alexpgp | Mind's agog...

Galina went to Farmington, New Mexico to pick up drinks for the store, and I stayed pretty much at home for most of the day after noon, doing the Edit Job From Hades.

It's a collection of process sheets (operations sheets) to make machine parts, and besides the fact that the formatting of the pages is mind-numbing, it also doesn't help that most process activities (milling, metalwork, drilling, etc.) involves operations and equipment whose names can be equally well translated in at least a half dozen ways.

Yech.

On a related note, Galina finally found the package sent to me from the ATA regarding grading of accreditation tests (my name was put forward as a possible candidate). I took a quick look at the contents today, and it's not something that can be addressed in an off-hand manner, especially since it was Bill Keasbey who, apparently, suggested me for inclusion among those who grade the ATA exams.

Bill was an acquaintance through the ATA, which basically meant we'd meet once a year or so, whenever the both of us happened to be at an ATA conference. My last clear recollection of him was the way he took to the dance floor (at the age of 72 or so) during the Slavic Language Division's dinner in Los Angeles a couple of years ago. It was watching him dance that caused me to seriously consider taking dance lessons (and Galina and I did, for a short time, but I digress...).

As you may have surmised from the way I'm talking about Bill, he's no longer with us. He died in late August, in Oregon, after collapsing while playing tennis. In reading his online obituary today, I learned that he was a retired Foreign Service officer, a fan of the outdoors, a singer, and also a chess player. For someone who wasn't a real close acquaintance of the man, I find myself missing him.

There's probably a lesson in there, somewhere.

Time to put it up for the evening, I guess, and think about something other than work.

Cheers...