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The client today noted that they wouldn't mind terribly if I stuck around for a while longer... like until July. That kind of extension wasn't exactly in my mind (I'm thinking of an additional week, you see.)
Sometime in the afternoon, a buzz started circulating about Alex K., a more or less "permanent" freelancer who has recently been working hard on the non-NASA contract. He and I go back a little ways, aided in some small way by the fact that he and Feht have been friends since childhood, despite what appears to be a recent divergence of paths. It was Alex K. who managed to always find out where the good parties were back in the heady days of Phase I, when the US and Russian specialists were still getting to know one another (and my, how much alcohol was needed to break down the barriers between them!).
It turns out that Alex K. is currently in critical condition, in intensive care at UTMB with head trauma. Nobody knows how it happened, since right now the only way Alex can communicate is by blinking his eyes, and then only when he's conscious. I'll probably go down or send something in the near future, but as far as today was concerned, it was a day when people started summarizing the past few years worth of bad news, and it made for a damned depressing day.
There was, of course, the recent news of the sudden death of the husband of one of the office regulars. The guy was in this mid-40s, for crying out loud. What a lousy break!
Then there was the news that one of the really good and fast translators that I "discovered" about a decade ago is in unknown condition after a bout with cancer (unknown because he doesn't translate any more). And finally, yet another former colleague - with whom I frankly never really had good relations - developed a brain tumor a couple of years ago and died.
It's one thing to intellectually kick around the idea of "ain't none of us gonna get outa here alive"; another to feel the emotional turmoil associated with the loss of people you know (even those you didn't like very much). A belief in Providence (or your preferred brand of religion) may help, but I think it takes a tremendous amount of faith to overcome the intellectual/emotional dichotomy in this regard.
* * * Before returning to the house to do some translations I agreed to do this afternoon, Galina and I ate at the local "Joe's Crab Shack" prior to shopping at Sam's Club. Ye gods.
When next I think of eating at "Joe's Crab Shack," I will be fortunate to limit my mental imagery to a skull and crossbones. Primo, the service was awful (the idea is to serve the food before it gets ice cold, and preferably to both persons within the same geological era). Segundo, the menu was goofy (or am I wrong to think that rice and french fries are a poor pairing as sides? and that "no substitutions" in this regard is equally goofy?) And tercero, the clientele was boorish (granted, not something that the owners have much control over, but they seem to attract a certain type of boob... besides upstanding citizens such as ourselves :^). I could go on, but you probably get the picture.
Time to get to sleep. If I'm lucky, I'll check the translations tomorrow morning, before sending them off.
Cheers...
Sometime in the afternoon, a buzz started circulating about Alex K., a more or less "permanent" freelancer who has recently been working hard on the non-NASA contract. He and I go back a little ways, aided in some small way by the fact that he and Feht have been friends since childhood, despite what appears to be a recent divergence of paths. It was Alex K. who managed to always find out where the good parties were back in the heady days of Phase I, when the US and Russian specialists were still getting to know one another (and my, how much alcohol was needed to break down the barriers between them!).
It turns out that Alex K. is currently in critical condition, in intensive care at UTMB with head trauma. Nobody knows how it happened, since right now the only way Alex can communicate is by blinking his eyes, and then only when he's conscious. I'll probably go down or send something in the near future, but as far as today was concerned, it was a day when people started summarizing the past few years worth of bad news, and it made for a damned depressing day.
There was, of course, the recent news of the sudden death of the husband of one of the office regulars. The guy was in this mid-40s, for crying out loud. What a lousy break!
Then there was the news that one of the really good and fast translators that I "discovered" about a decade ago is in unknown condition after a bout with cancer (unknown because he doesn't translate any more). And finally, yet another former colleague - with whom I frankly never really had good relations - developed a brain tumor a couple of years ago and died.
It's one thing to intellectually kick around the idea of "ain't none of us gonna get outa here alive"; another to feel the emotional turmoil associated with the loss of people you know (even those you didn't like very much). A belief in Providence (or your preferred brand of religion) may help, but I think it takes a tremendous amount of faith to overcome the intellectual/emotional dichotomy in this regard.
When next I think of eating at "Joe's Crab Shack," I will be fortunate to limit my mental imagery to a skull and crossbones. Primo, the service was awful (the idea is to serve the food before it gets ice cold, and preferably to both persons within the same geological era). Segundo, the menu was goofy (or am I wrong to think that rice and french fries are a poor pairing as sides? and that "no substitutions" in this regard is equally goofy?) And tercero, the clientele was boorish (granted, not something that the owners have much control over, but they seem to attract a certain type of boob... besides upstanding citizens such as ourselves :^). I could go on, but you probably get the picture.
Time to get to sleep. If I'm lucky, I'll check the translations tomorrow morning, before sending them off.
Cheers...
