In H-land!

Things went remarkably during yesterday's flights, with one or two bumps (literally) along the way. Coming into Houston, the pilot announced that we were going to fly around a line of thunderstorms advancing toward Houston since, quoting that worthy: "we don't do thunderstorms." Despite flying around the storms, we still exerienced turbulence, with one downdraft hard enough to give us a momentary feeling of near-weightlessness and elicit squeals from the passengers, though I'd bet this was old stuff to former ISS Expedition 8 crewmember Ed Lu, who was sitting a few rows behind me, in steerage class with the rest of us.

All things considered, the plane arrived more or less on time. Getting the rental car was smooth, although on the way in to Pearland, I did allow my mind to wander as I puzzled over why one would want a tachometer on a car equipped with an automatic transmission? Also, what is the logic of locking two identical keys to the car, along with the lock/unlock dongle, on a cable so there is no way to separate them?

Natalie was not home when I eventually arrived, having gone to watch The Alamo with friends. Dinner with Galina was fine, and quiet. Sleep came quickly. Lily the cat is suspicious of me.

Daylight's burning. Today is a free day... the last for a couple of weeks.

Cheers...

What I did on my day off...

Galina and I really didn't do much of anything. We first went down to Clear Lake to check out a faulty garage door opener in the house of our most recent renter. Like many mechanical malfunctions, I suppose, this one decided not to manifest itself today; the garage door opened and closed several times with no problem, although I did notice that the rollers in the door tracks seem a little "dry."

The clouds rolled in while we drove back to Pearland, and I realized that I am well and truly sick of rain. We parked the car and hit the video rental place to pick up Something's Gotta Give and the third Matrix movie, and by the time we got back outside, the rain was coming down in buckets.

We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the movies. I particularly enjoyed Something's Gotta Give, starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton; so much so that I think I'll watch the DVD again (though not tonight). The Matrix Revolutions was more of a pro-forma viewing for me, just to see how the trilogy ends. I found the movie adequate, but that's all. The disk is back in the video store, which ought to qualify us for a $1.00 credit on our next rental. Whee!

I have yet to look at the rework due Tuesday, but the scope of work is not that extensive, so I'm not going to sweat it tonight. What I am going to sweat is writing a proposal for a second presentation at the Toronto translation conference, on "Mapping the Runet: Where to look for what on the Russian Internet." Hopefully, it won't take too long for me to put together an abstract, and hopefully, too, it'll be accepted.

I've been listening to the French "Language Builder" CDs by Michel Thomas and find they contain more information per minute of play than the 8-hour introductory course. Unlike when I listen to the introductory CDs, listening to the "Language Builder" CDs requires attention, unless you just want to repeat what Thomas says, instead of beating him to the punch. Learning a language is like learning to play a musical instrument. You've got to burn in characteristic modes of expression in order to achieve excellence.

Found on the back of an envelope: a line I jotted down from the recent version of Man in the Iron Mask, with Leonardo DiCaprio (among others). In the film, just after D'Artagnan dies (at the hands of the treacherous Louis), Lt. André turns against the evil Louis, saying: "All my life, all I ever wanted to be... was him," motioning to the dead D'Artagnan. An interesting line that obviously struck me as worth recording.

I might also mention that yesterday's flights were the first test "under fire," so to speak, of the Bose earphones. They were magnificent! They ably suppressed most of the noise in the turboprop commuter-size plane from Durango to Denver, but also noticeably dulled the noise of the full-size aircraft that took us from Denver to Houston. In addition, the Bose earphones allowed me to listen to some MP3s from my Zaurus, and aside from the fact that the Z's batteries died way too soon, ending the tunes, the music quality was the best I've experienced while flying on an airliner, bar none.

Time to put together that proposal.

Cheers...

Abstract!

I hope this flies:

Runet Roadmap: What's Where on the Russian Internet

The Runet, or Russian Internet, has grown significantly over the past several years. It contains a wealth of information of importance to people working in the Russian and English language pair. This presentation will describe the major “regions” of the Runet and show how they can be used by translators for background information, research, terminology hunts, as well as light entertainment. Effective techniques for searching and browsing the Runet will be highlighted as well.

Cheers...