What I Want Out of My Laptop

What I Want Out of My Laptop:

• Water resistance
• An aggressive reminder to back up my files every week
• Files that give themselves relevant names like "important work file" or "unimportant blurry picture"
• Autosave that just saves the document instead of creating a new, identical autosave version that I don't realize is separate from the other document until days later after making significant changes to the old document
• Non-judgmental tech support
• Add-on warranty that covers liquid damage
• Cup holder

What I Get Out of My Laptop

• Biennial nervous breakdowns
• Cachet 

Word Geek

I've started taking a Spanish language class. It's a nice way to avoid a law school class and get back into languages again. In just a few weeks it's already reignited the geek in me. I was Google Translating the Spanish word "trabajo," and as I typed in the word, the translator automatically detected the language and English translation. It produced the following super exciting results if you're a linguistics/language/regular geek.


I typed in:
t-r-a .......... it said "Italian-detected" meaning "between"
t-r-a-b ....... it said "German-detected" meaning "trot"
t-r-a-b-a .... it said "Spanish-detected" meaning "tether"
t-r-a-b-a-j... it said "Spanish-detected" meaning "worked"
t-r-a-b-a-j-o.. it said "Spanish-detected" meaning "work"

Anywho I just thought it was cool that there could be so many different words in three languages contained in one word.

Horses

Here's a picture I took when I was in Pennsylvania over spring break. We went out into the countryside to pet (and feed) horses. These two were particularly sly and pushed all the other horses out of the way to get to our carrots. I think they might have been sisters, and in my mind I dubbed them Goneril and Regan.

4/8/2012

I saw this as I was returning from a walk by the lake. It made me wonder when it was put up and exactly what kind of disaster had been contemplated when it was created.* It's kind of nice to know it's close by if I ever need it.


*My best three guesses are: (1) Attack by the giant monster that lives in Lake Michigan, (2) Invasion by aliens secretly living on the moon and angry about the whole flag thing, (3) Sudden resurgence of the popularity of Fallout Boy.

The Beginning of Spring in Pictures

The sun shining into my bedroom

Promontory Point - the grass remained green throughout the winter this year

The icy waves have begun to wane.

Spring thaw

The Zoo, or, Chicago in the Winter

Chicago's infamous winter failed to live up to its reputation and we had a lovely sunny week. As such, my long awaited trip to the zoo finally happened. J and I actually ended up going twice because (1) it's free, (2) it's awesome, and (3) we were hoping to see the male lion the second time because we were not able to see him the first time (more on this later).

Other than the adorable new baby gibbon, the coolest thing at the zoo was definitely the conservatory.

Not only was it beautiful, but they kept it heated at like 80 degrees. It was like being transported to an island paradise.

For some reason, there were tiny dinosaurs in the fern room.

One-month old gibbon bothering his dad.

The famous sausage tree.

Mr. Silverback was not a fan of the camera.

Poison dart frog

We got pretty lucky and the animals seemed to come out of their enclosures just as J and I approached. The rhino walked directly toward us, paused, and then turned around and went back in. A seal, submerged underwater, popped its head up just as we walked up and then dipped back down as if to hide from the other onlookers. Obviously someone told them we were coming ahead of time.

Unfortunately, we found out that the male lion, Adelor, passed away a couple of weeks ago. The female lion looked a tad morose.

In non-animal news (yes, I do occasionally have some), I'll be very busy in the coming weeks because I'm going to be published! Unfortunately, it's only in a boring legal journal that few people read. But published is published and I'm just happy for the opportunity.

2/2/2012

The photo a day thing didn't quite work out after all. With nicer days and more work on my plate than usual, my focus has been elsewhere. Here's a photo of a cute new lunch place I found in Wicker Park called Birchwood Kitchen. I had a grilled gruyère sandwich with caramelized onions and spicy mustard. Tasty.