Breath of not-so-fresh air

I hope everybody got a chance to enjoy the holiday weekend. I know I did! From seeing an old friend on Friday to a(nother) charity 5K followed by a cookout on Monday, my long weekend was packed with fun and frolic.

On Saturday, my hubby and I went to the Columbus Museum of Art to see To Live Forever, a collection of Egyptian art and antiquities on loan from the Brooklyn Museum. It was interesting, and I even spotted a typo in one of the descriptive plaques (unfortunately, the "no photography" rule prevented me from snapping a quick pic to accompany this post).

Monday, as I was clearing off the patio in preparation for our cookout, I noticed a barnyardesque smell on the breeze. I assumed it was just decomposing vegetation in the woodier part of our yard . . . until my husband pointed out that the folks whose backyard butts up against ours had created a compost heap right against their fenceline. So now any time the wind blows from the north, we will get that lovely smell. Joy.

Reminiscing

The absolutely glorious weather we've been experiencing in central Ohio for the past two days has me thinking about the good ol' days when I didn't have any work and could sit outside in my backyard and enjoy the sun as I watched the butterflies drift about on a warm breeze.

Of course, back then I couldn't afford to enjoy the weather anywhere but in my backyard . . .

And there's the rub. Would I rather be working steadily and not see the sun until 5:30, or wile away the hours on my patio wishing I had a more lucrative way to spend the day? Definitely the former. The sun stays up for a good fifteen hours this time of year!

It's a mystery to me

I has a major problems reading this . . . do you thinks AT&T has decides to outsource their synopsis writing to a non-English speaking countries?

Snippets

And now for another episode of Short Attention Span Theater:

• The Columbus leg of the Race for the Cure happened on Saturday morning. It was a beautiful day and a wonderful turnout--around 45,000 people registered, and judging from the crowd most of them actually made it downtown.
• Something is going on with my web site. I will need to investigate that soon.
• I get to work on another round of edits to my report today--they are much less intimidating this time around, which is a good thing!
• For the past few nights, I've had nothing but unpleasant dreams. It's getting annoying.
• My hubby and I went to see the Spinal Tap: Unwigged and Unplugged tour last night. Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer performed acoustic versions of songs from the various Spinal Tap albums, as well as from the movies A Mighty Wind and Waiting for Guffman. The witty banter and film clips between songs were nearly as entertaining as the songs themselves.

Dress rehearsal

As part of the editing process for the report I'm writing, the draft was forwarded to a pharmacist who has not been privy to the study, presentation or report to date. When his edits came back, I was tempted to dismiss many of them for this very reason--and then I realized that if he had these questions, comments and concerns as he was reading, so would the report's intended audience.

That realization caused me to look back at some sections of the report with a fresh eye. I, and the people who read and commented on earlier drafts, were so close to the information that we made some assumptions we shouldn't have. For example, because we've been knee-deep in the process for months now, we took it for granted that the reader would know what factor analysis is. In this specific case, it was an easy fix. I reworded the first mention of factor analysis to include a simple definition, giving the reader just enough information to understand the concept without bogging them down with unnecessary, overly-technical statistical jargon. I had to work harder to address some of his other questions and comments, but the end result is a stronger draft that will be an easier read.

His edits served as a friendly reminder of who I was writing for.