Just yesterday I discovered a new-to-me learning website called Memrise (www.memrise.com). I’m enjoying it hugely! Lots of interesting language courses; seems to be slightly better curated than Quizlet; and has quite a pleasant mobile app as well.
So today I’m sitting on the front porch of our hosts’ house, learning even more Russian vocab and listening to the birds sing. It’s not such a bad life some days 🙂
My first day’s work on Memrise.com 🙂
We’ve had a great visit to Nashville – some good friends, good conversation, and most importantly a DAY OFF where we weren’t expected to speak at all. Â And a couple of delightful dogs, one of whom is paralyzed in his hind legs and hasn’t slowed down one bit as a result. Well, ok, he’s not moving too quickly in the picture, but that’s because he’s a dog and why should he move?
Now to drive to… hm. Somewhere 6 hrs east of here. I’m very familiar with this run. Uuuuuuuuup the hill… dooooooooown the hill. Uuuuuuuup the hill… dooooooooown the hill. Yay for turbo diesel!
Little Dude!
I tend to work on a bunch of projects & problems simultaneously over the course of months or years, letting my subconscious churn away at things, coming up with new ideas gradually, researching things piecemeal. This means that sometimes I forget I was working on something, and don’t realize that I’ve found the solution to the problem when I’ve found it.
I was working on making the e-reader experience more pleasant for myself – poorly formatted ebooks drive me around the bend – and I just realized that I now have all the tools & knowledge assembled to do what I want to do with ebooks.Â
Now I have to remember just what it was that I wanted to do… I think it had to do with fixing spelling errors, chapter divisions, and unnecessary hyphenation. I’m sure if I can just make a list of the things I wanted to knock off, I can script them all in a few minutes…
Today is pretty special. It’s the real first porch day of the year – my porch, at home; cup of coffee, stack of books, laptop. Can’t complain about the view either!
The view from my office!
I think I’ve worked out that my happiness and productivity are inversely proportional to the amount of the day I spend on Facebook.  For some reason I don’t find Google+ to be anywhere near as offensive. I don’t post there every day – but then, I don’t post anywhere every day if I can help it! But if you’d like to visit me there, I’m at plus.google.com/u/0/106593738960040105066. And with that, I’m going to auto-post this to Facebook 🙂
I have three days off in a row in Seattle, one of my favourite towns. This is great for two reasons:
One, I get to pillage Seattle’s used bookstores, and also visit Dusty Strings to see if they have that Pierre Bensusan book I’ve been looking for since last time I was here, and
Two, I get to nurse my right hand back to health.
The other day I pulled a tendon in my right hand wrestling a bear fighting off pirates rescuing the princess opening a door, and it’s been painful to do any fingerpicking since. So I’m hoping that a bit of time off will fix it up. Now I just have to convince myself not to play guitar for three days… easier said than done!
Today in the car I tried to listen to “Freak Out” by Frank Zappa and the Mothers. I try this every six months ago. Just long enough to forget how completely unlistenable it is…
Had to take a business call today. At the end of the conversation I had to tell the person that I wasn’t going to be able to follow up immediately, on account of being at the top of a small but significant mountain. In many industries that would have been greeted with derision or disbelief. I kinda like my industry some days.
Dear older gentleman heading into the room next to ours at the Motel 6 with a small valise and a large bottle of Clorox… obviously you knew this place better than we did when you checked in. Hats off to you, sir.
Heather was doing a Skype interview so I was banished outside. So I wrote this post from my phone! How awesome is that?
Of course I have nothing to say, but that’s the internet for you…
