Saturday, Nov. 04, 2006 - 2:48 p.m.

Decided to take back to the library a bunch of my linguistics books today. A big step! Only got about half of them this trip, and the reduction in books did not have nearly the effect on office organization that I had hoped. It's still a mess. Andyway, I had decided to reward myself by picking out a book not related to my research, something to read for fun, fun reading being one of the things I've been looking forward to in this new lifestyle I am proposing. I ended up picking a book in the linguistics of laughter. Not as far from my usual topic as I had planned, but baby steps and all that. I mean, it has nothing to do with tense or aspect, so it is practically the funcional equivalent of a romance novel. (There's a whole chapter on puns!)

Had to buy some new varnish, and went with a clear gloss spar varnish this time. This is a radical move-- it is UV protecting, super scratch resistant, etc, but is also oil-based and takes twice as long to dry between coats as the stuff I have been using. Also, although advertised as clear, it actually has a yellowish tinge to it which may be problematic when doing so many coats. And it stinks to high heaven, a fact about spar varnish that I had forgotten. So, we shall see. Maybe a mix-- 6 coats of the regular stuff and a final two of the heavy-duty stuff?

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