*Hi.
I hope this newsletter finds you well. My summer is plodding along tolerably. I've just finished making up the mailing list for this newsletter, and I'm thankful to God for how many friends I have. You who hold this personal newsrag in your hands are one of about 90 people receiving it this summer. Thanks for letting me get to know you. This is my way of catching up with you, keeping up with correspondences, and even starting new ones. If anything, use this as an excuse to write or call and give me the low-down on how you are doing. As for me, well, lets just say I've got an interesting summer JOB"The Lord Giveth..."
God has been good to me this summer. I've got two jobs that are keeping me busy enough. They are in fact keeping me so busy, that I'm taking the opportunity of this July 4th weekend to write this letter to you, because I'm not sure when else I'm going to be able to do it."He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but couldn't shake it, because it was well built." -- Luke 6:48.
I'm working about 30 hours a week for a geotechnical engineering consulting firm called GeoMetrics, Inc. It's a small, brand new company which basically works with the interfaces between man and his environment. For instance, say someone wanted to build a bridge. They would hire GeoMetrics to test the dirt on which the bridge was to be built in order to make sure it was safe and easy to build on. This is only one of the few things that they do. They've also got other projects in the works which involve making sure for a company that they are complying with
What I've been doing for them is clerical and administrative things, so that the engineers can do engineering things. The company has two offices, in Columbia and Myrtle Beach, and at the Columbia Office where I'm working, there are four engineers and one "gofer": me. I "gofer" office supplies, fax and mail correspondence, answer the telephone, and recently I've been editing marketing material, namely a brochure and a newsletter, which are being mailed out next week.
I feel like I'm appreciated there and that I'm being useful, though it isn't exactly my field of engineering. Though when I started there I only worked 6 hours a day, the last few days I've been staying until 5:00, so who knows? It may become a full time job. My boss is always teasing me about how I should switch from Mechanical to Civil Engineering. It's good work, but for this mechanical engineer who wants to get into robotics, it's only a summer job.
"May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us ... establish the work of our hands." --Psalm 90:17
My other job is with a guy who runs a management consulting company for healthcare organizations out of his house called the Remedi Group. How did I hook up with him, you may ask? His wife works on the same floor of the army hospital on Ft. Jackson as my mother. My mom was telling her about how I was looking for work, and this lady said that her husband could use somebody to do some of the scut work involved with the business. So every couple of days I go to this guy's house in the evening or on Saturday for a few hours to work for him. I do data entry and data processing for him about 10 hours a week, so he can tell hospitals and doctor's offices how they can run more efficiently and effectively. Hey, it's a living.