totm aug 2023 What funny/interesting thing happened in your life today?

[AlamoVampire]

9 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

It's my birthday today

Happy Birthday!

112104062023

112204062023

oo new page!

Edited April 6, 2023 by AlamoVampire

[CatastrophicFailure]

14 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

It's my birthday today

Congratulations on another successful orbit without any RUDs or other critical system failures. 

14 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

It's my birthday today

Congratulations on another successful orbit without any RUDs or other critical system failures. 

[Spaceman.Spiff]

I got to see this thing today:

 

Hopefully all goes well and we’ll get to see the F9 launch later tonight!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Took my family to France.  I don't speak French. 

Beyond English I speak passable German and have a ton of phrases in Spanish, some in Croat, Italian and can ask for toilet paper in Russian. 

But try as I might - I just could not keep French straight in my head.  I would say good morning at dinner, start to order in French and then say thank you in Spanish. 

This, of course, delighted my children who have been ribbing me about it the whole trip. 

Cie est la vie! 

Edited April 8, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Nazalassa]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Cie

"C'est"

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Nazalassa said:

"C'est"

Yep. 

The above story is in strong contrast to my past experience with international travel.  I'm almost always able to get a large enough smattering of phrases to both function and be polite to the locals.  French absolutely refused to play well with my brain. 

Edited April 8, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[TheSaint]

5 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Took my family to France.  I don't speak French. 

Beyond English I speak passable German and have a ton of phrases in Spanish, some in Croat, Italian and can ask for toilet paper in Russian. 

But try as I might - I just could not keep French straight in my head.  I would say good morning at dinner, start to order in French and then say thank you in Spanish. 

This, of course, delighted my children who have been rubbing me about it the whole trip. 

Cie est la vie! 

I went to France twice when I was in the Navy, two Mediterranean deployments that had Toulon as a liberty port. Both times I went to Paris on the TGV, the first time as part of a tour group, the second time entirely on my own. I didn't speak a word of French, I took Spanish in high school. When I went on my own I got by entirely on Latin roots and kind strangers. You always hear that stereotype of French people (especially Parisians) being rude and refusing to speak English even when they can, but I found that to be almost completely untrue. Every person I met was friendly and helpful. Except for one. I had to change trains in Marseilles, and when I got there the second time the ticketing system had changed, it had been automated, and all the signs were in French. I asked one of the attendents if she could help me out for a second, and she gave me a vicious tongue-lashing in French and stormed off. I did figure it out and get on the train in time. Whereever you are, lady, I hope your day got better.

My other memory from France: Every day we were in port our boat received a huge tray of croissants and a couple crocks of homemade marmalade from a bakery in town. Absolutely delicious. The owner of the bakery was an older gentleman who remembered being liberated by the Americans during the war. So whenever there was an American ship in port there he sent baked goods down to say thank you. A bunch of us took a trip over to say thank you in return and patronize his bakery. I told him about my father and his brothers fighting in the war and his daughter translated for me.

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, TheSaint said:

You always hear that stereotype of French people (especially Parisians) being rude and refusing to speak English even when they can, but I found that to be almost completely untrue. Every person I met was friendly and helpful.

Tourists. You were instictively selecting the people who looked different.
They knew English and were happy themselves to meet somebody else speaking English. 

1 hour ago, TheSaint said:

I didn't speak a word of French, I took Spanish in high school.

1 hour ago, TheSaint said:

I had to change trains in Marseilles, and when I got there the second time the ticketing system had changed, it had been automated, and all the signs were in French. I asked one of the attendents if she could help me out for a second, and she gave me a vicious tongue-lashing in French and stormed off.

She's from your town, and she took French.
As you can see, it didn't help her a lot.

If you had attended a Catholic school, you could at least find somebody to ask in Latin, like in good old medieval times.

[TheSaint]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Tourists.

On my second trip to Paris, when I was there by myself, I went to the USO office to get some info and free tickets. I asked the guy behind the desk where to go to get an authentic French dinner that night, and he said, "French food? In Paris? Nobody in Paris eats French food anymore. It gives you gout. In Paris now it's all chicken sandwiches and Caesar salads."

He did end up recommending a place, right by Charles de Gaulle Etoile. I knew it had to be authentic French food, because just after I sat down and ordered a bus stopped outside and the entire restaurant was swarmed with a horde of Japanese tourists.

[steve9728]

On 4/8/2023 at 4:31 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Took my family to France.  I don't speak French. 

Beyond English I speak passable German and have a ton of phrases in Spanish, some in Croat, Italian and can ask for toilet paper in Russian. 

But try as I might - I just could not keep French straight in my head.  I would say good morning at dinner, start to order in French and then say thank you in Spanish. 

This, of course, delighted my children who have been ribbing me about it the whole trip. 

Cie est la vie! 

Made a visit to Europe including France in 2021 with my friends. Pretty good place but it can be better if my friends' wallet wasn't stolen.

When we arrived the reception of the hotel, the one of us just using his rubbish Franch "bonjour" the staff. The staff used standard Mandarin without any accent: it's ok to speak Chinese to me, I studied at China before.

We: WT...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, steve9728 said:

WT... 

Paris was decidedly a fully international city this visit.  People from all over - probably heard 20 languages / dialects on the streets.  

Stark contrast to 20 years ago when it was predominantly all Caucasian French on the streets and businesses with the Roma selling stuff on bridges or in the Metro plus a few North and Sub-Saharan Africans (very few).   

The absolute international diversity everywhere was quite fun.  

The other aspect was how kind folks were with my failing attempts.  I think with having a city full of people from everywhere has forced an attitude change. 

(Our first trip way back when, I was practically scolded for even trying) 

 

[Nuke]

today is easter, or as i call it, "eat an entire box of peeps in one sitting day".

also peeps are best served on fire.

[Little 908]

I had a power outage

 

 

while my computer was running, will it be ok?

(this was written on data)

[steve9728]

22 minutes ago, Little 908 said:

I had a power outage

 

 

while my computer was running, will it be ok?

(this was written on data)

Your computer is a little 'sturdy' than you think. Of course, I always recommend that people with important files and work on their pc get an UPS.

It doesn't matter: it's Easter today and it will come back to life if something bad happened

Edited April 10, 2023 by steve9728

[Little 908]

13 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

Your computer is a little 'sturdy' than you think. Of course, I always recommend that people with important files and work on their pc get an UPS.

It doesn't matter: it's Easter today and it will come back to life if something bad happened

Thanks! This power outage will probably last a few more hours

[Nuke]

i dont know about that. i once has a computer die in a power outage. avalanche had taken out some high tension lines somewhere about juneau. the computer was  on a suppressor too. i guess the psu blew itself up and the computer was dead. i changed power supply and it was still dead. so i replaced the core components as well. funny thing was when i took the old parts and hooked them up to a different psu (one fished out of a dumpster i might add), they worked fine. one of those situations where parts work in isolation but not together. 

[Vanamonde]

One power outage? How quaint. 

PG&E has let my power go out 6 times just so far this year, once for 30 hours.  >:( 

[AlamoVampire]

At least youre not in Texas…

212004092023

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

One power outage? How quaint. 

PG&E has let my power go out 6 times just so far this year, once for 30 hours.  >:( 

The standby generator is worth every penny, trust me. 
 

‘Better yet in PG&E land, solar + battery. 

[Geonovast]

When shopping for our Easter meal, we (mainly me) wanted a honey glazed spiral cut ham, because those things are so good it's almost unreal.

Store did not have a 3-4 pound one that we wanted.

So we compromised and bought a 12 pound one instead.  For 3 people.  One of whom can't eat too much pork at once and also a teenager who is too good for leftovers.

So that leaves my diet for the forseeable future to be:

Breakfast: Ham
Lunch: Ham
Dinner: Ham
Late-night snack: Ham

I'm about to enlist the cats to help out with this.

[steve9728]

34 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I'm about to enlist the cats to help out with this.

If it's too sweet or too salty, I just suggest that think twice to do that. Not good for the little one's fur, at least my lab was needed to concern this.

[18Watt]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Breakfast: Ham
Lunch: Ham
Dinner: Ham
Late-night snack: Ham

For me the best part of leftover ham is ham salad.  Mmm.  

[TheSaint]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

When shopping for our Easter meal, we (mainly me) wanted a honey glazed spiral cut ham, because those things are so good it's almost unreal.

Store did not have a 3-4 pound one that we wanted.

So we compromised and bought a 12 pound one instead.  For 3 people.  One of whom can't eat too much pork at once and also a teenager who is too good for leftovers.

So that leaves my diet for the forseeable future to be:

Breakfast: Ham
Lunch: Ham
Dinner: Ham
Late-night snack: Ham

I'm about to enlist the cats to help out with this.

There are worse things to be stuck with.

We had ham on Easter, per long-standing tradition. Ham is the one food that Mrs. TheSaint breaks her "no red meat" dietary restriction for. The kids and I tried to point out to her that the stores also put rib roast on sale for Easter, so we could have rib roast on Christmas and Easter, but she wasn't having any of it. So this week will be lots of ham sandwiches for lunch, and we will have Senate Bean Soup for dinner some night this week. My wife started making homemade English muffins with her sourdough starter last week, which are outstanding, so maybe if the ham makes it to the weekend I'll make Eggs Benedict for breakfast on Saturday.

[SunlitZelkova]

We have an assignment to profile a community in my writing class. While the examples were things like your ethnic group or town, I tried to do the entire Pacific region.

Teach said no unfortunately. My next choice (which I am far less confident in) is the community of Russian learners at my school…

[Nuke]

mmmmm ham. sometimes i score a spiral ham for christmas, but rarely. it usually doesn't survive the day. when its down to a bone i will usually make a pot of beans. with a 12 pounder you should have some pretty good sandwich meat. toast a hoagie and stuff it with ham and swiss (we usually get a wheel of baby swiss for the holidays as well). 

i usually have a zero wastage policy, leftovers are to be consumed and i don't cook again until they are gone (except meals that incorporate the leftovers). actually this is how i pull off enchilada night. i just do a pot roast on saturday and enchaladas on sunday, much to the chagrin of those who feel that pot roast is a sunday meal.