Saturday, July 16, 2011

A(nother) Day in the Life of Ivan Awfulich

Five days left until I leave for Kazakhstan.  The organizers still have not sent my air ticket.  This is not comforting.

They changed my presentation topic while I was in Kyiv earlier this week.  Since the whole purpose of the trip is to knock on doors and meet with prospective clients, doing a good job on this new topic is critical.  Since I got home Tuesday night, I have been wrestling with the new computer (1 day), wrestling with the new computer and researching the topic (1 day) and researching the topic (1 day).  Haven't been outside the house more than 10 minutes.  Days like this are why they tell you that the office chair is THE most important investment for small consulting business like mine.

Tanya has had to take taxi to town as I have not had time to drive her.  Round trip is $5.00.  She wants to learn to drive but not on a standard transmission.  A few more days of taxi and she might brave even that.

A ten to fifteen minute presentation on a subject new to the country is no easy task. My approach is to start with a one hour presentation and then edit, edit, edit.  Each word must be not only essential but translatable and understandable.  When I say COWS I want it translated COWS, not CATTLE.  When I say FORAGE, I want it understood as grass and legumes for grazing or hay or crops grown for grazing, silage or green feed.  Took me 12 years to learn that the Russian noun "forage" means feed/food of all kinds, which it can also mean in English.

They wanted a 500 word abstract yesterday.  I can't even write an outline until after the paper is written, regardless of what I was taught in school.  The outline in my head gets shuffled so often as the presentation progresses that putting it on paper is a waste of time.  At least, thanks to word processing, when I am done writing the first draft, it is 99% finished.

They will get the paper and the abstract Monday.

I really like Windows 7.   One new feature allows me to change wallpaper every few minutes.  I have it set on a folder of Tanya's flowers so am looking at her garden all the time.  I do miss the old XP search feature and will have to learn how to use the new version.  I used the XP search to look for files when I knew part of the title and Google desktop to look when I knew only words inside the file.  Is there some way to refine the search to file names only?  Anyone?

7 comments:

  1. Sounds like you're having a lot of "fun."
    Sorry I can't help; I'm a Mac user.

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  2. How can you be so old (lol) and have so much energy!!!

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  3. Sorry Mac man here too.
    Call me ignorant but haven't these guys farmed for a couple of centuries now? You'd think they would have learned by 'trial and failure' as I call it.

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  4. Thought about Mac but it is three times the price and I would still have to learn a new operating system. Also some of my programs only run on windows. I hear there is a program to make a Mac run like Windows but what is the point then of having a Mac?

    Demeur, your question is a good one and worth more than a quick comment answer. Lets just say for now that Scientific Socialism was not very scientific, ESPECIALLY in agriculture.

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  5. I've always been a PC person, and proud of it :)
    I'm like you in that whenever I write something, I do the outline afterwards.

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  6. The new Macs run both systems. You can start them up separately or run them both at the same time. Plus once you know the Mac system it's easier to run and doesn't crash. It was well worth the extra cost in terms of less aggravation.

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