December 22

Saturday December 22, 2007 6:00 am Lethbridge, Alberta

It is -9 C with a high forecast of +1 C. Sunrise 8:26 Sunset 16:33 Hours of daylight: 8:07

12:15 PM

A. Morning Musings

I continue to make progress. I finally have my desk cleaned off and organized. The coffee is ready. Bring on the world.

Early morning is my private time. At the moment I have three main competitors for my attention during this hour or two.

Setting up DCC on my model train layout
Creating a new website for my model trains
Handwriting a personal journal entry.

This morning I have one additional activity - to complete reading "Seven Types of Ambiguity" by Elliot Perlman.

Immediate	Description	Time
Model Trains	Review of DCC and previous activities from early spring	2 hr
Literature	Complete reading "Seven Types of Ambiguity " by Elliot Perlman	1 hr

B. Actual Learning Activities

6:40 am

What a way to begin the day. I have finished reading "Seven Types of Ambiguity" by Elliot Perlman. When I closed the book I simply sat in my chair for about 20 minutes and thought. Yes, Perlman has it right. Our current Western culture has lost its soul. Although the story is amazingly intricate and complex, the message is more than an example of how complex life is. Perlman uses the example of health care to show how little regard we have, as individuals, for the common good. I am reminded of something I read a few years ago, I think it may have been An Unexpected Light by Jason Elliot (the name Elliot is part of both author's name). Begging is a integral part of Afghani culture, in part because it gives people an opportunity to help someone in need. I have often said that Canada has a better "safety net" than the United States but sitting and reflecting on Perlman's novel I now realize that the issue is not one of a safety net but why such a net is necessary in the first place. It may be a complex world, and an imperfect one, but much of the imperfection is our individual focus on ourselves. Perlman seems to suggest that globalization and greed are the problem but I think it is much deeper than that. We are too busy to care. It hurts too much.

I am now adding "Seven Types of Ambiguity" to my list of recommended books.

Fiction
	I Just Finished Reading	Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman
	I Am Reading Now	Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
	I Plan To Read Soon	The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer
Nonfiction
	I Just Finished Reading	The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
	I Am Reading Now
	I Plan To Read Soon	Wikinomics by Don Tapscott
Recommend
	Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life (2005) by Julia Briggs
	The View From Castle Rock (2006) by Alice Munro
	Passage to Juneau (1999) by Jonathan Raban
	A Spot of Bother (2006) by Mark Haddon
	Runaway (2004) by Alice Munro
	Baudolino (2004) by Umberto Eco
	The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy
	The Brothers Karamasov (1990) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
	Where Have All The Leaders Gone? (2007) by Lee Iacocco
	Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
	Bel Canto (2001) by Ann Patchett
	Pushkin: A Biography (2002) by T. J. Binyon
	Kafka on the Shore (2005) by Haruki Murakami
	Howards End (1910) by E. M. Forster
	Since Daisy Creek (1984) by W. O. Mitchell
	A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2001) by Dave Eggers
	Three Dollars (1998) by Elliot Perlman
	First Love (1860) by Ivan Turgenev
	The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997) by Richard Flanagan
	Seven Types of Ambiguity (2003) by Elliot Perlman

11:00 am

write

I am back from a brief trip to Chapters where I bought 3 books and received one free. Three were gifts - the other one was:

Wikinomics (2006) by Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams

3:00 PM

We are back from a little last minute shopping, more for supplies than for gifts. I did buy one more book:

"The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing. This was originally published in 1962.

The idea of four notebooks is very similar to my idea of a Learning web site and a handwritten personal journal.

6:00 PM

Here is a photo of my choriso sausage dinner:

choriso