February 21

Thursday February 21, 2008 5:15 am Lethbridge, Alberta

It is -8 C with a high forecast of +9 C. Sunrise 7:31 Sunset 17:58 Hours of daylight: 10:27

9:55 am

A. Morning Musings

The warmer temperatures in the afternoon are having a definite impact on the snow cover.

I have coffee scheduled for 8 am at The Ugly Mug. That is always a pleasant way to begin the morning.

Now for a little Rumi. Here is the last verse from today's poem:

Solomon lifts his morning cup to the mountains.
Sit down in this pavilion,
and don't listen to religious bickering.
Be silent as we absorb the spring.

Sipping my first cuppa of the morning and rereading this is perfect.

I have added a few photos from the last 5 days to these web pages. That brings this web site up to date.

I continue to berate myself about my fitness. Now that I have the FitDay software working again in windows xp, and since I downloaded a 7 exercise routine that seems realistic ( http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/02/06/muscle.maintenance/ ), I am fast running out of excuses. The temperatures are warming up - at least by the afternoon - and the sidewalks and paths are rapidly becoming ice free so walking is now an option. Okay: diet, walking and exercise are all on the table.

The other obvious task is to return to my model trains and see if I can run a train on the mainline routes. My last two attempts were frustrating as I could not see a pattern to the electical shorts. My last session with just the locomotive CN 6700 was successful as I ran it over all the mainline routes without any problems. I will now begin slowly and see what happens when I try adding just unit CN 6708. If that is successful, I will try adding a few freight cars. I have every reason to hope that this will all work without any difficulties, but I also thought I was at that stage a couple of days ago and I was certainly wrong. I have replaced two turnouts and have yet to see if that has solved the problems.

Now to sit back, have a second cup, and read "Snow" for a bit before walking to the Ugly Mug.

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
Literature	Begin morning with a Rumi reading
Literature	Continue reading "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk	1 hr
Model Trains	Check operational running of train on the mainline routes	1 hr

B. Actual Learning Activities

10:00 PM

The walking was a good beginning but I am still snacking too much. And I didn't begin the exercise routine.

I am beginning to key in on the model train problem. I think I may have a wiring problem that only manifests itself when the locomotive travels the various loops in a particular order. I will have a close look at this tomorrow morning when I am alert.

Overall I accomplished much of what I set out, but in fairness, it wasn't that much.