We interrupt your dreams...

Sasha decided that it would be a good idea to go outside at around 3 am. On the one hand, the time is inconvenient; on the other, the alternative is even less convenient.

So, I let Sasha out. Ming, witnessing the festivities, took his place at the top of the stairs, waiting for Sasha to come back, as it is his turn to go out after Sasha returns.

Once Sasha returned, I tried to herd them both (how do you "herd" a pack?) back to the room, but Ming was obstinate. I let him out.

Ming took his sweet time, pausing to bark enthusiastically at something in the night. An elk, perhaps.

All in all, once this exercise was complete, I was one alert boy scout, but I fell asleep again eventually anyway.

I just got to the computers, having slept in until about 7:25 am. I figure, if I'm lucky, I'll get an hour or an hour and a half of work in before the kids are up and ready to go to Durango.

Cheers...

What did I miss?

The optometrist at the Wal-Mart in Durango had been recommended to me by one of my local acquaintances, so when I called the "vision center" a few days ago, I told them I wanted to get glasses and asked if I could do so on Sunday.

"Sure," came the reply.

Gullibility, thy name is AlexPGP.

When we got to the store, the doctor's hours clearly indicated that he was not in on Sunday, although the vision center was open. After a shake of the head, I joined Drew, Shannon, and Huntur and we did some serious shopping in the rest of the store. I grabbed a business card and intend to arrange for an appointment (something else the young, fragile voice I had spoken to had failed to mention).

It's a few minutes after four in the afternoon, and I need to see how far I can go with the translation. By the time we took off for Durango, I'd done two pages (my daily quota is six, if I'm to make deadline), but I let myself get sidetracked a couple of times this morning (checking mail, which included a reply to the Lantra list, and breakfast).

Cheers...

Got a leg up...

I translated about 40 segments in two hours starting at 4:15 pm. I did another 22 segments between 6:30 and 7:30 pm. All things being unequal, I'm processing about 20 segments per hour.

The document is a standard having to do with conducting engineering-geological investigations in preparation for construction. It is written in a run-on sentence style that makes me long for the days of the steel tank specification. The problem with such sentences is that it takes about twice as long to parse them and figure out what the author(s) are trying to say. This does not even begin to take account of the rich new vocabulary of technical terms that is used throughout the document.

In any event, today I set myself the goal of completing the document up to page 12. In actuality, I'm almost at the end of page 14. I've put about 7 hours into the project today.

Why am I so caught up with these meaningless numbers? I want to get a good feeling for how much time and effort it's going to take to get this job done, given that I'm going to have to invest nontrivial amounts of time at the store this week. If I have to put in an hour per page, and if I have to do 6 pages per day to get this job done, that means that somehow, I've got to find 6 hours per day in which to translate (and effectively).

My personal experience over the past week has been that working after the close of business is not a very attractive alternative - not to mention I'm mostly brain dead upon returning from the store.

Therefore, I'm going to have to find time during the day to translate. I suspect that will happen in the hours between the time Drew finishes sorting the mail (around noon) and about 3 or 4 pm (depending on the volume of UPS). That will still mean I get to do some work in the evenings, but if afternoon work turns out to not be a feasible alternative, then I am in for one hellish week, indeed.

In the meantime, it's off to upstairs and the arms of Morpheus. Big day tomorrow.

Cheers...