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Crazy Week

October 31, 2006 By Leave a Comment

It has been a crazy week for me (and it’s only Tuesday morning!) We are short handed at work.

Corporate sent one of our guys to help out in the New Orleans office, which puts us 25% down on our staffing here in Savannah.

And then yesterday we had one guy in Jacksonville, and another in Brunswick which left me to cover everything going on in the port of Savannah all alone. (Whew!)

Oh, and today is the last day of the month and since we work on a monthly billing cycle I have a ton of paperwork to do.

Bundle all that with my shift in focus over to SuccessCREEations and posting here will be a little less than what y’all have become accustomed to.

That’s OK. There’ll be plenty to see over at SC until I can get back on a more regular schedule.

Enjoy!

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Life Seasons

August 21, 2006 By Leave a Comment

It is interesting how life seems to arrange itself into seasons. And like the seasons of each year, the seasons of our lives seem to have defining characteristics and eventually move on to a new and different season.

Like Jack Crabb in Little Big Man who said

After my religion period, I took up with a swindler: Allardyce Merriwhether. After Mrs. Pendrake his honesty was downright refreshing.

we move from through our lives in stages, each defined a little differently.

Tree in Spring

For the first two years here in Savannah I rarely had to work on a Sunday. In fact I was usually wanting a little more weekend work because I get paid a little extra for it.

The past few months our weekend work has picked up considerably. As a measure I’ve only been able to attend 2-½ church services in the past 8 weeks.

Tree in Summer

I know some folks would say that is still too much church.

But I think many of them would find that the church I go to is a little different than the image they have in their minds of what church is. And besides, I like being there. I even led the tech team for a while.

Tree in Fall

These days I seem to be working a lot on Sundays. I’m OK with that. My life priorities put my job ahead of church attendance.

Fortunately yesterday was one of the 2-½ that I could be there. It was good.

The tech team had one of their best days in a long time (they’ve been plagued with tripping circuit breakers and such). The band was rocking, but played songs some of us (slightly) older folks could sing along with. The message was spot on (as always). I felt connected with God. All in all it was a good day.

Tree in Winter

The Bible says

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven

I’m looking forward to the end of this season of weekend work just like I’m looking forward to the end of our long hot summer.

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Exploring Our Interconnectedness

August 12, 2006 By 2 Comments

I mentioned that my folks are in town. I don’t get to spend as much time with them as I’d like.

Partly it is because of the distance. They live up in Virginia.

But my work has always played a big factor. Vacation time is always limited, and I never seem to get a chance to do everything I want.

Even when they come to see us I have to work. I guess someone forgot to tell the ships to stop running so I could have a better personal life!

I had to go out to a ship last night. It should have been a fairly easy deal. Just an hour or two of work and then back home to the family.

Except the ship was late. Very late.

It was late enough that I had time to catch about an hour’s snooze while I waited. I’m sure that is one of the safer things I do in this job. Sleep in my car on the docks in the middle of the night.

Of course it was smoking hot here in Savannah, even well after sundown. With the humidity up on into the Tropical Jungle scale. But I still managed to nod off for a bit.

I woke up when the ship got to the dock but it still took a while before I could get aboard to do my thing. While I was waiting I got to thinking about how many people are somehow involved in a container ship’s cargo operation.

The list really is pretty long. You’ve got the ship’s crew, longshoremen, stevedores, machine operators, mechanics and repairmen. Depending on the operation that could bring us to the hundreds already. And it doesn’t count all the individual shippers and receivers of the cargo, the folks working in the warehouses on either end of the shipment, the various customs and enforcement officials at either end, and all the functionaries who make sure the paperwork gets processed correctly.

Oh, and then there’s a handful of miscellaneous consultants like myself who make their living helping the process run more smoothly.

Global trade really does involve a lot of folks, all of them interconnected by a common goal. And that’s just in one industry. Imagine how totally interconnected we all really are when you stop and think about all the things we do, consume, and produce.

Yet even when I was thinking last night during my wait about such a large and diverse a group of people spread all over the world like that I couldn’t help but think that God was looking down on the whole thing, keeping a watchful eye on it all. Check out this passage from one of the Psalms:

Let everyone in the world fear the LORD,
and let everyone stand in awe of him.For when he spoke, the world began!
It appeared at his command.

The LORD shatters the plans of the nations
and thwarts all their schemes.

But the LORD’s plans stand firm forever;
his intentions can never be shaken.

What joy for the nation whose God is the LORD,
whose people he has chosen for his own.

The LORD looks down from heaven
and sees the whole human race.

From his throne he observes
all who live on the earth.

He made their hearts,
so he understands everything they do.

The best-equipped army cannot save a king,
nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.

Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory–
for all its strength, it cannot save you.

But the LORD watches over those who fear him,
those who rely on his unfailing love.

He rescues them from death
and keeps them alive in times of famine.

Just a little something to ponder as you are out and about this weekend.

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Why Work Is Such A Drag

July 7, 2006 By 6 Comments

There are days when I don’t get excited about my job. And I have a really good job in my industry. It is considered by many to be a career capper, and most guys stay with our company until they retire once they get in.

Today is one of the days that doesn’t excite me. I have to be out at a ship at 0630, which normally wouldn’t be all that big a deal. It’s not like I’m going to have to do all that much physical labor when I get there. Just take some pictures and jot down some notes so I can go back to the office and write a report about it. Actually it is kind of nice to be in a stage of life where I am getting paid more for expertise than for my physical work.

Mostly because I have a lazy streak, I guess.

Pirates of the CaribbeanWell it probably wouldn’t be so bad except Gorgeous and I have planned a Friday night out tonight. We hope to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Normally I don’t go to movies on opening night but Gorgeous is going out of town on Monday for a conference and won’t be back until after I leave town for work. So we have a bit of an extended time apart which is enough to prompt us to attempt to fight the crowds tonight. But I’ll probably be a might sleepy because of the early start.

Did you ever wonder why work can be such a drag sometimes no matter what you do?

Would you believe there is an explanation for it in the Bible?Digging a Ditch

It goes all the way back to the beginning. Back to the garden of Eden. When God found out that Adam & Eve had done the one thing that He told them not to do, He threw them out of the place. – Talk about violating the terms of your lease! Sheesh! They only had 1 rule to follow and they couldn’t do it. No wonder we humans are so messed up!

Anyway, as he was walking the kids to the door, God hollered out a curse at each of them. Here’s what God had to say to Adam as he was collecting his belongings:

And to Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit I told you not to eat, I have placed a curse on the ground. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. All your life you will sweat to produce food, until your dying day. Then you will return to the ground from which you came. For you were made from dust, and to the dust you will return.”

Yep. Basically God said there will be days when you won’t get excited about your job. Lots of them.

I know that doesn’t really help make it any better – no useful job enjoyment tip today. Sorry to disappoint you. But sometimes doesn’t just knowing why something is the way it is make it a little less frustrating?

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A Little Rain Must Fall

June 29, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Last night it rained here in Savannah. It was pretty heavy at times with lightning crashing all around and lots of wind. The kind of rain where the National Weather Service keeps breaking in on the radio to tell you about it and warn of potential hail on the pocket change scale. Fortunately they weren’t comparing it to fruit. Hail on the fruit scale can be pretty scary.

As I’ve said before, I like rainy days. I even like the bad storms. There is something awe inspiring about watching the uncontrollable power of an intense storm. I especially like sitting someplace dry like a screen porch and watching the storm rage around me.

On Deck of Container ShipYesterday I got to be right out in it. And that’s not so bad when you are dressed for it. Unfortunately I wasn’t. When I went up onto the ship it was sunny and a steamy 95 degrees. Sure there were clouds in the sky. And I’d even heard the NWS break into the radio once as I was heading out to the port. But they were talking about stuff a couple counties away from where I was. And I distinctly heard them say something about very little apparent motion to the storms they were talking about.

But then you can’t trust the weather guessers, can you?

There I was huddling out on deck under a container trying to keep dry without so much as a jacket. I’d make dashes out into the deluge to snap a photo or two and then right back under cover. Then the water started collecting on deck and I found myself standing in a small river.

Rain at the Container TerminalI don’t even mind so much getting wet, especially when I know I can go straight home after the job to get dried off and a change of clothes. The digital camera and the cell phone don’t deal with it so well, however. Funny, that they weren’t even what I was worried about. My paperwork was far from dry. Nothing like a little downpour to make your notes bleed all over each other.

During the job was not so bad because I could sort of camp under cover. The real trick was getting back to my car. It was a bit of a hike. And there was no cover. In the end I was pretty soggy.

Jesus gave us an interesting perspective on the weather. He said this about God:

He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Why is that profound? Well for one thing it doesn’t matter who you are. The weather that’s happening is going to happen to you.

It also means that God is no respecter of persons. He is going to give all of us the balance of rain and sun that we are going to get regardless of what we might “deserve”.

In the end there is still nothing we can do to control the storm when it decides to rage.

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