9:16 p.m. - 2003-01-23
Ups and Downs
It was a "weather" day here today. The forecast high was for either 0 C/32 F or -21 C/-10 F. The whether was where the chinook arch - strong southwesterly flow usually from California, but at times from Hawaii that's fondly known as the pineapple express - would settle for the day. In the arch - warm weather; out of the arch - well you know. So whither our weather? West, just outside Calgary, is the Bow Forest. At 11 am the temperature was -21 C; at 12 pm it was -1 C. In Calgary we saw the warm air - it was suspended a thousand feet above the buildings downtown, identifiable by watching the exhaust from the buildings rise straight up to a certain level and then veer off at 90 degrees to the plume. So several hundred feet above Calgary -1 C; at street level -21 C. Forecast to remain the same for the next week.
One thing I forgot yesterday was NOT to wear my contact lenses until arriving at my destination. I have been wearing them since my teens when I purchased a pair with my baby-sitting money, because I hated wearing glasses in cold weather. Glasses either frost up - outside - or steam up - inside - during icy days. Besides that, each of my guys thought glasses were for breaking when they were toddlers, and finally, my eyes change from hazel to green, which my guys think is way cool - nice that they're so easily entertained. Anyway, with contacts you can see clearly in cold weather up until about -20 C, then there is a risk that the frigid weather and the moisture in your eyes can cause damage to the eye tissue under the contact. Felt like I had gravel in my eyes when I woke up this morning - no such thing as a gentle reminder.
I'm going to have to do something about the coat I wore yesterday too. Miss Kitty got right excited when she encountered it hanging on the dining room chair. One of my sisters was done with it so she gave it to me. My sister has two dogs. Apparently, Miss Kitty didn't like the scent of one of them. She crouched into attack position, hissed, and circled a couple of times; when she knew it wasn't looking, she leapt about four feet in the air front paws and talons - excuse me claws - fully extended and raked them down the length of the coat. Repeated the exercise twice before I caught her and explained that shredding my winter wear would earn her time in the "Bad Kitty" box. To show her diapproval of my comments, she jumped up on the planter in the living room - again about 4 feet straight up - and dug out a couple of my african violets. After all she was just trying to protect me - yeah right.
Had to go cross town yesterday to address yet another mess up with my application for employment insurance. Now remember, I filed this application two months ago. I was told that Elections Canada had to provide a Record of Employment before it could be processed. I called them on December 9 - they finally got around to issuing it on December 31, after another call, even though legislation dictates that it be sent no later than 14 days after a request. I called a week ago to see if EI had processed the file and was told it was in the works. Called yesterday - 2 months without any income is just a bit of a stretch - to see what was happening. Response - "Well we have to have two other forms from you as well - we've had a note on your file since December to keep it on hold until we receive them". !"Why didn't you tell me?" "Well it's not our responsibility to chase you down" !"Well how am I supposed to know to submit something when I've never been told of the requirement" "That's not our problem, but you must have them in the office by the end of today if at all possible". Well let's see - I've only called to report and respond to their queries about 8 times in the past two months with never a mention of this requirement, but Okay Fine! I called my Dad and asked if he could take me crosstown, since the bus trip would have taken a couple of hours one-way, making it difficult for me to get to their offices before they closed for the day. Wonder what else they've "forgotten" to tell me. No wonder people come screaming into the elections office when I have it open. We are the only Federal service office that actually answers the phones with REAL people and we even tell them our address. Dad and I stopped for a quick bite then he brought me home. I'm lucky to have family who will help me out.
Better today though, one of Elections Canada's translators called me back about the translation software I had found on the 'net. She was very kind, although I think I detected a bit of a giggle when she was trying to explain that the "translation" was full of malaprops. That's exactly what I needed to know though and I appreciated the laugh too. She very nicely offered to review any other "translations" from other similar software that I might find on the internet and suggested a number of good quality french publications I could read online that would help me with my goal to upgrade my grammar and syntax en francais.
Just so happened one of the newsletters I receive by e-mail - www.boogiejack.com - on techie matters, did a review of that software's performance yesterday as well with the following results:
"THE ODDBALL WALL - Translate This
Although this column gets serious now and then, I do like to have a little fun here. For today's issue, I went to Alta Vista and translated a few sentences from English to German to French, and back to English to see how they'd come out. The results are below.
The rooster crows at dawn, the farmer crawls out of bed he puts on his smelly boots, and shoots the rooster in the head. ---translated to...
The cock sings at dawn, crawls the farmer of the bed which it places above centres smelly at loadings and germinates the cock in the head.
Is this fun, or what? Here's some more...
A chocolate coated banana on a stick is called a monkey's tail, and mmm...boy, they are tasty!
---translated to...
A banana schokoladeueberzogene on a stick is called the end of a monkey, and mmm... boys, they are of good taste!
I think that I shall think about things to think about unless I can't think of anything to think about.
---translated to...
I think that I do not think of things, to think approximately,unless me with nothing to think can think approximately.
That one almost made sense. Okay, one more...
If you ever forget your wife's birthday and she gives you the business, tell her it's because she's such a great babe she looks too good to be true.
---translated to...
If you forget indeed an anniversary with your wife and if it gives you the business, you declare to him that it is, because she is a such large baby who looks at it too well being right."
It's a great newsletter for a variety of reasons, humour included - try it you'll like it.
Next up, two phone calls asking for my attendance at job interviews from two different recruitment agencies. They called me without me calling them first. Best news I've had in a while. Think I'll spend the rest of the day savouring it.
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