Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Lethbridge

5:50 am Morning Musings

The temperature is +3 C, with a high predicted of +23 C.

From the Environment Canada website:

Today Sunny. Wind becoming southeast 20 km/h late this morning. High 23. UV index 6 or high. Tonight Clear. Wind southeast 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low 8. Normals Max: 18°C Min: 4°C

Today promises to be sunny and warm. This will be the first time this year when the temperature has been in the 20's. It will also be the first time this year that I mow the lawn.

With the weather so good, I want to do some birding before I settle down to work around the yard. I think I will aim for the reservoir at Pitcher Butte and see if there are any waterfowl heading north. This spring has been surprisingly poor for seeing ducks.

Good weather makes indoor activities a poor choice. Photography, birding and geocaching are now at the top of my list.

I like to keep at least one fiction and one non-fiction book on the go at any one time. The"Autobiography of Mark Twain" satisfies the first criterion and "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" satisfies the second. I continue to pare down the variety of interesting activities in order to eventually achieve something realistic.

Then again, to quote Robert Browning "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?". This triggers a memory of one of my favorite poems, My Last Duchess, also by Browning. How the mind roams.

Roaming. Ah, I remember sitting on a balcony in Lennox Head and watching the sun rise over the ocean. And sitting on a verandah at McLeans Ridge at watching the early morning mist rise up the valley and then burn off. And listening to a kookaburra laugh. There is merit in sitting still, with a cup of coffee in hand, and listening, and not thinking.

10:00 am Birding

I went out to the Elizabeth Hall wetlands on the edge of the city, but the birding was disappointing. There were at least 20 Red-winged Blackbirds, 20 Canada Geese, and 9 Mallards. But the remaining birds were in small numbers and not very noteworthy: 2 Yellow-headed Blackbirds, 5 American White Pelicans, 6 American Robins, 2 Redheads, 1 American Coot, 1 Downy Woodpecker, 1 Northern Flicker, 1 Black-billed Magpie and 1 Mourning Dove. The Redheads are the only new observations for 2011.

 

I then drove out to Pitcher Butte and was surprised to not see even one bird on the reservoir lake on the edge of town. The wind had started up and the lake surface was choppy but even so, it is spring and it was morning.

1:00 PM Technology

I think I have enough material for a short story now. Ignoring all of this material, the result, a surprise to me, was the delivery of the Dell Inspiron laptop this afternoon. This after we had been informed it would arrive next week. However that was the goal, and the goal has been achieved. I have the laptop. I am under the impression that I will also receive a carrying case, which I didn't realize was part of the package. Maybe it will arrive next week. Or some other time. Or not. But if it arrives I will be delighted.

8:30 PM Technology

I have charged the battery on the Inspiron, turned it on, found my Wifi site, connected to the internet, downloaded the Firefox browser, and created a set of 2 System Recovery discs. Everything seems to be working fine. The next step will be to install a few software programs (particularly Ship It!) that I will use with my model train layout. I may also try a few geocaching software packages.