Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 59

Testing Coin Shipping Processes

Yesterday the coins showed up as a big pile of boxes. I also had shipping supplies stacked in various corners of my house. Today Janci and I sorted through all of it and set up the garage to be a warehouse for shipping coins. We assembled the first 100 sets of coins and packaged up the first 100 orders. This test of the process gave us time to figure out a dozen small things, like we need two glue dots per coin instead of one. Which means I had to place an order for six more rolls of glue dots. We also realized that the Maxim 11 key drop does not come with a ring. We ordered those express shipped because it really doesn’t seem fair to sell key chains without rings on them. We’ll draw the line at actually attaching the ring. It only takes a minute to do one, but doing a thousand would seriously crimp the mirth around here. There were half a dozen other problem spots that we identified and resolved. It took us six hours of work to set everything up and test it all. But now we have a process and it works. I’m sitting right next to 100 packages of coins which will go out with tomorrow’s mail. On Friday we start assembly lining this project.

My garage turned coin shipping warehouse, not pictured are a row of four more coin types:

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

The Coins Arrived

Today Janci and I spent four hours organizing the work spaces, sorting invoices, and generally cleaning up so that coin shipping could proceed. This flurry of activity was triggered by the UPS packing tracking stating that the coins were out for delivery. And they were. My garage is full of coins. I spent an hour sorting to pull out samples of all the types of coins. They had to be inspected. Later this evening I spent another 90 minutes making sure all the addresses were in order and everything is cleared for test shipping tomorrow. That will be the day when Janci and I start putting packages together and trying to figure out how everything works.

Total coin shipping work hours today: 10.5

The coins are gorgeous. Holding them makes me very happy. I would be more eloquent about that if I were not so very tired.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Preparing for the Tub of Happiness Reprint

Last week I did a series of tweets talking about going through Body Politic and finding a hundred errors, fixing them, then finding thirty more, fixing those, and finding another dozen. It was an excellent example of iterative publishing. I ended the series by saying that even with all our attention beforehand, we always find mistakes in the finished books. How many? Well take a look at Tub of Happiness to the left. I’ve identified over a dozen things that I want to fix before it heads out for its second printing. That printing is imminent, so if there is a typo or other error in Tub of Happiness that has been driving you crazy, please email schlockmercenary@gmail.com with the error and page number. I may already know about it, but you just might be saving me from holding yet another printed book and finding a mistake in it.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Bits and Pieces of Posts

This week and next week I have so many irons in the fire that there is hardly any room for a fire. I’m not likely to have brain enough to write full and thoughtful blog posts. Yet my brain is thoroughly trained to notice things, think about them, and then hold them until time to write. My brain fills up with fragments, each of which would be a lovely post, but time and I have to march onward. By the time I have space to write there will be some other thought more pressing. So I shall record some of the fragments in the hope that if I pin them down with words, they’ll stop fluttering around in my brain begging for attention I can not spare.

No one told me that the sales people would begin circling the minute my child completed her ACT and declared her intention to both graduate from high school and attend college. Circle they did, first with suggestions of the importance of commemorating high school. Surely my child needed a ring, a jacket, a hoodie, photographs, a tassel, graduation announcements, all with her school logo. I was assured that these things would be forever treasured, just like her years in high school. The brochures were pitched to appeal to nervous/nostalgic teens and parents alike. We got her a tassel. While the pitches to commemorate high school were still in full force we started hearing from colleges. All of them wanted us to know that they were very impressed and giving Kiki a very special opportunity for a fast-track application. They very carefully did not say how much they want our education dollars. Kiki applied to a single school, got in, and began bouncing the rest straight into the trash. I thought that would be the end of it, but today we got the first of a new onslaught. Our child is going to the dorms, surely we want to buy her a super value kit of bedding, laundry hamper, toilet kit, all at extremely reasonable prices. Every where I turn someone is hoping that during this transitional period in our lives we’ll be ready to throw around some money in an effort to appease our emotions. It makes me think of the stories Howard tells about the shark-like tactics of coffin salesmen. They’re worse than used car salesmen because they prey on the bereaved.

This morning I gave the final go ahead for the printing of Body Politic. I will next interact with that book when it shows up at my door. As usual, I do not have time to luxuriate in something completed. Instead I am immediately setting to work on the reprinting of Tub of Happiness and even more critically on the shipping of 30,000 coins. Latest word says that those coins will arrive at my door by Wednesday. Tomorrow I’ll begin triaging to figure out how the shipping processes need to work.

We’re in the last rush to complete school work before the year is over. It makes me resentful of the one last complex project that Patch has to complete. The other three kids mostly have at-school things left to do, not homework.

I spent this morning re-creating financial data after my hard drive crash. It was tedious, but finally validated my tendency to keep paper statements. I’m still maintaining a list of data lost. So far it is only four items long. This is good.

I wish I had more time to luxuriate in the process of helping Kiki prepare for her CONduit show. I would love to do right by her there. Particularly since her latest birthday was not everything she hoped it would be. Yes the circling sales people are right, we are a bit emotional during this transitional phase. I just don’t think that buying her the perfect dorm room trash can will make up for whatever lacks there have been in the past eighteen years. Instead I’ve been trying to soak up normal before normal changes. She graduated from Seminary on Sunday. Next Thursday she’ll don the classic cap and gown and march with her classmates. I don’t know where that will put us all emotionally. We’re in uncharted territory here. The kids afterward will have a road map that they can follow or avoid. For now I’m doing small nice things for Kiki daily between now and the beginning of June. It won’t be enough, or rather, if there hasn’t been enough to date, no last minute effort will fix that. But it feels like the impending launch is a good one. We’re nervous, but ready. Also, we’ve still got months. Graduation closes off high school, but it does not begin college.

Howard is feeling better, for which I am daily grateful.

I read a novel draft for a friend. It was how I spent my Saturday instead of the ways I’d assigned to myself. I love when a book pulls me in and earns my tears. Note, there is a difference between pulling strings and really earning sadness. Also, I love it when I can love the books of my friends.

My poor correspondence box is gathering dust. I hope to write letters again in June.

It is late and there are more irons in the fire for tomorrow.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Fixed, Wobbley, and Slolam

This morning I’m thinking about The Doctor’s speech about time during the episode Blink. It is all about how time is wibbley wobbley Timey Wimey. My brain adds that to The Doctor’s insistence that some points are fixed in time and unchangeable. My life is like that. There are some spots that are fixed, usually not by me and definitely not to my convenience. They are events that can’t be moved like graduation ceremonies, birthdays, or school performances. Everything else wibbles and wobbles its way around those fixed points. Usually I can see the fixed points coming from a long way away and adjust to make space for them. These next two weeks are like a slalom course of fixed points. The opportunities to forget something important arrive daily. My lists are my friends right now.

On the other hand, it is 8 am and I’ve already completed the things that absolutely had to be done before 9 am. So maybe we can manage it all if we just do one thing at a time.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

I have too many events in the next two weeks

These are my things, not all of my things, because I know I am forgetting some of them. I’m pretty sure the kid leaving junior high also has some things, but I haven’t seen that list of events, so I don’t know what they are or where they fit.

Also missing from the list: me collapsing because my brain has frizzled out from trying to track all of it. I do not recommend having three children graduating from their schools the same year. Particularly if you have also agreed to ship 30,000 coins.

May 17

Help child assemble and decorate a rocket

help child prepare 5 homemade items for trading post, must be cool enough that other kids want them.

help child put on trader costume for trading post

deliver books and merch for transport to Phoenix Comic Con

possible coin delivery today

Do not attend trading post nor volunteer to help with it despite multiple emails asking for said help.

Figure out how to relocate old couch

accept delivery of new couch

Must remember to make business phone calls and emails

Continue re-installing software and discovering what data I lost because of the death of my hard drive. (Report on this in a blog post sometime next week.)

Acquire gift for child’s birthday party

Deliver child to friend’s birthday party

May 18

Weed whack before the wilds begin to be inhabited

clear the garden patch

plant tomatoes and basil so they have a chance to bear fruit by end of summer

clean the house

do the laundry

May 19

Church

Scout meeting

Seminary graduation for oldest child

May 20

Accounting (including the re-creation of data from paper info because I had to restore from back ups.)

communicate with coin shipping volunteers about schedule (hopefully by then I’ll know something concrete)

Organize house for coin shipping

Do not attend child’s rocket launch at school. Hope it goes well

Help child finish up construction on last major assignment

Make sure kids have opera costumes

Start work on Tub of Happiness reprint

May 21

Attend opera performances for two 20-minute long operas for two kids

Admire all the opera scenery I did not help paint and the costumes I did not help construct despite the many emails asking for volunteers

Probably assemble coins into bundles, if we have coins. If not, organize invoices and plan

May 22

Senior sluff day

Elementary school 3K fun run, must remember to send water bottles and make sure they dress appropriately

Do not attend nor participate in the run despite the many notes of invitation

run the errands

Maybe shipping coins

Pack Howard for a convention

remember to send kids to youth activities

May 23

Drive Howard to airport

Attend 6th grade graduation

Attend 6th grade celebratory BBQ lunch

Admire all the food and effort to which I did not contribute despite the emails asking for volunteers

Orthodontic appointment

Attend honors night for high school senior

Maybe shipping coins

May 24

6th grade class auction. Remember to send one item to be auctioned, must be cool.

Remember to send the mummy chicken to school so that it can be unveiled on schedule.

Deliver art to CONduit for art show

Probable deliver of the remaining thousands of coins

Maybe shipping coins

May 25

Possibly attend CONduit for part of the day

Maybe stay home and clean all the things

May 26

Church

Retrieve art from CONduit

May 27

No school

Pick up Howard from airport

Maybe coin shipping prep

May 28

Elementary school dance festival. Make sure kids wear their costumes

Clap for the dancing children

Maybe shipping coins

May 29

Field day at the elementary school.

Do not volunteer for anything despite the emails asking for volunteers

Maybe shipping coins

May 30

Last day of school

High school graduation

Senior overnighter

After that there is more stuff. I’ll think about it when I either get all of this stuff right or recover from failing at it.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Adventures in Computer Hardware

Last Thursday I uploaded the final files for The Body Politic to our printer in China. When I clicked to close the ftp program I noticed that the machine was behaving oddly, like it had to think extra hard about what to do next. I use this machine all the time and I could tell something was significantly wrong. Sure enough, halfway through the back up process it failed completely. Diagnostics at JPL Computers have diagnosed a hard drive failure. No data is retrievable from the drive.

Hard drive failure is never good news. Yet, as with Howard’s recent hard drive failure, this one happened as conveniently as possible. I was in between projects and in a schedule lull. Reconfiguring my computer was not how I wanted to spend this week, but at least I have time for it. Also, in the wake of Howard’s computer failure, I stepped up my back-up habits. They’re pretty good. Most of my writing in progress exists in dropbox where I still have all of it. Using my back up drives I’ve been able to switch most of my processes over to Calcifer, who is supposed to be my writing machine, but he’s been great about stepping up and handling business tasks for me. My desktop machine has been out of commission for almost a week and I’ve been fine.

Later today or tomorrow the desk machine will come back to me with fresh new drives. I’ll have a clean slate on which to install my programs. In some ways that appeals to me. I like having things be organized and new. Unfortunately then I’ll begin to discover the gaps in my back up processes. I know that there are pieces of data that I will need which I’ve missed. There will be some things I’ll have to re-create. Yet I don’t think I’ll have lost anything that is worth a $1500 drive reconstruction to get back.

The most astonishing thing about this adventure in hardware failure is that I haven’t panicked even once. This is the sort of event which is tailor made to send me into an emotional spiral of doom, sure that everything will fall apart. I did have a moment of shock “Are you sure it is the hard drive?” I asked twice, as if I could make the answer be different just by wishing. But after that moment of disbelief most of my reaction has been to shrug and get to work putting things back together. The story would have been quite different if we didn’t have the money to get the new drives, if I did not have a laptop that could be re-purposed for a few days, if I hadn’t been using dropbox as a storage medium for my writing, if I hadn’t run a bunch of back ups last week, if the timing had been different. So many ifs. I’m grateful that even with a bad thing so many good things fell into place.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Looking Forward to the Last Day of School

The end of school is close. Some part of my brain keeps wandering me to where I can stand and look at the calendar. My finger drifts up and I count the days. I look at the multi-colored plethora of events between now and that final school day. Each kid has a color, it allows me to quickly scan who is busy and who is not. Right now they all are. We have 6th grade graduation, field trips, rocket day, a settlers meetup, class stores, unveiling of mummified chickens, school dances, senior sluff day, seminary graduation, field day, a dance festival, and more. All of these things parade across the calendar in rainbow hues. I can’t keep track of it. I don’t want to. I am tired of tracking all of the school things and encouraging responsibility. We all need a rest, but there are days left.

The work will not stop when school does, not by a long shot. We’re expecting coins next week just before Howard runs off to Phoenix comic con. Kiki is avidly preparing art to be displayed in the CONduit art show. June is double booked pretty much every weekend. Yet the energy of the house shifts when school is out. I’m able to declare that the kids must help with the housework and not feel guilty that I’m impinging on their limited free time. The daily schedule becomes more relaxed, which is both a gift and a challenge. I’m looking forward to that shift.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Something So Small Shouldn’t Require Courage

Strange that the simple click of a button takes fifteen minutes to accomplish. I’d already gone through all the steps to select a flight, debating about convenience and cost, arguing with myself about whether I should go at all. It is a luxury to be able to go. I know this. The writing retreat will be fine without me. I am not needed there. In contrast I will be missed every single day at home. Yet, the kids are anticipating what I’ve arranged for them while I am gone. They’ll miss me, but they won’t be uncomfortable, neglected, or bereft. All the pieces were in place. All the players had agreed that this was the right action. Except some deep part of me wanted to abort, call the whole thing off, stay safe at home. Ah. The pause before clicking is not about logic, it is fear. I am afraid because the last retreat was difficult, because this one has unknowns, because my brain can fabricate worlds of what-if flavored regrets. If I let fear determine my actions my life will grow ever smaller. I will become smaller. I clicked.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Mixed Reviews on a Class About Blogging

The room was not empty. I was quite grateful for this, as that had been my first fear. LDS Storymakers is primarily a conference for the writers of fiction and I did not know if a presentation on blogging would draw an audience, particularly since I made as clear as possible in the panel description that we would not cover using a blog as a marketing tool. I was grateful that the conference organizers decided to schedule it and then grateful again when people showed up. There were only a few empty seats when I turned on the microphone and began speaking.

The trouble with speaking about blogging is that it covers such a vast array of motivations and means. All blogs are on the internet. All blogs hope to be read by people who are not the writer. Other than that, everything varies. The forms, aims, intents, hopes, and needs of one blog can be polar opposite to those of another. In speaking on the topic I could choose to speak broadly and be mildly useful to most of my audience, or I could narrow my focus in order to be extremely useful to some and completely irrelevant to others. Speaking broadly about setting up a blog or gaining readers did not interest me. I wanted to speak about the creation of content and how to manage the meanness of people on the internet. In hindsight those two halves should have been separate presentations, but I’d welded them together and forged onward.

The first woman left right after I clarified what I would and would not cover. I saw her go and thought that I had done my job well. My introduction made clear that my class would not be useful to her, so she went to find one that would. I was fine and I kept speaking. More people left as my presentation continued. Whatever need had drawn them to my class was not being addressed by my presentation. I began to feel bad about that, wondering if I could have done a better job of clarifying in the class description, but comforting myself that this was just to be expected. One presentation simply can’t address all the issues.

It was a strange experience. I’ve spoken often enough that I have a good sense for when a presentation is working. There is a feedback loop with the audience. They smile, they nod, they quickly write a note, I see these things and direct the speech to emphasize the points which seem to get the most response, even when it takes me off script. My purpose is to be useful, to give information that will help. I stood in front of that class and I saw all the signs of engagement. My audience was with me, or at least half of them were. One by one the others left. When I wrapped up the room was about half full.

I pondered it later when the voices of self doubt began howling that if I’d only been better I could have been useful to them all. My logical brain was, of course, countering that I was glad they quietly and politely went to find something else they needed. They were the ones paying for the conference. They had every right to change lectures if they wished. My confident self noted that several people came to thank me and said my class was very helpful. Yet it is a hard thing to see visible evidence that my words were both exactly what they should have been and not at all what was wanted depending upon who was listening.

No matter what I write or what I say, I can’t be brilliant enough to matter to everyone. My blog collects readers, but it also loses them. The same will be true of my fiction. If I had panicked at the departure of audience and tried to bring them back I would only have been pulled off course. I would have floundered and probably lost even more. Instead I stayed with those for whom my presentation was working and did my best to make it work even better.

I hope I get more chances to speak about blogging. I walked out of that presentation with a hundred ideas about how to divide the presentation into more focused topics. These were things I learned from my audience. The questions they asked taught me what I should have prepared and will prepare next time. One woman came to me in the hallway hours later.

“Thank you,” she said. “Blogging doesn’t seem so scary anymore. I can do this.” And my heart sang, because if nothing else, that was one of the things I hoped to convey. I love blogging and I think I was at least able to impart some of that love and enthusiasm.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.