Yesterday was our anniversary, and while I remembered the day itself (how could I forget? I spent several months telling everyone "we're getting married May 11"), it never occured to me to blog about it.

Of course Sunday is Mothers Day, and I already blogged about that, and ruined the surprise; so don't blame me about being gun shy.

Anyhow, I'm consciously trying to think twice before opening my mouth. It's already paid off, because when I was trying to sign the card yesterday, I almost wrote "the last four years have been wonderful; here's to another four just like them!" Hmmm. Good thing I thought twice.

This is an old one, but every so often I think about it and laugh. I'd love to put Professor Bainbridge on my company's board of directors, but first I need to get a company, and become CEO.

Thought Blogs is currently running a piece on learning a second language (strangely, the permanent link to that piece it at another blog). I'm glad I know Portuguese, even though a little fades from my memory every day, and the few times I get to speak with Brazilians let me know that my accent (which was never great) is getting worse by the minute. I'm also glad that I know enough Spanish to get myself two-thirds of the way through a sentence. But I have to agree with Jim Webber that it's not as easy for those of us who know English to pick a good second language to learn. Especially when everybody else is picking English as their second language.

There's a commercial running on the local radio stations that's pretty clever. A local restaurant is offering some kind of Mothers Day special for their elegant breakfast experience (in corporate speak). But instead of saying so, they start out by giving the most complex recipe for apple pancakes that I've ever heard. Turns out that they've got lots of ads like this, as you can see at the radio station's page.

The recipe calls for things like "substitute heavy cream for the milk in your pancake mix" and "microwave sliced Granny Smith apples for about one minute" before putting them on top of the pancakes still on the griddle. "Use clarified butter instead of oil," etc. Like I said, it does sound like a good recipe, but the first time I heard the commercial, the directions kept going on and on. Of course, turns out that's intentional, as it implies "if you're not willing to go through these hoops for Mothers Day, you can simply stop by our restaurant and our chef will jump through these hoops for you.

But, then again, we're in the South. There's a chance somebody could take that as a challenge. Overall, I think it's a clever and effective ad, but on the other hand, I'm hoping to add that recipe to my collection, now that I found the web page for it.

Brazilians (and Latinos in general) make a big deal about shame/embarrassment. I remember one bishop who said a member was excommunicated largely because he had no shame. The concept was that if the member had more shame, he never would have taken that first step.

I can be motivated through shame (and hunger, btw), but it doesn't work if somebody else tries to put me through a guilt trip. Instead, if I make a serious commitment to somebody, the shame of not following through can (though it doesn't always) motivate me.

I have several "personal projects" on the back burner. Two of these are open source programming projects. Last week I had somebody ask how things were coming on one of them. I responded that "if more people [get] involved, [I'll] feel guilty about letting them down, which really motivates me."

This morning I received a follow-up email on the subject, so it looks like I've got enough reason to start working on Yard again. I've got a few ideas. Actually, I've got a ton of ideas that I need to type up and see if they work.