Recovering This Blog

It's been a long time since I posted anything here. So, today I reactivated this blog lest it be deleted due to inactivity. I had forgotten both the user name and password. Those are re-established with a new password. I just made a post, but, not looking at where it went, I posted it on a friend's blog. Guess I'll go there and delete it.

The Busyness Continues

December 23 was my last post. That's 20 days ago, which I believe is the longest I've ever gone between posts on this blog. During that time I made one post to my other blog.

The fact is the great Time Crunch continues, and does not seem to be slackening at all. A look at my activities over the past weekend would be illustrative of what has happened to my use of time. I won't go into details, as they would be boring to most readers. Friday evening is a blur. I think I spent time reviewing accumulated mail; beyond that I don't remember. Maybe I added the checkbook. Saturday morning, after sleeping late to overcome a several-days sleep deficit, I worked on personal and business finances. It's incredible how much I accomplished. Then it was chores around the house, the Wal-Mart groceries run, and in the evening study to teach Life Group on Sunday. I did manage to sneak in watching about a quarter of one of the NFL playoff games, though was multi-tasking while I did so. I decided to be responsible for Saturday supper so that took some time.

Sunday was church, teaching the Life Group lesson, drop off recyclables, eat with my mother-in-law, home to take about an hour nap, then work on stocks for one and a half hours. In the evening Lynda and I worked on stocks together for about two hours.

So writing time was hard to come by. Leisure was hard to come by. Exercise was hard to come by, except for all the chores I did.

Nothing appears to be changing. I see this level of busyness continuing at least till the end of March. I can't really see any farther ahead than that. One consequence of this is I can't really keep up two blogs. While I like this one, and love the title, the most likely scenario is I abandon this one and consolidate my writings here into my writing blog. I'll probably wait another week or so to make that a firm decision, but that's most likely where I'm going.

Blessed is the Man

Blessed is the man:

• who has no bucket list;
• who has learned to be content with his circumstances, yet who takes responsibility for improving them;
• who does not need thrills, especially ever increasing thrills, to find meaning or satisfaction in life;
• who loves his country and community and seeks to improve them by serving them;
• who seeks to provide daily bread for himself and his family, to the best of his strength, gifts, and talents; and when he can do that helps out some others who can't;
• who wakes up one morning and realizes, "This is my life, for the rest of my life," and realizes that's okay, he can live with that.

Post Ideas Lost

As my regular readers will know, I missed my regular posting day last Sunday. I have no excuse except busyness. Our new stock trading education program is taking an incredible amount of time, essentially every evening, almost all hours, and lots of time on the weekends. To some extent this will pass, though I don't see a lot of time opening up for a while.

Having missed Sunday, I began planning for today's post. Several ideas came to mind, over the last few days. Unfortunately I didn't write them down, and just as quickly they passed through my mind back into the atmosphere. They were good ideas, and would have made good posts. Alas, they are now making the same impact an arrow through the air makes to the air around it.

This week I plan to do a better job of actually capturing those ideas. I'll post this coming Sunday, and will get back on a regular schedule. I have lots to write about. I just need to organize my time and mind better.

Any Compromise between JIT and FTT?

The extreme deadlines I've been under at work, coupled with being very busy at home, have caused me to think about deadlines, how they are set, and how they are dealt with. Tuesday-Wednesday I worked on a project with an urgent deadline. I put in some extra hours and turned it over to CADD people to complete, and I think it's going out on time. Thursday I was given a construction specification to write, with great panic on the faces and in the demeanor of the two men who brought it to me. It turned out to be much less work than either of them thought, and I had it done at the end of the day with barely any extra time.

But this got me thinking about two ways of planning your schedule. My dad's way was to build in what he called "flat tire time." That is, wherever he wanted to go, with a sensitive deadline, he wanted to leave early enough time to be able to change a tire if he got a flat en-route. In 18 years of riding to church with him, or being the driver once I had my license, we never once had a flat tire. Two miles on a main road with light Sunday morning traffic, sometimes picking up old Charlie Kenyon at the bus stop to save him the fare. Always there way ahead of time, with time to sit and pray or otherwise contemplate why we were there.

The alternative is what modern industry calls the "just in time" schedule. If church starts at 9:30, and the drive should take you 18 minutes under normal conditions, leave the house at 9:12 and you'll get there on time, if all things hold to the average. Poor Charlie will have to take the bus. No, actually, he'll have caught the bus long before you whiz by at 5 miles over the speed limit. If anything isn't average, you have no margin for error, and are likely to be a little late close to half the time.

I must confess to being a FTT person. JIT throws me for a loop and gets me overly stressed out. If I have a deadline, say on Thursday, to have everything ready to give to the client Friday morning, I'd rather work my extra hours on Wednesday (or even Tuesday) rather than on Thursday, giving myself flat tire time. Alas, the dominant culture at my company is built around JIT, and I can't do anything to change it. Many things in my personal life seem also to be built around JIT, with no hope of changing it either.

Where is the compromise point? If the drive takes 18 minutes, and changing a tire would take, let's say, 15 minutes, that says you should leave 33 minutes before the event. Or, actually, since you'll have to wash your hands once you get there, before you enter the event, that's more like 35 or 40 minutes ahead. If everything goes well, you'll be there 20 minutes early. Lots of contemplation time. Most of the time that won't be needed.

But, surely some amount of margin in needed. Planning to get there 10 minutes ahead of time gives you margin to account for a wreck on the highway that slows you down, or for rainfall that slows you down. Or, if you plan for 10 minutes of margin, and you're getting ready to leave and can't find your cell phone, you have time to track it down and you can still make your engagement on time. That's margin. That's what I like.

I wish I knew how to make that happen. If anyone knows, I'd appreciate you leaving me a comment about it. Meanwhile, I can only control my own behavior, give myself margin, and use that margin to contemplate when things go according to average.

Two Wishes

I have a couple of different things I could write about today. Hard to pick between them. We had a great time at our meeting with God's people this morning, in worship and then in Life Group. God spoke through our pastor, Mark Snodgrass, with a spot-on message that spoke to me, and, I think, to many others.

In Life Group we studied the same topic. I did not feel good about it yesterday and this morning as I prepared to teach. I felt that it was going to be a weak lesson. But Pastor Mark's powerful sermon, and our people being ready to talk about it, it turned out to be a good lesson and discussion.

Follow that by a good lunch at Concordia (a retirement place) with Lynda and her mother, now stuffed with ribs and chicken casserole, followed by a short nap to an NFL football game, and I'm reading to write. Rather than go into length about the message and lesson, however, I think instead I'll post a couple of items that have been on my mind the last few days. Wishes, actually; things that I believe will make the world a better place.

I wish we had more people who observed the place where they are, saw needs that needed to be met, and, without thought of compensation or recognition, took it upon themselves to fill those needs.

I wish more people simply did their job, fully and cheerfully; even a job that's mundane or difficult. Strive to find something better, of course, but do the work you have in hand.

Paper, Paper Everywhere

Last Friday, faced with a weekend, and wondering what to do, I weighed my options. Writing was high on the list. I had just taken five days off from writing. Maybe it was time to get back to it. Or, with the weather forecast to be nice, and with my knee somewhat improved, perhaps I should go outside on Saturday and get back to cutting up the wood from the late spring tree topping. That would be both exercise and productivity. It would depend, of course, on how well my knee felt Saturday morning.

Then I thought about the piles and piles of paper I have seemingly everywhere in the house. Most of it is downstairs, in The Dungeon, or perhaps tucked away in file cabinets—out is sight, but in mind as a drawer full of paper. On the floor of The Dungeon were several piles of unfinished projects. In a tray on the work table were months and months of financial papers to be filed. Elsewhere on the work table were lots of writing papers, crying out for attention.

So Friday I made the decision that the weekend would primarily be one of tending to long-neglected papers. A little wood sawing if possible, but mainly papers. Saturday morning dawned with the temperature at 49, and cloudy, but no rain. Perfect for outside work. Except my knee seemed much worse than the last couple of days. I made the command decision to forego outside work. I went to my reading chair and fell asleep. An hour later I woke up when Lynda got up. Before long I was heading downstairs to The Dungeon.

I decided to tackle the bills filing first. I hadn't done much filing at all in 2014, and what I had done was quite random. Enough bills had piled up that I first took an hour to sort them and put them chronologically. Then I began filing. The utilities were easy, so I started with them. I decided that, since this was a major filing effort, I would take the time to make sure everything was in the right order, and to cull through the files to get rid of some of the older items, say more than three years old. From the utilities I went to the mortgage, then to miscellaneous repairs, then to a few oddball items. I was then ready to tackle medical records.

I've never been satisfied with the filing of medical records. It's becoming more critical now that we're older and have more records to keep track of. So I took a little time to brainstorm and think about how to file them. I decided on a way to change them up a bit, and did so for 2014. Whether I go back and reorganize prior years I'm not sure. The medical records took a long time, especially since my file drawer was over-stuffed, and I needed to move some things to archive storage. I did that, and the medical records were complete and back where they belonged. Somewhere along the way I took a quick break for lunch.

That left our stock trading papers, writing papers, and some tax papers of ours and of my mother-in-law. The stock papers were most important. I took a lot of time with those, as they must be sorted into three accounts, and then filed under three or four different tabs. Keeping them in correct chronological order is important. So that all took some time, but I finished it. Well, except for later when I found a few that were in a place I hadn't seen. They are now resting in the filing tray, waiting on my next time. I shifted to the tax papers. I really only had a few of mine, and took care of them quickly. For my m-i-l's, I decided to do a major culling of older ones to free up file drawer space. So anything older than 2009 I threw a lot of stuff out.

By the end of the day, I felt really good about what I had accomplished. My back hurt, probably more than if I'd spent the time sawing logs. The Dungeon didn't look all that much better, because of the writing papers. That would be a Sunday task, I decided, and called it quits.

Sunday, after church, eating with Lynda's mom, and a short nap (not more than 1/2 hour), I get after the writing papers. It was a major task. Some time ago I was in a writing seminar with David Morrell (author of First Blood, creator of Rambo). He said to save all your drafts of you books, box them up along with research papers, correspondence, whatever, and set them aside for eventual donation to wherever you donate your writing papers in the future. I had done this with Doctor Luke's Assistant, my first novel, and had a file drawer full of them. With later books I had been less careful at saving drafts, because I saw exactly how much space DLA drafts had taken.

I made the decision that most likely no institution is going to want my donated papers, and the drafts would have to go. So I got to work with sorting, bagging for recycling, and filing. Three hours later I was amazed at what I had accomplished. Four plastic grocery bags sat on the stairs, full of old office paper, waiting to be carried up and put in the garage for recycling. Forty of fifty pounds of paper. A stack 18 inches high. And almost all other writing papers were in a file somewhere. Some of those may find themselves part of a future culling, but for now they are out of the way.

I don't know that The Dungeon looks a whole lot better. Maybe a little. I still have a couple of piles of things I didn't get to. These are, I think, mostly printouts of books/articles for reference, or maybe something I critiqued for someone. I think half of it is for discards, and half is for filing in a retrievable manner. I also have a pile of file folders and manila envelopes on the floor of the storage room, freed up for other use now that they no longer hold the DLA drafts. Tonight I'll have to sort them and do the discard/storage thing again.

All in all, this was a good effort. A couple of more hours on the last piles, putting the tax forms back in the drawer, and a little rearranging, and I'll have a more efficient and more usable work space. I don't know when I'll get back to writing, but for now, I think the time spent away from it has been well spent.

Living In The Past

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I spend much of my time in the past. Reading history will do that. Studying genealogy will expand it. Reading Romantic and Victorian Era writers will exacerbate it. When I get home at night my mind is geared towards times no closer than 50 years ago.

Last night I hosted an on-line, back-to-school party for my high school class. This was held at our class Facebook page (which I created). 25 people showed up, with about 15 of those contributing posts. That's out of a group membership of 106 out of a class of 725. So not a great attendance, but I think all who posted had a good time. We came from two different junior high schools to the same high school, so there was lots of cross-town rivalry stuff going on. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the eve of our starting junior high (not really; we started the Wednesday after Labor Day, which in 1964 was Sept 8; but seeing as how today is the Wednesday after Labor Day, it was an anniversary of sorts).

That took a lot of time last night. As group creator and host, I felt I had to be there and contribute. By the end of the evening we had over 300 posts. Those who didn't contribute will some day stop in the page and see what we all said.

Then, I've been beta-reading/editing the memoir of a cousin of mine—a memoir of childhood. At least the first part is. I've read up to the teen years. I believe the latter half moves into the adult years, but for now it's all about events more than 50 years in the past. I know the people mentioned. I know some of the circumstances which this cousin has shared with me. But the details are new. I'm enjoying my reading; and I enjoy editing. Tonight I can spend enough time on it that I'll either finish it or get close.

My current reading has been of old works. I just finished my second reading of Thomas Carlyle's Chartism, in preparation for a publishing a book on the subject. Lynda and I, in our reading aloud, are reading through the Sherlock Holmes canon. So my reading is of things old. When I'm not reading those, I'm reading my Bible. Talk about old. Next, however, is a couple of magazines I bought last time I was in Barnes & Noble, so I'll be shifting to reading something modern. Plus I have some articles to read in a back-issue of a literary magazine, from several years back. Maybe this reading will tug me into the future.

The other thing that causes me to dwell in the past is my genealogy work. Ever since I've been writing creatively, genealogy has taken a backseat. Every now and then, when a relative contacts me, or I sense an urge, I do a little work on it. That's what's happened recently. Yesterday I took time to prepare two new family group sheets, based on new information, and to edit the one for my family. Two of these three are to present accurate information to a newly found relative; the other information about that relative. This reminded me of how much work I have to do. My genealogy notebooks are a mess. I have unproven information in them that is speculative enough that I need to trash it. I have trial family charts that I later updated, but haven't discarded the older versions. I need to spend hours doing nothing but that.

Then, the last month or so I've spent time with old photographs. I may have mentioned before that my house has become the accumulation point for old photographs from both my and my wife's families. We have them in boxes and bins. Some are labeled, some are not. None are inventoried. These go back to our great-grandparents, in some cases older than that. They are for five or six family branches. Some I know I have, but haven't seen them for years. Add to this are all the photographs Lynda and I have taken over the years. They are scattered throughout the house: in dresser drawers, in boxes, in albums that are incomplete and mostly not labeled.

Oh how I want to inventory our photos! Put them in a database that will: identify the photo and who or what is in it; identify who took it; indicate if a negative is available, and if so where the negative is; indicate the family branch it came from; identify or speculate on the date the photo was taken; state where the photo is in the house, including which album if it's in an album. Unfortunately, that task is so huge I don't think I'll get there this side of retirement, and perhaps not for twenty years into retirement, should I live so long.

So, right now I have my feet firmly planted in the past. Writing tasks await me. Writing is a current activity, though of course my Civil War book is of a past activity. Hopefully I'll come back to the present sometime soon. But for now, I'm enjoying my time machine.

Feeling Unsettled

I woke up in the night to loud cracks of thunder, a dry line from the sound of it. By the time I was up at 6:00 a.m. the rain had started, and it continues now, as I type this in my personal time before the workday starts. My office doesn't have a window, but from the sounds it must be a fairly heavy rain coming down. Rain usually perks me up, but today I feel...unsettled.

Yes, that's the only way I can describe it: unsettled. It seems like many things are underway, but nothing is finished. I could list them all, but that would probably bore you. Last week, of course, was a partial vacation from the office, as we babysat our three grandchildren, ages 6, 3, and 1. That was a joyous time, though it interrupted most things I have to do. I actually got a little writing done, when I rose early and worked either at the computer or manuscript.

I think I just need to finish something. I'm going to find a couple of small tasks and get them done. That's what I'm going to do. I'll leave this post for the moment, publish it, and come back and edit later to report how it's going.

Well, it's now Friday morning, in my pre-work hour at the office. I feel a little less unsettled than I did yesterday. At the office I completed a recommendation for a former colleague, for her registration with the national accreditation board. That only took 15 minutes. The safety meeting I had to attend and then the patched-together vendor lunch & learn went much better than I expected: good attendance, good presentation, lots of interest. The afternoon saw a few people come through my office needing help or advice on difficult project situations, which I handled. And near the end of the day one of the VPs came in to discuss a ticklish training situation. It was all good.

In the afternoon I got back on my technical paper on erosion control. It's due today, August 8, even though it's not to be presented until next February. I had outlined the paper previously, and done the research needed, but sitting down to write it had eluded me. Yesterday I managed to do that, even with the many interruptions. By end of the day I had over 900 words (on the way to somewhere around 3,000, I think). Can I finish it today and turn it in? Probably not. I'll e-mail the coordinator and ask for a few days grace, and try to get it in by Monday or Tuesday.

I also got closure on a couple of things at home in the evening. When Lynda left the laptop for her iPad, I grabbed it, pulled up Excel, and did the checkbook addition. I also checked on-line and entered a couple of late debits. Then I headed to The Dungeon. I typed what I had written on chapter 5 of Documenting America: Civil War Edition, and added to it, finishing the chapter. That now gives me chapters 1-6 completed (subject to editing, of course). That's roughly 1/5th of the book. In only a month or so. I'm pleased with that progress. I also, later in the evening, did some reading for research into chapter 7. Chapter 8 is also started.

But the other thing I did, which feels really, really good to have finished, was to do the year-to-date accounting for out stock trading business. I mainly wanted to get it started and make some progress on it. But as I worked on it, going from our brokerage statements, it all went fairly quickly. I came to having only June and July left to do, but was tired. However, we made almost no trades in those months, so it was mainly a couple of dividends and interest to record. So I got it done. Almost surprisingly, we are profitable. I thought we were, but we're farther ahead than I expected. That's before accounting for expenses. I still have some of that to enter in the spreadsheet. But that puts me way ahead of where I've been on this accounting in any year since we've been stock trading.

So all in all, I feel better about things today. I still have many balls up in the air, juggling too many things. This weekend will be a time to make some other major progress. I'll get back to Headshots, and begin to consider edits from my beta readers. I don't have many comments yet, but I have enough to get going. I also hope to finish sawing one batch of logs from the tree trimming. I do this manually, sawing them into fireplace length, which I'll take to Oklahoma City for the kids to burn and enjoy. It would be nice to also complete the next to chapters for DA-CWE, but that's not a goal.

Maybe by Monday the unsettled feeling will have left me completely, and I'll be able to report, "Several small missions accomplished."

Post Delayed

Yesterday, Sunday, was a busy day. I know, it's supposed to be a day of worship and rest. It was in part that. But trying to complete the edits on my novel-in-progress, and a Life Group teachers meeting in the evening, meant I didn't take time to write and publish a post here.

Today, I came to the office nauseous, and it took a long time to dissipate. I was working on only about 3 of 8 cylinders. Consequently, I couldn't wrap my mind around the subject I'd intended for today.

So, this is all you get: a non-post post. I should be back and rearing to go on Thursday.

So Much News

We babysat grandsons at our house, beginning last Saturday through yesterday. Ephraim is 6 and Ezra is 3. They seemed to have a good time. Grandpa and Grandma seemed to have a good time. On Tuesday Lynda had them pick up a lot of the toys they had out, which was a good thing. That made Wednesday morning easier to get ready to go. We drove to Tulsa; their mommy drove there from Oklahoma City, where we made the transfer at a Wendy's restaurant. Great-grandma made the drive with us. That capped off five enjoyable days. I took vacation days Monday and Wednesday, and had lots of fun with the boys.

Before bringing the boys to northwest Arkansas, Lynda had been a week in Oklahoma City to help the kids out with things. She had the three grandchildren alone for about 54 hours. So for her this was a ten day stretch with the kids. Last night, as soon as we were back at the house, she turned on the television to get some news. Later, just before bed, she said she needed a good night's sleep and then tackle her work hard tomorrow.

As the news reports came on, we were surprised at some of the things that had occurred. The Bergdahl story had been much in the news before the kids were here, so I knew something of it, but she hadn't got much of that in Oklahoma City. New information had come available in the days the kids were here, such as his journal or other writings, but we didn't turn on the news so didn't know about it. There were stories of Hillary Clinton, or the Veterans Administration scandal, of Eric Kantor being defeated in a primary (though we did get that news on Tuesday, it having preempted everything else during the brief time we had the television on), of children illegally streaming across our southern border, of the government doing nothing about any of it and stonewalling in providing information, and other news of seemingly equal importance.

Here we were, enjoying the grandkids, oblivious to a world that was raging with controversy. Ezra and I, at his bedtime, were blissfully playing roll-over blanket, then praying, unaware of all this important stuff going on. The radio played the easy listening music as background noise for him, giving us three minutes of headlines, including a 24 hour weather report, at the top of each hour. Clearly we were sinking into ignorance of world events.

My grandmother used to say, "Ignorance is bliss; it's folly to be wise," which I always thought was a tongue-in-cheek saying. During the days of grandkids we were tired at the end of the day. The evening after the grandkids were gone we were wiser, but also angrier because of what we knew.

I'm not saying I preferred the ignorance to being informed. Being hit with so much news at once was the problem, not the news itself. But I can sure see how a large amount of the US population and electorate knows next to nothing about our current events, the issues of the day, and whether their government is doing a good job or now. It's no wonder we continue to make a host of questionable choices with our elected officials.

Re-thinking

What am I re-thinking?

This blog.

And my other blog.

I'm out of ideas. The last several posts on this one I struggled to come up with something to write about. I'm sure those posts reflect that lack of ideas. My other blog at least has my writing life for the subject, so I can get a stream of post ideas from that. This blog, not so much.

Rather than fight it, I'm going to back off. I have three or four people who read this either regularly or semi-regularly. To you I'm sorry for this. Perhaps a break will do me some good, and it can't depress my readership any more than it already is. I'm tired today from being sleep deprived. That no doubt is affecting my thinking. But that's what I'm doing, regardless of the reason.

Maybe I'll see you back here after a while, or at my other blog. We'll see.

For My Enjoyment

An on-line conversation with a writer colleague and friend resulted in this exchange.

Her: I've asked this before, and I will continue to ask this until we make headway. What do you do for enjoyment, just for you? I know you write, walk, play computer games, and you are interested in stocks and family genealogy. Writing is work, even though you enjoy it, and it is a avocation right now. You feel guilty when you play games. Stocks are a financial endeavor and could be work. You don't do your genealogy currently. Walking is a part of a healthy lifestyle. What do you do just for you?

Me: Just for me? I think the endeavor that provides the most enjoyment is genealogy. This combines so much: history, detective work, family, culture, and writing in terms of documenting what you've done. I think that is the thing that combines all that interests me and gives me joy and fulfillment.

Her: Why have you stepped away from it? I know your time is limited, but you enjoy it, and you should spend time dong things just for the sheer joy of it. You have been reading the Carlyle letters. You seemed to have enjoyed that.

Me: While genealogy is at the top of the pyramid, the top is not very pointy. Other endeavors play king of the hill with genealogy, unable to dislodge it, but staying close at hand. Wordsmithing combined with story telling or message making is close, very close.

Me: Reading is close as well. It can be almost anything on the printed page, or a screen that emulates the printed page. The Bible is good; other Christian books are good; novels are good; short stories are good; non-fiction book-length or shorter is good.

Me: So when I do one of these, it's almost—almost—as good as doing genealogy.

Apparently she'd asked this before, and either ducked the question or gave an unsatisfactory answer. So this time she tried to pin me down more. The truth is that this is difficult for me to answer. I don't do many things that I dislike. I don't have a lot of yard work to do, but what I have I enjoy. Clearing dead trees from the un-built lot next to me also brings enjoyment. Even mundane chores around the house give me a sense of fulfillment, of a task accomplished. Doing things around the house never leaves me thinking I wasted my time.

With so many good choices, how do I answer the question "What do you do for enjoyment?" Yes, some of those things are work. Since I'm trying to both reach people and make money from my writing, I suppose you could say it's work, but it's work that is enjoyable. Since trading stocks is a money-making endeavor, you could say it's work. Yet, I enjoy it. Perhaps not the losses that come, but certainly the gains.

Study, through reading, contemplation, meditation, and reasoning is highly enjoyable for me, especially in the Bible and related readings. The "Harmony of the Gospels" that I wrote, which is a non-commercial venture, is among the most enjoyable things I've ever done. It combined study and writing, heaving in research and wordsmithing. While I'd love to figure out how to publish it, I think it will forever remain a study aid for me, and for the few people to whom I've given it.

That brings it down to genealogy. As I said in my reply to my friend, it is perhaps a small notch above other things I do in terms of enjoyment. For the reasons I state in my answer to her. If I didn't need the money, I probably wouldn't mess with stocks, and I might or might not write with the intent of selling. Perhaps I would just pursue genealogy as my enjoyment avenue. But not being independently wealthy, and with genealogy research without cost being limited in what it can do, and having come close to exhausting free sources for the main lines I'm working on, I can't really pursue it a whole lot more.

I could start writing some family histories from the information I have in hand. I've done that with two families in Lynda's lines, and am close to starting one in my paternal line. But all in all it's going to be a while until I get back to much genealogy work.

And that's all right. The things I'm doing now are enjoyable. Even the day job is enjoyable. I would, though, if independently wealthy, or even comfortably prepared, forgo some of the 4 years and 8 days I have left, and spend more times in these other pursuits.

Respect

I was in a meeting at work today, a meeting that wasn't planned and for which I had 30 minutes warning. The meeting was of a project team to discuss the progress of work on the large project, and to make sure we were on track, with appropriate resources (a.k.a. people) assigned, to meet a November 27 deadline. My role is to check the work (QC) before it goes out the door.

The meeting would have seemed more important if we hadn't already discussed this at length in a meeting on Monday. I suppose it was necessary since an engineer from another team was made available on a part-time basis, and so work could be redistributed.

At one point during the meeting, as we discussed some communications with the client, the team leader once again talked about the importance of the correct routing of communications, and how certain communications had to go through the team leader. After repeating what we all knew, he said, "I take that very personal as a matter of respect. No one's gonna go around me."

Now I don't know what you all think, but I figure if you have to asked for respect you probably haven't earned it. Respect is something you earn, not demand. Respect that is demanded is given grudgingly; it's not real respect. Respect that is earned is given willingly, and is not easily lost.

The same seems true for honesty. If you have to talk about how honest you are, you probably aren't. If you have to tell people you have a high ethical standard, you probably don't. I'm talking about unsolicited statements here. Occasionally you have to talk about those things because of a question asked. But normally, your actions should explain your honesty, integrity, and competence. Trust and respect flow from those.

Goodbye Tom Clancy

Yesterday afternoon I heard that Tom Clancy died. He was 66 years old, so fairly young relative to the normal American lifespan.

I first encountered Clancy's writing in the Spring of 1988. I had recently moved to Kuwait and was short of reading material. What was available in-country in English wasn't much to my liking. A man came from the U.S. on a temporary duty assignment. I saw that he carried a paperback book titled The Hunt for Red October. I hadn't heard about it, asked him for some info, and then borrowed it from him. I devoured it in two or three sittings in the evening in the hotel. It helped that the wife and kids were still in the States, waiting on family visas.

Red October was an eye-opener for me. I didn't rush right out and start to write books. But it was such a good book I think it spurred in me the notion "Boy, I'd love to write a book like that." At the same time the research that went into that—of military hardware, personnel, and tactics; of CIA operations; of diplomatic goings-on, both American and Russian—seemed daunting. I didn't know that any of it was correct, but it all seemed realistic. And fascinating.

Without knowing the correct term, I loved how Clancy worked in back story on various characters. We learned more about Jack Ryan's earlier years with each chapter. Toward the end of the book I was a scene where higher-ups in the CIA talked about extracting an agent from Russia, codename "Cardinal". He had passed important information that helped the U.S. deal with the Red October situation, and may have taken an inordinate risk to do so. Reading that scene I realized we had seen that character before. I hunted through the book, reading the first paragraph of a bunch of scenes until I found it. Sure enough we saw who I was sure was Cardinal talking with Russian bigwig and gaining the information that was eventually passed. Enough of his story was given to ID him. I asked the guy I borrowed the book from if he had realized that, and he said no.

Of course, until Cardinal of the Kremlin came out it was just an educated guess on my part. Turned out I was correct. That was skillful how Clancy developed that, and how he had set up the future book in the first book.

Eventually Clancy published Red Storm Rising and Clear and Present Danger, both of which I found as well written and entertaining as the first two. I've picked up a number of his books, mostly from remainders shelves and used book stores, but haven't gotten far in them. The Sum of All Fears is one I started. It looks good, but unfortunately life and other things have gotten in the way.

Clancy's writing has been panned by many. He doesn't write well, they say. He doesn't limit his adjectives and adverbs. He adds scenes dealing with everyday things. Randy Ingermansson, a mid-list novelist who gives writing and publishing advice to us who want to be published writers, has had some blog posts about how Clancy's writing isn't very good. I remember on post where he railed against Clancy for including donut eating in a scene. Ingermansson said it was unnecessary to the story. I haven't read that particular Clancy book. I would just say results speak, and suggest anyone compare the sales figures of Clancy and Ingermansson and see who should be critiquing whose writing.

I will miss Tom Clancy as a writer. The world of books is made poorer at his passing.

The Big City

I must first apologize for my lack of posting of late. Good intentions don't always result in words on the page, or screen.

As I said in my last post, there's something about a big city. We spent that long weekend in Chicago recently, and have spent other times there since our son moved there in 2003. His connection to the University of Chicago puts us mostly in the university environs, but then enjoying activities all over the city.

Twice we attended the Publishers Row Lit Fest in June, once the Taste of Chicago. Twice we saw the belly dancers in the Turkish restaurant on the Northside. Try finding that in Bella Vista, Arkansas. One year we were there for the Hyde Park art fair. Everything was priced way more than we could afford, and we weren't in need of any art, but it was good to see it all. Someday I may even develop an appreciation for the visual arts.

Of course in the big city you have a wider choice of restaurants. You have bookstores, ice cream shops, places to buy candy, clothing stores out the wazoo. All of them are different than what we find in the exurbs. You have architectural wonders to view, and some to tour.

At the U of C, there's the campus to wander, maybe to find a coffee shop, buy some regular or designer coffee and sit and read something, pretend you're back in college, but with your 61 year old brain. I mentioned in my last post that the U of C has much construction going on, and I was intending in this post to talk about some of the new buildings and those being built. But I'm in St. Louis and don't have all the information with me, so that will have to wait till another post.

Ah, St. Louis! A city I often drive through but where I've spent very little time. This is the first time I've ever stayed in downtown St. Louis. Out my hotel window I can see the south leg of the arch. A very nice, older building is off to the right. I attend the three days of the conference (well, two of them are 1/2 days), and it includes a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium. That will be my third major league park to visit.

But back to Chicago. One interesting aspect of going there is looking at the buildings, even the simple residences. In older portions of the city there are no subdivisions. Houses are wedged onto small lots. Everything is on more than one level. Many parts of the city developed before everyone had an automobile, so there is no place to garage a car, and parking is tight. Yet even in the midst of this, the neighborhoods are often pleasant. People have found a way to add trees and other plants, or vegetable, herb, and flower gardens. Walk down a Hyde Park neighborhood street and it seems pleasant.

I grew up in the big city. Well, some might not think a Cranston RI location as the big city. It's in the Providence metro area, and our house was two stone throws from the Providence border. To me it seemed like the big city. Then for most of the next 16 years I was in the big city in three different locations. The big cities in the Arabian Peninsula were different than American big cities, or course, but they were still big cities. I've now lived in the exurbs or northwest Arkansas for over twenty years. I like both. I still remember what it's like to live in the city, and to live in the exurbs/suburbs. I find both to be satisfactory place.

I remember a job interview my senior year in college. The interviewer asked, "Are you willing to relocate?" I said yes, and he asked, "Even to New York City?" That was an easy yes. "Even to Biloxi Mississippi?" That was a harder yes. If he had asked me, "Even to Kansas farm country?" that would probably have been a no. Now? Almost anywhere in the world would be a yes. I can see myself going back to the big city, and maybe will at some point (if Oklahoma City qualifies as a big city). Plop me down somewhere and give me a place for my books, an Internet hook-up, some paper and pens, and I'm good to go.

Quick Thoughts on a Trip

On Friday August 30 Lynda and I drove to Chicago to spend the Labor Day weekend with our son, Charles, and his partner. I come away from that trip with several observations that I wanted to share.

Of course, no one is interested in reading a travel log. The roads we went on, the ease of driving the bypass around St. Louis, the surprisingly light traffic, the bad traffic jam as we approached Chicago, etc. Those are all memorable from my perspective, but you've already read more about that than you probably care to.

So let me just give a few bulleted items of other types of observations. I may come back and flesh some of these out in future posts.

• The University of Chicago is an amazing institution. Since both our son and his partner work there, we spent some time on campus and saw a number of new buildings, buildings under construction, and development plans. I could write much about this, and may.
• There's something to be said about a big city. There's so much to do in Chicago, so many interesting sights to see and places to go. We really never got out of the Hyde Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods, yet it seemed like our time was fully occupied, our bodies worked, and our minds engaged.
• The Lake Michigan shore is nicely developed for recreation. I'm sure the tax dollars flowed heavily, but it seems to be a great amenity.
• Sherlock Holmes was an amazing creation of Arthur Conan Doyle. I know: You're reading this and that seems to come out of the blue. We watched the two seasons of the BBC show as well as the 2009 Robert Downey Jr. movie. I haven't read much of Doyle—just four of the Holmes short stories, I think—though I've picked up a complete two-volume set of the Homes canon. I really need to work this into my reading schedule, as well as finish the Doyle letters book I'm reading.

That's if for now. As I said, I hope to come back and flesh this out over the next several posts.

Happy VJ Day

Happy VJ Day everyone! The memory of this has faded, it being 68 years in the past now.

I'm on a short absence from the blog due to having to get my mother-in-law's income taxes in. I filed an extension in April, and of course then waited till the last minute. I came close to finishing them last night. Have to finish them tonight and mail them tomorrow.

Hopefully I'll be back to a more reasonable schedule this weekend.

Pouring Rain

Last night I was very tired. I had walked over three miles that day, with my noon and evening walks combined. I came to the computer in The Dungeon yesterday evening, intending to write a blog post here, but couldn't get my mind to focus so ended up reading blogs and playing mindless computer games.

Back upstairs I couldn't concentrate any better. About 11:15 p.m. I called it quits. As I did so, however, I heard thunder. Checking radar I found a small thunderstorm just developing around us. Some storms were further west and north, but not close enough to be concerned about. I believe I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

In the night I woke up, and saw that the light was on next to Lynda's side of the bed, though she was asleep. This light is connected to one of those devices that allows you to tap the light to turn it on and off. I could hear thunder over the noise of the box fan we had going, and heard rain on the skylight in the bathroom. I turned the light off and immediately went back to sleep.

At 5 a.m. that repeated. And at 6 a.m. the alarm woke me. This is the third day in a row that I haven't woken before the alarm went off. I suppose that's an indication of tiredness.

The drive to work included many slow downs for water on the road. It was too dark and too dangerous to be looking at most of the creeks off to the sides. By the time I reached Bentonville streets it was lighter. The rain was heavier, but I could see the various drainage ditches and man-made features, and could see how the water was. When I passed over Tributary 2 to Little Osage Creek, the creek was out of its banks downstream, but not even close to being over the road. This is a creek I have done much study on for its flooding. It was behaving exactly as my models predicted.

The storms are slowly moving out. It looks like we will be over with the rain by 9:00 a.m. and have sunshine by 10. The day's activities beckon me. Somehow I have to concentrate on a paper I'm supposed to deliver in Nashville February 2014, and finish writing it. I've been working on it off and on for over a week, with only minimal progress. I have most of the elements in the paper, but can't seem to pull them together to make my case on how erosion control fines should be assessed. I can finish it today if I can just get some concentration.

We have actually been in a fairly rainy period, unusual for our summers. Or maybe that's just because we've had several consecutive dry summers, so this seems unusual. For about the last week, every morning we have had rain. Not a lot of rain on any given day. The sky will be cloudy; at some point some rain falls, enough to make everything wet and to make people pull out umbrellas; then the clouds depart in the early afternoon and we have 85-95 degrees and humidity the rest of the day. As I say, this is unusual.

Somehow I have to get to a point in my life where all the activities I must do come as the rain has this summer, not as the overnight storm. A little time spent here, a little time spent there, lots of balance, nothing falling behind, nothing reaching the point of being critical. Let's see if I can begin that today.

The Non-reunion Reunion

I can't remember how much I've written on this blog about my school days. I know I made a post after our high school class' 40th reunion in 2010, the first of the reunions I went to. And either in that post, or perhaps in another one, I talked about how my wife's class of 61 people had so much more of a bond than our class of 725. And I think I explained that this was because a class that small had many more shared experiences to relive than our larger class did. We went to two different junior high schools and about eight different elementary schools before coming together at Cranston High School East.

So I decided to do something about it. After consulting with a couple of classmates to see if they had a Facebook page for our class, and if not if they thought it would be a good idea. They said no and yes, go for it. Not being sure what to do, I looked into it and discovered that you don't actually create a page: you create a group on Facebook. And it is laughably easy to do it. An icon on the main page allows you to click and create a group. Then you enter a description, choose a favicon, do a very few other things, and presto, the group is created.

So I did that about three weeks ago. I had to add a few people to begin the group. Then I informed them and asked them to find class members. They did so, shouting from the rafters, and our group grew. Those that they invited then invited others. We are now up to 96 members. One is a duplicate, and one is a "friend" of the class, a girl I went to elementary school with who would have graduated with us if she hadn't moved away.

So that's 94 unique members of the class. That's almost 13% of those shown in the yearbook and 14% of those who are listed as graduating with us. That's not too bad for three weeks. It's probably close to everyone who is on Facebook. I know of two other people from the class who are Facebook members. I've invited them to the group but they appear not to be active on FB.

Last Sunday we had our first "event"—an oldies party, where we played a game with the lyrics of the songs we grew up with. Not too many attended, but we had fun. I have a couple of ideas for other events. After that I'll be out of ideas and it will be up to others to think of something.

A few days into the group's existence it was like a free-for-all one evening. A number of people were posting, threads were moving fast, things were posted in the wrong place. I received a concern that the group was drowning in all the posts. And at that point we had less than 50 members. But I've seen this kind of thing before, where a new group becomes overly exuberant but then settles down. And that's exactly what has happened. Every day we have people making a few posts and comments. We have memories being shared. More than that, our current lives are being shared. Slowly but surely we are learning something about each other. Of the 94 members in the group, I personally knew only 27, and about five of those I barely knew. A couple of others say they remember me.

So, to mangle the lyrics of that old Bee Gees song:

I started the group
that started the whole class talking.

Okay, an exaggeration on "whole class," but that's basically it. And it feels good.