Evolution of a term search...

The term is КРИС, from a very short translation having to do with public health and HIV/AIDS.

"КРИС" is a very bad term to search for by itself, because it returns about a gazillion hits having to do with the name "Chris," so we go back to the source document and search for the following, which is excerpted from a list of computer-related items in a sentence:

"эпидемиологическая база данных, КРИС"

Joy. The first hit is a Word file at a site called www.capacityproject.info. I view the file as HTML and snag a fairly large list of possible useful acronyms, among which is:

КРИС Информационная система реагирования страны на эпидемию ВИЧ/СПИДа

Hmmm. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't like acronyms that expand into words that only generally resemble the letters in the acronym. Информационная система might work for ИС, but the rest doesn't make sense, so I roll the dice one more time, searching for:

"Информационная система реагирования страны на эпидемию"

The third item in the list of hits is a PDF from the WHO, an outfit which likely knows a thing or two about HIV/AIDS. The excerpt shown on my screen is:

Комплексная региональная информационная сеть ООН (КРИС)

Just to calm my nerves, I search for the literal back-translation:

UN "Integrated Regional Information Network"

Google reports over 100,000 hits. My blood lust is satisfied.

After all that, there's only room to include "IRIN" in the translation. And so it goes.

Cheers...

Wind and rain...

Based on what I hear out there, it's pretty nasty, though frankly, I have no great desire to look out the window to confirm one way or another (not that it would do much good, as we really don't light up the night around here).

Galina was feeling a bit of cabin fever today, so we drove over to Astoria, over to where there's supposed to be a Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which is one of Galina's favorite places to browse in Houston. I was up for the trip as my grandmother used to live in Astoria, and I have many pleasant memories of spending the weekend at my grandmother's apartment as a child.

Then, as now, the neighborhood was an interesting mix of ethnic groups, and as we crossed under the elevated subway that runs along 31st Street, I felt something, but whatever the feeling was, it fled before I could pin it down and analyze it. Perhaps it was the long-dormant anticipation of running up the two flights of stairs to my grandmother's apartment? I don't know. I do know my attention was shifted to the here-and-now by a discreetly lettered, bilingual sign reading "Men's Entrance" on a door to the Astoria Muslim Center.

In any event, what was represented on the Web as a Habitat for Humanity enterprise was down the street from a couple of other charitable outfits, Goodwill among them, but the name of the organization was not evident on the building. On the way back home, we stopped at a Burger King on Astoria Boulevard around 90th Street for the kind of snack that made me think of Nietzsche's crack about what does not kill me making me stronger. I may not be stronger, but I am smarter, at least as concerns places to eat in Queens.

I've finished the 6500-word job for a review tomorrow morning, as well as a very short translation on public health, which has been sent. The state of the plate is, but for tomorrow's review, empty.

Cheers...