Heat source...

The room in which my computer now sits used to be one of the coldest in the house (with the heaters off). Now, after 6 hours of burning electricity for my desktop, it's downright toasty in there!

My plate runneth over! As I typed the above, I got a call informing me that there are two dozen hazard reports sitting in my inbox for translation. Yikes!

Cheers...

A typical revision conundrum...

Actually, this is a pretty straightforward case:

A new Russian version of document X arrives with changes to the version of February 2000. I open the most recent English version of document X and note that its version (September 2004) is already a revision of the February 2000 text. One consequence of this is that the section 6 added in the newly arrived Russian document doesn't work with the section 6 that was added to the September 2004 document (ideally the new section ought to be numbered 7).

The $64 question: In the absence of an ability to ask the person requesting the translation for guidance and under deadline pressure, what to do?

Answer: (1) Make the English match the Russian. (2) Inform the requestor of the problem.

The only fly in the ointment is the extra work involved in reproducing the revision marks in the translation. (Having keyboard-activated macros to turn revisions on and off is a life-saver here!)

Cheers...

UPDATE: WAIT! I can save a lot of that work by rejecting all the changes in the English version, no? Yes!!

Can't... feel... fingers...

I responded to a call to spell someone for an hour at the store at around 3 pm and ended up staying until closing (3 hours), which put a cramp in my style as far as translation is concerned. As there is nothing in the house to eat that can be prepared within a reasonable time (there's probably enough "raw" food - beans, rice, etc. - to feed a Chinese army division, if you cook it all and do it right, but I digress...), Galina and I decided to go out to eat.

That's a tough call in a burg like Pagosa. This ain't your Taos, with fancy eateries on 16-inch centers. We finally settled on dinner at "JJ's," which is at the other end of town and near the top of the list as far as "posh" is concerned. If you sit quietly at your table, you can hear overly aggressive types speak loudly of things such as "investments" and "positions." Galina and I split a large order of ribs, and when they came out of the kitchen almost immediately, I should have realized it was because they'd been sitting there for a long time, waiting for a sucker customer to order them. Next time, I shall listen to my inner carnivore and order the prime rib, which looked MAH-veh-lus!

Anyway, I am back in front of the screen again, and either in bad shape, deadline-wise, or not, depending on whether I'm going to New York or not. Although I tell myself that I am going to to sleep on it tonight, I think I am nearly certain to go, which means I'm behind in my work, unless there is a very pleasant surprise lurking somewhere in the pile of 20+ documents that await my attention.

This brings to mind a post on the Lifehacker site, one of my recent daily favorites. The post uses the example of the Amazing Race reality show to hammer home the point that taking a few minutes to think instead of reacting is a Good Idea™, and closes with the advice that "it’s vital in life, in business and in the Amazing Race to build thinking time into your schedule. React without thinking costs you in ways you don’t see."

So before I do any serious keytapping tomorrow, I should probably figure out just what kind of workload I'm facing and make appropriate adjustments. I'm too fried and tired right now to attempt it.

Cheers...

Hey, 'it'! You're a night!...

The subject line is a weak attempt at humor. Would that I thought it was funny.

I managed to subdue translate 1300 of the 3760 source words of the document for the new client, which is 300 more than I planned, but I think I took much longer to do the first 1000 words than the 90 minutes I, um, "guesstimated" it would take. The text is not difficult, and although it is technical, it's not giving me any trouble (though I am taking the time to make sure my words read particularly well). Moreover, if I repeat tonight's feat both tomorrow and Saturday - albeit a bit faster - I'll have all sorts of time on Sunday to check my work.

À demain, mes amis!

Cheers...