Declawing the (Cue)Cat...

This turns out to be a very simple operation. One jumper does the trick, and now the device is an ordinary bar-code reader that outputs ASCII, and does not broadcast my scans to the world (though, to be fair, that was a function of the software that accompanied the feline). So...let's try it out!

The bar code on the back of a box of Altoids gives me:

059280201638

(including a carriage return).

My borrowed copy of Handy Japanese has a bar code that is read as:

978477001748290000

The ISBN number is 4-7700-1748-0, which appears (with the exception of the last digit) to be embedded in the code. The "90000" at the end appears in the code for several other books on my shelf.

Next step: go off and find references to the theory and practice of bar-coding.

In a while, though. There are other fish to fry in the meantime.

Cheers...

Resolve...

Seeing as I will be in the area of my old high school this coming week, I'm seriously thinking of offering myself up as a kind of human guinea pig to speak with students about the prospects for making a living as a linguist in this world.

Why do I suddenly have a hankering to go visit my old haunts, where frankly I never felt welcome or comfortable? It's inexplicable, I suppose. I'm feeling nostalgia for a couple (actually, three) teachers that made any kind of difference in my life.

The first was Mr. Shaw, who taught us mathematics. Or tried to. He was the closest thing I ever saw to a math teacher who really tried to connect to a bunch of kids who could not see, for the life of them, any use for any of the information being sent in their direction. He sent it in my direction at just the right speed, at any rate.

The second was Mrs. Vamvakis, our French teacher. French was the thorn in my side starting at about 7th grade. At the time, I think we all hated Mrs. Vamvakis, and wondered how she was able to function past sunrise. She loved the French language, and French "civilization," and made bloody well sure that we were well grounded in it all. In the summer after graduation, I had the opportunity to speak with a young woman of my own age from Paris who was visiting relatives in the U.S. and was able to actually hold my own with her, thanks to Mrs. Vamvakis.

The third teacher was a "permanent substitute" sent in to replace an ailing English teacher. I forgot her name - it began with an "M," if memory serves - but not her encouragement. English was for me - as it is for many others - an exercise to be endured rather than a subject for immersion until I met...whatshername. All I remember of her is that she was recovering from a serious automobile accident and walked about on a pair of canes. And she said good things about my pathetic attempts to write poetry.

In the following semester, after the "regular" teacher had reappeared, I continued on in the path I had become accustomed to following with Mrs. M. I wrote an essay I am sure she would have enjoyed, describing Bill Shakespeare as a playwright intent on filling the Globe Theater so as to keep his creditors at bay. Thus, the tale he wove had to include sex, violence, superstition, and wholesale murder.

The play?

Hamlet.

The "regular" teacher was not amused. I had dissed one of his icons, and that essay garnered me my only "D" in my high school career.

So tomorrow, I shall call the school and ask to speak with the chairman of the language department and find out if there is any interest in having a graduate of that institution stop by and ramble a bit about the Real World.

Cheers...