Last Saturday, I drove up to Olds, AB, one more time. It was a good trip - roads were fine, truck was full, and it wasn’t too cold. The border was a breeze (was I supposed to stop?) and got unloaded Saturday evening w/ Joe’s help.

Plan is to stay around and drive back on Friday. We’ll see…

One job I've been working on lately is the printing of our book, "The Lamb". In essence, it should be a straight-forward print, because in English, we've printed this 2 or 3 times before. The print company has all the files, and all that's needed for us to say we'll order, they give us books and we send them money. However, for each reprint, often there are changes, mostly small issues. One such is the copyright date. So we need to send files for those changes, which is often not a big deal.

This time it's a little more complicated, because we are printing 4 versions of the same book. English (a reprint), Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, and Luxembourgish. The neat thing about printing these, is that 3 of the 4 colors on press don't change. The book is designed in such a way that by changing only the black plates, you get another translation. This saves work as well as cost. There is only one page in the book that requires a full-color change.

With other books, Rachel is the one who formats and arranges the translations. But for The Lamb, that has been my responsibility. So I get to format translations, send proofs, receive corrections and send out again. And again. And again. Once things are finished, I output files used for printing.

So the only challenge is arrange all the files to get ready for sending to the printer. For The Lamb, there are at least 5 files for each translation, which isn't too bad. This includes the Audio CD, the label for the CD, the text, the cover, and the paper jacket cover. For the English there are individual pages that need correcting. So, there's more individual files, but typically only one page each.

We are getting close to sending the files for this print, hopefully it will be sent this next week. It might be 2 months after that before the books actually arrive.

"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing."
--Benjamin Franklin

"Those who have changed the universe have never done it by changing officials, but always by inspiring people."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

Just thought I would mention that the use of absolutes above is not my choice...

Today was the Steeling the Mind conference, hosted at our church, and broadcast to… I don’t know.. 6 or 7 groups around the world. There were 8 speakers, for about 8 hours of lessons, which was a good time (other than the fact there was a lot of information, fast and furious.) I am very thankful that I was able to go. Parking was a problem. I don’t have a count, but the room holds 575, I think, and an overflow in the gym. Many folks from around the area came, Idaho, Washington, etc.

Another eventful month, and that’s a good thing. We received our Edition 4 print of The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus last week, which is a really neat thing for me. I’ve been overseeing the print jobs now for a few months, and this is the second print to be completed (and delivered) in that time. While my involvement is not the major part of the work, it is needed obviously to keep things together and in order.

Last December we received around 80” of snow, but this month has been only a few here and there. It doesn’t seem right, but you have to take what you’ve been dealt with.

Also this month, I now have a room mate, Kellen. He’s up from California, and should be around for a while. And since I have an extra bedroom, he moved in. It does help having someone else to help pay the bills, but it’s nice to be able to help someone out with a place to live. He’s been here about a week, and have only seen him once at the house!

Last week was rather full, as Lloyd and Faith were gone for the week. That left me to do all the shipping, as well as some of the book-work. And to boot, paint the office / laundry room at their house when the were gone!

One project I’m trying to get finished is the Interactive version of The Stranger. Just today I burned another DVD, and I hope that’s the last time (I have yet to proof it again.) But if it passes, then I need to get that to John Cross to have him have a final look, before going to press. For those that don’t know what this project is, it is a Stranger book that has a DVD of 110 video clips in the back.  The book is marked, so you know where the video clips correspond. The idea is that you would read through the book, but watch the clips that are marked in the text, giving a visual of the concept at hand, but retaining the interest of reading through together. For those who have taught through this, it has been the favorite way to teach so far.