Questions and notes, en passant...

A health "guru" (Oprah's? I wasn't paying strict attention to just which morning show Galina had on, but I recall Diane Sawyer was eager to sign up to whatever the guy was selling) outlines the "Six Foods to Eliminate From Your Life"

1. Sugared soda


2. Foods containing trans fats


3. Fried food


4. White bread


5. Milk with more than 1% fat


6. High-fat yogurt

Despite the disclaimer that came just before the cutaway to commercial, too many will look at this list as some kind of magic solution to their weight problem. Heck, I'm probably more than halfway there, as I already "do" items 1, 4, and 6 and rarely drink milk (but when I do, it's generally the 2% stuff), but the only way I can claim to be in any sort of shape is to think, "Well, round is a shape, isn't it?"

* * *A note I made to myself after reading some of Jeffrey Gitomer, where he makes a big deal of how important it is, professionally, to be seen in "public" professional venues. The importance of doing presentations at industry conferences is something I've been aware of for just about ever; what's frustrated me in recent years has been the (self-)limited scope of such conferences. My note:

It's okay to make presentations, but just not to members of your own trade association!

Making presentations to other translators is good for your ego, but does nothing to get you new clients. (Of course, getting one's ego stroked isn't necessarily a bad thing, either...)

* * *A note scrawled using a red felt-tipped pen, addressed to my mother:

You are a wonderful teacher. You probably know more French than any other French teacher. We have really enjoyed having you as a teacher. Thank you for all you've done for us. Merci beacoup beaucoup.

Your fond second period class

My mother taught high school French, and this note is from at least a quarter century ago. Sheer eloquence, no?

* * *I may have to buy my own copy of Catch-22, if only to take my time with adjectives such as "infundibuliform" (or "funnel-shaped," used to describe jowls early in Chapter 2).

* * *Manufacturers who insist on providing you with a proprietary USB connection cable make me sick.

* * *I found a set of t'ai chi video podcasts at the iTunes store, for the right price (free), as I need more visual "input" than is afforded by a one-hour-per-week regime.

The good news: they're pretty clear and easy to follow.

The not-so-good news: the movements start to deviate from what I'm being taught about 30 seconds into the flow.

I spent a little time looking at t'ai chi videos on YouTube, but most of the clips I found are oriented toward the martial artist.

I may bring along the video camera next Friday and ask for permission to tape the session, or parts of it.

Cheers...

Change of plans...

Everything was going along so smoothly...

And then I agreed to go with Galina on a there-and-back trip to the Home Depot to return some merchandise, which should have taken about 40 minutes. I figured getting out of the house like that would do me good.

We got back three hours later. Ugh!

So by the time we get back home, I'm figuring there's an email waiting for me, asking where today's "increment" of the OCR Nightmare might be.

There is no such email, nor any such phone message.

I sit down and do a fairly careful job of checking the first 15 pages of the job, typing a whole lot more than I expect to do at this phase of the translation, but that's just the OCR effect. (For example, for some unexplained reason, most of the paragraph numbers just... didn't make it into the file!)

By the time I got that file out the wire, it was pretty late. My plan had been to translate another 14 slides of the PowerPoint presentation due tomorrow and another 2,000 words of the OCR Nightmare, but then I realized that I had horribly overloaded tomorrow by scheduling the last 13 slides and delivery of the PowerPoint job by the end of day, and another slug of the OCR Nightmare (check and edit/add omissions up to at least the halfway point, or close, and translate the last 2,000 words). The last of the OCR Nightmare would then be checked and edited Wednesday.

There are not many ways to slice the cake, but I decided to finish the PowerPoint job tonight (which I did, as of a few minutes ago), leaving me tomorrow and Wednesday to translate 4,000 words and do the edit/check on the OCR Nightmare. I figure I ought to be able to switch between the two tasks in an effort to change pace and keep my mind on my work. One thing is for sure: no excursions tomorrow (and no early morning cleanup, despite the fact that cleanups during the past few days have unearthed a pleasing variety of stuff I've been on the lookout for).

Cheers...