I did think, as I was listening to music on my iTouch, that I should be using this transit time to learn Chinese, which reminded me of a podcast called LingoLook China, which someone in our delegation had purchased.
This morning, I had a 9:00 class in the library, which is across the street from my building this morning, and on the way in. Since I had some time before heading over there, I searched iTunes for that podcast, and found it that it's actually an iPhone/Touch app, and not a podcast. I purchased it for $4.99.
At first I found it a little confusing, as I thought it was a repeat and learn type of program, but what I eventually figured out, was that what it actually does is present an index of things, as well as a category view, and then has the thing explained on the left in English and on the right in Chinese. So, basically, if you get stuck, you can point to a picture/item on your PDA and the other person can read what it is in Chinese.
I really enjoyed the class. It was on an application called Remedy, which our organization uses as its problem/call management system. The instructor was excellent. I loved both his teaching style and his sense of humor. Bonus.
He used a phrase for "from beginning to end" that I loved, and can't believe I've never heard before: "From womb to tomb."
When I returned to the office after class, another person came over and made sure I was cool with how things "went down" yesterday, and later still, a manager in our area did the same thing. Good people.
Nathan e-mailed me to say that we'd missed one form in our haste in getting them all signed when I was there on Tuesday. He drove over to my office, and I walked the short distance to the FedEx/Kinkos on Hillsborough Street, where he parked, to meet him to take care of it.
The good news was that he hadn't yet invested any of that money I gave him on Tuesday. That's good news as the market has pretty much only continued to retreat since then.
Someone on Twitter tweeted about this:
I caught the 4:30 city bus to "get out of dodge" before they closed Hillsborough Street down for NC State's Homecoming Parade.
Regarding that standard deviation from the mean, I nearly missed the bus. When I stepped outside my building, the bus was stopped right in front of me at the traffic light. Fortunately I had time to walk the about 200 feet that the stop is from the front of my building before the light turned green.
I met Joe at Flex at 10:00, where I didn't realize it was 120 Minutes night. It turned out to be a decent night, though.
My straight neighbor, Jacob, and his wife, Heather were there, as they usually are. It was Jacob's birthday, and the DJs (whom I think are pretty good friends with Jacob) had made a little mashup video with flashes of Jacob's name in it along with "Happy Birthday."
I asked Heather what he was drinking, which turned out to be a Guiness Draught in a bottle. Who knew? Evidently, nitrogen is somehow infused into the bottle.
I bought him a birthday drink.