Post 900: On Accomplishment

As you'll know if you've read this blog or my other one, I'm in a Time Crunch. I put that in capital letters because it is the daddy of all time crunches. It's so much of a crunch that I can't see my way clear to do any writing. In an odd half hour here and there I do some research for a future project, the type of research that can be done in 30 minutes chunks of time. And to some extent I'm keeping up with my blogs. Beyond that, I don't foresee any writing for the next four months.

Yet, I have to say, I'm not without accomplishments during this time. This is my 900th post on this blog. That's not bad. I started it in late 2007, just under seven years ago, so that's an average of around 115 posts a year. I'm pleased with that accomplishment. Someday I hope someone will be interested in reading them all, seeing what the last seven years of my life have been like, and perhaps be impressed. Or, maybe not.

Another accomplishment of late has been better productivity in my engineering career. Most of the things I do are self-starting type stuff, and I've had trouble starting things. Recently though I've started several things. I have in-house classes planned clear up to December 2015. In the next four months I'll be teaching classes I've never taught before, which means I'll have to prepare notes, study the material, plan a presentation, and build a PowerPoint file for each. Three more things to put into my resume.

The main cause of the Time Crunch has also resulted in accomplishment. Lynda and I are in a stock trading education program. Part of that is having a mentor, having conference calls with him, and doing a bunch of homework. I'm pleased to say I've been keeping up with the homework, even out-pacing my wife with it. It's enjoyable to a degree. Whether or not it will make us more successful trading stocks I don't know, but I think it will. It's a quality program, unlike so many I've evaluated over the years. At least it's keeping me busy, and accomplishing things.

And today, I had a minor accomplishment: I paid the bills. We stayed home from church today. I'm nursing a mild cold, and Lynda was nursing a moderately severe headache. After morning devotions I grabbed accumulated mail from the kitchen table, went through it all, and paid all bills that were due, one not due till Nov 13. I sorted through things and discarded a bunch of junk mail. I have a few more things to go through, but overall I'm pleased with what I got done.

So three cheers for accomplishment. Of course, I'd rather these accomplishments be writing related, but perhaps that will come again in time.