Book Report
Now Playing: Crosby, Stills, & Nash: 'Cathedral'
Topic: Books
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20:07 Tuesday, 15 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


I've had this conversation with Toys'r'us over the past few weeks through e-mail. (For the record, WordPro told me my 'book report' was only 357 words.)


>>>>>> 30. What books are you reading:
>>>>>
>>>>> The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language
>>>>
>>>> Sounds nifty - is it?
>>>
>>> Yes ? I love it. I'm interested in almost everything, but linguistics more than others. So I
>>> suppose any linguistics book would seem awesome to me. If you're interested, try Bill
>>> Bryson's Mother Tongue. It's both very informative and very funny.
>>
>> How come you didn't major in linguistics or something like that? That would've been fun.
>> My brother gave me one of his old school books on language. I packed it away though, so I
>> don't remember what it's called. What do they tell you about? Where language came from?
>> Or etymology and stuff like that?
>
> I've thought about majoring in linguistics. The problem is, I'm interested in *everything.*
> Like, there are a hundred different subjects I could major in, I just don't know which one I
> actually want.
>
> Well, Babel is about the origins of language (from as far as we can deduce) and
> following its changes through human history into the million, seemingly distinct languages of
> today. The premise is that if one follows the paleontologic theories of the spread of humans on
> the planet (that the species evolved or appeared in one place and spread from there), then it
> means there most likely was one original language in that original small group, and as they
> spread apart, the language changed dramatically. I'm only in the second or third chapter, but
> it's talking a lot about how much language changes in a relatively short period of time using
> Latin's transformation into French as a well-known example, and comparing Old English
> (Beowulf) with the modern Englishes. The types of change that these languages experience are
> the same types of changes for every language, but taking it over huge periods of time and
> especially with isolation, the differences can be dramatic.
> Mother Tongue is more about humorously comparing American English and British
> English, as well as giving etymologies of curious words in our two languages and also clearing
> up some common misconceptions. For instance, a curious etymology I learned from this book
> is that the English word 'asparagus' is just a muddling (in a very British way) of 'sparrow
> grass.' And one of the misconceptions is 'catercorner' which people never seem to know how
> to say, and commonly use 'kitty-corner' or 'catty-corner' and things like that. But 'cater' is an
> obsolete English word for 'four' and basically meant that two objects were in the opposing of
> the four corners of a square.
> Ironically, Mother Tongue spent a good bit of time making fun of people for using
> language incorrectly, like pointing out 'kitty-corner.' Babel says there is no right and
> wrong in language, because language is constantly changing, and once an error becomes
> common enough, it is assimilated into the next generation's 'correct' language. So French is
> really just incorrect Latin.
> Between the two books, I'd recommend Mother Tongue as a humorous introduction to
> linguistics, and then if you're inspired and interested in going farther, Babel is a good
> one.
>
> Was my book report 500 words? Do I pass?

Yup, you pass ? sold me on both. :)


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Valentine's date
Now Playing: Dream Theatre
Topic: Personal
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18:25 Tuesday, 15 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


I can now say Happy Valentine's Day. It was a decent one for me. I got stuff done during the morning, played with Precocious and Gumby during the afternoon, and went out with my sister in the evening. :) BigBrain was away for the weekend or something, so he and JollyGreen went for dinner the previous Friday. They always meet their friends out on Monday nights, and I sometimes go, so JollyGreen said I should come with her this week since she wasn't expecting anyone else to show up this week besides Deere. So it was great: JollyGreen and Deere have been friends since nursery school, and I've been friends with him through that relationship for almost as long. Deere is one of the few guys that I get along with well. I think it's because he doesn't put on any sort of front; if he says something, you know he thinks it's the truth because he has no reason to lie. He doesn't do anything to draw attention to himself, yet he doesn't hide in the corner. He's real. He doesn't try to be anything that he isn't. There are very few people in the world like this. He just likes to hang out and have a good time.
Anyway, I enjoy talking with Deere, but whenever I see him it's in a social setting with the rest of JollyGreen's friends, where I never fully feel comfortable. This whole group has been friends since high school and before, so they were all the little freshmen when I graduated, and I guess I just never got over that, even though it's been nine years. So last night was cool because I could hang out with JollyGreen and Deere and not feel uncomfortable, because no-one else was there. It was great. :)


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Happy Winter!
Now Playing: Pink Floyd: Obscured by Clouds
Topic: Travel
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00:00 Tuesday, 15 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


I'm setting this to post in the future so no-one reads it before getting the letter I'm sending it in.



Monday, 31 January, 2005

Happy Winter!

I'm a month or two late for Christmas cards, but it's a miracle I got them out at all. I'm a trained procrastinator, and this is the first year I've successfully sent cards out. Every year I buy some, and then I never manage to do anything with them. So I had several years' worth of different cards to choose from here.
2004 had me starting out at my parents' house in Endwell, NY, working as a server at a Denny's restaurant. I worked late-night, meaning my shift was typically from 10pm until 6am, with some variation therein. This made for some odd sleeping schedules, but it was good money, and I loved being up at sunrise every morning. I spent a lot of time hiking when I wasn't working, and also planning for the summer. I was heading to Skagway, Alaska, on the recommendation of a friend I'd made on my way to Denali, AK, in 2002.
I started out my drive north by going south with my family to go to my brother's house-mate's wedding in Boone, NC. Soccer's been Hawk's best friend all his life, and has been a friend of the family, so we all wanted to go down for it, and decided to make a bigger trip out of it. So, after the wedding (which was beautiful), Mom, Dad, Hawk, JollyGreen, and I went to visit the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, NC. We then drove through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park and went to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN. From there we split paths, and I returned to the Smokies to back-pack a few days with my friend, Gypsy, who was down from CT job-hunting. I then drove up to Chicago to visit my friend and once-upon-a-time babysitter, Ribbit. There I picked up EagerBeaver, a good friend from home, to make the rest of the drive to Alaska with me. We toured the Loess Hills in Iowa, Badlands NP and the Black Hills NF in South Dakota, Devil's Tower and Yellowstone NP in Wyoming, climbed over the Rockies in Montana and the Idaho pan-handle, crossed Washington state to Seattle, and headed up through the Coast Mountains of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory to get to Skagway, AK. From there EagerBeaver had to fly back home to get ready for her mission trip in Santiago, Chile, and I started work as a kayak guide for the cruise-boat tourists.
It was an incredibly beautiful summer, and I loved working outside and with people. The job presented its own challenges, of course, as these were grown men and women who were not used to physical activity and had never done anything remotely like kayaking before, but it was immensely rewarding getting to expose these people to a pristine, alpine-tundra environment, something they'd never experienced before. We paddled around on a glacial lake in a high, mountain valley on the Canadian border, and I told them about the geology and nature around them, and about the Klondike gold rush that had stamped through that same valley from 1897 to 1900. When not working, I spent a lot of time hiking and hanging out with the friends I made at the church in town.
When all the businesses shut down for the season, I headed for my cousin's wedding in New Orleans, by a somewhat indirect route. I drove back down through the Yukon and British Columbia to Seattle, WA, and Portland, OR, and then to the coast, which I followed along Oregon and California to San Diego. From there I dipped briefly into Mexico before cutting across the bottoms of Arizona and New Mexico to drive straight across Texas to Louisiana. It was great seeing the whole family at the wedding, which was elaborately gorgeous. From New Orleans I headed north to visit a friend in Charlotte, NC, and stopped at the New River Gorge in West Virginia on my way to Grove City, PA (where I'd gone to college). There I stayed with Dawg & Mulderenvy a few days before finally making it home to my parents' house.
I decided to stay home for the holidays, and got a job working for UPS helping deliver packages during their busy season. It was a lot of fun, and I certainly wouldn't mind doing it again. However, their busy-ness was done by the end of December, which is an awkward time to find a seasonal job. So I searched around and applied everywhere, and was offered a serving position at the restaurant in Bullfrog Marina on Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in south-east Utah. Lake Powell is the reservoir formed by the Glen Canyon Dam, just up-stream from the Grand Canyon. It will be hot, dry, beautiful country. I start my drive out there around the 18th of February, and I'll probably be there until October or so.
I wrote more extensively about all of these trips and e-mailed them to people as I went, but if you didn't get them, I have them all up on my web-site now. It's one of those on-line journals, so there's all sorts of other interesting stuff to read there. The trip was from May through October, so that's where there are travels to read about. You can also scroll down to 2002 where I wrote a lot about traveling in China, if you never got to hear those stories. I also have lots of pictures on-line, and you can e-mail me so I can give you access to them.

Anyway, I hope this finds you well, and here's to a peaceful 2005.




Fidget
www.AngelFire.com/comics/fidget




In writing this letter, I had to cut some stuff out, but you can read it here:


It was an incredibly beautiful summer, and I loved working outside and with people. The job presented its own challenges, of course, as these were grown (and in many cases, over-grown) men and women who were not used to physical activity and had never done anything remotely like kayaking before, so they were a little scared of drowning and a little frustrated at their lack of coordination, and then had to listen to 'kids' half their age giving them advice. It was immensely rewarding getting to expose these people to a pristine, alpine-tundra environment, something they'd never experienced before, but some people never even noticed it because they were too busy trying to keep up with the group and not knowing how to deal with their own incapabilities. If the passengers would just allow themselves to admit that they were slower than others, we'd split the group and give them a personal tour at their own pace, allowing them the same amount of time to learn about and experience the nature around them but requiring a shorter distance for them to paddle, but many were too caught up in making it a competition and being determined not to be seen (by these people who don't even know them) as the slowest in the group.


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TV Night
Now Playing: IBM: 'the hum of the computer'
Topic: Television
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01:05 Monday, 14 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


Happy Valentine's Day! ?Guess I should save that for tonight. Well, anyway. I had fun with the kids tonight. Dinner was yummy, and then PaperBoy and Finch went to fellowship. Precocious just watched his shows all evening, but Gumby and I watched the Sumo Veggie Tales and then played the games that came on the DVD. I didn't particularly like the Sumo story, but I loved the St. Patrick story and the silent movie. I played a lot of Backgammon on my cell-phone through all this. Keeps my mind occupied, since most activities don't fully. Mom and Dad came home shortly before the kids left, and JollyGreen, as well. This meant she played Civ all evening, so I was stuck downstairs. So I watched the Dave I'd started while waiting for the kids to show up, then watched the Craig that came after it, and then had had enough of TV. So I got Babel and read for a while until Mom and Dad came back again from playing bridge. I wanted to watch NUMB3RS with them, which I love and am going to miss once I leave. They had gotten Nirchi's for dinner, so I wanted some while it was still fresh. So I watched more Dave while eating, as is my custom. Billy Crystal was on; he's a really great comedian. He's like one of the amazing standards of American comedy. He's like with Richard Pryor and Robin Williams and Bill Cosby. Just fantastic. Anyway, that was cool, and the second guest was this carpenter who'd accidentally shot himself in the head with a nail gun and not realized he had a nail through his skull for six days. Amazing story. The gun had recoiled and knocked him in the face, and he presumed it was the *back* of the gun that had hit him, and the blood in his mouth was just because his teeth had cut through his lips on impact. He saw a dentist ? who said his teeth were all intact and he was fine ? and an eye doctor ? who said the black spot he was seeing was due to concussion ? and went home with ice to try to feel better. A week later when he was still swollen and in pain, he went to the hospital, where they found he had actually shot one of those long nails through his head by way of the gap between his upper lip and his teeth. The nail went through his sinus and was resting against his optical nerves, causing the black spot. They removed it, and he's fine. Truly amazing. He's lucky to have his vision, and he's lucky to be alive.
Anyway, now it's late, so I need to go to bed. I just got an e-mail that EMS will be at 50% off everything starting tomorrow, which is fantastic since I was already planning on going tomorrow for myself, and PaperBoy just asked me to look for a winter jacket for him if I happened to be going any time soon. So it went from one reason to go (for me) to three reasons to go, within a few hours. How great is that? Anyway, sleep. :)


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...an accomplishing mood...
Now Playing: Crosby, Stills, & Nash: 'Almost Cut My Hair'
Topic: Personal
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23:39 Wednesday, 09 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


This is pathetic. I'm basically just waiting for tomorrow to come. I've got a nice list of things I want to do before I leave in two weeks, but I don't want to *start* any of them at this time of night. So, I should go have a snack. But I get bored while snacking, so I watch a little TV. But I can't stand commercials, so I have to watch something on the DVR. But I can't use the TV with the DVR because my parents are using it. So I have to wait until my parents go to bed (which could be any time in the next hour) before I can have a snack. So I need something to do in the mean-time, but since it could really only be five minutes of waiting, it's not worth starting a project. So, instead, I? uh? don't know what to do with myself. I've tinkered with most everything I can think of on the computer. I've read some of Helena's journal. But I'm way behind on her journal, so don't really see too much of a point to reading more since I won't catch up before I leave. I mean, it's always fun to read, even if I'm not 'accomplishing' something, but I think I'm in too much of an accomplishing mood right now. Maybe that's the problem. Tomorrow morning I will have a ton of time to get all sorts of things done, and I'm excited about that. I love getting things done. I'm just really picky about having the right conditions to do them in.


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