Inertia...

...is about all that's keeping me going right now.

The morning started with my doing the first half of what I'd translated the second half of yesterday (that 900-word) job. It was a suitable warm-up for the day.

I then tackled the larger of the two geology documents due tomorrow. Fortunately, the stress on the geology part was fairly light: most of the document had to do with equipment descriptions at various well sites.

After finishing that document, I started in on the other geology document due tomorrow. After about an hour, I felt myself flagging and went upstairs to take a nap. Successive calls from Drew and Galina convinced me that a nap was not in the cards today. I went downstairs to confront the rest of the document, which now lies on my hard drive, translated.

The bag for the day: 6000+ target words.

The "no work" threshold has moved out to Friday, though there is a short job trying to get my attention and a "non-job" trying to do the same thing.

(When I'm in a more expansive mood - or when it becomes more urgent - I shall explain just what a "non-job" is.)

* * *After decades of hearing the names "John," "Paul," or both in close proximity to the title of Pope, it sounds suddenly strange to think of a "Pope Benedict." (Indeed, consider that the first image to pop into my mind when I heard the name was that of Kenneth Branagh in his role as Signor Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, and... well... heh, heh... there you go!)

* * *Two days ago, I tried to go for a walk and was discouraged by the cold, which merely made me uncomfortable. Yesterday, I tried to go for a walk and was discouraged by the wind, which whipped through hat and jacket like a driven nail, forcing dust into my eyes and breathing passages. Today, the sound of the wind going past the house keeps startling the cat out of its nap and the mountains are all but obscured by dust, so I'm not even going to open the door to go out.

This better not be a trend, or I'm going to have to tie the car down tomorrow.

Cheers...

Dead end...

It occurred to me that having a utility to track CPU temperature would be nifty on my old VAIO (the one with the sluggish fan that jams from time to time), but in attempting to install the software I previously installed on my desktop, it turns out there is no setup for the VAIO's motherboard. This is disappointing, especially since the fan, um, didn't start when the rest of the VAIO did, requiring me to blow forcefully into the exhaust vent to get the impeller moving.

The sucker's noisy once it does start to spin, to boot. (Yeah, that's me: complain, complain, complain...)

Then again, a sluggish fan is not the least of my problems, as there are some keyboard problems on the unit as well (though no show stoppers, as this post demonstrates).

I'm going to have to put on some music and to turn the volume up high when I go to bed in a few minutes, so as to overpower the sound of the wind blowing outside. Earlier, when I tried to let the cat out, it took two steps out the door, hunkered down in the face of the strong wind, and decided an evening spent with yours truly was to be preferred, setting a new agility record coming back inside. I am duly flattered.

My previous observation about paper in Moleskine journals needs amendment. Apparently, either a higher quality of the paper is used in the journal with lined paper (fountain pen ink doesn't bleed as much as it does in the unlined paper journal), or the plain-paper journal I have - and no, it's not the sketchbook, either - just came from a lot of books that were made using inferior paper. I've devoted a large unlined paper Moleskine to be my translation notebook, and with the exception of the ugly bleedthrough, I've found it easy to get used to.

Tomorrow's a busy day. Sales tax returns are due, along with a couple of assignments (and invoices, natch), and I need to call around and track down some client checks that haven't made it to these parts.

G'night.

Cheers...