Copy editors needed

I keep mentioning personnel needs for my husband on the off chance that somebody reading this will decide to become a missionary when they grow up. Or, failing that, at least give a few spare hours to the cause.

Today he's looking for copy editors. Well, proofreaders, really. Lots of them. He has 558 pages of minutia that needs to be close to perfect by Friday Sept 10. Not just read once, but read twice (that is, each page needs to be edited independently by two different people. This is for the Ethnologue, our flagship publication that comes out every four years. It is a detailed listing of the 6,911 languages that exist in this world. And it is easy to make tiny mistakes when telling all the details about these languages. So we need help to get it right.

He is passing it out by geographical area, finding a colleague who worked in Colombia and begging them to take the Colombia section. We have a friend from Indonesia whom he's trying to get me to call and beg. I guess he thinks that as long as he doesn't have a life, so one else should do anything fun over the long holiday weekend either.

Well, I've taken the first 33 pages of the Africa section, so I'd better get started.

Update! I had barely pushed the "Publish" button when the phone rang. Somebody came and took 34 more pages of the Americas section. Yay!

Whoops!

One tow truck--$50
One new battery--$100
One new alternator--$200
labor to put them in--$200
learning to turn the headlights off--priceless

The fog is lifting

I think I'm about over my week of sadness. I guess one of the worst parts about the kids leaving is the anticipation of them leaving. Once the stressful time leading up their departure is over, and then I know they have safely arrived at their destination, then I start feeling better. It did make me feel better to reorganize some of the house; a friend told me that psychologists sometimes prescribe closet cleaning as a way to restore order to your life and by analogy, to your mind. I'm grateful for friends to talk to also, for the nice weather, and especially for God's love that never fails me.

D. should arrive in DC later tonight. He will have one day to organize himself, then his job at the National Cancer Institute starts on Thursday with a departmental retreat in the Shenandoah National Park. That sounds like a nice way to start a job, huh?

Lord, bless them all as they start new jobs, new school year. Help them to find the friends that they need and to find opportunities to grow in your grace.

I talked to all my kids today

A.'s friend found a cheap* calling card to use to call Ethiopia which I finally got to work today after four tries. It was good to hear from him, he's doing well. He was all excited because he got to meet Joseph Stiglitz and had him sign his copy of Globalization and its Discontents . Stiglitz is the 2001 Nobel prize winner in economics and was at some conference that A. managed to get invited to. On top of this, we said he is trying to wrangle an invitation to some other thing tomorrow so he can meet the US ambassador to Ethiopia.

*I say cheap, but it is still like $.16 per minute. I talked until the $10 card ran out. He's still not clear where he will live, whether Addis or Awassa, but he said he's tired of living in a hotel.

R. called too. I've been trying not to talk to her much. But she wanted to talk because she was sick. She confessed to staying up too late and that probably got her off schedule, then she got a migraine headache for two days with vomiting, etc. I trust she will soon learn her limits and be willing to live by them so she doesn't get sick and does go to class.

D. is on the road today, sleeping at Taylor to visit his old friends in the dorm. Tomorrow a long drive to DC.

As for myself, I'm starting to compile, with help from my friends, a Top Ten Ways You Can Tell Your Nest Is Empty list. Stay tuned.

Perl programmer needed

Now G. says he needs a Perl programmer. D. had been doing it over the summer, but now he is gone. As D. was getting in his car and leaving for DC yesterday morning he confessed to his dad that he had taken his Perl book. G. reminded him that this particular copy was an autographed gift copy from Larry Wall himself, so plan to give it back. (Larry and G. were schoolmates at Seattle Pacific College. In fact, G. gave Larry his first programming job in the records office of the college. G. also talked Larry into attending SIL where he studied a semester of linguistics. Larry claims that the study of linguistics somehow lead to his creation of Perl, and he wrote a nice note to that effect in the front of this copy of the Perl book that D. stole.)

So anybody know a Perl programmer who wants to work for missionary wages? The pay is bad, but the fringe benefits are great :-)