Winding down...

I feel exquisitely productive, but I haven't even started on today's installment of El Humungo.

I went to get a visa photo taken the other day, and although I could have sworn I heard the photographer say he'd be by to drop off the photos at the shop (he's across the parking lot), I ended up going by this morning to pick them up.

The good news as of this moment is: I've put the photos and the visa application in the envelope and it's now on its way for processing. The bad news is that the image on the photo must be about the worst mug shot I've ever taken. Ah, well... you can't have it all, all the time!

On other fronts, I did a short job for S this morning and sent it off. This kind of thing happens many times, particularly when I'm working on a big job like El Humongo. There are limits, of course, as to how much time I can divert (practically speaking, I can probably manage 500 words per day on the side). This was a small job, along those lines. By comparison, I got call yesterday from another client, X (also in Houston), who wanted me to do a 3500-word job, but the deadline was too short.

An example of the kind of difficulty I'm encountering with the big job is the following: I run across the term "кормовой отвод," which implies some part of a ship (lifeboat, in this particular case) near the stern. No online resource (e.g., Multitran) nails it. None of my paper dictionaries do, either, including two subject-specific bilingual marine dictionaries. Finally, by looking on Rambler.ru, I run across a fascinating article (in Russian, natch) by one A. Larionov all about the Soviet destroyer Lenin, which includes a collection of keyed drawings including an illustration of the item I'm looking for, labeled "36":



From the illustration, I'll bet the "кормовой отвод" serves a function in conjunction with the hardware immediately above it, i.e., to keep a line - or chain - that runs from capstan "46" through the hardware to wherever away from the side of the ship. (And no, I don't know what the "hardware" is called, either.)

Unfortunately, none of my "visual dictionaries" (compendiums of keyed illustrations) is of any help here. (As an aside, I can't understand how books so chock full of information consistently do not contain the information I need.) Hopefully, the information I need will be found before I send in the job.

Enough procrastination... it's time to "turn to."

Cheers...

P.S. No news from client M regarding who is to get the last chunk of El Humungo.

On the wa-a-a-a-a-y-y-y-y!

A chunk of the work I'd been assigned is now on its way to Vladimir V., in New York. I've also created an account for him on my PHProjekt setup on the Linux box in my office.

I feel as if a load has been lifted from my shoulders, which is completely appropriate, as it indeed has been.

Vladimir is one of those remarkable people who can do it all, and I'm sure he'll knock this assignment off in due course. It'll be a pleasure working with him.

I wonder who else will be joining Jim and me?

Cheers...

Ice... what?

Case study: ледяные иглы

Context: Working on iced-over rivers, toward the spring thaw. It's said that if you hit one of these "иглы" lightly, the ice may fall apart by the next day.

I cannot find the term in any dictionary (getting to be a habit...) or online. (Actually, Multitran.ru gives "frazil ice" but some further research - at the River Ice Guide and Glossary - tends to put the kibosh on that idea. Frazil ice, from the description, seems to already be pretty "fallen apart.")

So, I go looking for ледяные иглы on Rambler and end up, God help me, at a Ukrainian UFO site, at a page that discusses what's on Callisto, one of Jupiter's moons. There's a part of me that's reluctant to trust anything published by UFO enthusiasts, as quite often, they don't know what they're talking about, but then again some of them do, so...

I'm running out of time, what in chess is known as zeitnot.

A quick look-see for "Callisto ice" on Google lands me at at a kind of mainstream NASA page, which shows the same graphics as are shown on the Ukrainian page (albeit slightly skewed), and talks about...

...drum roll, please..... and I quote, from the NASA page:

During the Callisto flyby, Galileo's camera saw spire-like "knobs" jutting 80 to 100 meters (260 to 330 feet) high, consisting perhaps of material thrown outward from a major impact billions of years ago. The knobs are very icy, but they also harbor some darker dust. The dark material seems to be sliding down the knobs and collecting in low-lying areas. [empahsis mine]

The term fits the context, and is certainly more fitting than "frazil ice," IMAO.

Unless something better comes along, "ice knobs" it is.

Cheers...

All's right...

I managed to do 10 pages of El Humungo, but I am well and truly sick and tired of talking about translation.

* * *I subscribe to a self-improvement/inspirational (at least to me) mailing that often has some really useful items in it. Recently, the author turned his spotlight on the subject of food.

Food, of course, is the thing that keeps me - and a bunch of other people I know - overweight. Moreover, I've heard - and understand, on an intellectual level - all of the arguments about how one needs to change one's approach to eating in order to make weight loss permanent. The article I'm talking about takes the idea a bit further, by viewing eating as a ritual, instead of an opportunity to fuel the body. He starts his spiel with the following observation:

For many of us, all the most important activities of
life center around food.

It wasn't that way when we were children. For children, life is about playing. Coming home to dinner is not something they look forward to. On the contrary, it is an unpleasant obligation. (Do you remember how often your mother had to call you when all you wanted to do was to keep on playing tag?)

Boy, do I ever. And yet now, I look forward to family dinners (such as the one we had last Sunday) not as primarily a vehicle for interacting with Drew and Shannon and Huntur (although that aspect is certainly there), but as an opportunity to have a nice sit-down meal.

It is, you should pardon the expression, food for thought. And on that note, I shall bid you all a good night.

Cheers...

Depopulation in Nigeria?

There can be no question about it. Based on the volume of e-mail I receive from people in Nigeria, I would expect there to be very, very few people there presently. And all the rest are multimillionaires who, for some strange reason, cannot touch their money.

Oh, the humanity!

Okay. I know. Time to take the tongue out of my cheek.

* * *I suspect we at the store have been on the receiving end of a new variant of the Nigeria scam. We got a fax last week from a computer company, ostensibly in west Africa somewhere, that was in urgent need of a company to help handle millions and millions of dollars worth of merchandise.

I threw the fax out.

And received a follow-up call, if you can believe it.

Ye gods.

Cheers...