Today’s been a warehouse day. Started out by pulling a couple skid’s worth of inventory to take to Canada. In the process, skid levels lowered, meaning it was time to re-arrange the warehouse to utilize space better, so I started. When I was finished, I had 4 bays open for full skids! This is good, because I’m also expecting a shipment of By This Name WorkBooks (which actually came in over lunch time.)

Coffee helped out today. Spent much of the morning packing boxes (as Wednesday is my packing day.) Got the quote signed for the Arabic reprint, finished duplicating the Spanish Audio CD’s, worked some on the website.

Also this morning I received the lens that I had sent in for repairs. I’m very thankful that Nikon had an extended 5 year warranty on the beast, because in another 2 months it would have been out. It had a problem where the aperture would stick in the 2.8 position, making shooting more of a challenge. After a fix and a clean, it appears I’m good to go. Looks like they replaced the aperture blade mechanism among other things.

Also learned that Alberta went into the hospital for some heart troubles. She is one who has been very dear to my heart for many years, and pray for her encouragement, strength, healing and her dependence on the Lord during this time. And too, for the family.

Among other things done today (like printing 3 copies of the script for the Stranger AudioBook, duplicate CD’s for the Spanish AudioBook, start the next reprint for the Arabic ATP), I’m also looking at another trip to Canada. This time it appears to be just a delivery, and not a 10 week endeavor. And that means throw in the snowshoes, camera, computer (duh) and plan a hike in the mountains on the way up and down! It’s actually almost perfect. The drive is an 9 hour trip, so if you leave early and get there late, you can hike for 4-5 hours easy. All depends on the weather (among other things) but we’ll see how it goes.

Yep. One of those days. Here's some things I worked on:

• Oversaw the shipment of 2 skids of books (French All that the Prophet has Spoken) from our Quebec office to Arizona. (Power of Attorney, Commercial Invoices, Certicificate of Origins, Schedule B's, Addresses, special requirements, etc.)
• Re-authored / remastered a DVD for promoting our TERM seminars in Canada. (Rebulidng an avi file, converting to mp4 and ac3, creating a new iso, and transfering to the duplicating machine.)
• Started duplicating the above DVD on our robotic DVD duplicator machine (and if any of you know which one that is, you'll understand...)
• Answered phones (Monday's my day) and that alone kept me busy it seemed.
• Started re-formatting a computer, but put on hold until we get a copy of Windows 7, which I ordered.

So, all in all, kept me busy, and going in many different directions. Just thankful to have been able to help out. But it did seem a lot worse than what it looks like here!

After a 4 mile run (33:53) and men’s bible study this morning (currently in Acts 17,) I spent the day working on hooking up my furnace. Last time I worked on it, I positioned the unit, put on the plenums and hooked up the 2” PVC for fresh air intake / exhaust. Today I finished vacuuming the spider webs in the crawl space, hooked up the gas line, and then ran the electric. There are 3 different electric runs—one for lighting, another for an outlet nearby the unit, and the third for the furnace itself. The outlet was actually inline to the power I ran to the gas fireplace / tv / dvd player, and the light I just ran off the existing circuit (but adding a switch topside making life much easier.) It is fun to work on your own place and customize things as you go. Next to come is ductwork and running the lineset to to the condenser unit outside. But once the ductwork is in, I’ll probably run it just as a furnace for grins anyhow.

Spent the morning getting ready and waiting for the right time to leave. Nothing really defining what that actually was, but we pulled out at around noon, which proved to be a good time for traffic through both Portland and Spokane. On the way we stopped at Multnomah Falls, which is a normal thing to do when driving by!

Instead of watching the playoffs, I read a book. And listened to it rain. All day. Well, until Randy comes over for Hearts… where I won 2 of the 3 games we played!

Yesterday, Barney and I drove to his father’s house, arriving at around 11:30. We are going to be hanging out here for a few days, and here’s some shots of where I’m staying : )

Formatting a book can be a straight-forward deal. The Lamb in Yakut was that at first. First we receive the translated files, I simply copy / paste the information into the book, save a PDF and send that to be checked. Any changes that are needed come back and take care of those and send a file to be checked again. This process usually happens 3-4 times before everyone is happy with how it goes.

Such was the case here, until we went to print. The printer said he couldn’t use the file I sent (which was the same as what I send to every print job I’ve done to date), oh, and the page size needed to change. This is a little more work because now all the design needs to be tweaked to accommodate the new size. This wasn’t too big of a job (only a day’s work) and progressed rather methodically. But the file type was still a problem.

The solution, as first thought, was to send PostScript files instead of PDF. That’s all find and good, except they are at least 10x the size. So instead of 300mb of files, we are looking at 3gb of data. While it is possible, it’s difficult finding a service that you can use to send so much data.  After a bit, they got back to me and said if I use Distiller on the PS files, that should work just fine.

So, that’s what I did today. Created PostScript files, transcoded w/ Distiller and sent via http://www.transferbigfiles.com. I’ll find out later if all is well, or if changes are needed yet. It is my hope / prayer that all is well, as it’s a project that has been in the works for (as far as my involvement) for over 7 months. It is neat to see things come together.

For more information on Yakuts people.

Today was one of those days where there seems to be a million things going on, but not much of anything gets done. The good news is at the end of the day I had all my check boxes checked, and then headed to church for the Wed eve service. Brian was up, and I sat w/ Evert and Marty and their wives. See, I forgot their names already. Have to work on that. For those that don’t know, dinner is served at 6:00, and between 7 and 8 is a message, singing and prayer.

This morning I drove to work 5 min late (oops) and there was a huge tractor-trailer rig waiting for someone to come and unload. Come to find out, it wasn’t that bad, because he had spent some time at Rockin’ Robins for breakfast. He was delivering 2 skids of the Portuguese version of The Stranger. After about 45 min, I had the 2 skids repacked and neatly tucked away. 2080 books in total. This is good, because we had been down to about 12 books on the shelf.

Another thing today was the Yakut version of The Lamb needed to be re-formatted because the print size will be a little different. It isn’t a real big problem, but I sent files out to make sure it’ll work before I do the whole book.

Today, the proof came in for the By This Name WorkBook. With everything looking good, I signed and sent it back.

(Editors Note [Jan 21]: Come to find out later, I did have one problem—it said “Printed in Canada” when in fact it was printed in the US. I just had them remove that one line and we are good to go!)

Again, drove to Libby because Sherri didn’t have anyone else to get a ride. It’s only a 3 hour drive or so one way, and I like to drive so I volunteered again. But, I had to get out and hike a little. There’s the old Hwy 2 that goes up the mountain side which is now a hiking / biking trail. I walked up a mile, and 400’ in elevation, and that was enough to at least get some fresh air. It was a good hike, but not long enough!

Yesterday, the first Kodiak airplane for New Tribes Mission was completed, and once NTM obtained ownership they flew out. Gene and Travis flew over for the ceremony, but didn’t really have enough time to get back over the mountains before dark, so they spent the night w/ me. Next morning it took a bit to get the little 152 started again. Part of this was the fact that it was 16 degrees, and 15 mph wind! But once we did, he took off for home.

Today I picked up Sherri to take her to Libby, as she needed a ride. On the way back I stopped at the Kootenai Falls for some quick shots before it got way too dark!