I’m importing a bunch of old entries, and there’s a fair amount of manual work involved, so things will be kind of out of sequence around here for a little while. Bear with me.
Update: Done with 2001. Intervening years to follow as time allows.
Archive for August, 2006
Out of Order
Bad strings
The ability to pile up qualifiers in front of a noun is a powerful feature of English and one of its worst weaknesses. We tend to overuse it in general English, and even more in technical English.
Think of the noun “artifact.” Where I work, we frequently add a couple of qualifiers to it, such as [...]
Bad words
I get to read a lot of technical documentation, both at work and at home. I enjoy it, mostly. (That’s just the kind of geek I am.) The standards are still pretty low out there, but it’s getting better.
I have found this rule useful: whenever I come to the word “simply” (or equivalents, such as [...]
More pics
On Thursday we took an easy (for some people, maybe, not for me) two-mile hike from Emerald Bay up to Eagle Lake. Here’s that, plus the remainder of the pics I came home with.
(Click the picture to see the rest of them.)
Vertical stroll
Laura loved that long hike. I’m told there was no whining the whole day, even though much of the walking was straight up or straight down. There was a gorgeous lake at the end of the trail. She and the rest of the kids were so wiped out afterwards, they didn’t even have the strength [...]
Stretching out the summer
We are up in the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe for the week, staying in a big house we rented with three other families we know from preschool. I have pictures, but I sent my camera out with Laura this morning on an all-day hike, so the pics will come later. One of the dads [...]
We have a lot of shampoo too.
Craig Murray – Hitting a nerve
“I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce – as they have whispered to the media in this case – that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, [...]
Banjo hangout
Oh, for my birthday I got a very nice gig bag to make it easier to carry my banjo around. Maybe one or two times a week I sneak out of the office with the banjo and a lawn chair and I sit on the grass by the little marina nearby and practice my breaks. [...]
Snipe
With all the nice calls and emails from my sisters and brother on my birthday, you would never guess how fiercely we fought when we were growing up. I like how easily we can talk to each other now, more like old friends than like people whose top preoccupation for ten or 15 years was [...]
The forgiving season
Mary has been away at one of those professional training things since Friday (the 11th) and it’s not going so badly here, considering. Lilly got a little querulous a couple of times in the first 48 hours, but seems to believe me when I tell her Mom’s return is closer and closer. I think [...]
Carousel
Here’s a fine picture of Laura and Lilly taken by Mary. She has this knack for getting pretty pictures from unusual natural lighting.
Horsies
First day of horse camp for Laura. This is the high point of her summer. She’s extra-motivated to bump her skills up a level or two, because we’re going to Tahoe next week and there’s likely to be lots of trail riding going on.