The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 20-24, 2017

This has been a very quiet week. Many of our office folk are traveling in distant climes. We may have even had a couple of days when there were only two people in the office. That's okay, though. You get a lot done.

Of course, just because people aren't in the office doesn't mean you can't work with them. Have you ever tried to group think a video script? I like Google sheets as much as the next person, but putting four people into one document in conjunction with a zoom call makes for very interesting work. And of course, we still didn't get it written.

Meh.

This week is still all about Portuguese. I'm nearly done with group 1, but I keep running into issues. I've added so many pages to these booklets that it's ridiculous.

I also did another voiceover this week, this time for a video. I haven't seen it yet, but I hope it turns out nicely.

Speaking of, here's the link to the radio ad we did a couple weeks ago. 

And more chapel singing this week.

I look like I have a deformed hand. 

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 13-17, 2017

Is it weird that we're 17 (16 if you're being pedantic) years into the new millennium, and I'm just now starting to get used to thinking of 1995 as 20 years ago?

Anyway.

So early this week, I was reminded of the movie Our Brand Is Crisis.  Not because I've seen it, because I haven't. But I was thinking that the title would be a really good descriptor of our department sometimes.

My boss was in Hawaii on Monday, so I got to field the usual "Whatisgoingonwiththisprojectwhyisn'titdonewehavearealproblemhere" freak outs. This week, it was about Bengali.  (The translation, not the entire language.) Some people from the office are traveling to this specific country next week expecting to do training with the new booklets. And wouldn't you know, the process isn't done. Now I haven't worked with Bengali yet, so I really didn't have an answer for the inquirer. So I shot it up the train. And then it became "we didn't know about the deadline" and "why weren't we informed sooner?"

Neither of which I can answer.

There's no point to this other than it being really hard to keep track of so many projects.

I, of course, have been working on Portuguese all week. And it's likely that I'll be doing it all next week as well. I'm doing three groups at once, which translates to 18 booklets. Not sure exactly how many pages that is. I'm formatting, checking, and finalizing. The formatting and checking is done, so now I'm working on finalizing, which is always the longest part.

If it sounds like I've done at least part of this before, you're not wrong. But we encountered a few problems with the transfiles the first time around, so it was easier to start over.

Sound familiar?

Yeah. We're working out a few kinks.

We'll get there.

In other news, the President of OMS told me this week to "punch the devil in the face."

I call that a win.

The Good Dinosaur Live Blog

I'm not sure I know enough about this movie to want to live blog it.

It has dinosaurs. And children. One of these is better than the other.

I suppose I should just get all the evolutionary crap out of the way right now. I guess you could call me a young Earther. Or a Middle Earther. (hehe)

Anything about "millions and billions of years ago" is ludicrous. 

So. Moving on. Hasn't even started yet. I'm rolling my eyes at the menu screen. 

Did scientists consult on this? They know astroids really aren't that close together, right? Star Wars does not represent real life.

Really? Millions of years later? That could literally be anywhere from 3 - 65 million years. How am I supposed to keep the continuity straight?

That water is really impressive. Kudos to the animators.

Except not, because this dinosaur looks stupid. I think they spent all of their money animating the water. 

Are - are they planting crops? 

THEY HAVE A HOUSE?!

Not sure I can do this for 84 more minutes. 

No. Irrigation. Just. No. 

Some egg is about to die. I've seen this in Finding Nemo. Possibly parents as well.

Disney makes me paranoid.

Okay. Tiny Dino is cute. 

That child is destroying a lot of plants. And by child, I mean dinosaur.

Ugh. That will be important for the future. Life lessons from Dad. 

Why does this sound like a Western? It's way too green. 

And sometimes fear is totally reasonable, Cool Dad. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but his siblings only had to plant a field and uproot a tree. This young dinosaur must now kill something. Did I get that right? Murder gets you a mark? OK. Whatever.

I did not realize this child was going to be feral.

Cool Dad is about to be Dead Dad. 

Yup. Called it. 

But you have one less mouth to feed. Why worry about the harvest?

Too soon?

Saw that coming. And that. 

Oh look, he dug his own grave. 

Sorry. I'm already bored. And really cynical. 

And I think he's on top of a volcano. 

Androcles and the Lion! Which is which?

These possum things are hilarious. 

This kid is like a really angry cat. 

This kid really was raised by wolves. 

This snake has legs. 

I am highly amused by the chameleon dinosaur. And his love for Debbie. 

Ew. I hate leeches. 

And now they're on drugs. What even is this movie?

Ah, dead parents. The Disney staple. 

I'm not crying. Shut up. 

Aaand he ran into a tornado. 

That was unexpected. 

Twitchy fellas. Don't trust them. 

I think I saw this in Jurassic Park. More murder in that movie, though. Where's Indoesntexisist?

Sam Elliott! 

Mesa Verde! The whole Western thing is starting to make sense. 

Yeah, I had the same thought, kid. 

What the heck are these things? Rats with feathers?

I'm not sure I'll ever get the sight of a T Rex herding cows out of my head. 

Bull what now? Don't pretend it didn't happen. I heard you. We all heard you. 

That's cool. But he has no idea what is in the fog. I've seen 28 Days Later. The answer is zombies. 

Oh look. More wolves. I mean people. 

That is the very definition of kidnapping. 

Aliens? Reverse sharks?

Oh. Those dumb bird things. 

Ghost dinosaur!

I keel you!

I'm not sure what that accomplished. 

That's not how CPR works. 

Lots more wolf people. 

You're crying. Shut up. 

Ohana means family. And that means no one gets left behind. 

Wait. Wrong movie. 

We never returned to the volcano thing. Or chameleon and Debbie. I need closure. 

I don't understand the message of this movie. And where are all the other dinosaurs? 

Conclusion: I don't even know, man. It's mildly entertaining? I guess? I cried meaningless tears over a dinosaur and his pet feral child. 

...

Why is it called The Good Dinosaur?

The Weekly Wrap-Up: February 6-10, 2017

So.

Good news: My Hindi project is done.

Bad news: I had to do it twice.

Weird news: I got engaged.

While working in the files the first time, I kept noticing some extra text, weird characters, too many overset text boxes - just all around trouble. So I had to figure out why these things were happening. Once I did that, I briefly considered trying to fix each of the issues separately. Ultimately, though, I decided it was easier to just start over. Minus one annoying attempt by my file to pull in an unknown font, I had a much better time of it on the second go.

In the midst of this headache, I found time to record a radio ad. Hence the weird news as referenced above. It's a play on words. As soon as I have the link to the ad, I'll post it, and you can hear for yourselves.

I also got to help with CROSS training this week. On Monday, I helped with the cross-cultures game. They split up into four groups and take on the characteristics of a particular culture. I got to herd the meek, submissive group. Each culture then visits or is visited by another culture. So the meek group gets to interact with the martial, regimented group; the overly friendly, touchy group; and the unmotivated, devil-may-care group. It's one of my favorite exercises for CT.

Then today, I got to show off my swords again! I love this day. And I love people who can appreciate a good weapon.

The Weekly Wrap-Up: January 30 - February 3, 2017

It took me a minute to remember that we started the week still in January. Feels like February should be half over already.

Of course, that could just be all the craziness of the week making me feel like time is moving faster. Not gonna lie, there was a medium-sized breakdown around Monday or Tuesday. I say medium only because I managed not to do it at work, but let's all be thankful I don't have a roommate.

So I finished creating the Spanish proofs. That's a fairly easy task comparatively, but you still have to resolve whatever issues the finalization process revealed. Most of those were questions for the translator, though, so that's all right.

I learned how to publish this week! Let me tell you, it's not just your basic exporting to PDF. We have to create three different types of PDF, split files, add security, and you have to do it all in the right order or you'll be forced to start over.

So, no pressure or anything.

I'm pretty sure I was trying to do four things at the same time at least once this week. I think women like to say they're great at multi-tasking, but I'm not always so good. It usually ends up in me missing something on one or all of my projects. It's hard to focus on one thing at a time, though. So I do what I can, then take a walk or switch to something else.

Added to the difficulty is trying to document the process and workflow for everything I'm learning. I think the instructions take longer than some of the tasks because there are so many little parts that I just do without thinking about it. Then when people try to duplicate it, they can't because there are pieces missing. So I try to go through my notes three or four times to be sure I haven't skipped anything major.

I was also asked to work on a side project this week. We're getting ready for training in March, and Larry (director of CMFs) needed a new handout with T&M art instead of what he had. It was nice to put my design skills to work in a different way. It did involve me combing through scads of art files, but it provided a nice break.

If you've been wondering about the app, I can tell you that we're discussing a new name and look for it. Sure, it hasn't been released yet, but why not change everything. I also listened to a long discussion about how we were going to order the indexes since alphabetical would probably only work for English. Yeah, going well, that.

Finally, I'm back in Hindi with group 2. It's weird that group 1 has been published (by me!), yet we're nearly at the beginning with the rest of the booklets. And judging by how well it's going right now (I'm running files as I type this), it could take even longer. I've got a problem with one file, and I can't tell if it's my computer, the template, the script, or the transfile.

I'm thinking that's next week's problem.