This morning finds me in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Yesterday I delivered two stops in Houston and then made my way here so I could put off my final stop first thing this morning. The weather here is pretty comfortable right now. Not too hot, not too cold.
I spent the night at the Corpus Christi Truckstop. The place is very old and looks like a dump, but the waitresses are friendly and the food is quite good.
After delivering three trailer mounted generators this morning I returned to the truck stop to wait for dispatch to find me a reload. I had a very good egg and chorizo taquito for breakfast. That and coffee cost me a whopping $3.25.
I sat around at the table just reading a book until a little after 11:00. The people from the refinery across the street started filtering in for lunch so I cleared out to make room for them, and returned to my truck for some Spanish language lessons.
I recently picked up a copy of the Rosetta Stone Level 1 Spanish software. So far I have only had time to go through lesson 1 and a couple of the activities, but I think their reputation is deserved. In a single lesson I have learned, not memorized but actually learned, the Spanish words for man, woman, he, she, boy, girl, eat, drink, cook, run, read, and swim.
I like the way it is taught by visual association instead of just translation and memorization. I am looking forward to working my way through the rest of the course as I frequently come across Spanish speaking people in my work and it would make my life a whole lot easier if I could better communicate with them.
Learning it this way will probably take a while, but it does seem effective and if nothing else gives me a practical project to work on in my down time. The biggest hurdle for me at the moment is pronouncing the "rr" sound, or rolling "r". I am really struggling to figure out how that sound is made properly.
I found some seemingly good exercises posted on the web to develop the ability to do so and downloaded the instructions to my iPad so I can practice it. So far I haven't managed to make the proper sound but I suppose I just have to keep at it. Who knew such a sound was so hard to make?
Ah well, it gives me something to do anyway.