Jamie Wakefield

Way too long to finish in one post. Spaniards. When I came here, I had the mistaken belief that people were people the world over. Okay, sure, we all know China and Japan have an almost alien way of life with customs and philosophy that a westerner can’t really fathom. (On the street they have vending machines with not only 40 oz beers in them, but also women’s panties. That’s a culture I would expect to visit and see some major differences from what I am used to.) Spain, not so much. I expected to come over here and find that the people were similar to what I had grown up with. A little tanner, a little shorter, more black hair and hopefully too smart to fall for the horrible fashion statement known as “sagging.” But no, not only do their youth wear their pants halfway down their ass, the Mullet is still big here too. This place is a fashion nightmare. On Blackwell’s Ten Worst Dressed list this week it says “1. Victoria Beckham. 2. Lindsay Lohan. 3. Spain.” Basically, I thought I was ...

It feels great to be writing again. It feels great to be getting some good feedback and support on the things I’ve been working on. I finally had learned enough Spanish that I needed some time to absorb it all. I have a stack of flashcards as long as my arm. All of them have been entered into a computer program called “Supermemo” and I learn a little more every day. I can do the program for an hour at a time and still not get to the end of them and see a repeat. I still have private lessons with Montse twice a week, and I have conversation class four times a week to hone my speaking and listening. Without class in the morning, and homework that took me two hours a day, I have some time to focus on my writing career again. Which I so desperately needed. On the other hand - Spanish is maddening. I’m told it takes two years to become “fluent.” Considering I didn’t start taking classes until last October, I still have a long way to go. And I feel like I am working so, so, so, hard at it an...

I've always wanted a picture like this. And now I have it.

Today in class one of the subjects we talked about was art and graffiti. Which reminded me of a funny story. People like funny stories so I’ll go with that for now. I used to work for a small computer repair shop. One day, a man came in that looked pretty scruffy. Sheep shit on his boots, faded green overalls, unshaven face. Most likely a farmer, and I was right, he was a farmer. He had a disk with him and needed a file recovered from it. Now, we had a number of utilities that could do that to erased files, but there is one way to unintentionally erase a file that we can’t recover. If you open up a blank document in Word and save it with the same name as a very important file, that file is gone; replaced by a document with nothing in it. I’d be happy to explain the file allocation table and why we can recover other files, but I’m betting people already know, or don’t care. I take the disk downstairs, take a look at it, looking for a backup copy or a temp file with the same info in it, ...