Still in work...

My estimate for time remaining on the current job did not take into account a few small details:

* * *The text of the Russian original I'm working on distinguishes деятельность, действие, and акт. In my Infinite Wisdom™, I decided against "act" for the latter, preferring instead to call it an "action." Unfortunately, this didn't leave many words that would fit into the other two slots, so I compromised, translating действие as "activity" and деятельность as "general activity."

Quoting a certain California governor: "Big mistake!"

To give you an idea of the relationship between these words, it's a hierarchy: "removing a lug nut" might be at the bottom of the tree (акт), where "change a flat tire" might be higher up (действие) yet below "automobile maintenance" (деятельность).

In any event, I decided that since I was slipping into using "activity" for "деятельность" and "action" for "действие," I might as well bite the bullet and accept "act" for "акт" (even though it grates on my nerves). At least the translation reads better now, although it took me nearly 30 minutes to make and check the changes.

* * *The format of the document has gone directly to the netherworld, thanks to something in TRADOS, I suspect. This is going to add some time to the back end of the job at any rate, but I tried - fruitlessly - for about 20 minutes to see if various tricks might cause TRADOS to snap out of it.

* * *My dictionary, for some reason, won't display, which forces me to type queries on a second computer instead of simply cutting and pasting from Word to the dictionary app. Farblegarg to that.

* * *The VAIO fan stopped again, which in and of itself was not a problem, unless it was the reason the VAIO stopped working earlier (I'm not taking any bets against, okay?). That cost me some time rebooting into "Safe Mode," followed by the usual recovery fandango.

* * *In any event, Since about 7:30 this morning, and with time off for lunch, I've managed to knock about 3000 words off the source total, leaving about 1500 words to go, after which I'll need to take a closer look at that section I think/thought contains repetitive material. Some of it is, for sure; the rest... ?

For now, though, I feel like the bottom of a pot-bellied dachshund: fairly well dragged out. I think I will go take a short nap, especially since I expect to be called to store momentarily.

Cheers...

UPDATE of 3:17 pm: Couldn't sleep, but I'm not in the store, either! Onward!

Funny, it doesn't feel like 100 years...

My first airplane flight took place at about this time of year, albeit in January. I was headed off for boot camp at Parris Island, and I sat in a window seat on the right side of the plane as the plane took off from LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York. I don't know what made my heart pound harder, the occasion of my first flight or the fact that I was headed out into The World for the first time, albeit to a very, um, supervised environment. It didn't matter.

A couple of years later, I got a job as a "field expediter" for Gibbs & Hill, a New York engineering firm. It was a great job for a kid who liked to travel. My typical week would start by showing up at the airport on Monday morning and flying to some exotic destination such as Chicago, or Mankato (in Minnesota), renting a car, and then visiting a supplier for a power plant being built by the company in Taiwan. I'd fly out that night, or the next morning, depending on my schedule, returning to New York on Thursday night. Fridays was for writing my reports and picking up paperwork for the following week's trips.

To tell the truth, after about a month, the constant travel got to me.

Some years later, I landed a job as a "tour escort" (euphemism for "whipping boy") for a US travel agency sending clients to the USSR. It was during that time that I developed the knack of falling asleep on airplanes almost as soon as the wheels left the ground.

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture. It was about this time that I began to view airplanes in the manner of some comedian whose name escapes me: you walk into this tube at location A, the tube vibrates loudly for some period of time, after which you walk out of the tube at location B. End of story.

In 1990, I was working at Borland, in Scotts Valley, California, and it turned out the company boss (Philippe Kahn) was a pilot, and was something of an inspiration to me to pursue my dreams. I had wanted to learn to fly when I lived in Florida in the mid-80s, but the closest school seemed far away and the prices... whooo! Expensive!

However, checking out the prices in 1990 revealed that there was hardly any possibility of instruction becoming any cheaper as time went on, so, I started shelling out the bucks for flying lessons just down the coast, in Watsonville. After the requisite instruction and practice flying with my instructor, there came a day when he told me to stop the plane, whereupon he got out and instructed me to take my first "solo" flight.

Flying solo for the first time is a little like simultaneous interpretation: you're really too busy to savor what you're doing. I do recall aborting my first two approaches for landing, which probably gave my instructor heartburn, as he might easily have concluded that I'd lost my nerve and could not land the plane. From where I sat, I was looking at a moderate crosswind that seemed to have arisen upon my solo takeoff, and I didn't like my approaches under those circumstances. I landed on the third try.

My association with Borland ended before I got my private pilot's license, and I was fortunate that a couple of pilots in Pagosa were running a small school at the local airport. Eventually, I accumulated enough skill and experience to have an examiner come by and test me. I passed, although I'm sure there were a couple of moments where the issue was in serious doubt.

All in all, I logged a piddling number of hours in my logbook, but do recall taking the family for a spin in the vicinity of Pagosa about a month after getting my private pilot's ticket. Then there was the time I flew Andrew and Natalie to Colorado Springs to pick up my former colleague Zack U. and bring him back to Pagosa for a visit. And the time a bunch of us flew to Farmington for breakfast, because we could. I enjoyed every minute of those and other flights.

I haven't flown in years as a pilot, but I did get to experience a bit of the wonder of being at the controls of an airplane. It's a grand feeling.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled translation. :^)

Cheers...