travel prep

Ruth and Sara go for an early morning paddle at the cottage.


Getting ready for our Vienna trip. I'm somewhat anal when it comes to packing for trips, and tend to start days in advance. The main reason is because if I have to pack in a hurry, I'll inevitably forget something important, or I'll overpack. Plus for me, part of the enjoyment of a trip is the anticipation, and part of that is the trip prep.

What about the rest of you? Are you anal like me (and do you make lists) or do you prefer tossing everything in a bag at the last minute?

I'm taking my laptop and will try to get online once or twice via MaGlobe, which has a couple of Vienna access numbers, but I'm not going to stress out if I can't. I'm mainly taking my laptop for dumping digital photos and in hopes of doing a bit of writing.




Sara's story in Sunday's paper (click for bigger image).


I'm still FAR from fluent in German, but I'm hoping to communicate a tad more effectively in Vienna than I did during our last visit. Listening to my language audio lessons, I'm thrilled (probably more thrilled than I really should be) to find that I'm actually understanding the basic gist of some conversations I had no clue about before. Yay! Now if only I could convince everyone in Vienna to slow down their speech about a zillion times.

"Könnten Sie bitte langsamer sprechen?"...

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miss lonelynotes

Jeff is served dinner in a Kyoto ryokan during our Japan trip
a few years ago.


For those interested, I've uploaded a few of my favourite Japan trip photos to my Flickr Photo Album. I've also uploaded some favourite photos viewable to those on my friends/family list. You can always find a link to my photo album in the text navigation bar to the left, by the way, under "Photos."

I'm also enjoying experimenting with Miss Lonelynotes, a just-released project outlining tool for writers, from Mindola Software. For a first release, it's not bad, and I've been e-mailing back and forth with the company with suggestions/feedback. I find most outlining software tools a little bit over-the-top for my tastes. I like the simplicity and elegance of Miss Lonelynotes. Looking forward to the next release, which is supposed to include a character development feature and get rid of some of the small bugs. I'll be posting a more detailed review in Inkygirl.

To you filkers out there: I've added two new questions to the Dandelion Report FilkFAQ, if you'd like to take a look:

What makes a good Filk Guest of Honor?
How does a good concom work with a guest?

The new version of Movable Type makes administration of this sort of thing pretty easy now. Whenever I post to the FilkFAQ page, for example, it automatically triggers a rebuild in the the main Dandelion Report page (see left column of that page). I haven't experimented with dynamic pages yet, but plan to.

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google, japanese pesos and outdoor showers

Three years ago, I posted a Blathering with the picture above with the subject header "Japanese peso?". My page was obviously picked up by search engines because over the next few years, I received at least two dozen e-mail messages from people offering or asking for information about the Japanese peso.

I finally got around to updating the original Blathering with the new information, but can't help but think of all the other Blatherings I've posted over the years on various topics, all being picked up by search engines. As a direct result of my Blatherings, I have sold articles and photographs, been interviewed by a newspaper reporter about my interest in the Iron Chef, hired to draw cartoons, design Web pages. FYI, according to my stats, popular search referrers include: "livejournal user pics", "inkspot", "lord of the rings cartoons", "bubble tea", "turning 40", "chocolate bars", "asian eyes", "young writers", "japanese peso", "waiting for frodo", and "outdoor shower" (!!). I just don't get it.

Helps hammer home the message that pretty much ANYTHING you put online is likely to be picked up by a search engine, even if it's password-protected. See this article, "Don't Expect Privacy on the Web".

Speaking of search engines...

Interesting to see what's happening in Googleland recently, from the extra invites being offered to Gmail users recently to the rumours that Google's developing an instant messaging initiative. Google is also apparently blocking third-party Gmail notifiers, causing some controversy.

I'm pretty happy with Gmail so far. I have some minor quibbles, but overall I like it, especially the threading and keyboard shortcuts. I've already made my Gmail account my public e-mail in my personal homepage, Market Watch column, newsgroup posting address. It seems to reliably filter spam messages.

I'm sticking with my regular e-mail address for vital and ongoing e-mail correspondences, but am sending copies to my Gmail address for archiving.

Related links:

GmailWatch

Will Gmail change the way email marketing is done?

Google may be building IM product

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shadowtalk

Saw the doctor about the shadow in my periphery vision this afternoon, and it looks like it's going to be permanent. He says it's probably the result of my subclinical detached retina, which I was surprised to discover is still present...just sealed around the edges with a laser to keep it from spreading. He's not sure why I didn't see the shadow before.

As long as the blind spot doesn't spread, I'm sure I'll eventually tune it out; it's barely noticeable under most conditions. I asked the doctor about any special post-operative care, or anything I can do in the future to minimize the chances of making things worse. He told me not to get hit in the head. :-)

He also told me I was pretty lucky to have had this condition caught and treated so early. I agreed.

I also felt lucky about having the advantage of today's technology. From Scott Snyder's posting in Blatherchat: "Many years ago (20?) my Mother had detached retinas in both eyes. It was a much more difficult operation then... while they still used a laser, it took longer than an hour, and they still had to use some traditional surgery methods along with the laser part. Technology has come a LONG way. My mom recently went in to have her retinas patched up - apparently after 20 years you need a tune up - and said she was amazed at how simple the procedure had become."

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Ein Fall fur Barbie und Susan

Well, ugh. I left a message for the eye doctor guy about a slight shadow I've been noticing now in my periphery since the surgery, and he wants me to come back to the hospital tomorrow so he can have a look. More poking and prodding, oh joy. Eye's still pretty sore. Yesterday I found it difficult to read or even to watch tv by the evening, so I ended up lying in the dark listening to an audio novel from Audible.com.

Had lunch downtown with Allison today, which was fun (lots of catching up), and then we went browsing at Chapters. I bought Orson Scott Card's Shadow Puppets. My favourite OSC book is still Ender's Game, which I reread at least once a year.

Today's picture is one of my purchases at Rust Belt Books in Buffalo. Translation: "A Case For Barbie and Susan". Carolyn Keene is the pen name for the author of the Nancy Drew series. I wonder if Barbie's hair described "titian" like Nancy's, assuming she's the girl on the right? I do so hope that Ms. Keene didn't choose to name her blonde character Barbie.

I also now have a wonderful Rainer Maria Rilke collection of poetry (thank you, Rand!) in which each poem is presented in both German AND English, translations by Robert Bly. Not only will I have fun studying the German, but it will be interesting to see how Bly translates it into English.

I'm trying to learn the German verb dative case right now, and I think my brain is going to explode.

I wonder if laser surgery can fix that as well.

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