Fifty Thousand Screaming People

Obverse or Reverse

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I love the wisdom of Victor Henry, the old sea dog who served his country so well in two world wars, confidant of two presidents, father of three including a fallen war hero. A man could learn much from all that was written about Victor.

Some of you are wondering who Victor Henry was, why you don’t recognize the name of such a famous person, and why I should be writing about him. Well, he is a fictitious character, the hero of Herman Wouk’s two epics, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. So actually Victor’s wisdom is Wouk’s wisdom, explained through his character.

The particular bit of V.H. wisdom I’m thinking of today comes from The Winds of War, near the end. Henry is en route from temporary duty in the Soviet Union to Pearl Harbor to take command of the battleship California. The Japanese sneak attack comes while he is on the last leg of the trip, from Quam to Wake Island to Pearl via Midway Island. He gets to Pearl Harbor and learns the California took torpedoes in the attack, and he has no ship to command. In the pile of letters waiting for him was one from his wife, asking for a divorce, and one from his daughter, saying she was being named in the media as the paramour of her boss. Henry, temporarily staying at his son’s house (a naval aviator), finds a bottle of brandy and drains it in a few hours. He wakes up the next day with the pain deadened but unable to function.

At breakfast he learns that the Japanese had bombed submarine installations in the Philippines, including the navy base where his other son was an officer on a submarine. As Wouk writes concerning what Victor thinks, “When things go bad, his long experience told him, they went very bad”.

That seems to be happening at present. Another computer crash, this time the computer I work at, with all my writing on it, very little of it adequately backed up. I don’t know that it’s lost totally, but I fear the worst. My truck, fresh from the shop for routine maintenance, the next day throws the new belt they just put on it and I am almost stranded 100 yards away from my destination. The economy goes from bad to worse and I’m pretty sure we are in a depression, though the data to confirm that is a couple of quarters away. And, it looks like a financial problem in my extended family is about to blow up and I may have to go half way across country to help deal with it–or maybe not. And, I am dead tired from the labors of clearing out my mother-in-law’s house (not even close to done), the rigors of diet, exercise and weight loss (not even close to any goal), and the rigors of work, trying to help save a company from ruin for 20 percent less pay than a year ago. Yes, after my somewhat euphoric post of last Wednesday, things have gone very bad.

Every coin has two sides, obverse and reverse. You can’t have one without the other. I tend to be pessimistic in my outlook of life, so when bad things come, similar as for Victor Henry, they seem normal. The hits will probably keep on coming. Such as today. I found out between beginning this post and ending it that the agent who was considering In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People is going to pass on it. Victor Henry was correct.

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.

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.

Author | Engineer