Second (third?) wind...

For no apparent reason, I decided to do "just a little more" of the translation before hitting the hay, and here I sit, a little past midnight, with the first pass complete.

I can now go anywhere with Galina tomorrow (within reason, of course, but that's the geek in me talking), without feeling guilty.

Once delivered and invoiced, that'll pretty much be it for the year. The next document isn't due until January 6.

Of course, there's always the chance someone will need a quick-turnaround on Monday or Tuesday, but it won't change the bottom line much. :^)

Good night.

Cheers...

To go, or not to go...

The skies look okay, but the weather dweebs on the tube insist there is a load of snow whistling toward us. (Of course, "us" is a very general term, as both the Denver and Albuquerque stations tend to focus 98% of their news and weather reporting on their own respective metropolitain areas, forcing those of us in the hinterlands to do our own extrapolations.)

So should we risk a trip to Durango? Farmington?

To take one variable out of the equation, I'm reviewing the completed translation right now and will send it before we leave the house.

* * *As I turned off my cell phone last night, I noticed that the unit's battery still showed 3 of 3 bars after a day of activity. I found this surprising, as normally, my best battery will give up at least one (and more likely, two) bars after a day's work.

Then I recalled seeing the time on my display as the unit powered off, which was also surprising. Time is only displayed in areas where communications are digital, and the phone hadn't been anywhere near an area that enjoys digital service. (For some time, we here in Pagosa have had to suffer through analog service - which eats batteries, by the way - with promises of "digital's a few months down the line" for the past couple of years.)

I turned the unit back on. Once the splash screen had done its thing, I noticed a big, fat, happy "D" on the display.

It would appear Pagosa has gone digital. Hooray!

Cheers...

Visiting Durango...

We ended up driving to Durango today, which was a good thing in the final analysis because I think we were starting to get a mild case of cabin fever, the kind you get when all you ever see is the house, the store, and the road between the two.

Once in Durango, we got the snow tires swapped onto the car for about $12 a wheel while we went shopping in the rest of the Wal-Mart. I made a point of stopping by the electronics section, but those under-$200 computers were not on display (although the $700 HP units were). I suspect the cheap units are probably available via mail order only.

We stopped in a few other places in town and then moseyed back home on highway 160, getting back relatively early in the afternoon. I took a nap and Galina started reading The One-Minute Millionaire.

* * *The next document on the translation block is more of the same stuff I've been doing the past few days. There's a 14-page section that gives me pause, but I'm sure I'll figure out a way to handle it (I plan to sleep on it :^).

One of the issues I've identified with regard to my translations is the inadequacy of my current system of recordkeeping on the document side. (Actually, no... that's not quite it... let me try again...)

Once I finish a translation and invoice it, I find that the information I've worked hard to develop (via 'net research), not to mention the content of the text, is hard to retrieve, i.e, it is effectively "lost." The materials are all there, of course, but several times this past year I've run into the situation where I've seen a particular term or theme before and then waste time - sometimes fruitlessly - looking for the prior document containing the term or theme.

This should not be a terribly hard thing to fix, but between it and the usual streamlining of my "checklist" (have you ever noticed how there are some items on forms that seem never to be used? I've got a couple of those... for now. :^), this is no big deal.

The paramount goal, however, must be to minimize unnecessary activities. No need to get Prussian about it, or anything.

Enough freewheeling... I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my day off.

Cheers...

I've experimented with ways of capturing that information in a searchable file