Busy!

I am currently busier than a one-armed, one-legged paperhanger engaged in a butt-kicking contest to see who gets to bail the water out of a submerged submarine equipped with the screen door.

(If that makes no sense, well... it was a nice try in the heat of battle!)

I need to finish 6,000 words today!

But I also feel a need to (briefly) rant about (and critique the ancestry of) compilers of documents whose lists of abbreviations nail only stuff like "UN = United Nations" but give no clue for arcane items like "EUGRDS" (I made that up) and force the reader - and in this case, the poor translator - to jump through hoops to gain understanding of what is meant.

Blyech!

We now return to our translation.

Cheers...

A synapse fires...

...and a strange recollection-connection occurs.

There's a marvelous line in one of the routines in George Carlin's Class Clown album - I think it was the one on heaven, hell, purgatory, and limbo - where Carlin, assuming one of his many voices, says, "Hey, I can do an eon standing on my head!" He was, if memory serves, speaking of purgatory at that point of the routine, describing it as a kind of "temporary hell," where one spent some number of eons in expiation of earthly sins.

Relatively recently, as I tackle more and more translations - and especially short translations - when I get down below 1000 words remaining in a translation, I've begun to think that I'm home free.

And thus, as I start the last 1000 words of the item that I must complete today, it just popped into mind - reminding me of Carlin - that, "Hey, I can do 1000 words standing on my head!

(That is, if I knew how to stand on my head!)

I now return to my less-than-1000 words.

Cheers...

Do a little dance!

I've completed the first pass through the job for Monday, so now I can take a moment to gather my thoughts about the upcoming week, which starts tomorrow.

Of course, every upcoming week starts tomorrow (even the ones that start on Thursday), but that's besides the point, and apparently, I'm having trouble controlling my silly streak.

In any event, tomorrow, I am to hie myself up to a location past Bush International to kick off a week-long interpretation assignment. Tomorrow's work will be fairly straightforward, involving coming pretty much straight back to the Clear Lake area for a visit to either JSC or Space Center Houston (the former is a pretty staid place to visit on weekdays, whereas the latter is designed to be interactive and... cool!).

The document for Monday has a number of figures that must be processed, so I suppose I should do that before hitting the sack tonight. Despite the fact that tomorrow's meeting starts relatively late in the day, I'm still going to have to get up with the farm animals to get there on time. (There are some farm animals, actually, in the field "behind" our corner of the development... cows... though frankly, I don't recall them getting up very early, but I digress...)

Okay. So, there are something like 16 figures in the document, most of which will require some kind of work. I should get down to it and try to finish by 9 pm so I can relax for an hour or so before hitting the sack.

Cheers...