Wednesday January 17, 2007 5:40 am Lethbridge Sunrise 8:22 Sunset 17:01 Hours of daylight: 8:39

A. Morning Musings

5:40 am It is -4 C at the moment with a high of -2 C forecast. There is a light snow falling.

I am still having difficulty accomplishing all that occurs to me in the early morning. Yesterday I planned on completing my notes for the two Virginia Woolf books, which I did. Good. I also resolved to try cooking one "new" recipe each week. I have the first of these ready for the slow cooker this morning: "Slow-Cooker Beef with Beer". Good. Finally, I began the one-hour walk routine again. Good. But I did not begin any form of exercise routine. We also failed to try our new Tassimo coffee machine with a cappucino. And I didn't get any work done on editing my iPhotos. Nor did I spend any time on my model trains (i.e. my 3rd PlanIt software). As Calvin and Hobbes say, "The Days Are Just Packed".

About thirty years ago there was a regular column in the Edmonton Journal called something like The News From Old Crow (in theYukon) that was written by an Inuit woman called Edith Josie who began it with Here are the news. I just tried googling " Here are the news" and "old crow" and the first hit was http://www.oldcrow.ca/news.htm

Here are the news.

CBC Headline: Tories' reported plan for equalization changes provokes backlash

This is a continuation of the story that began yesterday. Saskatchewan and Newfoundland would experience a large loss in payments under the proposed plan. Saskatchewan claims that including natural resource breaks a campaign promise from the last election. The article says that the Tories plan to include 50% of the natural resource revenue when calculating the provincial wealth. I assume the fact that this story has been leaked to the press is an attempt to obtain some initial reaction in time to make some changes before the actual plan is officially announced. I wonder what would happen if the proposed plan (in all of its details and rationales) were placed on the Web for comment and suggestions from the web-viewing public?

Canadian Headline: see above

Australian Headline (from The Australian): Thredbo evacuated as fire crosses into NSW.

This is also a continuation of the story from yesterday. Up to 1000 people have left Thredbo, a popular ski resort town in the winter. High temperatures and winds are making the situation difficult for firefighters.

From rear window	South patio
Both images taken at 12:30 PM

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Technology	Begin reading "iPhoto"	1 hr
	Digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings	1 hr
Model Trains	Follow tutorial for 3rdPlanIt (Manual p. 3 - 24)	1 hr
Literature	Begin reading "Passage to Juneau" by Jonathan Raban	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"
	Burn backup of images onto DVD
	Edit iPhoto images
Mathematics	Read "Fearless Symmetry" chap 9: Elliptic Curves
Model Trains	Add ground cover to oil refinery diorama
	Continue assembly of coaling tower
	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 #10

C. Actual/Note

	Literature 09 January 17
Literature Notes
6:50 am I am about to begin reading "Passage to Juneau" by Jonathan Raban. This is a book I began reading about 5 years ago and then stopped because of other priorities. I remember enjoying the beginning enormously and have always had it on my mental list of "I must get back and finish this". link to back cover Some quotes: "The books kept coming. They reflected a promiscuous addiction, to the sea in general and to the one on my doorstep in particular. I dipped and skimmed, jumping from the physics of turbulence to the cultural anthropology of the Northwest Indians, to voyages and memoirs, to books on marine invertibrates, to the literature of the sea from Homer to Conrad. trying to wrest from each new book some insight into my own compulsion." [p. 22] A kindred spirit. Obviously this is one reason why I remember liking this book. "The more I looked at these pictures, the more I saw that North-west Indian art was maritime in much more than its subject matter. ... The rage for symmetry, for images paired with their doubles, was gained, surely, from a daily acquaintance with mirror-reflections: the canoe and its inverted twin, on a sheltered inlet in the stillness of dusk and dawn." [p. 24] Stunning. I have never seen this (now obvious) connection before. [After listing a number of early maritime explorers] "Each had his own voice and, looking at the same stretch of water, saw it in strikingly different terms from the others. To travel with these men, in their tight kneeboots and frogged waistcoats, was to be in on a continuous, sometimes quarrelsome, seminar about the character and significance of the new sea." [p. 26] I always like references to the diversity in our ideas and perceptions, without recourse to right or wrong. "In an unchronicled society, without writing, things that happened yesterday bleed into ancient history; and after a hundred years of rubbing up against explorers, traders, missionaries, and colonial administrators, the tribe members had ceased to be reliable authorities on their own traditions." [p. 29] This is an important insight, and one that should not be forgotten. "... also Wayne Suttles, a social anthropologist local to the area, a skeptical empiricist whose essays applied small, bright pins to the gas-filled balloons of received ideas about the Indians and their cosmology." [p. 30] SUMMARY of the session: A great beginning to a special book.

8:55 am A very pleasant early morning snowfall.

D. Reflection