smashedmotif's journal

Dear Journal,

Going to the airport at 04:30 is not recommended. Though it would seem there would be few cars on the road, this is non other than an illusion.

If on two hours you end up driving to the airport and a taxi pulls in front of you, don't become upset because the taxi doesn't fit your expectations of how a taxi should be.

As it was, when on my merry way to the airport this morning, a taxi pulled in front of me. As I imagined it to be no big deal, because taxis usually drive like crazed madmen, this taxi decided to take a Sunday-drive approach to the departure wing.

There it was, an ugly taxi, with its unwashed exterior all covered with a grimmy coat of smog, in my way, going a maximum, 25 miles per hour. Imagine the agony I had to suffer.

The few second that it took for the taxi to finally merge to his respected area seemed an eternity to me. I was aware, enough, that I was suffering from lack of sleep, but in this knowledge I found no solitude.

Soon enough, all was well as I finally was back home and quickly returning to dreamland.

Dear Journal,

My mom didn't think I was serious, when in October last year, I told her I was seriously cutting short the list of wedding guests.

She told me it was my wedding and that "we" should do what we thought best.

Though I was a little apprehensive in not inviting the few family friends still alive for the sake of the budget. I did feel more at ease now that, I had an idea of my parents take on guests that should be invited.

Then, today, my mom asked, "Who from our side are you inviting." I replied, "You, dad, and my two sister." That did it for her. She looked at me as if I told her the end of the world was coming.

Even when I explained to her that, nearly half a year ago, I had asked both of her and my father for their advice on who would be safe "not" to invite, she still couldn't believe how short the list had been cut.

Today, I caught a glimpse behind the vail of the excitement others tend complicate their lives with, concerning significant events such as weddings. How interesting this day has been. It has been a quest for guests.

This post was edited by smashedmotif on Mar 26, 2007.

Dear Journal,

Yesterday I had an opportunity to install a range in a kitchen. The kitchen was familiar to me, and so was connecting gas tubes to previously installed gas lines. The only thing different here was, the range happened to be a very large range and the gas lines were installed many, many years ago.

My first challenge was figuring how to manuever on a floor covered in ghee. The previous night someone accidently spilled a large amount of ghee. Walking on the floor was very difficult because the ghee made the floor very slippery.

A second delimma I had was, unscrewing a pipe fitting from the main gas line. It took two monkey wrenches to do the job; one to hold one side of the fixture and the other wrench to actually unscrew the pipe fitting that needed removing.

The range happened to be on casters and with the floor at a slight incline, it didn't want to stay in place. Having ghee all over the floor didn't help either. Pushing the range in place was next to impossible.

The challenges didn't end. For once the range was in place, I had to hold it in place with one shoulder, engage the locks on the front casters -- that I found a bit later -- all the while trying to maintain traction on the floor with my feet. In order to maintain traction, I used the spice rack behind me to brace my leg. The spice rack in turn was braced against a support column, part of the buildings structure.

Finally, after the range was in place and the gas line was connected from the range to the pipeline, I had only to light the standing pilots.

The installation directions of the range did not have any diagram. Instead, the directions were merely a series of steps to follow. Even thought there existed a total of only five steps to follow, it took me an hour to absorb them. A person can never be too cautious when it comes to working with gas lines.

The terminology used to explain the subsequence steps, as typed on the range's installation instructions were difficult to understand. Terminology such as a pilot valve and standing pilot made for confusion in properly understanding the instructions.

It took a little searching on the internetwork to determine what a pilot valve was and what a standing pilot was. The former was the valve on the main pipeline. This valve supplies gas from the pipeline to the range. The standing pilots were the pilots lights that are manufactured just under the burners of the range's top, where a sauce pan rests when heating.

Lighting the standing pilots was a test of confidence. That is, confidence in the installation of the range and confidence in the range's integrity were the only things now pressing on my mind.

When lighting the range, I ended up using a tightly rolled up wrapper taken from a pound of butter. The standing pilots were lighted and the range worked well. The easiest part of the whole ordeal was in igniting the pilot light for the oven.

Ligthing the oven's pilot light required two steps. First, I had to press the red button located on the range's front, at the center, just behind the stainless steel panel that was located below the hinge of the oven's door. To light this pilot light, I only had to hold the big red button, then press once the other red button.

Once the pilot light for the oven was correctly lighted, it was time to announce that the range was ready for use.

That night, I was part of a three person crew who made 500 cookies. Because the two-rack oven only came with one rack piece at the time of shipment, we ended up baking cooking until zero-dark thirty in the morning.

At least the stove works and I'm alive to tell about it.

Now I think I'll have one of those cookies.

This post was edited by smashedmotif on Mar 26, 2007.

Dear Journal,

Today has been a blessed day.

After reading a nice passage from the bible, I headed off to school.

At school I made the most of my time before my evening class. I was able to include a swim session in my day along with an unexpected and delightful surprise of adding ratings, replies, and a journal entry to my newly found online community.

As it is, I am not going to be able to write after 17:30, this evening, but definately am going to do some midnight reading.

Possibly, as a plan of dispursing my time wisely, after reading a post I will prepare a reply in a word processor and then add it once I am able i.e. when time allows or when post to my account are allowed.

It was a very blessed day and to be sure, I was glad a most prominent community member aided me in being able(allowed) to write post to my heart's content.

note to self: remember to add to the forum titled, "Books."

Dear Journal,

It seems that trying to upload a file via FTP does not work in the public library. I'm wondering if this is common in most public libraries.

A friend once told me that public libraries turn certain ports off that, otherwise would be on in other cases.

Secondly, it seems that when replacing the limp-lint file with linp-limt, I hear no difference in the consonant replacement concerning the moving of "m" to "n's" place and vice-versa. I'm asked why this would be and have yet to discover the "why."

Regarding the latter, I think it may have to do with the place of articulation for both the alveolar-nasalized "n" and the bilabial-nasalized "m."

For, the "n" sound in this case, the tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge and that isn't far from the upper and bottom lips as far as m's place of articulation is concerned.

There, I've gone into too much detail again. Possible the technical words have placated the process of thinking in simple terms. This may lead to more confusion than anything.

Let me try my experiment again, tomorrow.

Dear Journal,

One point I liked in my reading of my linguistics text today was, where I learned that allophones, unlike phonemes, are mentally realized.

Now I have more interest in getting to, Chaos and Cyber Culture, one of the many books I've recently purchased.

The correlation of the two subjects interest me and this, may I point out, is also an internal realization.

Which reminds me, my book collection is growing. Even a most interesting title, English, Then and Now, sits on a shelf collecting dust.

What a phenomenon it is, the buying of books and not reading them. There seems to be so many fasinating subjects and titles suggesting interesting items, it overwhelms me. Really.

Oh to finish one of the many books I've started over the last year.

This post was edited by smashedmotif on Mar 19, 2007.