Text 18585, 91 rader
Skriven 2008-12-28 09:06:22 av Nancy Backus (1:3634/12.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Glen Jamieson
Ärende: DO I HEAR AN ECHO 81221
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-=> Quoting Glen Jamieson to Nancy Backus on 12-21-08 21:07 <=-

 GJ>> I have a New Year resolution - start the year with an empty freezer!
 GJ>> I have begun by moving the frozen stock south into the fridge part.
 NB>> Good start, indeed.  :)

 GJ> The frozen orange juice, which I had made made from my own oranges 3
 GJ> years ago, was interesting.  As I had used my ancient Sunbeam
 GJ> Mixmaster juicing attachment, it contained a lot of pulp.  When
 GJ> defrosted, the pulp had formed a fairly solid curd, floating in a clear
 GJ> liquid.  I tasted a little bit of it, and it was not too different from
 GJ> fresh, so I mashed up the curd and mixed it with the liquid.  A bit
 GJ> lumpy, but quite drinkable, so over the day I finished that off.

Interesting, indeed. :)

 GJ> The crab stock, otoh, tasted quite evil, so was consigned to the sink,
 GJ> while I used the orange juice to get rid of its taste.  Next item I

Good riddance to that...

 GJ> found was a roo tail.  In fact as I found 2 of them, one will do for a
 GJ> meaty soup for Christmas dinner or Boxing Day lunch.

Sounds good.  :)

 NB>> There is that, for sure.  :)  And if the map's in the language, it can
 NB>> help you learn it, too...

 GJ> In old Toledo I soon learned that "cuesta" prefix to a street name
 GJ> meant "hill", and indicated a steep climb.  As the names of streets

Useful knowledge.  :)

 GJ> and parks, etc are normally written in the local language it helps if
 GJ> the map shows them that way.  Fortunately, since the Olympic Games were

That's part of what I was thinking, too.  What good is it to you if the
map shows the name in English, and all you see on the signs is the other
language... ?

 GJ> held there a few years ago, the street signs and Metro station names
 GJ> in Athens have been sub-titled in English.  I haven't been to mainland
 GJ> China yet, but I might have trouble with map reading there.

China... well, they just had the Olympics, too... maybe they'd have some
polyglot signs up yet?  Otherwise, it probably depends on how good your
pattern matching skills are.  ;) 

 NB>> I think it probably helps when one has been on the receiving end of
 NB>> directions, to be able to know what would be helpful...  and to have
 NB>> probably learned some useful gesticulations as well.  ;)

 GJ> It is remarkable how such gesticulations and facial expressions can
 GJ> enable 2 people to communicate if both cooperate.
 
We had an Hispanic component to our church for a while, and many of them
were freshly from Cuba and spoke little or no English, while I speak
essentially no Spanish...  It was amazing how well we managed to
communicate nonetheless.  A few of them, being older, never did pick up
much English... we still communicate mostly in gesture and expression.

 NB>> Agreed.  The only exception to that would be the rough sketch map
 NB>> given me along with specific directions, which only needs to be roughly
 NB>> accurate but must have the right street names or route numbers for any
 NB>> turns I need to make, or a proper landmark in lieu of such.  But that
 NB>> only works if it IS in conjunction with spoken detailed directions...

 GJ> Or with a more general over-all map of the area.

That would also be helpful, yes... ;)
 
 GJ> At the last Picnic at Dale's, some participants were prepared and had
 GJ> brought GPS units to assist in navigating that rather difficult area
 GJ> of suburbia.  As you say, sometimes the turn instructions came a bit
 GJ> late or at an inconvenient road position, in which case it was
 GJ> necessary to take a later turn. Then the machine would request our
 GJ> patience while it feverishly re-calculated our route.  Although we
 GJ> expected some exasperation after a few of those episodes the machine
 GJ> kept its cool far longer than a human navigator would have.  :)

It's the human recipient of those instructions that loses the cool.. :) 
I'm not much of a gadget freak anyway... I can see maybe someday having
one to use in conjunction with my usual maps and direction sense.. but
I'm in no hurry to get one yet.  :)

ttyl     neb

... Not a real tagline, but an incredible soy substitute...

 * Origin:  (1:3634/12)