Saturday September 27, 2008 6:20 am Kelowna, BC

It is +8 C with a high forecast of +18 C. Sunrise 6:52 Sunset 18:45 Hours of daylight: 11:53.
See current Lethbridge forecast here. See current Lethbridge news here.

This page last updated on: Saturday, October 4, 2008 7:21 AM

A. Morning Musings

I have a few items scheduled for today. One is to pick up a box of books at the conference. Another is to visit the Mosaic Bookstore downtown. Third is to try to find at least one geocache. At the moment all 15 geocaches have been in Alberta. It is time to add one from British Columbia. Fourth it to see if I can successfully bid on eBay for a book that I would like to obtain called "Constructed in Kingston". Another halibut & chips at the Pheasant & Quail pub would be nice. Dinner at a nice restaurant with friends is on the books as well.

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
History	Begin reading "The People's Railway" by Donald Mackay	1 hr
Literature	Begin reading "I Heard the Owl Call My Name" by Margaret Craven.	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie	1 hr

B. Actual Learning Activities

8:15 am

The eBay book is still selling for $56. and there are still only 2 bidders. There are 12 hours left for bidding. I will have a look again later this afternoon.

Now to download some Kelowna geocaches to my Garmin.

11:00 am

The first two items on my list are now checked off.

While at the Mosaic Bookstore (an independent bookseller) I foucused on BC and Canada books.

"The 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. (2007). Alisa Smith & J. B. MacKinnon.
- I have heard about this a fair amount in the last year. This should be a fun read with some good suggestions.
"Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care). (2008). William Marsden.
- The title resonates with me. Now to familarize myself with more of the details.
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. CBC Massey Lectures. (2008).
- Either Atwood or the CBC Massey Lectures is a strong enough reason to buy the book. The fact that the title is eerily prescient adds a third reason.
The Curve of Time. (1968). M. Wylie Blanchett.
- This is considered to be a B. C. classic. It is the biography of a woman who took her 5 children on a 25 foot boat and cruised the coastal waterways summer after summer.
I Heard the Owl Call My Name. (1973). Margaret Craven.
- Another B. C. classic. It has been a best-seller for 22 years.
Exploring the Interior Country Roads of British Columbia. (2008). Liz Bryan.
- We have the similar book by her for Alberta and are enjoying it. This looks like another book with numerous ideas for future trips.
Learning By Designing: Pacific Northwest Coast Native Indian Art. (2007). Jim Gilbert & Karin Clark.
- I have always had an interest in west coast native art. This looks like a good book to help be understand the symbolism as well as the techniques.
Poincare's Prize. (2008). George G. Szpiro.
- This is a story of the Russiam mathematician Grigory Perelman, who declined to receive the Fields Medal (worth a million dollars) for having solved Poincare's problem.
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. (2007). Maryanne Wolf.
- The subtitle meant I had to buy this book. That and the word Proust.

I have already read the first chapter of "I Heard the Owl Call My Name". I love it. It is about the clash of cultures between native American and modern. Here is a sentence that gives a sense of the book:

"When you shake his hand, you'll know at once it's a gesture he's learned which has no meaning." [p. 11]

Here is a photo of me in the Mosaic Bookstore with my alter-ego:

alter-ego

I then took a much needed break at the Pheasant & Quail for my regular order of halibut & chips. I followed this with an attempt at geo-caching.

A check of my Garmin indicated there was a cache within walking distance. It is called the Fascieux Creek Wetlands (GC1D6RT). Success. My first cache in British Columbia. Here are a few photos:




the right wetland	beaver knaw marks

looking down on the stump	do you see it?

zooming in	the log roll

9:00 PM

We are back from a superb meal at Jakx. I had left a maximum bid of $100. for the book "Constructed in Kingston" before we left. We returned to find that someone else had bid more and I did not buy it. But that was a good way to do the bidding: determine the highest you are prepared to go and then leave. That way you avoid any last minute panic. I will continue to look for the book in used book stores, and on ebay.

Books on the Go Today

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