Now THAT'S a Good Day!

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, lost his voice about a year ago. Well, not his whole voice, but just the ability to speak in a conversation, a condition called spasmodic dysphonia.

It's freaky in and of itself, but the story of his recovery is somewhat inspiring. Here's the whole saga:

Life with the disorder. The odd things your loved ones never point out.
Getting imaged. The actual diagnosis. The cure.

An amazing story.

Am I not supposed to be tired?

Normally conferences are sort of exhausting: trying to keep up with e-mail remotely while juggling sessions, informal contacts, navigating food and drink away from home. This time I had keeping up with Chinese homework to contend with too!

Oddly, NACIS seemed to be a breeze compared with day-to-day life here in the library.

Carto Madness

Today I met the man that made the contemporary Chicago subway map.

I thanked him.

It's a very good conference. While there's not too many librarians (that kind of automatically makes it a good conference, doesn't it? ;)), all of the attendees are my primary suppliers and consumers. I get to listen to both ends of my supply chain at the same time.

Here's a scoop: the average USGS 7.5' quad is 28 years old. Now THAT'S out of date. So let's not complain too much about the move to print-on-demand.

Today at lunch, my good friend JB announced that he was having a corned beef sandwich in order to 'break the sausage cycle' that he has been in since arriving in Madison. I have no such qualms: I had bangers and mash.

Some things that make me happy.

My wife. Who wrote me a lovely letter on our anniversary last week.

Spontaneously remembering a Chinese character a day or two after learning how to write it. I think this stuff just might stick.

Author readings. Especially Barry Lopez's comments last week about the personal responsibilities of authors.

The Parthenon Gyros Shop where I will be eating dinner in about 12 hours.

My bike. One morning recently an acquaintance rode up next to me and complimented me on it, saying that his wife looked at the same model. Rather than asking, 'how's it working out?' or 'do you like it?' he asked: "Does it make you happy?"

Ye Bulan

That's my Chinese name, without the tones.

School is already much more challenging this year than last. Chinese is the culprit. I feel like I'm learning a ton, but the last 20 minutes of class today was a blur. On Monday my teeth hurt after it was over. I can count to ten at this point, but I can't write the characters.

Jeepers.

It's all about the knuckles

We now have a 'don't ask don't tell' policy when it comes to exotic meals. I made pho from scratch over the weekend. When I told L that there were bits that needed to boil for three hours, she started to ask, but then caught herself. She decided it would be best not to know. She did ask to be assured that everything was from the same animal.

It was delicious! Way better than Yi Shen. I'm not saying it was as good as Than Brothers in Seattle (I also did not serve the soup with a cream puff appetizer), but it was damn good.

There are five tupperware containers of broth in the freezer waiting for a rainy winter day.