Tuesday January 30, 2007 6:20 am Lethbridge Sunrise 8:07 Sunset 17:22 Hours of daylight: 9:15

A. Morning Musings

6:20 am It is -9 C at the moment with a high of 0 C forecast.

Here are the news.

CBC Headline: Tories Deny Plan to Extend Mission in Afghanistan

Canada presently has a commitment to provide troops in Afghanistan until the end of February 2009. But a document prepared by Rick Hillier, a military leader says the military's job won't be complete until Afghan forces have complete control of their country. Once again, this looks to me like political posturing, now that parliament is in session again.

Canadian Headline: see above

Australian Headline: (from The Australian): Cheney Visit to Sharpen Focus on US Alliance

Vice-President Cheney is due to visit Australia in February. Prime Minister Howard has said that "it as an "important opportunity" to reinforce the bilateral relationship and discuss important international issues, particularly terrorism." Cheney will also meet with Kevin Rudd, leader of the opposition, who will present his party's alternative stance on Iraq and climate change. This is also an election year in Australia with both the country and the political parties sharply divided on the role of Australia in Iraq. My view is that Cheney's visit is a relative non-event. He has done almost nothing as vice-president and will not be running again in the next American election. But it is interesting how the media treat it.

My weight is down 1 more to 190. I was surprised again as my calorie intake yesterday was more than that recommended to lose weight at a rate of just under 2 pounds/week, but it was less than what I was burning. I have now lost 2 pounds in 2 days. This is similar to previous times when I have tried to lose weight: there is a sudden drop of 2 - 4 pounds before I hit a plateau and then the pounds disappear more slowly. The muscles in my thighs are still sore from my exercise routine two days ago so I think I will wait a day or two more before trying that again. But we are maintaining a good one hour walk each day.

I have yet to hear from 3rd PlanIt about unlocking my software for track planning so that is on hold for the moment.

I wasn't able to visit the Culligan water softener showroom yesterday but this is on my list for today. I am making sure that I spend at least an hour each day with my camera as I want to make sure that I have an automatic habit for using it under different manual situations.

Frank and I have hit a period of one or both of us being unable to make our scheduled coffee times, so we will be meeting this morning. Great.

From rear window	South patio
Both images taken at noon.

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk	1 hr
Model Trains	Continue assembly of coaling tower	1 hr
Technology	Digital photography - learn about using the various manual settings	1 hr
	Review & edit iPhoto files for 2005	1 hr
Literature	Complete reading "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon	1 hr
Chores	Investigate water softeners for home	1 hr
Later
Technology	Read manual for cell phone
	Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac"
	Begin reading "iPhoto"
	Burn backup of images onto DVD
Mathematics	Make notes for "Mathematics: A Human Endeavor" ch 1
	Read "Fearless Symmetry" chap 9: Elliptic Curves
Model Trains	Add ground cover to oil refinery diorama
	Follow tutorial for 3rdPlanIt (Manual p. 13 - 20)
	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

7:15 am A check of my email indicated that I have a reply from 3rd PlanIt. Now to see if I can unlock the software (version 8). Perfect.

	Literature 12 January 30
Literature Notes
1:30 PM I have just finished reading "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon. Some quotes: "He knew that he knew where the bottle was. Or rather, he knew that he had known where it was ten minutes ago, because why would he forget something like that? And he knew that it was somewhere entirely logical. It was a simple matter of finding the pigeonhole in his head where he had stored the information. But the inside of his head was upside down and shaking vilently and the contents of the other pigeonholes were coming out and getting in the way." [p. 303] SUMMARY of the session: I thoroughly enjoyed this romp through modern family life. It is clever, very funny and witty, and yet captures some fundamental truths. Many of the quotes are only memorable in context, but I did capture one near the end that seemed limitless and appealed to my psychology background.

D. Reflection

8:40 PM A good day. I accomplished 4 out 5 planned activities. I am making slow but steady progress with my iPhoto editing and my assembly of the coaling tower for my model train layout. I finished another novel and am now thinking about my choice for the next one. I am now in a position to begin reviewing version 8 of 3rd PlanIt for creating a track layout. And I am beginning to learn how to use the manual settings on my digital camera (although I didn't work on this today). My fitness/weight program is working fine (I have stuck to a reduced calorie diet for 3 days now, and have lost 2 pounds). That is too rapid a rate to keep up, but it is encouraging to be going in the right direction. And it is encouraging to avoid any extra snacks for the entire day - it all makes a difference. I learned a fair amount about water softeners (Lethbridge has very hard water - on some kind of scale a score of 10 is considered very hard, and we are 13.).