Monday January 1, 2007 5:35 am Lethbridge Sunrise 8:29 Sunset 16:41 Hours of daylight: 8:12

A. Morning Musings

5:35 am It is -2 C at the moment with a high of +2 C forecast. Happy New Year.

Now to get this new web site set up for another year of Learning.

From rear window	South patio
Both images taken at 11:50 am

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Technology	Set up 2007 Journals web site	6 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Virginia Woolf: The Inner Life" by Julia Briggs	1 hr
	Continue reading "Selected Works of Virginia Woolf" - Jacob's Room	1 hr
	Complete reading "The View From Castle Rock" by Alice Munro	2 hr
Model Trains	Continue assembly of coaling tower	1 hr
Later
Chores	Investigate water softeners for home
Technology	Read manual for cell phone
	Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac"
	Begin reading "iPhoto"
	digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings
Mathematics	Read "Fearless Symmetry" chap 9: Elliptic Curves
Model Trains	Add ground cover to oil refinery diorama
	Purchase DCC system
History	Read Watson "Ideas"
Philosophy	Read & make notes for "Breaking the Spell"
GO	Complete reading "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go"
Puzzles	The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #9	1 hr

C. Actual/Notes

	Technology 01 January 1
Technology Notes
11:10 am This is my latest attempt to make notes for each Learning activity. I have the web site for 2007 set up. I have added two new pages: an Introduction and an Index. The Index is accessible via the Home icon on every page. I have simplified the heading area by removing a few of the unnecessary links. I have deleted three categories of Learning activities (Education, Research, Food) from my chronology tables as I did not use them at all last year. I have also pruned the daily table for section B. Plan to a more realistic set of items. The Chronology Table and the Journal Index have been reset. I am now in the process of creating a template for each note. It will consist of an introductory brown box to introduce the session as well as an ending brown box that summarizes the session. The numbering of the notes will be reset at 1 for each activity at the beginning of the year. The Notes Index page has been reset and modified to a slightly cleaner and simpler form. Similarly the heading for the Technology Notes pages has been simplified. This will now be used as a template for other topics as they occur. 11:45 am I still have a web page called To Dos as well as three Project pages (mathematics, technology, model trains) that need to be reviewed and updated. But it is time to take a break. The remaining three Project pages (mathematics, technology, model trains) have all been updated. A new website has been created and the pages uploaded. The URL is http://people.uleth.ca/~d.burnett/2007Learning/2007JournalIndex.htm . SUMMARY of the session: A very satisfying morning. I was able to totally create a new website, clean up a number of small issues having to do with page layout and links but I didn't experience any technical difficulties. Now to relax and enjoy the rest of the year.

	Literature 01 January 1
Literature Notes
6:40 PM This is my first attempt at making notes for Literature activities. link to back cover I have just completed reading Alice Munro's "The View From Castle Rock". This is neither a collection of short stories, nor a novel. Rather it is a collage of vignettes, some ficitional, some factual, some a mix, that brings together what she has remembered and collected over the last 60 years regarding her family's history. It is not the work of a family historian nor a genealogist, but the stitching together of events, some hypothetical, by an accomplished author. I truly enjoyed the book. I like her writing, I would describe it as soft and penetrating. This book carried me quietly along. SUMMARY of the session: A very satisfying read. I have yet to see a book by Alice Munro that I haven't enjoyed.

D. Reflection

7:45 PM I rarely use this section, but I will give it another try. The intent is to provide a few comments at the end of the day. I completed my primary goal for the day without any difficulty - creating a new web site for 2007 to monitor my Learning activities. It contained a total of 6 images (my face, the Dumbo feather, the home icon, the Burnett shire image, 2 weather images), 6 overview pages (2007 chronology table, 2007 index, 2007 introduction, 2007 journalindex, 2007 notesindex, 2007todos), 4 project pages (literature, mathematics, technology, trains), 2 January notes pages (literature, technology), a January chronology page and a January 1 journal page. Each of these pages was essentially a copy of a page from my 2006 web site, which was then modified in a relatively minor manner to cleanup a few little links that were no longer necessary. The one major activity was the creation of a Literature project page. I now incorporated Literature into this web site in a manner consistent with other projects. Good.

Tomorrow should be much quicker as I only need to create 1 new page - the journal page for January 2. That should only take a few minutes.

8:10 PM I have just plugged my iPod into the charger. It has been almost 6 months since I last used this. It is time for me to take a quick refresher and get back on top of what is possible with this device.

I am going to have another look at The Orange Puzzle Cube: puzzle #9. This is another activity that has been hibernating for the last few months. Let's see what it looks like. There are 12 images, two of which are identical. All that is required is to keep track of each possible pair and make a decision about whether I can find a difference. Eventually there will only be one pair left where I cannot find a difference. Now to begin.

On my first pass through looking at all possible pairs I was able to eliminate all but 5 pairs (yellow). Now to have a closer look at these five. The second pass eliminated one more pair, leaving four pair. I was then able to remove 2 more pair leaving only A-I or D-J as the identical pair. I have just removed the A-I pair, leaving the D-J pair as the only identical pair. Slow and very careful, plus accurate record keeping, are essential for this puzzle. I do not consider these puzzles to be Learning activities, so they do not appear in my final accounting for the day. But they are a great way to spend an hour. 9:00 PM