Almost There

Just a little more than 24 hours until I board a plane and head off for my man in Marrakesh. I am so freakin' excited and yet so incredibly, ridiculously stressed out (yes, that's why I am here, instead of dealing with anything from the following list). Between now and 6 a.m. Saturday, I have to

• Figure out what I want to pack
• Pack said stuff once I figure it out
  
• Clean house
• Get The Dog's stuff sorted
• Cancel the mail
• Return some shoes (30-day return policy, and Hooray! I will be gone for more than 30 days)
• Maybe find some time to tweeze the "eyebrow" and paint the toenails (I hear it is sandal weather over there.)
  
• And, worst of all, get through three more chapters of this:

Our life is based on not reconciliation with the situation. Our life is not based on the innocence with the life. Our life, life is not based to be simple straight and smiling, our life is based on action and reaction. In the oriental science of mind it’s called ‘Karma’ if things are right, you respond right. If things are not right you will respond not right. Your preference is in life to balance out one way or the other. Where it comes from?

Really?? Really. It just makes my head hurt.

And honestly, this is one of the more coherent paragraphs. Oy! It's been a heck of a long month and a half slogging through 30 chapters of this. (Just one reason that I've been so quiet around here.) So I say, bring on the coffee and chocolate! Or, better yet, perhaps a strong shot of whiskey, as that might help me better comprehend what the bejesus he is trying to say.

Wish me luck ... please!!!!

I Will Stop Venting About This Project

Really, I will. As soon as I finish it up and send it off to the publishers. But until then, here's an example of the latest text to fall under "things that annoy me about this project":

Hence the number of frequencies to be selected must be judiciary decided. The same holds two for the other analysis technique i.e. Short Time Fourier analysis and wavelet analysis.

This needs a whole lot of fixin' on a whole lot of levels, and I know it's my job as editor to do that fixin' to the best of my non-science-brain ability. But I am beginning to think they "wrote" this book by dictating it into the very speech-recognition software that they are describing how to build (the subject of this particular chapter). Couldn't they have at least given the chapters a quick proofread before sending everything off to be published?

And on another note, I now have an image of the authors looking like Lili von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles, singing "Morning, noon, and night, it's dwink and dancing / Some quick womancing / And then a shower."

A Quickie ... Really

I can't seem to help myself. I have every intention of writing a short, sweet blog post, but when I'm done writing, I realize that it takes several to many scrolls of the mouse wheel to get to the bottom of it all. Can I really have that much of interest to say? Actually, no. I'm just a rambler. I can't help it.

But today is really just a quickie to get in my daily dose of writing. I am burning the candle at about five different ends. There's the project from Hell (in this case, Hell is India)--a horrible, horrible book on soft computing and artificial intelligence (don't ask) written by three people who may speak English on a daily basis but who are not native English speakers. And it shows. If I have to change one more instance of "In this section, we would be discussing the issues of some or the other artificial neural network (ANN) technologies . . ." I "would probably be very much going to" throw my cute little laptop right out the window. But it's a paying gig, and I am the one who did not say no when they offered it to me! So, oh well. As my friend says, it's job security in these crazy times. Too bad said job security is making me crazy! Then the big geography textbook project is coming to an end, which means lots of little loose ends to be tied up by right this very minute. Add to that a short indexing project (due today) and then a quilting edit (due Friday, but I'm pushing for Monday), and I think perhaps I may have overextended myself just a tiny bit. Not to mention that I have a random group of women coming over tonight for a Lia Sophia Jewelry party that I have been shanghaied into hosting. (OK, so they got me with the $78 dollar necklace that I get for $15 just for hosting; but I still consider it a sneaky move on their part.) This, in turn, means I need to clean house (Mr. J has volunteered his services), scrounge up some munchies and vino (hallelujah), and actually make myself somewhat presentable (no more sweats and PJs for me tonight.)

But all of that doesn't stop me from going out to enjoy yummy diner breakfasts with Mr. J two days in a row. How I love me some bacon and greasy spoon coffee! Especially after pulling several near-all-nighters in a row. Besides, these days, it's the only time I have to actually converse with Mr. J; otherwise our conversations would consist of me thanking him as he changes out my caffeine IV drip. Oh, and speaking of bacon (mmmm), if I lived anywhere near Colorado, I would have dibs on this cute little piggy owned by my new buddy over at Little Farm. Growing. Yum! (sorry piggy)