Yes, I finally did notice that I had the book and the author wrong in the last post. Guess it shows that most of you who read this just don’t want to comment on it. We get 60 or so hits a week, but few comments (and most of those due to Katrina :). Or maybe most people just don’t think editing is that important.

Well, grammar cost one company a lot of money recently. I just read an article today called “The Comma That Costs 1 Million Dollars (Canadian)” in the New Your Times. Basically, a misplaced comma in the English version of a contract between cable companies gave made one company lose their lawsuit.

In Waco, I worked as an instructional designer for a health company. I was part of a small division of the company, where everyone had to jump in to everything. So, we had to edit our own material. That was always a grueling process for me, because I really didn’t see the importance of being paranoid about dangling participles and comma placement.

I now humbly repent of my arrogance and will take editing seriously.

(oh, and I already fixed the problems in the last post 🙂

But I’ll go ahead and say it anyway – there was an explosion in our neighborhood last night. Like a literal “KA-BOOM!!!” I was having trouble sleeping because of a pain in my neck that won’t go away. Like a literal pain, not an irritating person. Although, people like that have kept me up before. I finally fell asleep late, and about 2:30 – BOOM! It wasn’t a gun shot, and it wasn’t a car back-firing. It was too loud for that. It echoed off of the hills around our neighborhood. It left your ears ringing. It even woke up my wife (she is a heavy sleeper – once slept through the house next to us catching on fire). But I walked outside, and nothing was happening. No one else was outside, everything was quiet. Except for the street lights were out. Our power was on, but the streets were dark. And then they came on again. I guess a transformer blew somewhere or something, but there was nothing on the news. Strange.

My posts have been getting a little too serious recently. So, here is some comedic relief:

It’s a sad day in the cosmos. A group of really smart people got together and decided that Pluto no longer counts as a planet. Do they realize what this means? Millions of third graders’ solar system models will now be totally worthless. Do you hear me – totally worthless!!!

Oh, well. It’s not the first time something has been demoted from a planet. It also happened in the 1800’s to an asteroid. One that I can’t spell right now.

I feel sorry for the ancient Mayans. Their doomsday prophecy about the universe being destroyed after the 10th planet is discovered has been set back by… well…. who knows how long now. Now what will they do to scare themselves about the end of the universe? It’s not like they had global warming to worry about.

There seems to have been a lot of slow speed chases in DFW recently. The latest one, with an 18-wheeler taking like three hours to wind around the metroplex, went right by the exit we take to get to our house. It’s just a sign of how weird some people are getting. The guy in the truck that was forcing the driver to keep going knew that they had no tires, barely even rims left, and that the police weren’t just going to give up chasing, but he just kept going. And going, and going. How long before Energizer makes some cheesy commercial about these chases?

I don’t know why I found this interesting, but I did. Here’s a news clip from Relevant magazine:

“Though it may not be an official holiday, Consecutive Numbers Day
is still pretty cool. At just past 1 a.m. tonight, the time and date
will be in perfect numerological order: 01:02:03, 04/05/06. Now, we’re
no mathematicians, but we’re guessing this doesn’t happen all that often…”