Flashback...

Yesterday morning, Galina was flipping the cable channels, looking for the CBS Morning program. She hit it just as one of their regular commentators - I forget who, but I think he's their "at-large" quipster... bespectacled, with red hair - started a segment on remembering 9/11.

He started out powerfully, and I paraphrase: "We don't need television specials or commemorative issues of various publications to remind us of what happened on 9/11, and we particularly don't need 9/11 collectibles. The issue is not remembering, because none of us is likely to forget. Furthermore, recalling the horror of the day only serves to dredge up memories for those who lost loved ones in the attack."

Well said.

Then the peabrain goes and segues into a kind of summary of life in his hometown, a New Jersey suburb with an overlook view of lower Manhattan, since the attack, showing footage of memorial services (speaker: "I love you bro'. I'll always miss you.") and so on.

It's like someone saying, "You don't need to listen to a commercial to figure out what deodorant soap to buy, which is why I'm here to tell you about the new, improved Blarfo! The only soap you need to keep your armpits smelling fresh!"

Ye gods.

Cheers...

Lotta noise, no action... and moving in circles...

I keep misplacing my cell phone, which is my work phone here in Colorado. As a result, I have to keep checking my voice mail to see if I've missed anything in the meantime.

Client M in Houston wants me to do 200+ pages by October 1. Against my better judgement, I think I'm going to go for it. A rash of other work offers from better-paying clients over the next four weeks can be my only fitting comeuppance.

Talking about work offers, the German client who asked for a quote to do 34,000 source words on specialized temperature-measurement devices did not expire of sticker-shock, as I had begun to suspect. His latest e-mail says the client will take some time to decide what to do. That's certainly better than a flat-out "no," and I've had jobs in the past that have developed along the same lines.

The Canadian gent who wanted me to do about 8,000 words of his fiancé's academic history backed off after I basically asked for payment up front. I felt such conditions were necessary, since he was rather reluctant to share any substantial contact information with me (and some of what he did share turned out to be, um, hazy).

Someone else at client M wants me to continue with that miserable geomorphology text from the other day. (It'll be a nice warmup for the 200+ pages, which threaten to be dry, boring regulations of all sorts.)

* * *One of the issues in my brief previous run-in with that document was the use of the word "широтный." The following is a thumbnail of the map that muchacho pointed me at:


From the description at a site devoted to the Altai region of Siberia:

Озеро лежит на высоте 434 м в горах северо восточной части Алтая. Имеет вытянутую русло-образную форму и состоит из двух частей меридиональной, южной, протяженностью 50 км и широтной, северной, 28 км. Его длина 78 км, наибольшая ширина 5 км, средняя ширина 2.9 км, минимальная ширина (у мыса Караташ) 0.6 км. Протяженность береговой линии -- 181 км. [my emphasis]

Translating, we find that "the lake lies at an altitude of 434 m in the mountains of the northeast part of the Altai. It has an elongated, channel-like shape and consists of two parts: a southern part that extends 50 km and runs meridionally, and a northern, 28-km long,..."

And here, my dictionaries fail me. I need a word that expresses "situated on or along a parallel of latitude" with the same poise and elegance that "meridionally" brings to "situated on or along a meridian." The online M-W is of no help; a look at the definition for "latitudinal" shows no such connotation.

For the time being, "east-west" will have to do, as in: "...east-west section. The lake is 78 km long, is 5 km wide at the widest point, averages 2.9 km in width, and has a minimum width of 0.6 km (at Cape Karatash). The coastline is 181 km long."

The original map is huge (4800 pixels wide and slightly more vertically) and tremendously detailed. Unfortunately, I overwrote it while making the thumbnail, so I'll have to go back and hit the site again to get the original image. (I may do so anyway... the Altai looks like a fascinating region.)

Cheers...

P.S. BTW, talking about latitude and longitude, here's my own personal mnemonic for keeping the two distinguished properly. Recall that lOngitude and wOrld both contain the letter "O", and if you then circumscribe the world (represented conventionally, with the north pole at 12 o'clock and the south pole at 6) within the letter "O", you end up with a meridian of longitude. LATidude, on the other hand, invoves letters with horizontal strokes that, superposed on that map of the world, gives parallels of latitude.