that’s where I am. Am I simply not persevering, or have I finally counted the cost and determined that I don’t have the wherewithal to finish? God, please help me to know.

Author | Engineer