Home

Introduction
Notes Index
BookNotes

Journals 2008

Year to Date
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Time Tables 2008

Year to Date
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Learning:
The Journey of a Lifetime
or
A Cloud Chamber on the Mind

Thursday July 3, 2008 6:00 am Lethbridge

It is +11 C with a high forecast of +29 C.
See current forecast here. See current news here.

This page last updated on: Friday, July 4, 2008 11:26 AM

A. Morning Musings

The sky is blue and the coffee is on.

I feel like some musing.

My efforts at exercise and weight lose are a disaster. It is time, once again, to reassert myself.

The first step is to find and wear my wrist watch that also measures my heart rate. Done. My heart rate is 60. I calculated my maximum heart rate yesterday - it is 155. But I should halve that when beginning a fitness regime, so my maximum heart rate is 77 while doing exercise.

Learning, learning, learning. There is so much to learn.

Here is a brief morning list:

• learn to control the various settings on my wrist watch,
• learn to use all of the features on my cell phone,
• learn to use a GPS receiver (when I buy one),
• learn to use the software on my Mac that interfaces with my GPS unit,
• learn to geocache,
• learn to geotag my photos,
• learn to use the manual settings on my digital camera,
• learn to set up my DCC system on my model train layout to handle turnouts.

This is a good list of items that I really want to master. What is striking about the list is that every single item involves learning to use some form of new technology.

The two important categories that are missing from the list are:

• physical fitness,
• time to meditate on my inner self.

I also have a list of long-term tasks that I have been ignoring:

Long Term Activities	Planned Activities for Today	Time Today	Cumulative Total
Cull professional articles	Review Psychology articles		5 hr
Prepare pdf files of my papers	Digitize 3 professional papers		4 hr
Digitize slides	Digitize slide collection		10 hr
Put away stamps			0 hr

Finally, I think, are the two main categories of Learning activities:

• Continue to read Literature
• Focus on some cognitive learning topic from the following list:
  • Psychology
  • Technology
  • Mathematics
  • Science
  • History
  • Art
  • Philosophy
  • Puzzles
  • Model trains
  • Go
  • Birds
  • Drawing

Dale will not be built in a day.

Even though I now have a watch on my wrist, I remain resistant to setting up a timetable schedule for the day. But I do need to identify a few priorities.

Here are a few, in order of importance:

1. Fitness: begin exercise & monitor food intake (1 hr)
2. Inner Self: spend time reading "Moments in Between" & doing nothing (1 hr)
3. Nature: walk in coulee & birding
4. Literature: continue reading "State of Fear"
   

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
Psychology	Continue reading "Moments in Between"	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "State of Fear"

B. Actual Learning Activities

7:30 PM

So how did the day go? Fairly well. The 2-hour walk in the coulee was a delight. I checked my heart rate at various times and noted that it was usually between 90 and 105 with a high of 121 at the top of the climb out of the coulee. It will be interesting to compare that with values in a couple of weeks. The following photos show some of the damage to the trail caused by the 50mm of rain that fell in 90 minutes yesterday.

 

I did a little gardening in the afternoon but the temperature was +29 C and after an hour I was in need of a rest.

My eating and walking were on track for some weight loss. Good.

I have yet to try the suggested exercises in the book "Body Conditioning for Men". Tomorrow!

There is a football game on tv at 8 this evening. If the game stays interesting I will watch it, otherwise I will try to do some reading of "State of Fear".

Books on the Go Today