A little over half way to Melbourne. Need to rack up 165.000 points on my amex to get two tickets to Melbourne (and we'll need to get to SFO to use it, but that's okay.) Is it fine in September there? If I have 100.000 points now, I need to average about 65000/11 (11 months since I'd need to book at least a month out) = $5909 per month to get this by next fall (or spring, depends where you stand!). Assuming a balanced work schedule, it's just out of my reach. If airfare is suddenly a higher percentage of my spending due to more flights or higher costs, this could be obtainable. Isn't a shame the things I think about. That would also get $1,650 worth of Home Depot giftcards, but what's that all about?
I am a little annoyed at NWA for not linking up with Qantas. The only way to Melbourne on a northwest mileage game is Alaska air to LAX, Air TahitiNui to Papeete, Air TahitiNui to Melbourne. The mild advantage is that a stopover in Tahiti is included. I can't begin to imagine what the cost of this would be in miles.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Middlemarch some more.
How was it that in the weeks since her marriage, Dorothea had not distinctly observed but felt with a stifling depression, that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband's mind were replaced by anterooms and winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither? I suppose it was that in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary, and the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to guarantee delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal. But the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on the present. Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not within sight—that, in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin.
...
With his taper stuck before him he forgot the absence of windows, and in bitter manuscript remarks on other men's notions about the solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight.
...
She was humiliated to find herself a mere victim of feeling, as if she could know nothing except through that medium: all her strength was scattered in fits of agitation, of struggle, of despondency, and then again in visions of more complete renunciation, transforming all hard conditions into duty. Poor Dorothea! she was certainly troublesome—to herself chiefly; but this morning for the first time she had been troublesome to Mr. Casaubon.
...
Both were shocked at their mutual situation—that each should have betrayed anger towards the other. If they had been at home, settled at Lowick in ordinary life among their neighbors, the clash would have been less embarrassing: but on a wedding journey, the express object of which is to isolate two people on the ground that they are all the world to each other, the sense of disagreement is, to say the least, confounding and stultifying. To have changed your longitude extensively and placed yourselves in a moral solitude in order to have small explosions, to find conversation difficult and to hand a glass of water without looking, can hardly be regarded as satisfactory fulfilment even to the toughest minds.
...
With his taper stuck before him he forgot the absence of windows, and in bitter manuscript remarks on other men's notions about the solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight.
...
She was humiliated to find herself a mere victim of feeling, as if she could know nothing except through that medium: all her strength was scattered in fits of agitation, of struggle, of despondency, and then again in visions of more complete renunciation, transforming all hard conditions into duty. Poor Dorothea! she was certainly troublesome—to herself chiefly; but this morning for the first time she had been troublesome to Mr. Casaubon.
...
Both were shocked at their mutual situation—that each should have betrayed anger towards the other. If they had been at home, settled at Lowick in ordinary life among their neighbors, the clash would have been less embarrassing: but on a wedding journey, the express object of which is to isolate two people on the ground that they are all the world to each other, the sense of disagreement is, to say the least, confounding and stultifying. To have changed your longitude extensively and placed yourselves in a moral solitude in order to have small explosions, to find conversation difficult and to hand a glass of water without looking, can hardly be regarded as satisfactory fulfilment even to the toughest minds.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Middlemarch
Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Irreverent Tutorials... I don't like their tone.
Do you know what a typewriter is? Well, a typewriter is a mechanical device which was used last century to produce printed documents. :-)
After you have typed one line of text on a typewriter, you have to manually return the printing carriage to the left margin position and manually feed the paper up one line.
In Windows applications, a new line is normally stored as a pair of characters: carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF). The character pair bears some resemblance to the typewriter actions of setting a new line. In Unix applications, a new line is normally stored as a LF character. Macintosh applications use only a CR character to store a new line.
From W3schools.com XML tutorial. I should complain more except a wonderful explanation of the inner workings of iron ring and drum memory units have been useful to me. Maybe there are people out there who never owned a typewriter. Ah, the joy of being 30... What else didn't people own? I had a slide rule when I was 9, but I never did learn to use it. I had a speak and spell, and a sit and spin, and a slip and slide. I had a mechanical typewriter with black and red ink tape, no built in magic paper well, and the carriage return was separable from the line feed. Two very long arms. I think Typewriter parts look like the magic pieces of a clarinet.
After you have typed one line of text on a typewriter, you have to manually return the printing carriage to the left margin position and manually feed the paper up one line.
In Windows applications, a new line is normally stored as a pair of characters: carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF). The character pair bears some resemblance to the typewriter actions of setting a new line. In Unix applications, a new line is normally stored as a LF character. Macintosh applications use only a CR character to store a new line.
From W3schools.com XML tutorial. I should complain more except a wonderful explanation of the inner workings of iron ring and drum memory units have been useful to me. Maybe there are people out there who never owned a typewriter. Ah, the joy of being 30... What else didn't people own? I had a slide rule when I was 9, but I never did learn to use it. I had a speak and spell, and a sit and spin, and a slip and slide. I had a mechanical typewriter with black and red ink tape, no built in magic paper well, and the carriage return was separable from the line feed. Two very long arms. I think Typewriter parts look like the magic pieces of a clarinet.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Home again
Well,
I picked Beth up from the hospital on my birthday. She is able to walk short distances and doesn't need constant supervision. She has another 10 days of antibiotics to complete, then she should be better.
Hope all is well. Summer is upon us all (or at least those in the north.)
I picked Beth up from the hospital on my birthday. She is able to walk short distances and doesn't need constant supervision. She has another 10 days of antibiotics to complete, then she should be better.
Hope all is well. Summer is upon us all (or at least those in the north.)
Friday, July 06, 2007
A small update
Beth is in the hospital, here in Lakewood. Lots of calls from friends and family. She will not be taking her planned roadtrip back to the old country (wisconsin). We wait patiently (or less so sometimes) for information, and an outlook on her treatment. We do not have plane tickets yet to go to Madison for her sisters birthday on the 14th.
I am turning thirty later this month. Lynda flew out to drive back with Beth, and spent her time as a nurse. I dropped her off at the airport in Seattle at 420AM and went to work. It is amazing how much I can get done when I go to local jobs at 530AM!
I just discovered the hot sandwiches at Safeway. If I hadn't cut in on the deli girls boyfriend I would have had a wonderful experience, and the food was great!
I don't understand the allure of energy drinks. Jolt never cost more than the other canned refreshments.
I am turning thirty later this month. Lynda flew out to drive back with Beth, and spent her time as a nurse. I dropped her off at the airport in Seattle at 420AM and went to work. It is amazing how much I can get done when I go to local jobs at 530AM!
I just discovered the hot sandwiches at Safeway. If I hadn't cut in on the deli girls boyfriend I would have had a wonderful experience, and the food was great!
I don't understand the allure of energy drinks. Jolt never cost more than the other canned refreshments.
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