Monday, April 4, 2011 Lethbridge

5:45 am tag: Morning Musings

This is my first morning with the new website. Now to see how it works.

The Internet appears to be down. Firefox is unable to connect to either the university server or to Google. And I am unable to connect to the web server to upload these updates. However I was able to turn Wi-Fi off on my iPad and then used the 3G network to connect. Cool.

I then tried turning the modem to our desktop computer off and then on again. Now everything is working fine. It has been awhile since I had to do this, but every now and then something seems to happen overnight and the modem loses connection. Anyway it is now working.

And the coffee is hot.

And the snow is melting.

I liked this aspect of my previous website. So I will add it as a category of my Activities. But the emphasis will be on musing while sipping coffee.

So far I have set up 4 activities (Birding, History, Literature, and Technology). Musing will be my 5th. Each activity will have a short list of 1 to 3 goal statements. But I also need a sense of personal priorities.

The first is related to health and fitness. I want to bring my weight back down to 180 (it is currently 193). And I want to spend more time outdoors. Some of this will be my regular coulee walks which I like because of the cardio workout when I climb up out of the coulee. But I also want to spend more time walking and hiking.

And camping with the 5th wheel. In the past we have stayed in campgrounds with at least an electrical hook-up. Not only did this give us power for lights at night but I could then maintain my laptop. The latter is silly. I can easily keep a few notes on a pad of paper and then transfer them to this website when I return home (or when I can find an electrical outlet for my iPad). While geocaching last summer I found a number of powerless campgrounds in the Crowsnest Pass that looked quite appealing. I also bought a few hiking brochures for the Kananaskis region. The real plus for all of this is that I will be able to combine this with photography (scenery and wildflowers) and geocaching. Now that I think about it, there is a campground near Saskatchewan Crossing that is powerless that looked very appealing. It is time to be more adventurous. And to see more birds. This is a winning combination that includes 4 of my targeted activities plus giving me a relaxing opportunity for some quiet reading when the weather goes south. I need to do some reading about the Cypress Hills Provincial Park and see if they have some powerless campgrounds.

At the moment I have two books on the go: McEwan's "Solar" (Literature) and Davis's "The Wayfinders" (History). Since there is no need to build a fire this morning it is a good opportunity for a little quiet time with a good book.

Then I will have a look at DW CS5 and see if I can find an efficient way to set up links to these specific sections of each daily web page.

8:50 am tag: Literature

I have just finished reading "Solar". This is a deliberate attempt at humor and it succeeds beautifully. The combination of global warming and human relationships provided a serious backdrop for some very clever language. There are some very intelligent sentences in this novel. The result is a well crafted book, deserving of its prize for comic fiction.

9:30 am tag: Literature

The next step is to select my next novel. After looking at a number of alternatives, I have selected Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel (2009) "The Lacuna".

12:45 PM tag: Technology

I have figured out the procedure to add id tags to each heading and then create a link to that heading within the page. I have now completed this for all of my pages to date. The links will initially be blue, but will change to red if they have previously been visited.

To view the entries for a particular Activity open the appropriate Activity web page and click on the link that specifies the time. After you have read this section click on the browser's back arrow to return to the Activity table and click on the next time link.

3:30 PM

I am back from 2 loops of my coulee circuit. This has to be good for me. The wind was up today (55 kph, gusting to 67) and was in my face as I came up out of the coulee. Bracing is an understatement. I am trying to have some outdoor activity each day.

I saw a small hawk fly up and away from the same bushes where I saw a Fox Sparrow last week. It was small and had a number of dark bands on its tail. Checking with my books suggests it was a Merlin. I also saw a sea gull fly overhead but was unable to identify it. The default for a white-headed gull is a Ring-billed Gull.

7:35 PM tag: History

A pleasant read of the 4th chapter from "The Wayfinders". A moving description of indigenous cultures in the upper Amazon, the region near Cusco and the land of the Incas, the area in southern Colombia, and the aborigines of Australia. The latter provides the best description I have seen to date on the nature of Songlines (better than Bruce Chatwin's book of the same title).