Today was one of those blessings in disguise. I was able to take the truck to Seattle, pick up 2,000 Chinese Stranger books (printed in Taiwan) and then spend the weekend w/ friends in the area.
The trip was fine. I noticed my truck pulling to the right a little, but then that went away. After stopping and filling up w/ my books, it started pulling more yet. I didn't catch on to what was happening too quickly, until my brakes would pull to the left when I hit them. (Cross-winds will cause a vehicle to act like it's out of alignment, low tire, etc.) Next stoplight I smelled bunt brakes, and knew my caliper was sticking. Wasn't far to go, so made it to Dan & Joan's and was able to get rebuilt calipers and stick those on before heading up to Mt. Vernon to see Gene & Rose.
Oh, and thanks, Dan, for the use of the breaker bar. Sure made life a lot easier!
Fed-Ex came in today, with a package that had The Lamb in 4 different languages. In this package was the 'blue-lines' for the job. (Blue-lines are usually blue, except for a color job.) An important part of the printing process, the printer takes the digital files we send them, and then convert those to something that they will be able to print. So, partly because they are working the files over to fit their press, they send a proof to the publisher to review and give the final 'ok'. It's our responsibility, then, to make sure that the pages are in the correct order (and not up-side-down) or any other anomaly. Also this is the time where the printer will point out differences or problems with the file that may affect the job. There were several 'problems' with our files this time (last 2 print jobs were flawless...) And of these problems, only two really needs corrections. One page had some verses missing, and another had 6 pages with missing page numbers! The others are minor and don't need to be fixed. Just a side note, these 2 problems were my fault... sort of. I initiated the problems, but the proof-readers didn't catch it either : )
So, after thumbing through, I contacted the printer with some the corrections and comments. It'll be a few months yet (possibly 3) before they land here in the office. That's when I can breathe a sigh of relief!
Thank you all who had a part in this. A lot of work goes into this - from the original production, to each translation, and those that support us to bring this about. It is not a project from a few people -- it takes us all.
Today was the culmination of years of work. Well, at least another step in the right direction. The Lamb was first printed in English and French, November of 2004. Then came Spanish a bit later. Those were our only languages until… a couple months from now. Today I sent the files to reprint English, but also to print the Portuguese, Luxembourgish and Chinese Simplified editions. Each of these projects has been a long row to hoe, and am very thankful to see these files leave. But—it’s not over till they arrive at our door. That is where I can finally consider it finished. Today is just a really good milestone! Thank you to all that had a hand in bringing this about.
Another delay—The Interactive Edition
The Interactive Edition of The Stranger is delayed a little more yet. This time to reformat The Stranger, which is used as a base of The Interactive Edition. And The Interactive Edition is the base for the Leaders Guide. So, it’s best to get things straightened out first. The format is scheduled for next week up in Canada, so hopefully it’ll go smoothly / quickly / accurately. The reformatting is not one of my projects, but one I’m waiting on…
Drove home from Olds today, but stopped in Kootenay National Park for a snowshoe hike up Stanley Glacier trail. I only went in for about an hour, got tired of falling through the snow into holes underneath. But it was a beautiful day, to say the least.
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.
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.
Here are a two videos we recorded a couple years ago. They are excellent to take some time and go through - each is about an hour, so schedule some time!
I was listening once again to Obama's address, and ran across this part once more:
We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.
What is more innocent than an unborn child?
Behold, we are that country. A house divided against itself can not stand.
We are completing the formatting of a new book - The Lamb in Chinese Simplified script. This, like most translations, has been in the works for quite some time. Sometimes it's a little discouraging working on a project, and when you get to this stage, you look at some files involved in the project dated back to June 2007.
Such is the case with my Interactive edition of The Stranger. I just burned a new version of the DVD and am now proofing that. But this project was on hold for a bit because of a new cover of the book, and then was delayed a little more because we re-worked the book by using more translations in the text (to help save us from paying royalties for quoting the Bible.) Looking back, it's better that we did wait and fix these other problems so all in all it's good.
You may have noticed this ‘test video’ below up for a while. We have found a new place to host our video, but it’s rather difficult to figure out the correct parameters to make it look good. One would think that the company hosting would have that figured out and instructions all over the place on how to do it. There are literally thousands of options when encoding video, and takes a while to weed through those finding something to work well. I’m happy to say that I have the whole Stranger series up, just not ready to actually use just yet.
However, when I used those same parameters on another video I edited, it didn’t look good at all. Go figure. Too many options, different software (just a newer version) and other changes make it very difficult trying to figure things out.
This past week has been involved with working on getting some books more ready for print (we are looking at 8 print jobs right now) as well as working on the Interactive edition of The Stranger. We are close on this one, I need to re-burn the DVD with better quality audio, and hopefully that will be ready to proof-read a final time.
It’s been a full week, with some days having good progress, and others leaving me wonder if anything got accomplished! But all and all very thankful for the time / ability to be here at GoodSeed.
