Yesterday was pretty much the model for how I fill my hours. And the best part is that I really enjoyed it. I kicked things off with the Wednesday Walkers group hike and closed it out with beers, dinner, and beers. That’s how I roll!
The hike wasn’t long (around 5K) but had its challenges. I’m one of the Hares in a couple of weeks, along with Scott and Jim, so we did some scouting. Our path to the top of Kalaklan Ridge will work fine with a couple of tweaks. The down path we chose (appropriately nicknamed Motherfucker) was a tad too steep, rocky, and slick for a rainy season trek. We’ve got a Plan B we’ll implement for the Hash trail.
I got home a little later than normal and woke up from my afternoon nap off schedule as well. I rushed through my daily post here on LTG, showered, and then headed out for my beer time over an hour late. That’s okay. Swan joined me for the excursion, and we kicked things off at BarCelona.
After our fill at BarCelona, we headed to Myleen’s for dinner.
Two slices of freshly baked pumpkin pie to go for dessert. A rare find in the Philippines.
We did our nightcap at Wet Spot. Owner Dave stopped by my table and informed me that the price of my beer was now 450 pesos. Ah, the fame that comes with living in a small town. It’s all good. Aine walked by and said hello, but kept walking. We didn’t call her back. Funny how that works.
Another fine day in paradise came to an end with pumpkin pie a la mode in my belly and my sweetheart beside me. Life is good.
Facebook reminds me of the good life I had in South Carolina eleven years ago.
I’ve never been shy about questioning authority. Especially when the folks in authority are almost always wrong.
Tomorrow’s SOB is at La Oficina, and I’m planning to attend. So, today’s YouTube video is a taste of what most of my readers will be missing:
Let’s take a crack at being funny:
Alright, another day, another post. I’ll be back with another one tomorrow.
The down path we chose (appropriately nicknamed Motherfucker) was a tad too steep, rocky, and slick for a rainy season trek.
Spot the error!
Let the climbing begin. My tracker says it was exactly 1.6 kilometers to the ridgeline.
Damn. A mile-long climb?
During rainy season, algae grows on the rocks making them extra slippery.
I haven’t covered this one in my series on commas yet, but can you spot the error?
That’s Columban College in the foreground.
What’s the campus like? Before I’d realized that all the US universities had curdled into woke-ideology factories, I used to love walking around college campuses. They’re nicely manicured, well landscaped, and often filled with interesting buildings and outdoor sculptures. They’re also (or they were) a good environment for nerds. These days, I’d probably just get yelled at if I were to set foot on a campus.
I had the steak lunch special for only 595 pesos.
Somewhere, a Texan is weeping at the puny size of that steak. Is beef as expensive in the PI as it is in South Korea?
A sunshiny hike, but an hour later it was pouring down rain.
Spot the error!
When it rains it pours and that blows
We’re on a roll! Spot the errors!
Aine walked by and said hello, but kept walking.
In the above, you need to either add a “___” or remove a ___ .
550/2 is not 225
Correct. Think of 550 as 500 + 50. Divide both by 2, and you get 250 + 25, which is 275. But for what it’s worth, 450/2 is 225!
Sounds as though it had been a pretty good day. Nice. Here’s to many more.
I found your blog during lockdown and have been an almost daily visitor since.
I visited Subic regular between the early noughties and 2018 but I have not been back as was finding the entertainment value had gone a long way down hill from the earlier days. You seem to relish living there so I am pleased for you.
I like a regular drink myself (but I’m an amateur compared to Thompson HaHa) and enjoy three or 4 pints a day – 6 – 8 at weekends. I am pushing 70 ike yourself but recently the doctor has been rasing concerns about my liver function; in particular my ALT and bilirubin readings. I read you had your bloods done recently so would be interested in knowing what your readings are in these areas. Like yourself, I stay off the spirits and exercise daily.
Also, how is the weight loss going?
Thanks for reading, Ted!
By “entertainment value” I assume you mean the girlie bars. That’s never been my thing, but I hear complaints about the overall quality of the dancer’s appearance. I don’t think that’s limited to Barretto, though. I mostly hang out in “regular” bars with like-minded expats and enjoy myself. Also, having a live-in girlfriend makes a difference.
I’ll see if liver function was included in this round of tests. The last time I consulted Dr. Jo, she was more worried about my kidneys than my liver. I think my liver readings were in the high normal range. I’ll keep my eye on that though.
As to my weight, it seems my beer belly is here to stay. But I’m still getting my steps in and trying not to be crazy about the sweets. We’ll see how that works out.
The down path we chose (appropriately nicknamed Motherfucker) was a tad too steep, rocky, and slick for a rainy season trek.
If I rewrote that sentence I’d take out the “too.” I wrote it as “to” originally, but Grammarly said I needed to change it. The sentence works without either one.
A sunshiny hike, but an hour later it was pouring down rain.
The steak size was fine for lunch. That meal costs 1000 pesos at dinner, that’s why I took a pass last Sunday. Yes, USDA beef here is very expensive. A ribeye at John’s is almost 2000 pesos ($35.).
Columban College is more like a private high school with some college courses available. Nothing special about the campus from what I’ve seen…just those blue-roofed buildings full of classrooms and a big gymnasium.
How’s this: A sunshiny hike, but an hour later[,] it was pouring down rain.
When it rains[,[ it pours[,] and that blows. I must have been comma-tose yesterday.
Is this better: Aine passed by and said, “Hello,” but kept walking.
1. If I rewrote that sentence[,] I’d take out the “too.” I wrote it as “to” originally, but Grammarly said I needed to change it. The sentence works without either one.
Don’t trust Grammarly. It misses things. In that sentence, the phrase “rainy season trek” needs a hyphen. Trek is the noun being modified by the phrasal adjective rainy season. The adjective comes before the noun, so it needs to be hyphenated. You’ll get this one day.
2. A sunshiny hike, but an hour later it was pouring down rain.
Interrupted by text, but you then write:
How’s this: A sunshiny hike, but an hour later[,] it was pouring down rain.
Correct! But why is this correct?
3. When it rains[,[ it pours[,] and that blows.
Yes, correct. But why?
4. Original sentence: Aine walked by and said hello, but kept walking.
I wrote:
In the above, you need to either add a “___” or remove a ___ .
Basically, you need to either add a “she” or remove a comma.
Correction 1 (add “she”):
Aine walked by and said hello, but she kept walking.
Correction 2 (remove comma):
Aine walked by and said hello but kept walking.
The first correction makes this into a compound sentence with two clauses. The second correction makes this into a simple sentence with a compound predicate. See Commas, Part 1 to review. As I’ve said before, if you only mastered Part 1 and Part 2 of my comma series, you’d solve 95% of your problems.
QUIZ: Please teach me, in your own words (no cutting and pasting references from elsewhere—your OWN words), why the following sentence is wrong and how to correct it. So I’m looking for two things: a WHY and a HOW. The incorrect sentence:
She took a puff of her cigarette, and coughed.
1. WHY: Why is the above sentence wrong?
2. HOW: What are two ways to correct the sentence?
No passive-aggressively avoiding the quiz, now! Make the mental effort, please. I know you can do this. Review what I’ve written if needed (Commas, Part 1, linked above). Review it a dozen times. I’ll know you’ve learned the thing if you’re able to teach it back to me without merely quoting someone else (cutting and pasting the rule = no thinking). If you never learn the why of these corrections, you’ll always make the same mistakes over and over. Surely, an old dog can learn a new trick!
Things we want to avoid saying when correcting poor English:
Well, that doesn’t look right.
It doesn’t flow right.
That doesn’t sound right.
That just looks strange.
etc., etc.
The above are vague and content-free non-reasons for making changes. There are actual rules governing these corrections. Language is rule-bound, like it or not. Sure, there’s room for creativity, but good writing involves freedom within constraints, not freedom without constraints. Sure, if you’re writing free verse, knock yourself out and be as shitty as you want. Otherwise… rules.
She took a puff of her cigarette, and coughed.
Well, I’d say she took a puff off her cigarette, but maybe that’s just me. There is no need for that pesky comma interrupting the flow of the sentence either.
As for the quiz, I don’t want to compound my errors when it comes to commas, so let me just pause here and admit that punctuating that issue is, and always has been, a problem for me. Yes, some of it may be stubbornness and rebelling against the Gods of Grammar, but I’d also argue that it is a matter of style. I tend to write like I talk, especially on the blog where I’m imagining a friendly conversation with my readers. So, I want what I say to be understandable and make sense, and to the extent that proper grammar and punctuation facilitate that, I’m all in. But as I write, I’m just not thinking about the rules. I guess that makes me guilty of being one of those in the “It doesn’t look/flow/sound right” crowd. This is not to say I’m opposed to doing it correctly, but that doesn’t come naturally to me. I always do a quick re-read before posting, but I don’t always catch even the most obvious errors. Once you point them out, I can almost always spot the mistake.
So, teacher, are you going to fail me on this quiz? I’m grammatically challenged and should be given consideration for my handicap. Don’t make me file a discrimination complaint!
Yeah, I’m going to fail you, but your blog is a blog and not a classroom, so I have to fail myself as well for thinking I could be a teacher in this medium. You’re incorrigible, and I really need to stop wasting my remaining time on fruitless pursuits.
A lot of people use the excuse of “style” in trying to justify their sloppy grammar and mechanics. Proper language doesn’t come naturally to you because you never made a habit of using it early in life. That’s partially on you and partially on your education. And objectively speaking, if most of humanity doesn’t care one way or the other about proper language, then as you say, the only thing that really matters is being able to communicate clearly. “Good enough,” not “good.”
But for those of us who have gone a little deeper into the linguistic woods, we see mistakes—especially repeated and avoidable mistakes—as sucking out the dignity from what might have been good, solid prose. This is why I constantly cringe at rightie memes that could have been clever had they not made mistakes in grammar and mechanics. Sometimes, before I place a meme on my blog, I’ll Photoshop it to clean up the language. But I don’t do that consistently: if I did, my life would be nothing but corrective Photoshopping.
Part of the confusion is that you’ve previously claimed a willingness to learn, but from your actions, you show a stubborn unwillingness to learn. I think the rhetoric needs to match the actions: just be honest and say “I don’t need that crap.” For my part, I figured this out about you a long time ago, yet I stubbornly persist, maybe for reasons of spiritual inertia, or some forlorn hope that something of what I say might stick. But it truly is hopeless. For you, “good” is merely “good enough.” I should save us both the trouble and stop hounding you. Instead, as with those memes, I’ll just quietly cringe when I happen up an error.
By the way, a Google search of the phrase “took a puff of her cigarette” yields 13,900 results. The phrase “took a puff off her cigarette” yields only 185 results. I guess you could defiantly spin this as “Right on! I’m one of the rare ones!” Rationalize away.
“I’ll just quietly cringe when I happen up an error.”
And I’ll quietly cringe happen upon my own errors.
How I wish WordPress and Blogger had “edit comment” functions.
My mind is going. Take three:
And I’ll quietly cringe when I happen upon my own errors.
Did I finally get that right? They say that, with heart failure, cognitive problems can result from ever-poorer circulation of blood to the brain. At least I’m still aware enough to catch my errors even if I’m catching them too late.
Welcome to my world. Even words I know how to spell, I spell wrong these days. Those errors are compounded by my stupid finger mistakes on the keyboard. Then there’s the stuff I should know but don’t.
Still, being a living fuck-up beats the alternative.
Curses failed again! Sorry to be such a disappointment.
Obviously, we both have different perspectives. You are the professional when it comes to the written word, and I understand that perfection is the goal you strive for. I’m not at the other extreme because I do care, but I’m accepting that what I write satisfices for my purposes. Anyway, we are what we are.
Just so you know, I am making some effort to improve, as lame as those efforts might be. I’ve read your comma posts and done some other “research” on the ‘net, and I think I have a basic understanding of the punctuation concepts we’ve discussed. Granted, that may not show up in my sloppy writing style, but I believe I’m better now than I was, so your efforts were not totally wasted.
I apologize in advance for those future cringes I will inspire. Back when I was a smoker, we might say “took a hit” or “took a drag,” but now that I think about it, those were marijuana cigarettes. Still, if only 185 examples of “puff” exist in the Google universe, I’d proudly deem that creative writing.
Anyway, I’m an old man somewhat set in his ways, but maybe not totally hopeless. We shall see.
I’m not at the other extreme because I do care…
Just so you know, I am making some effort to improve, as lame as those efforts might be. I’ve read your comma posts and done some other “research” on the ‘net, and I think I have a basic understanding of the punctuation concepts we’ve discussed.
…but I believe I’m better now than I was…
John, you’re a great rationalizer. Before Swan, you used to rationalize your behavior with women, and you still rationalize the drinking, which you claim is under control despite blogging numerous examples that show otherwise.
No, you haven’t improved one bit since I began this whole language thing. I see the same errors over and over again, indicating that whatever you’re calling “study” is little more than glancing over the information and not retaining it. You also remain unable or unwilling to explain in your own words the rules I’ve tried to teach, which is a sure sign that you’re making no real effort. If you were truly motivated to learn, truly curious—instead of being so self-satisfied with your current level of prose—I’d see progress, but there’s been none. I think some of this is laziness, and some is stubborn resistance. And since there are no consequences, here, for laziness or stubbornness, none of this matters.
I prefer honesty: you don’t really care, and you’re not really willing to make the actual effort to (1) learn, then to (2) prove you’ve learned. And hey, that’s fine. As I said on my own blog, my mistake was to treat your blog as if it were a classroom, and it’s not. So, to save myself the stress (because I did care), I think it’s better for me just to let go of this silly project. You can go on pretending that you’ve actually learned something, but every time you write a post, I see that you haven’t. It’s better for me just to recognize, and bow to, the obvious.
Things might be different if this were a real class, and you were being graded. That would provide you some extrinsic motivation. That, or it might be nice to see that you were intrinsically motivated to learn, i.e., for love of language, not for fear of penalties. But as with a lot of people who don’t really care about their own slovenliness, I think you see language as something to use sloppily, with other people cleaning up after you if you’re writing something to be presented somewhere (see this old post).
Look, I’m not writing any of the above in anger. Frustration, yes, but it’s frustration that I’ve caused myself. “You can lead a horse to water, but…” Anyway, your prose is indeed good enough for government work, and I remain a daily reader because of the interesting content, but I can only wish like hell that you’d clean the prose up. Other readers might not notice the problems, or maybe they notice but don’t care, and that seems to be all right with you. Just be honest about not really caring. I realize it may be an HR-borne reflex to want to placate people, make them feel better, but that should never happen at the expense of the truth. There’s no need to tell me you’ve learned or studied or improved when you obviously haven’t. Meanwhile, good luck with untrustworthy Grammarly.
I’ll still continue to comment, of course, but I’ll harass you no longer about grammar and mechanics. Thanks for tolerating all the carping.
“John, you’re a great rationalizer”
So, what I hear you saying is that I’m rational. Thank you! 🙂
Seriously, I’m sorry you haven’t seen any improvement in my writing. My awareness level is enhanced, and I do try to catch the mistakes prior to posting, but apparently, I’ve failed. I guess acceptance is the best option for me.
Thank you for trying to teach me. I sincerely appreciate the effort you put forth. I never took offense at your admonishments, and I apologize for the stress and frustration my incompetence caused you.
Hmm, reading the post you linked, I’m thinking, okay, I can live with being in School B. Until I got to the part where you equate that to being a litterbug. Ouch!
Anyway, life goes on, even for the slovenly. I’ll continue to do my best, even if my best isn’t good enough. I can’t help but wonder how many cringes this comment induced. Sorry in advance!