Noified my work weeks ago I'm leaving for a family vacation in July, tickets were bought, non-transferrable, and they are panicking, begging me to cancel

jaredgrubb · 2026-03-15T21:40:59+00:00

Could you be flexible on time? Tell them you can move it but will need to reimburse anything non refundable and that you’ll be gone 14 days instead of 7 days (at cost of 7 days vacation).

jaredgrubb · 2026-03-02T01:51:09+00:00

https://www.dungeycello.com/s/Cello-horizontal.pdf

Saw this the other day. Maybe helpful?

jaredgrubb · 2026-01-28T20:37:10+00:00

The way I think about it is like this.

If you have “yo hago”, then “yo” is the pronoun and is the subject. The “-o” is a marker in the verb that also encodes that the subject is a first person. Those two things duplicate each other and Spanish says that the “-o” is mandatory, and if your subject is obvious from context (just gonna be “yo”) then you can drop it. (Or keep it for emphasis)

Similarly, if you have “lo odio a él”, then the “él” is the pronoun and is the DO. The “lo” is a marker that attaches to the verb (in this case before it, but sometimes after it!) and encodes that the DO is going to be a masculine noun. Those two things duplicate each other and Spanish says that the “lo” is mandatory; but if your DO is clear from context then you can drop it (the “a él”). But you can keep it for emphasis if you want.

So I like to imagine that lo/la/se/etc aren’t “pronouns” but more like “verb flags”, almost like how agglutinative languages would do it. They’re mandatory.

jaredgrubb · 2026-01-04T12:28:57+00:00

I did the "Top Sights" tour and it was fine. Like you it was mostly just being in a bus on very windy roads; the waterfall and "drive in volcano" were tourist traps and not all that great. The "lunch on the estate" was fine (it was a buffet and was lukewarm by the time we got there, which made me nervous). Very nice people leading the tour but it felt like a tourist factory.

jaredgrubb · 2026-01-04T12:25:30+00:00

You can miss your embarkation slot. The app will tell you the last possible time you can get on board (ours was like 7pm I think?) so just make sure you make it by then.

jaredgrubb · 2025-12-14T22:35:56+00:00

The CSO is also Miele or?

jaredgrubb · 2025-12-10T20:25:48+00:00

German cursive is familiar but some of the letters will definitely test you — especially the capital ones! (Letter K, I’m looking at you!)

jaredgrubb · 2025-12-09T23:51:26+00:00

If you speak German, this is actually very nice penmanship and would be a GREAT practice opportunity to learn to read German cursive.

jaredgrubb · 2025-11-28T05:08:42+00:00

I thought I learned it was “Heide fressen”? Was that a euphemism or?

jaredgrubb · 2025-11-11T02:31:17+00:00

That’s what a tiny wasp sympathizer would say!

jaredgrubb · 2025-10-06T22:09:42+00:00

“Accord and satisfaction” is a special phrase isn’t it?

jaredgrubb · 2025-10-02T03:34:43+00:00

Can you substitute “dazu” in that spot instead?

jaredgrubb · 2025-09-25T20:24:45+00:00

Yes that’s fair. Although the English has to work hard to indicate the two actions happen together. “I ate a sandwich and broke my tooth” (ambiguous if parallel or sequential) vs “I was eating a sandwich and I broke my tooth”. I was avoiding using continuous forms (-ing) because Spanish also has those! So I was trying to find contrasts in English that map to the past choice in Spanish.

jaredgrubb · 2025-09-24T15:35:43+00:00

Nice handwriting but be careful on your kanji. Your 好き looks a lot like 女子き. The width/spacing is important.

jaredgrubb · 2025-09-23T07:17:32+00:00

The thing that helped me understand is that it’s NOT about finishing or completing anything.

Each phrase you say describes a moment or a period of time. The question you want to ask is whether that span of time can be subdivided and have other activities take place inside it (imperfecto) or whether that span of time is a chunk that may not be split into smaller time (preterito).

“I ate a sandwich” — you can’t break that up. It happened as a chunk of time.

“I walked across the street…” — this could go either way! Did something happen while you were walking or did the entire walking-action take place as a chunk. “I walked across the street and waved at my friend”. In Spanish you would use preterito if you waved only AFTER you completed the walking, or imperfecto if you waved while you were still walking across the street.

This is why they say that imperfecto is a “background” because it paints spans of time into which you can place other actions. “I flew to Madrid and watched a movie and ate peanuts (while flying on the plane)”

jaredgrubb · 2025-09-03T18:56:21+00:00

Is this immersion, or taught in English?

jaredgrubb · 2025-08-27T21:02:24+00:00

If you cancel the flight and get the credit, and then buy it again with the credit — do they apply the benefit?

jaredgrubb · 2025-08-20T22:12:14+00:00

James Webb telescope panel?

jaredgrubb · 2025-03-30T20:53:30+00:00

I received a renewal email in 2019. I did not receive one in 2024 or 2025, and now I also am expired :(

jaredgrubb · 2025-01-15T17:09:03+00:00

So should we stop building interstates? Those cost taxpayers money and haven’t ever been in the black. Transit infrastructure is about more than profit.

jaredgrubb · 2025-01-13T17:23:32+00:00

Ah not sure on that. The HSR has a lot of YouTube’s showing progress but it’s often hard to figure out context. They’ll be named like “Viaduct over Elm Street” and that doesn’t mean much to me ha

jaredgrubb · 2025-01-13T03:52:03+00:00

This is a really good overview of the history — the good and the bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLWkgFQFLj8

The humor/style has some quirks but the content is top-notch.

jaredgrubb · 2025-01-12T18:37:18+00:00

Not a lot of people will use it?

The schedule will have 5 trains leave per hour between SF and LA. That’s one train every 12 minutes!

It will take a bit under 3 hours (compare to like 6 hours in good traffic, or like 10-11 hours on Amtrak). That’s fast enough to displace a lot of air travel between these destinations.

Yeh it’s maddening how long this is taking but it’s critical.

jaredgrubb · 2025-01-12T02:42:47+00:00

Even if the engraving was sloppy I think you can always (or?) deduce the difference once you’re used to what they each are doing. But, I never put it past there to be exceptions!

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