LongTom

^ I went from being a typesetter in a mom-and-pop print shop, to working for the company (and eventually working on the specific technology) that largely made typesetters of that ilk obsolete. < Just secured a new berth in the company. New office, new commute, new reason to exercise. Ow. V Pass the question on.

Pt Bonita Lighthouse, Marin Headlands, CA, Mar 24, 2007: Same general location, same day, down on the beach:

Presume not to gauge the depths of my piety, O Infidel. Are the Pasta and the Sauce lesser instruments of Divinity than the Wafer and the Wine? Nay, truly, this is my Body, this is my Blood: eat and be made full. Ramen.

Maybe I've just imprinted on the Robert Newton performance, but try reading Treasure Island. There is something in the turn of phrase that Robert Louis Stevenson employs when Long John Silver speaks, that suggests something very like how Newton played it. I would expect that the accent of the average deckhand would be one from the lower classes. There are a lot of those to choose from, not just Robert Newton speak. The simple answer is, decide where your persona came from, then learn to talk like that. As to the sorts of words pirates would use, it makes sense that they would sprinkle their conversation with nautical terms and analogies that reference those terms. Jargon is common in any subculture. For us wannabes, learning the workings of of the ship, and dropping those terms into our patterns of speech is unlikely to go amiss.

Weights last night. Progress is slow, and in tiny increments, but noticeable. Gotten kinda quiet around here....Silkie? William? Mermaid? Red Peach, what news? (Some people call that "nagging." Here we call it "support and encouragement.")

Bwahahahah! I thought that was what was going on with "mocteroof." Let's see now.... has anyone brought up "floccinaucinihilipilification"?

Isn't that in the spirit of the great Saturday afternoon serials of the silver age of theater? Cliffhangers, and all that? Of course, it's a lot more aggravating when you have to wait not til next Saturday, but next year. Arrr..gh!

^ Knows a secret, apparently...

^ Misread the intent of a historical ball as a costume ball, and got chewed out in public by the stitch counters as "disrespecting" them. (Feh. I wasn't laughing at them. I wanted them to laugh at me.) < my foot hurts. Grf. V Worst costume faux pas?

^ Is a whiz at machining metal

You could be "Raven Maniac"...? Kidding aside, I like the sound of "John Raven." There's a sort of, well, ring to it, like the toll of a big bell. Somehow it sounds more rooted in history, less of a 21st-century pirate "stage name," as it were.

That appears to be the edition that Dover is printing. (he says, heaving a sigh of relief, having just purchased it not a week ago ) While we are on the subject of Dover editions, how about their edition of The Buccaneers of America, by Exquemelin? Any comments?

I seem to have injured (or at least irritated) one foot. Maybe from all the new walking on concrete sidewalks. Blast.... Oh well, there's still the biking, which has to happen, and the weights if I can stay motivated.

Taking a breather between weight sets.

Yesterday: tidepooling. Not the most strenuous, but it involved something like 2 miles of hiking. Today: weight workout. I'm working on increasing the number of situps per cycle. I'm up to 22 per cycle, or 66 per workout. (You've given me an example to shoot for, John!)

I broke 190 today! First time in about seven years I've been below 190. I guess the current regimen is working. (It had better be. I took a vacation day today to take the boys on a field trip on the Lady Washington -- which was great fun, but that's another story -- and afterwards we went for ice cream. I abstained, but it put me in a foul mood to have to say no. )

> Raccoons. Seem to think that any inflatable rubber ball left in the yard is good eatin'. (I can only imagine what must be going through their pea-brains: "Vern! Lookit the size of that blueberry!" Pow! "Whut-th--??") < My spring project is to replace the concrete patio I had to break out in order to install a drain cleanout in the kitchen branch line. (Last year, Christmas Eve day. It's only been a mudhole for fifteen months now.) V What is entropy doing to your house and grounds?

Biked to the train as usual, walked to work from the station. I think I'm going to try walking that segment both morning and evening; it's only 15 minutes, and every little bit helps. The calorie counter I mentioned yesterday says that my total calorie burn (Resting Metabolic Rate plus activities) is around 2800 calories. I'm not sure I believe that. At a deficit of nearly 1200 calories per weekday and 400 per weekend day, I would expect to be losing faster than I am. OTOH, I've only been doing the biking for a week now; I suppose I should wait a few before pronouncing that a lie, and see if the weight comes off at the 2 pounds a week predicted by that burn rate.

That does make it hard to keep going, when everyone is bailing out around your ears. Oh well, come back here and tell us when you're done, and we'll love ye for it. Speaking of check-ins, I did the regular bike commute, and walked from work to the train in the pm. I'm going to try to calculate calories burned in 24 hrs, by activity. I've started counting what I eat, and generally I'm keeping it under 1600 or so, which should be a deficit for my current size, I think?

Congratulations, William! Here's to more exposure and more commissions!

Now there's a quote ta come back to haunt ye one fine day...

Whoa. Deja vu...

Stairstep this morning. Programming homework next. Weights tonight. Kayaking with the boys and their Grandpa tomorrow! The scale is back down to 190 this morning, thank goodness. I think it went up when I changed from weighing myself in the morning, at my emptiest as it were, to at night with the day's food still inside.

Yesterday: biked to the train (3 mi), walked from train to work (3/4 mi), biked home, weight workout. Today: Just the biking. It's homework night again tonight. 100 situps, john! Whoa. All at once? At this point I'm dying after 20. (I do 3 sets of 20, 1 per cycle through the weights, but still...) I've never understood clothing "sizes." Playing with our heads, they be. Men have it easier, with plain old tape measurements, instead of arbitrary numbers that can change definition with marketing trends.

No, luv. Not the island o' Java, he means the programmin' language o' Java. A long descent into He** fer some programmers. float[] raft = new float[]; for (i=0; i< raft.size; i++) { raft.lash(); } while !(land.Ho()) { paddle(); } return;