christophera_

Last Friday, my best client sent me 2700 words to be done by 2 pm today, and I yesterday, I basically figured I'd get a fresh start in the morning so I didn't bother getting started.

In the end, it turned out okay, but I cut the deadline pretty close (less than an hour). The subject matter was fairly interesting, which helped.

I had a fitful nap after lunch, then Galina suggested we get out of the house, which we did by going over to the Memorial area not terribly far from where Natalie lives.

While there, I stopped at the shopping center at Shepherd and Westheimer, where I recall there being a somewhat catch-all paper store, where I once picked up some stationery that was sold on a per-sheet and per-envelope basis, in a variety of colors.

After not being able to find reasonably priced stationery in New York ($40 for 40 sheets and 20 envelopes is a bit much for my wallet), I hoped to stock up at this paper store but alas, it's been replaced by a Hallmark store, and stationery per se is not part of its inventory. I'm sure I can find something suitable online (perhaps on eBay), but online shopping for these kinds of things can be a drag.

Time to shut down for the day. I have a crew training session early tomorrow morning.

Cheers...

I find myself in possession of katrina_lynne's lovely purple dotted & black haired scarf. Much as I'd like to abscond w/it, honesty and kindness compel me to return it to its rightful owner - and creator. Perhaps delerium3 will be kind enough to transport it back home after her math tutorial at the Hive this Friday afternoon. :-)

Really fun getting to hang out w/ya'll this past week. Looking forward to more such opportunities in the upcoming chunks o' time.

Do I have your attention? *rubs hands together* Good. ( Read more... )

Had a really nice day w/AJ & the Petting Zoo Critters (delerium3, edwardmartiniii, and katrina_lynne). We headed Westward to Newport, OR through lovely countryside, stopping along the way to watch big smashing waves sending spray far above the road. 'Twas my first visit to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and its jellies, sharks, kelp beds, sea otters, and more. Worth a return trip! Hmm, perhaps in the Springtime, when the Tufted Puffins' tufts will be brightly colored for mating.

Afterwords, we had dinner (and drinks) pretty much next door at the Rogue Brewery Ale Pub. Mmmmmmm.

O'morrow I shuttle AJ to PDX for her return to SoCal. It's been a really good visit - her first in over 2.5 years. Back then, she drove up from SoCal w/me and the kittenheads and the last carload of my stuff when I first moved to Portland/the Hive. The next interval 'tween visits will be shorter.

Loads o' things on my ToDo list o'morrow. At the end of the week, the Amazing lightfoote (ALF) comes down for a Date (and DD!)(Th - Sun). Life is sweet and good and joyful.

Busy day. Went down to San Jose and back in celebration of my mom's birthday. Most of the day was spent just hanging around her backyard, talking to Jason, Lisa, Rob, my Mom, Bob, and Mike T. (and his family). It made me remember how nice it is just to have a backyard--if someone else is taking care of it that is--and of course the conversation was all good too.

Even got to play a game of ping pong with Mike. I used to love that game when I was young, but I haven't played since I moved out of the dorms, after my first year of Berkeley. Mike, also out of practice, beat me, but we were both getting the feeling that we were rediscovering the ping-pong muscles as we played.

Not a lot beyond that. We heard that Jason and Lisa quite liked the Ticket to Ride that we got them for their wedding, which is great. We'd known that they'd played a lot of Monopoly and such, so I wanted to introduce them to a Euro. I also expect that I'm going to join Mike T. for a bike ride before November is out, if we can make our schedules coincide. We'll see. It's been a busy couple of weeks, so next weekend is officially off (other than regular gaming, of course).

We got home earlier than I'd guessed, and I was considering sitting down to work on a review (Traveller Book 3: Scout) or my next Signs & Portents article ("Gods of the Goblins"), but I'm just too burned. Will sit down to read instead.

The "runas" trick I ran across for creating a second PowerPoint window (running the second window as a different computer "user") has other uses as well.

My translation memory application of choice, Wordfast, is essentially a program-sized macro that runs inside of Microsoft Word and has a nasty habit of moving one's cursor around inside of other Word documents one might have open while using it.

What this means, in practice, is that if you happen to have a second Word file open to a page that you want to refer to while translating the file you're working on, pressing the key chord that saves your current segment and opens the next one will also move the cursor location in the second file, forcing you - more than likely - to call up the Find window.

Using the "runas" command with Word, one can open the second file in a separate session that isn't affected by what you may be doing in your work session.

* * *I translated about 6,000 words yesterday, another 2,000+ today, and send off the result. The first week of this month has been good from the point of view of work, but when it's like this, work is basically all I do, which gets to be a drag.

I've moped around for most of the day, intending to start on two projects that need attention, and haven't done a blessed thing in that direction.

I did play around a bit with a Smith-Corona "Skyriter" manual portable typewriter I picked up at a garage sale. The unit works, and I was able to cannibalize a new ribbon for it, but the rubber on the roller is pretty old and has almost no "grab," and so it's really hard to get paper to move properly. I've tried putting in multiple sheets of paper, which seems to work, but it seems a less-than-optimum solution.

* * *Galina suggested Saturday that we might visit Pagosa for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and that first elated me, but then depressed me. I've been in a sort of blue funk since. Why? Because leaving here before we're done will require coming back. I've been trying to put a positive spin on the situation, but it's an effort.

* * *Every so often something - some application - on my Acer netbook outputs two clicking noises to the speaker, as if to signal something happening.

Chick... chaah...

Very strange.

Cheers...

Speaking now w/out thinking too much, w/out analyzing much at all. Thoughts swirling.

Of shoes and ships and sealing was, Of cabbages and kings. Pigs have no wings. Oh, I've been waiting for this, for this feeling to return, for a burst of energy and enthusiasm and a desire to do things, to shift things, to...

Pulled a rune just now, because the time seemed right. As happens far more often then random chance should allow, I once again pulled Hagalz (Disruption / Elemental Power / Hail). Fascinating.

I don't pretend to know what this portends. I don't really care/mind, actually. Change is required & change is desired. How will things go/end up? It's a mystery!

Faith. Trust. Sharing intimacies with myself & others. Letting what will be, be...while aiming where I want to go & be.

Sleep soon.

So, tomorrow's plan is to hit the beach (Newport, OR) for the aquarium, &c. w/the Petting Zoo-ites & AJ. I just checked the weather report and found this tidbit from yesterday down under the heading Local Storm Report:

"11/06/2009 0937 PM - Roads End, Lincoln County. Thunderstorm wind damage, reported by public. Public reported damage to multiple houses. One of the houses was a 4500 sq ft house and half of it was missing. Another house had windows broken and a deck damaged. Another report said they saw a water spout and it probably moved on shore as a tornado."

Hmmmmm...

Happy b-day!

One hundred new PowerPoint slides!
Bring up the next and translate the text!
Ninety-nine PowerPoint slides in the file...

...or something like that.

Heck of a way to spend Saturday!

Cheers...

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Apparently that's what they call (at least used to) it in South Africa when it's sunny out - and raining, AJ told me this yesterday and I LOVE IT, b'c it's what it does here (PacNW) a LOT in the Fall (and again in the Spring, if memory serves).

Good obit here.

Lovely time at and around the Petting Zoo today: laughing, telling stories, going on good walkies along Fanno Creek, playing MasterMind, putting together olde jigsaw puzzles (such as world map w/Belgian Congo), eating numbly dinner, and to crown the day, listening to edwardmartiniii read aloud the first several many chapters of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. Happy good day. Sleepy now, even after a nap earlier. Want more sleep tonight.

From Robert Reich's blog:

While health care reform, if done right, can help American families stay afloat in the economy, the current bills won't offer most Americans any appreciable decline in the cost of their health insurance nor clear improvement in the efficiency or quality of the health care they receive, and those who will benefit won't see the benefits until 2014 at the earliest. All this is partly a result of Obama's sharpest break from Clinton -- whose ambitious health care plan drew immediate fire from Big Pharma, the American Medical Association, and health insurers: The Obama White House bought off the medical-industrial complex by promising it fatter profits, bolstered by tens of millions of new paying customers.

That and other deals cut with industry -- including promises to Big Pharma that Medicare wouldn't use its bargaining clout to reduce drug prices, to the AMA that doctors wouldn't have to face larger cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates, and to private insurers that the White House wouldn't fight hard for a public insurance option -- are likely to make the resulting reform far more costly than it would be otherwise. These extra costs will be borne by those Americans who will be required to buy insurance but won't qualify for federal assistance, along with Medicare beneficiaries who will be paying more and receiving less.

It's one thing to hear Republicans criticizing the "reform" shaping up in Congress, quite another to hear it from someone not exactly known for Republican leanings.

Cheers...

It rained last night, but today once again dawned bright w/blue sky and happy-making sunlight pouring through gaps in the lovely bunches o' clouds roaming the sky. Yeah, I know I'm tempting Fate w/this re: line...come on Fate, lemme have it! Okay, to my mind, Fate is Murphy's handmaiden. (Murphy = he of Murphy's Law and their brethren.)

Feeling purty darned good considering I didn't fall asleep 'til sometime after 3am and awoke again at 5am something. Must've slept deeply and soundly for a couple/few hours anyway before the alarm went off when the clock read 8:01am (7:41am in real life). Napping may well be in order later on though.

Client reprioritized tasks last night.

I wonder why it is that, upon seeing a PowerPoint presentation with 85 slides, I now think of it as "short"?

Cheers...

I spent 43:20 on the phone this morning with Comcast. For the second time during the past four days, the customer service rep I spoke to "suggested" that my problem with connectivity will go away today if I drop EarthLink and become a Comcast customer (for an additional $10 per month).

So I go online with EarthLink (their computerized phone system is bulletproof, as I suspect there really is no way a human can use it, from the EarthLink side). Here's a transcript of my session (rep's name changed and security password exchange deleted):

'Mila J' says: Thank you for contacting EarthLink LiveChat, how may I help you today?

alexpgp@earthlink.net: I would like the email address, or mail address, or physical address of an Earthlink office where I may discuss a complaint. I live in the Houston area.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: The complaint concerns Comcast.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: I believe they are deliberately not fixing my connectivity problem to force me to drop you guys and buy connectivity from them.

Mila J: I will certainly assist you with your query.

Mila J: I would like to convey to you my sincere apologies for any inconvenience you may have experienced with respect to the service we have provided to you regarding your issue.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: Thank you, Mila, but my problem is that you are *not* providing me with service, and frankly, your scripted replies are not of much help.

Mila J: I see that you have subscribed cable through EarthLink.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: Yes.

Mila J: I understand your concern.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: Touching, but it does not solve my problem. Please provide me with the email address, or mail address, or physical address of an Earthlink office where I may discuss my complaint.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: Can you do that?

Mila J: I suggest you to contact your cable company or Cable installation at - 1888-847-4708 (Monday - Friday 7am - 12am; Saturday & Sunday 8am -10pm) .

alexpgp@earthlink.net: I have done so, five times.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: FIVE TIMES

Mila J: Your Internet Service is being provided to you by your Cable Company whereas the email service is provided to you through EarthLink for free and we do not charge you anything for the email services.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: Are you a real person?

Mila J: Yes, why do you ask?

alexpgp@earthlink.net: Because I'm asking for the address of your company so that I may discuss possible predatory practices by Comcast and you're referring me to them?

Mila J: Once you order for the service it takes 5-10 business days for the installation process to be completed and get the service

alexpgp@earthlink.net: I have *been* a customer for two months (I'm sure my customer record must indicate that). I used to have connectivity. I do not have connectivity now.

Mila J: You can write to yourfeedback at EarthLink.net.

alexpgp@earthlink.net: Thank you.

Mila J: Thank you for using EarthLink LiveChat. For further assistance, please feel free to contact us again.

Not. Bloody. Likely.

Cheers...

P.S. The email message I sent to yourfeedback@earthlink.net bounced.

Pleased by a quick loop-cut-off & re-spinning from feeling hurt/bad/sad to finding pleasure & joy in the same facts. Attitude counts so freaking much! Not feeling/being selfish can accomplish a lot along such lines. I am pleased w/myself. And happy for all. And glad that it took <2 minutes to figure this out (actually, I did it first (IT = shifted my attitude & felt better for doing so), then figured out what I'd done).

Was gonna post a long involved entry 'bout the past couple of days, which've been really quite nice, but I'm back home after a 3.5+ hour class and'm beat. In short: headed home to the Hive from PDX w/AJ yesterday via the Columbia Gorge, several waterfalls, a short hike, and a long lovely colorful sunset. We had dinner @ Sapphire Hotel, then slept in late this morning. Had nice b-fast w/AJ, delerium3 (E2) and edwardmartiniii (E4), then hung out s'more w/this gang before E4 left to do movie work and AJ, E2 and I (E1) wandered up Hawthorne Blvd, browsing and chatting and shopping.

After Whole Bowl'ing and gathering stuff from the Hive, we separated, w/E2 & AJ departing for the Petting Zoo whilst I headed to PDX to fetch LJ-free L then zoomed to school to study, take this week's quiz, and sit through lecture and videos about the Oregon Trail. Good stuff. Good night...