docoflove1974

Happy birthday, PP! Hope you have had a wonderful birthday weekend!

Oops, a belated happy birthday from me. Hope you had an outstanding day, and that the celebration continues through the weekend!

Happy birthday, Viggen! Hope you have a most wonderful day!

Sounds like she and I will be at the same place: at the cabin, warm, maybe working on stuff for you to nosh on when you get back...spiking the hot chocolate and mulling wine

Heh I'll be the party pooper...I dislike snow, and my attempts at skiing as a youth left me cold, wet, hurt, and dying for hot chocolate and a cuddle by the fire. Snowboarding didn't exactly entice me, either, as my knees--which are already shot to hell--were left worse for wear. No, this beach bunny will stick to the warmer climes On the other hand...may I suggest that you find a way to get into contact with our Lovely Lady of Names, Nephele...she's a resident of the area, and is an absolute blast to hang out with. Her bloke is a Brit (from Midlands, I think?), and they will give you the best tour yet! Fingers crossed for 'Yang', and all that. I know how you feel

Wow...I'm speechless!

Leave the word creation to the linguists...it's our job! (BTW, this linguist approves of the above terms )

Heheh naughty talk will get you everywhere, GoC Spanish and Italian are my fluent ones, although I've done considerably more translations dealing with Spanish--both into and out of English. I won't do contracts, usually, as my legalese knowledge is poor in English, let alone the other languages (basic contracts are fine, but once the language starts to make my eyes cross, well, you get the gist of it). And while I have a 'friends' and 'frequent client' discount, I'm still not that cheap--gotta pay the bills, so to speak. It's for that reason that I don't usually get much business off of CraigsList, for example.

New month! New start! Newly deposited cash in bank account! (This last one being probably the most important.) These last 6-8 months have been disastrous on me financially. A lack of work combined with clients who pulled out at the last minute meant that I was scrambling for extra cash. Now I think I'm finally in the clear--oh, my proverbial boat didn't exactly come in, but I'm back to full paychecks, and debts have been paid off. Of course, I need to replace my glasses, my car needs servicing, and I just know that there's something else around the corner. So what does the resourceful person do when they need to augment their monthly cash flow? Go out and get a second job, of course. One that I can work part time, preferably on the weekends. Sure, I know that means that I don't have that much free time to play, but if I'm honest, I don't have much money to play with, so it's either sit at home and work (for free), or go out and work (and get paid). I'll take the latter, thank you. So why is it that I can't find a job? Evidently I'm supremely overqualified. No one wants a PhD to do a part time desk job on the weekends, not even data entry stuff. Seriously? I'm not even asking for extra compensation for my education--that's what the academic world is for--and I'm ready to work full time in the summer...let alone the fact that I don't have a possible full-time gig for some time, so I'll be around for a while. Really, I'll work for cheap...just give me some extra income! Still no go? Really? Feh. Drat and poo. (Stephen Fry's twittering has influenced me lately...dunno if that's a good or bad thing.) Eh, things will happen...they always do. Someone will magically come to me with a contract-based offer, a translation job that will pay me what I want. It usually happens that way...right when I'm most desperate, someone I know has some work for me. Of course, it's not steady, and I never know when it's coming. Nonetheless, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So what exactly has this got to do with the song title of the blog? It's simply the song in my head, one of many that seems to pop up when I feel the urge to let go, relax, and roll with the punches. I mean, someone has to keep me from being a melancholic bore, and there's no one else here to do that. Besides, I'm pretty sure they'd charge

LOL But the question is, GoC, did you enjoy the change of weather? I realize that the snow can be quite the inconvenience, especially when one isn't used to quite that amount, but you have to admit that it's a change of pace! One last day of sunshine for us, then back to rain. But at least it won't be damned-near freezing this time, so my flowers will be happy with the sprinkle.

Old Frankish was a West Germanic language, with its closest relatives being Old Saxon and Old High German. It was used to the west up to the Seine, and to the north up to Belgium. Low Frankish was apparently spoken in the Netherlands, along side Frisian and Old Saxon. There were East and West dialects; Dutch is the modern descendant of Old West Frankish*. But note that the Romance dialects of Gaul did replace Frankish as the court language--certainly the people didn't seem to use much Frankish--and that this was probably an early transformation. We have the Oaths of Strasbourg, which were written at the beginning of the 9th century, already in full-fledged Romance French (or even Old French) with few if any traces of Frankish, and that is only 300 years after your time period. *Info taken from: Beekes, Robert S.P. 1995. Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, p. 27-29.

Just sent the message along, Kosmo! Sadly, the promised snow didn't reach my ground...but the mountains and some of the hills around the Bay Area are all wearing their winter caps But cripes, it's cold!

Hope you have had an outstanding birthday! Here's to a wonderful upcoming year!

So is that weather common for Rumania, Kosmo? The news flash here: snow levels down to 1000 feet tonight and tomorrow night. So my hilltop won't see snow, but the hills to the west, that I look out to, might

Happy happy birthday! Hope you have a most wonderful day!

"THE CHICKENS ARE COMING!! THE CHICKENS ARE COMING!!" I miss that show...great comedic minds!

Heh if the Brits have no idea how to handle winter, then Californians, well, we're downright weather wusses. But as predicted, the sun is out from the start, nary a cloud in the sky...Bella the kitty is in her usual sunshine patch, and indeed the lettuces are happy to have nutrition again. But damn is it cold...40'F...I think I'll stay indoors.

LOL Thank you, Lord Caldrail, for your perspective! I really do enjoy what's in front of me, and while I'm fairly ambitious in my life, I learned long ago that in the romance world, such ambition is never a good thing. Just roll with the proverbial tide, and make the best of whatever comes your way. On the other hand, one of my horrorscopes (heh) said that in 3 1/2 months not only will I find love, but it'll be the luckiest time in love for me (and other Capricorns) in 12 years. Thing is, 12 years ago I wasn't lucky in love at all...I was avoiding love, seeing as I was about to move 1800 miles away. So what do they know? Ah, l'amore...

Up until about a week ago, much of the North American continent was in a very gripping Arctic snap--so bad that it was likened to having a hurricane-type pattern of wave after wave of winter storms. Extreme bitter cold, snow measured in feet...yet on the West Coast we had nothing but gorgeous weather. Sunshine, spring-like temps...in February. Not really normal, although it was somewhat, in that we usually have a week or so of warm weather in this second month on the calendar. But not for like 2+ weeks. Eh, it was fun while it lasted, but I was very quick to not boast about it. Ya see, I know that Mother Nature is a fickle witch, and she doesn't like you to really get too happy about what you have. Boasters never prosper, kind of thing. I knew our turn was coming. So, for the last 5 days, we've had nothing but cold and rain. We've had steady soaking rain with temps in the 50s, thunderstorms with hail and temps in the 40s...it keeps going and going. It's supposed to end tonight, with chances of rain on Monday and Thursday, but at least we're set up to see the sun come tomorrow. I do hope so...my hyacinths are desperate for sun, and my baby lettuces are starting to get pale with lack of warmth. Not to mention, I'd like to get into the pool shortly...this mermaid likes to play in the water, not necessarily be sprinkled or doused with it.

Yes, I saw that! I was just hoping that they'd get something here, too, considering how they've taken off like wild fire. Eh, it's all good, I guess.

Dammit, Mumford & Sons didn't win at the Grammies. Meh, no accounting for taste, really. I know, I've been gone a while. Work has been atrocious lately, and the private life has been run topsy-turvy. More details to come at a later point in time. But I will say this: It's never easy to let someone down, but when you have a floater, well, desperate times call for desperate measures. Why it is that people can't, or perhaps refuse to, understand, I don't know. But if after one or two dates there isn't much there, one needs to walk away, and the other needs to respect that. Alas, at times the best laid plans never quite work out. Ok, need to get ready for the day. Where did I put my umbrella? It looks like it's going to pour down.

But semantically, I could conceive of it. It's common that the chief of a tribe has a different weapon than the others, or at least a different style/size. While this is only a guess, I could see the semantic link to the early tribal days, perhaps even something between Proto-Indo-European and Old Latin, which links the chief of an Italic tribe carrying a spear, or a large spear. I would have to know the Oscan and Umbrian versions of these words--something that I don't have right now--and we would have to know how pre-Roman tribes functioned. Getting back to the original question, this site from Ohio State University will help you with pronunciation issues.

Happy birthday, NN! Hope your day is spectacular!

Thanks, Viggen!

So...California, that fair state o'mine, has a new governor. Although, it should be pointed out, he's also a former governor; Edmund Gerald 'Jerry' Brown, Jr. was governor for two terms in the 70s, and overall wasn't bad. He also wasn't exactly good, either. His father was governor here for 8 years, too, in the 50s and early 60s. The Jr. Brown, also known in his previous stint in Sacramento as "Governor Moonbeam," has some legendary characteristics. He's considered a bit of a free spirit, someone who went to seminary school, gave it up because he liked women (how horrible!), and instead went to Berkeley for a Classics degree before heading to Yale for a law degree. He wants people to follow rules, especially big corporations. He's been a governor, a Secretary of State, a District Attorney for the state, and Mayor of Oakland (oy vey). His is famously frugal; his is the only gubernatorial era in that the governor did not occupy the official Governor's Mansion, opting instead for a flat near the Capitol--this is happening again this time around. He slashes state budgets, cutting waste...or should I write it as 'waste', since one person's waste is another person's necessity. He's a bit of a power monger, as he is known to cut entire positions and take them on himself. But you say, hey Doc, is that so bad? And my response is: eh, depends on who you are. For example: while he wasn't exactly a great governor, either, Arnold Schwartzenegger was a friend to education, in particular higher education. It was his position that an educated populace is what will propel business and politics in the state--therefore, we need to make sure that while we are in a fiscal crisis, education would be best untouched, but at the very most it must not suffer huge cuts in spending. The education sector, especially higher education, did suffer reduced budgets, but mostly at the hands of the Legislature, who wanted to cut even more from our small purses. Ah-nuld didn't jive with that, and put back money where he could. He also introduced some pretty innovative and revolutionary legislation on how to fund education and infrastructure...but because he wouldn't exactly play ball with the incredibly-powerful lobbyists (with particular reference to the California Teacher's Association (union) and the nurses' unions), the propositions were downed in defeat, and he lost all possible political negotiation power. Ever since, the unions and the Legislature fought Ah-nuld all around. When the 2010 Gubernatorial options were offered up, and it was down to two, most every Californian I know and listened to had to choose between what we considered to be two evils: a former governor who is known to slash budgets painfully all over to the point of bleeding, or a businesswoman who, while successful in that realm, has zero political experience and knows nothing about how Sacramento works and who admitted that for almost 20 years she never voted because 'she didn't have the time'. Hmmmm...Option A isn't exactly a great one, but we just had several years of another form of Option B, and that pretty much sucked. Besides, maybe some budget slashing could be in order? Tomorrow (Monday) Governor Brown announces his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, and I for one am uneasy. He has already announced that there will be cuts everywhere, including education, and unless he means that there will be cuts to administrator salaries and/or benefits, that means cutting not fat, but meat and bone from already emaciated budgets. While the president of my college has been proactive in years past, and our district now has bond money to play with for the next handful of years, that doesn't mean that we have money to spare. In fact, we have lost so much in faculty, counseling and staff that are necessary, it's in those areas that we're spending money. So I'd like to ask the Guv, where exactly would you like us to spend less? Oh, and we have more students now than we ever have, so asking us to cut is also doing a disservice to the community at large. It's much the same story everywhere in the state. I'm glad that he is starting with his own 'house' first, cutting positions and staff in the governor's office that are unnecessary and superfluous. Some of the benefits and privileges of the Legislature probably should be cut, too, but somehow I doubt that'll happen. I just hope that in the spirit of frugality the public is not forgotten. On the other hand, we are talking about a career politician, who is also from a political family. I guess if anyone can massage egos in Sacramento, it'll be 'Good Ol' Jerr'.