i read language books for fun. throughout high school i took spanish as a second language, and i minored in japanese during college. although i can speak neither language, every now and then i like to pick a grammar book and brush up a little bit (or a lot, depending on how you see it). my new favorite is 1001 pitfalls in spanish, purchased from wordsworth in the mid-90's. last night right before bed i had a fascinating read concerning the differences between "por" and "para." i love spanish. it's essentially america's second language. living in any big city in the united states, you can't help but to be exposed to spanish. while french has that air of sophistication and pretentiousness, spanish is the language of the people. with spanish being so widespread here in the US, that makes learning it a lot easier. here in cambridge, there's at least 3 spanish language cable channels. sometimes i take a peek at one of the telenovelas or watch the more sensational news broadcast, and of course it's hard to resist those variety shows. if i only had access to these shows when i was learning spanish! senior year of high school i almost bridged the gap into fluency by starting to understand spanish without first having to translate it in my head but then i stopped taking the language and lost it. i'd love to spend a few months traveling central and south america. despite the regional differences in dialects, i'm sure i'd be able to pick up the language in no time.

client S finally had a chance to take a look at the code i uploaded on monday. things look good and i should be able to finish the project in a few more days. that's perfect because now that the weather is slowly starting to warm up, i think i'm going to get the motorcycle out of the garage this weekend and start the riding season. i hear we might break the 60's next tuesday.

lunch, french toast and sausages, dinner, chinese dumplings. i might've overcooked them but they weren't that great anyway, compared to the homemade variety.