LKL’s Blog

I’m obviously way too old to trick-or-treat, we never get any trick-or-treaters back in the boonies where we live, and I’m not a huge fan of costume parties, so to celebrate Halloween this year I’m going to see The Nightmare Before Christmas on IMAX. I’ve always loved this movie, and seeing it on a huge [...]

During my recent trip to California, my husband and I met with a group of adult students who use my French site. In addition to treating us to a lovely lunch (at Nora’s Café, in Palo Alto), they had thoughtfully printed out information about some of their favorite French restaurants in San Francisco. Unfortunately, we [...]

The happiest day of my life so far was either the day I paid off my student loans (which were so high that my then-boyfriend broke up with me, for fear that he would somehow end up having to help pay them) or the day I quit my “real” job and started freelancing full time [...]

A new study shows a correlation between consumption of vegetables and cognitive activity – according to the results, older people who eat lots of vegetables may have considerably less age-related mental decline than those who don’t. Interestingly, fruit consumption didn’t seem to have an effect one way or the other. But it’s still nice to [...]

This video was done by the City of Toulouse to encourage dog owners to clean up after their pets. Can you imagine a government-sponsored ad like this anywhere outside of France? I love it!
Warning: this animated video contains gross-out material which some may find offensive.
Pluie de crottes sur Toulouse
I provided the transcript and translation of [...]

During my recent trip to San Francisco, I stayed at The Golden Gate Hotel on Bush Street, which was so lovely that I decided to blog about it. I found it online and chose it partly due to the location (I had two days of meetings near Union Square), partly due to price (it was [...]

No, I don’t have a sand fantasy (though I love the beach!) – sand fantasy is the name of the artwork done by sand animation artist Ilana Yahav. Take a look at her site and especially this video. Very cool!

My new Spanish books for kids are out:

The Everything Kids’ Learning Spanish Book
The Everything Kids’ First Spanish Puzzle and Activity Book

They’re both aimed at ages 6-9 and can be used separately or together, though they really are a set. If you’d like to buy an autographed copy, please click here: Everything Kids’ Spanish books

Stands for Laura Kismet Lawless, of course! But what else? A quick search on Google reveals that “my” initals are used by quite a few people, places, and things:

Laeko-Libuat (language of Papua New Guinea)
Lakselv Airport, Banak (airport code)
Lietuvos Krepšinio Lyga (Lithuanian Basketball League)
Larry King Live
London Knowledge Lab (social software)
Loring, King and Loring (UK agricultural recruitment [...]

I’m not a big fan of inspirational quotes, but there is one that I really like: “Why not go out on a limb? That’s where all the fruit is.” I’d always thought this was by Mark Twain, but when I Googled it, I found a couple of sites that attribute the very similar “Why not [...]