futzing around on this paid project

a couple of paragraphs on Egypt, Oldowan tools in one sentence, and trying to guess what they actually want here. Second dynasty? Nothing happened then. First and third, sure, so that's what I've written about. I'll know better when the sample test arrives--I really hope that's today. Do I really have to explain ancient Egyptian religion?

Free-association, not very useful: Mesopotamia, Babylon, Ur of the Chaldees, Gilgamesh.

futzing around on this paid project

a couple of paragraphs on Egypt, Oldowan tools in one sentence, and trying to guess what they actually want here. Second dynasty? Nothing happened then. First and third, sure, so that's what I've written about. I'll know better when the sample test arrives--I really hope that's today. Do I really have to explain ancient Egyptian religion?

Free-association, not very useful: Mesopotamia, Babylon, Ur of the Chaldees, Gilgamesh.

bureaucracy in action

A nice woman from Amtrak called me this afternoon. I cheerfully said "Oh, good, I was wondering where my tickets were."

Where my tickets were was waiting for Amtrak to get around to telling me that, for a trip to Canada, they needed to have my date of birth and citizenship on record. (If I'd booked by phone, they'd have asked at the time, but they hadn't added it to the Web ticket sales at the time I ordered.) Okay, I can answer that. But it gets better. What she asked me was date of birth and country of residency. So I told her those, then she told me I'd have the tickets in a couple of days (fine, I don't leave for a fortnight) and we talked a little about why they were doing it this way. It's for Customs, and they want citizenship info, to save time or something. I pointed out that in my case they're the same, but that wasn't what she'd asked me. She was dismayed at her error, and thanked me for pointing it out--it might cause problems if someone, honestly, told the person on the phone that they live in the US, then got to the border and presented a Canadian or New Zealand passport to a border guard who had paperwork listing them as a US citizen.

Fact-checking conversations. What will I think of next?

What I need to think of next is where to find out more/enough on Neolithic civilizations in China, and which of my sources on the Minoans, if any, are trustworthy. Actually, I'm making reasonable progress on this, I think--it just feels a little too much like writing a paper for a course I've skipped a month of lectures in. I wonder if the cheerful Bronze Age Greek bureaucrats made this sort of mistake, or if they didn't care about those questions, as long as they knew how much wheat you'd grown and the names of all your cattle. (I remember, for no good reason, that a Minoan Greek farmer had a bull called "Blackie"--this was tossed off as an example of the thoroughness of Minoan records by one of my professors, which means no later than 1985. I have never had any use for this fact. Nobody has had any use for it in 3000 years. But this is how my mind works--and, I guess, how at least one other person's mind works, because someone plucked it out of the documents and passed it along.) And what did happen to the Mycenaeans? (Nobody knows--there are speculations, but nobody knows. Like the classical Maya, they just fade out of history, their cities abandoned.)

bureaucracy in action

A nice woman from Amtrak called me this afternoon. I cheerfully said "Oh, good, I was wondering where my tickets were."

Where my tickets were was waiting for Amtrak to get around to telling me that, for a trip to Canada, they needed to have my date of birth and citizenship on record. (If I'd booked by phone, they'd have asked at the time, but they hadn't added it to the Web ticket sales at the time I ordered.) Okay, I can answer that. But it gets better. What she asked me was date of birth and country of residency. So I told her those, then she told me I'd have the tickets in a couple of days (fine, I don't leave for a fortnight) and we talked a little about why they were doing it this way. It's for Customs, and they want citizenship info, to save time or something. I pointed out that in my case they're the same, but that wasn't what she'd asked me. She was dismayed at her error, and thanked me for pointing it out--it might cause problems if someone, honestly, told the person on the phone that they live in the US, then got to the border and presented a Canadian or New Zealand passport to a border guard who had paperwork listing them as a US citizen.

Fact-checking conversations. What will I think of next?

What I need to think of next is where to find out more/enough on Neolithic civilizations in China, and which of my sources on the Minoans, if any, are trustworthy. Actually, I'm making reasonable progress on this, I think--it just feels a little too much like writing a paper for a course I've skipped a month of lectures in. I wonder if the cheerful Bronze Age Greek bureaucrats made this sort of mistake, or if they didn't care about those questions, as long as they knew how much wheat you'd grown and the names of all your cattle. (I remember, for no good reason, that a Minoan Greek farmer had a bull called "Blackie"--this was tossed off as an example of the thoroughness of Minoan records by one of my professors, which means no later than 1985. I have never had any use for this fact. Nobody has had any use for it in 3000 years. But this is how my mind works--and, I guess, how at least one other person's mind works, because someone plucked it out of the documents and passed it along.) And what did happen to the Mycenaeans? (Nobody knows--there are speculations, but nobody knows. Like the classical Maya, they just fade out of history, their cities abandoned.)

that history project, mostly

I think I may be the most organized person on this project, and that worries me.

On Friday, they said they were sending me a sample test for reference. It wasn't in today's mail, so I asked if they could fax me at least the part relevant to the chapter I'm currently working on. Rafiq called me, apologized for its not having been mailed, and offered to bring it over here. I said yes, and gave him directions. (This, by the way, makes two calls today in which people explained that the reason the Post Office hadn't delivered something was that it hadn't been mailed.)

Rafiq came up, introduced me to a friend who was in the elevator with him, then handed me an addressed, stamped Priority Mail envelope. As long as he was here, I asked if they were happy with Microsoft Word files, or would prefer plain text. "We haven't gotten that far," he said, then told me Word would be fine. I assured him that if there was a problem, I can make plain text.

cattitude and I ate dinner, and I observed that I seem more organized than they do. Also that I know more about the Hittites than I did at this time yesterday, though still not much.

Then I opened the envelope. The cover letter with the sample test is dated today. This is not encouraging, except in the sense that they may not lean on me if I fall behind. The cover letter in question suggests that I "take a practice runthrough." I don't think so. Look at it, yes. Actually sit down with the clock or the #2 pencil, no.

---

Also, papersky wrote something very cool about me.

that history project, mostly

I think I may be the most organized person on this project, and that worries me.

On Friday, they said they were sending me a sample test for reference. It wasn't in today's mail, so I asked if they could fax me at least the part relevant to the chapter I'm currently working on. Rafiq called me, apologized for its not having been mailed, and offered to bring it over here. I said yes, and gave him directions. (This, by the way, makes two calls today in which people explained that the reason the Post Office hadn't delivered something was that it hadn't been mailed.)

Rafiq came up, introduced me to a friend who was in the elevator with him, then handed me an addressed, stamped Priority Mail envelope. As long as he was here, I asked if they were happy with Microsoft Word files, or would prefer plain text. "We haven't gotten that far," he said, then told me Word would be fine. I assured him that if there was a problem, I can make plain text.

cattitude and I ate dinner, and I observed that I seem more organized than they do. Also that I know more about the Hittites than I did at this time yesterday, though still not much.

Then I opened the envelope. The cover letter with the sample test is dated today. This is not encouraging, except in the sense that they may not lean on me if I fall behind. The cover letter in question suggests that I "take a practice runthrough." I don't think so. Look at it, yes. Actually sit down with the clock or the #2 pencil, no.

---

Also, papersky wrote something very cool about me.