The morning's better than half gone...

Somewhere in my reading - probably in the current issue of the Pagosa Sun - I gleaned the fact that 27 citizens from Archuleta County have died while in their country's military service. I seem to recall a plaque embedded in the wall of the courthouse downtown, engraved with the names of those who died in World War II, and recall that some of the family names seemed familiar, in the sense that there are businesses in town today that carry the same names.

I got up early, thanks to Sasha, and sipped some coffee while sitting on the verandah, looking out over The View. I thought about life in general, about my time in the military, and about Donald D., a guy a grade above me in high school who went to 'Nam and came back in a body bag. I said no words, as there was nobody nearby to hear them, although frankly, I was in no mood to say any to anyone.

I simply sat there and... remembered.

Cheers...

...and now, the same is true of the afternoon...

Dreams of lolling the day away dissipated as I sat down to face the final 11 pages of the occupational safety documents I've been working on. Fortunately, this last section of the work has gone quickly. My first pass through the document is complete.

On Saturday, I began to translate the item for client T while at the store. The text is straightforward, but I can tell it's going to take a little research on the Web to nail down the names of specific organizations called out by the author. It's due tomorrow as well, so I think I will take a break right now and go finish that item, and return later to address all of the embedded questions in the occupational safety job.

* * *But first, I'm going to spend about an hour or so wandering about the house. If I am lucky, Huntur will be up and about, and I'll spend some time with her.

Cheers...

Putting an end to a long-ish day...

The occupational safety piece weighed in at just under 14,000 words, and it took me nearly 4 hours to review it and resolve all of the questions I'd noted while translating it. The second item, a news article about immigrants and welfare reform, took me about 3 hours to finish and about an hour to edit (I had noted more questions than usual when working at the store, since I had no references with me). All in all, it turned out to be a 4800-word day.

I got an e-mail from client U asking about my availability to do a large job for them over the next couple of months. There are pros and cons to such work: the pro side is having a steady stream of work for a couple of months; the con is that the flow can cease at any time, leaving one with a funny look on one's face owing to the fact that one has told other clients that one is not available to do other work. Too, clients expect a discount for volume work.

I have got to put my mind around developing some kind of retainer agreement that will be fair to both my clients and me, but for now, about the only thing I intend to wrap my mind around (or vice versa, actually) is the pillow in my bed upstairs.

Cheers...