Blog Number 263

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Tonight the wife is out of the house attending what is called "Mom's Night Out" with some of her home schooling friends.  They get together like this about once every month or so.  The kids enjoy this as Daddy rules are in effect.  We spent the evening listening to crazy songs on SeeqPod (The Drifters - "Who Put The Bop") and watching Tom & Jerry cartoons on YouTube.  Before that however we practiced some Spanish.  I had purchased 3 small boxes of candy at work today (Lemon Heads, Apple Heads and Cherry Heads) and for each correct translation they received a piece or two of candy.  Normally the kids are not into Spanish but if you put a Lemon Head on the line, whammo, they are quite literate.  Anyway, this is not something we would ever do when mommy was home.  Not that she would disapprove, it is just a Daddy thing, that's all.

One of my new Spanish words for the week is PESCADO.  The software I am using to learn Spanish really does not translate anything for you.  It shows you a picture and then describes it in Spanish.  For instance, it will show you a little girl with a dog and say, "Una niña y un perro" and from that you have to derive that niña is the word for little girl, perro is the word for dog and y must be "and".  A few lessons back, it showed a white fish (un pez blanca) and then a fish swimming (El pez está nadando).  However this week it showed a man holding a big fish that he had apparently just caught (Un hombre y un pescado grande).  Now I know hombre is man, y is and, grande is large so pescado must be the fish (by process of elimination).  But, I also know that pez is fish so what gives?  I asked some of my friends from Argentina and the best way they could describe it is that pez is a fish IN water and pescado is a fish OUT of water.  I find it incredible that there are 2 words needed for fish but that is just my crazy, American way of thinking I guess.  If you are a fish in Spain, one minute you are a pez and the next you could be a pescado.  Such is life.

Well the kids are in bed now so I am going to spend time just goofing off (Dad's Night In).  Until next time...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon