Languages

I've been spending my week creating translated versions of one of my technical manuals. German, French are done, now I start the Italian. We hire a company to actually do the translation, but part of my job is to import the text files, add back the numbers (which we remove so we don't pay 22¢ a word to 'translate') and add any other text that's already been translated. Then I replace the illustrations, wiggle stuff around so it fits, create the parts lists, check line breaks so words split correctly for that particular language, redo the tables of contents, and whew... it's done. It's actually a satisfying part of my job, easy but time-consuming. It's one of those tasks you need to have on the back burner--perfect when you need a break from the really tough part of writing technical documentation.

Easy... but oh-so hard on a beautiful day like today! Spring is just bursting into bloom, right outside my windows.