Member News

Bruce Balfour has joined the staff of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a senior technical writer/editor. In addition, his most recent novel, Prometheus Road, will be available on October 26 (available in good bookstores everywhere).

Jerry Franklin was recently awarded an Honorable Mention in the annual Bitpipe White Paper Awards (www.bitpipe.com). Jerry's paper -- "What Your R&D Tax Credit is Really Costing You" -- was one of only three white papers cited in the Software category. Jerry will be speaking at the upcoming Region 8 conference in Davis on an unrelated but no less arcane topic: Concurrent Version Control (CVS) for Technical Writers.

Rob Peterson writes: "I recently completed my first batch of biodiesel, an alternative fuel made form waste fry oil. I collected about 40 gallons of waste oil from restaurants, which I might add they were glad to give me for free, and added methanol and potassium hydroxide. The end result was 30 gallons of usable fuel at roughly $0.60 per gallon. Though initial set up is rather time consuming, I look forward to processing my next batch in a few weeks. Aside from that, I am still employed and excited about my new and inexpensive hobby."