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Sunday March 11, 2007 6:30 am Lethbridge Sunrise 7:54 Sunset 19:28 Hours of daylight: 11:34
A. Morning Musings
6:30 am It is +9 C at the moment with a high of +17 C forecast. There is a high wind warning in effect, with values of 70 kmh and gusts to 100 kmh forecast for later today. We have just switched to daylight savings time, three weeks earlier than in past years. My computer did not make the adjustment even though it is supposed to receive its value from an American website. On the other hand the weather site for Canada has made the adjustment.
Here are the news.
CBC Headline: Early Daylight Time means Less Shuteye
A neurologist and sleep specialist says that research shows that there are more accidents on the days following the switch as the body makes the adjustment to the new schedule. Having this news item as the lead story is not about this finding, but is simply an effort to remind everyone to change their clocks.
Canadian Headline: see above
Australian Headline: (from The Australian): Garuda Victims to be Flown Home
The bodies of five Australians who died in the Indonesian plane crash last week will be flown to Australia in the next few days.
My weight is steady at 194. This is fine, as I should only be losing about 2 pounds per week.
B. Plan
Immediate Technology Edit iPhoto files 1 hr Attach turntable to MacBook Pro 1 hr Begin converting LP records to iPod files 3 hr Birds Google Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area in Montana for snow geese migration 1 hr Literature Continue reading "Runaway" by Alice Munro
1 hr History Begin reading "Maya" 1 hr Later Technology Read manual for cell phone Make notes for chap. 4 of "Switching to the Mac" 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 Continue assembly of coaling tower Follow tutorial for version 8 of 3rd PlanIt 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
Major Goals Learning Review week's pages each Sunday Review all pages for the month at the end of each month Technology Review & edit iPhoto files for 2006 Become proficient with cell phone Model Trains Become proficient with 3rd PlanIt software Install DCC on model train layout GO Learn to play GO at something better than a beginner level Drawing Learn to draw!! (I keep saying this, yet I have yet to put a pencil to paper). Mathematics Continue to play with mathematics. Literature Continue to read Literature Bird Watching Continue to engage in bird watching activities.
C. Actual/Note
6:55 am I am not sure at the moment just what I will do today. My weight loss efforts are on track. Sunday is supposed to be the day when I review my activities for the past week and make a few comments about the coming week. One item for the next few days is to follow a new recipe for a meal.
8:05 am I did a check for Apple updates and found that I needed 6 updates, one of which was an update for the daylight savings time change. That has now been taken care of. I was under the impression that such updates were automatically taken care of. I must remember to check for this once a month.
I have two major tech-related tasks in front of me, each of which may take a few weeks to complete. One is to edit my iPhoto files until they are all up to date and keyworded. The other is to convert all of my LP records to digital form. Thus I need to establish times for each task for most days. Today I will try to set up the record player and convert one LP. I am really looking forward to this as there are many "old" songs that I would like to hear again.
8:30 PM A satisfying day. I was able to attach the turntable to my computer without any difficulty. However the documentation for the software was slightly out of phase with the reality and it took me awhile to figure out exactly what the proper sequence of steps should be in order to play a record, create a special audio file, editing it (including eliminating crackles and background noise) into a series of mp3 files (one for each song), and then importing them into iTunes and edit the metadata for each song. I was able to completely do this for one LP (the first one I picked out of the box of oldies was "The Best of Don Gibson" which included his hit song "Oh Lonesome Me". I will try to convert at least 2 LPs each day for the next few weeks and see how it goes. At least now I know what to expect.
10:00 PM The winds are finally picking up. The foreast for them has been on all day but they appear to have finally arrived. Here is the current forecast: "Strong westerly winds of 90 km/h gusting to 130 are occurring in the Crowsnest Pass region. Winds near 70 gusting to 100 are expected over Cardston, Claresholm, and Lethbridge regions this evening." I noticed the house shaking while I was reading the latest chapter in Alice Munro's "Runaway".
D. Reflection