Like many of our colleagues, I did not dream about becoming a translator when I was a child. As any self-respecting kid of my age and times, I dreamed about becoming an astronaut or a firefighter. Later the forces we name collectively as "life" took me to several fields, every step taking me farther away from space suits and bright red fire engines. I became electrician, darkroom operator, chemical engineer, computer programmer, mass spectroscopist, book reviewer, semantics teacher, and high-speed video specialist. Many excellent men and women in these and many other fields shared their knowledge with me. In long or short conversations, sometimes over coffee, beer, or wine, sometimes while waiting for the elution of an analyte from the HPLC column, the linking of a set of compiled files, or the arrival of a spare part, they explained to me the performing of a step, the inner workings of a device, the building of a structure, the behavior of a compound, or the implications of an awkward theory.