Category Archives: working on the road

What I left behind

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Trip update. Well, I didn’t really get down to a bicycle and a bounce box. Last Monday in a chilling rain, I shipped two boxes UPS to Charlottesville, Virginia. Actually, one of them would not have been there, had I shipped the ATA Conference stuff from San Antonio, but it made sense to send it to Houston, where I was not paying for a hotel, then take my time trying to organize the boxes.

Monday night, I boarded a bus for Charlottesville, Virginia. This represents something of an interruption in the Southern Swing, but it makes sense: Continue reading →

What to take

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Trip update. I am still in Houston, Texas, visiting with my cousins, and working on both a translation and business left over from the ATA Conference. I will be hitting the road the day after tomorrow, but not before hearing the Houston Symphony perform Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4. Houston is a full-size, proper city, and I am enjoying being surrounded by the conveniences and luxuries of a major metropolitan area.

Being here has allowed me to evaluate my packing. There are some things that I wish I had brought, and there are other things that I should have left behind. This week, I would like to discuss what I brought. It is a very personal list; anyone’s packing list for a trip like this will be unique. Continue reading →

Resting: it’s as important as riding.

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Trip update: I am writing to you from Houston Texas, where I arrived yesterday after riding from San Antonio.To my surprise, only the Priority Mail box had arrived; the UPS boxes were still in the hotel in San Antonio. That is how I learned that UPS does not pick up just because the brown truck stops by every day. Unlike the Postal Service, if one cannot take the box to a UPS location, there is a small pickup charge. I learned quickly how to schedule a pickup, and the hotel staff is ready to turn over my bounce boxes on Monday. Fortunately, I have some street clothing on the bike for a meeting on Monday evening, and I can keep washing my bicycle kits while I wait for the UPS boxes to arrive.  Continue reading →

The Bounce Box. Options and alternatives.

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Trip update: I spent this week in Georgetown, Texas, still with my cousins. I am happy to report that I was able to complete and deliver the book translation in time to be able to run errands and prepare to leave. This morning, I hit the road again, riding to San Antonio for the ATA Conference (http://www.atanet.org/conf/2013/).

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Working on a book translation in Georgetown, Texas.

This week I would like to discuss bounce boxes. The bounce box is a sturdy box that can be relabeled and reused.

Let me first say that I am indebted to my friend Heather Warren for introducing me to the Bounce Box. Heather has hiked the Appalachian Trail (http://www.appalachiantrail.org/), which I consider a remarkable feat. The “AT” hikers make extensive use of the bounce box, because backpackers can only haul about five to ten days of stuff, and the AT takes much longer than that. They mail ahead the rest of their supplies to “General Delivery” at the next Post Office along the Trail, where they will restock and reorganize.  Continue reading →

Getting ready for the Southern Swing 2013

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Now that I am on the road and actually doing this, let’s discuss what I did to get ready.

But first a trip update: This week I have been visiting my cousins in Georgetown, Texas. I am using the desk that my cousin uses when she is not commuting to her office in Round Rock. I have been working on a book that turned out to have 40% more material to translate than the publisher contracted for. Without the riding every day, I can put in extra hours and catch up, so that by next week when I leave, the book will be delivered. Had I been on the road, I would have been forced to stop for a while to put in these hours. My budget includes staying in a hotel room when this sort of crisis happens, but being able to fix a meal in the kitchen and do my laundry in a washing machine while I am working is much better.

As for getting ready for the Southern Swing, I had two major areas of preparation:

  1. Preparing myself and the bicycle.
  2. Organizing the office and its support systems. Continue reading →

Important lessons (re)learned

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This blog is six weeks old now, and you have an idea of how I got to this point. This week, I would like to summarize the lessons learned from the two rides last year. This is not a repeat, but a synthesis: they are actually new lessons, which I could not have learned without looking back over both rides together.

But, first, let’s catch up from last week.

Trip update: This week, I rode from Keller, Texas (north of Fort Worth), to Alvarado, Hillsboro, Waco, Temple, to Georgetown (Austin area), arriving on Thursday. It rained every day except Thursday, as the remnants of Tropical Storm Narda broke up over Baja California and pushed across Texas in front of a strong front from the north. This gave me headwinds until the front passed, but a pleasant, cool tailwind on the last day. Fortunately, I managed to be indoors or under cover when the squalls came by, so the weather was not my biggest problem. Continue reading →

Lessons learned: the Giro della Nuova Inghilterra (GNI).

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Trip update: While I was in Keller, I was able to confirm that the mail forwarding system works. Both my business mail from Tracy and the personal mail from Daniel arrived in two days, plenty of time for me to deal with it before leaving.

The first mail forwarding also taught me that I should have left a better list of disposal instructions. Fortunately, both Daniel and Tracy emailed me to ask about some of the catalogs and magazines before sending them to me. I replied with a list of those catalogs, magazines and other heavy mail that I expected, and what to do with each. Most of my subscriptions are backed up with digital subscriptions now, so I really do not need most of the media mail that comes in.

I left my high-quality microphone/headset behind because it was too bulky. Regretting that when the book translation came in, I ordered a slim Koss USB microphone, which arrived yesterday. Now that I am dictating my translations, the productivity has soared again.

The large monitor back in Charlottesville spoiled me. I stopped by Radio Shack the other day and bought a short (1 meter) HDMI cable for my office. Now I can plug into the TV in the hotel rooms, or borrow my cousin’s large monitor when I need to look at my work on a bigger screen. Most of the time, the 13-in laptop screen is fine, but there are those times…

This week I am on my way to Central Texas, stopping in Alvarado and other towns on the way to Austin and San Antonio. I would like to continue with the lessons learned from the second ride I did last year.

9 Farrar St 20120728

My father grew up here in Cambridge, MA.

The Giro della Nuova Inghilterra (GNI), or Tour of New England, was my first deliberate test of the format that I am using now on the Southern Swing 2013. Enjoy the story at 

http://www.scriptorservices.com/tradux/GNINarrative.

Continue reading →

On the road again — at last.

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The home renovation which had already slipped six weeks when I launched this blog is now running more than two months behind. Two days ago, I finally packed up my bicycle and rode to the bus station, leaving Daniel, my son and the resident homeowner, in charge of finishing the renovation. Those who are following my bicycle ride on Facebook already have access to the photo story of our renovation. The house is coming together nicely, but I wish I could have seen it completed before I left. Continue reading →

The office, then and now.

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As recently as last year, my office occupied a windowless room, 3.6 meters wide and 7.6 meters long (12’X25′). To reduce the dreariness of the previous homeowner’s knotty pine, we painted the whole place white and outfitted it with white custom cabinets and shelves. My office assistant, Ann, and I each had steel and glass desks for our workstations. Across from us was a two-meter-long heavy glass table, with everything we needed for paper layout, shipping, and any activity that needed to spread out. We had a laser printer, several inkjet printers and an all-in-one fax-copier-printer attached to a dedicated land line.

Old windowless office

Crowded, but comfy.

Ann retired, and I began doing more and more work outside the office. We received fewer than four faxes each year on the landline, and the eFax service had been silent for two years (at USD 16.95/month). I was saving files as PDF’s rather than printing them.

During 2012, I carried my office by car to the ATISA Conference at South Padre  Island, Texas, in March and in the sag wagon on the Climate Ride (500 km from New York to Washington) in May. Then in July and August, I rode my bicycle unsupported for three weeks, continuing to take in translations, articles for review and other work. My clients never knew or cared where I was. I had proven that I could take my office on the bicycle – at least for a month or so. Continue reading →

How my lives on the bicycle and translating gently merged.

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I have been translating since I was 11, riding my bicycle since I was five. They have always coexisted with whatever I was doing. The bicycle would get me around locally. Translating and interpreting (scholars call it language mediation) have been part of my daily work or schooling, or a second job, all my life. It was

The author (R) and his brother David about to walk to school in Rome, 1956.

The author (R) and his brother David about to walk to school in Rome, 1956.

no coincidence that I was an interpreter and a tour guide growing up in Rome, Italy, or that I majored in Italian area studies at the Naval Academy. Continue reading →