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

Friday August 29, 2008 6:40 am Edmonton

It is +10 C with a high forecast of +18 C. Sunrise 6:38 Sunset 20:31 Hours of daylight: 13:53.
See current Edmonton forecast here. See current Edmonton news here.

This page last updated on: Saturday, August 30, 2008 7:02 AM

A. Morning Musings

My morning will likely be spent at Greenwoods bookstore. I always look forward to this.

The weather has a hint of rain, and the trails are likely to be muddy. I am not sure if I will make an effort to find a couple of geocaches today.

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
Literature	Continue reading "The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek" by Sid Marty	1 hr
Technology	Continue to learn about GPS and the Mac	1 hr

B. Actual Learning Activities

1:00 PM

Greenwoods was a success, as usual. I bought the following books:

• Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park. (2007). I. S. MacLaren (Ed.)
  • This is a collection of articles written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the formation of Jasper National Park. An incredible resource, full of primary sources and well-written.
• Country Roads of Alberta: Exploring the Routes LessTravelled. (2007). Liz Bryan.
  • This is a beautiful book of text, photographs and maps. I will try to take many of these trips myself in the near future.
• High Plains: The Joy of Alberta Cuisine. Revised Edition. (2008). Cinda Chavich.
  • The first edition of this book was published in 2001 and won the best English language cookbook in Canada award.
• What Lies Behind the Picture? (2006). Vernon R. Wishart.
  • The sub-title is A Personal Journey Into Cree Ancestry. This looks like a good book on personal genealogy.
• The Stuff of Thought. (2007). Steven Pinker.
  • I enjoy his books. This is his latest. The subtitle is Language as a Window into Human Nature.
• Reinventing the Sacred. (2008). Stuart A. Kauffman.
  • This is another of my favorite authors. This one looks to be especially interesting. The subtitle is A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion.
• One to Nine: The Inner Life of Numbers. (2007). Andrew Hodges.
  • This appears to be a light read about a variety of examples of the uses of the first 9 positive integers.
• Hiroshige. (2007). Adele Schlombs.
  • This is a small beautiful book on the art of Hiroshige, A Japanese woodblock artist of the 19th century.
• The Horseman's Graves. (2008). Jacqueline Baker.
  • The only novel of this collection. This is a highly recommended book on life on the prairies a hundred years ago.

I also bought a calendar "The Mathematics Calendar 2009" by Theoni Pappas which includes a math problem for each day of the year. Should be fun.

4:00 PM

I gave geocaching another try, but once again DNF. This one was called "Lessard Road Sinkhole" (GC13B90). I think I was right above it but was reluctant to head down the steep gully. I returned home and read the hint "Among Some Roots" and also read some of the logs from previous visits which definitely suggest that the cache is down the gully a short way. Simply getting close to the cache is not even half the solution. But I am ready to try this one again.

I then tried a second nearby cache, "Boogity, Boogity, Boogity" (GC13BVQ). Same result. I was not as confident that I was close this time, so I left to recheck the web information. The hint was "At the base of a spruce tree". This should be helpful as the area is heavily wooded, but primarily with poplar trees.

On the other hand, the GPS unit has turned out to be useful for plotting routes through the city. It took a moment to realize that all addresses in Edmonton have the suffix NW attached to them. I recall a good friend mentioning this to me some time ago.

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