Tuesday October 21, 2008 6:10 am Lethbridge

It is +4 C with a high forecast of +9 C. Sunrise 8:03 Sunset 18:29 Hours of daylight: 10:26.
See current Lethbridge forecast here. See current Lethbridge news here.

This page last updated on: Thursday, October 23, 2008 6:56 PM

A. Morning Musings

The early morning hours are beginning to be the most difficult for accomplishing priority items. The problem is deciding on what the priorities should be: calculus, non-fiction reading (e.g. geology, history), setting up a geocaching plan, or working on my model train kits.

My plan for west Lethbridge is still on track. I have 3 caches left for "first tries". Two are very short distances from the car, the third looks like a bit of a challenge in the coulee. The coulee trip requires a dry day. Today may have rain this morning. Also there is little point in going out before 10 am, or even 11 due to the cool temperatures.

Now the question is books or trains. And if books, which ones: geology, history or calculus? I have had a real spurt of book buying recently. They are in piles all around my computer.

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
Literature	Complete reading "Prey" by Michael Crichton	1 hr
Science	Continue reading "Canada Rocks"	1 hr
History	Begin reading "A Fair Country" by John Ralston Saul	1 hr
Model Trains	Continue building kits for 4 cylindrical hopper cars	1 hr
Model Trains	SAMRC meeting tonight	2 hr
Geocaching	Solve "Lethbridge Coalminers Puzzle Cache" GCW1D9	2 hr

B. Actual Learning Activities

7:00 am

Diversions ... I had another look at the geocache map for west Lethbridge and noticed a symbol that I had not pursued: a question mark. This turns out to be a puzzle where one solves the puzzle to obtain the coordinates to the cache. The puzzle is a classic logic puzzle. Now to give this a try.

12:30

Prey

Michael Crichton

This is a very good book at what it tries to do: make a fast-paced thriller. It is an easy read, one where the reading speed is much faster than in a more complex novel.

It did bring back memories of the early 1980's when I was writing Logo programs that modeled predator-prey behavior on a simple 2-dimensional surface.

I also remember listening to Seymour Papert mention emergence and that this was going to be a very important development. So very true.

I would rate this story as 4 out of 5.

Tags: fiction, USA, nanotechnology

4:00 PM

Geocaching: I decided to have a look at a "puzzle" cache in the same area as a couple of other west Lethbridge caches. This is my first such activity. It took a couple of hours, but I now have the coordinates for the cache as a result of solving a logic puzzle. Great fun. Tomorrow I will see if I can find the cache based on my calculation of the correct coordinates.

I have also begun reading "A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada" by John Ralston Saul. This promises to be a delight, but also one that is going to challenge me. From the preface:

"To insist on describing ourselves as something we are not is to embrace existential illiteracy. We are not a civilization of British or French or European inspiration. We never have been. Our society is not an expression of peace, order and good government. It never was.
To accept and even believe such fundamental misrepresentations of Canada and Canadians is to sever our mythologies from our reality." [p. xi]
"... we have shrink-wrapped ourselves into a very particular description of our civilization and how it came to be." [p. xii]
"We are a people of Aboriginal inspiration organized around a concept of peace, fairness and good government." [p. xii]

Let the story begin.

"We are a metis civilization." [3]
"What we are today has been inspired as much by four centuries of life with the indigenous civilizations as by four centuries of immigration. Today we are the outcome of that experience." [p. 3]
"On the single issue of immigration and citizenship diversity, we seem unable to notice the obvious ... It is based on the idea of an inclusive circle that expands and gradually adapts as new people join us. This is not a Western or European concept. It comes straight from Aboriginal culture." [p. 4]

9:00 PM

I am back from a pleasant 2 hours at the Southern Alberta Model Railway Club. I think that I am about ready to download a 30-day free trial of Ship It! software to see what I can do with it. There is a fellow at the club that is very familiar with it, so I should be able to ask him any questions that come up.

Books on the Go Today

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