Sunday, February 15, 2015

It's Snowing (again) in Boston!

Just a few scenes from the motherhouse of the blizzard-du-jour. At one point this morning (they tell me it was around 4), we were getting four inches of snow per hour. The air conditioning unit outside the library provides a convenient yardstick; it had been completely cleared of snow as of noon Saturday. Sister Linda hopped into our little red pickup truck and started plowing under whiteout conditions; dangerous, but necessary: if she let the snow accumulate it would be impossible to move later on--the joystick that controls the plow has already been replaced once this winter. (That's a pickup truck, not a front loader!)


Quoth Sister Linda, "It's bad out there. It's really bad."

That's how much snow had fallen by
8:00 Sunday morning.

This is the view from my bedroom
window. Yes, it is over my head. I
brought some strawberry syrup up
and have begun serving snowcones.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Now that looks "labor intensive". But my mind is having hard time equating laborintensive to recording an audio book. Wonder what would be a "labor intensive" description to some of the type of jobs that require real labor like factory work ? etc.

Sister Anne said...

Recording an audio book requires lengthy, minute attention to details of every kind: it is not simply a matter of recording someone reading the text out loud. It has to be read with appropriately laid-back expressiveness, but also correctly (names and technical terms have to be properly pronounced), and then edited: every second has to be listened to with great scrutiny. The editor has to make sure not only that all the parts are there that should be, but also that things are not there that should not be: tiny sniffles, swallowing sounds, mouth sounds (yep), not to mention pronunciation issues like overly exuberant p's and h's and hissing s sounds. All those have to be carefully singled out and deleted or modified without affecting the cadence of the reading. It is grueling work, and I for one can't do more than twenty minutes at a stretch. When you consider that an audiobook consists of many hours...well, that falls within my notions of "labor intensive"!

Unknown said...

Your explanation clarify's all the right and wrongs i wasn't aware of when making an audio book. Apology for my ignorance. If you play chess, which i haven't played in a million years, you got my bishop,,, but be careful,,, you don't loose your King to a pawn.....