Monday, June 13, 2011 Granby, Quebec
6:30 am
The temperature is +13 C, with a high predicted of +16 C.
From the Environment Canada website:
Today Periods of rain or drizzle. Risk of thunderstorms over southern sections this afternoon. Wind becoming northeast 20 km/h near noon. High 16. UV index 3 or moderate. Tonight A few showers ending after midnight then cloudy. Wind northeast 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low 9. Normals Max: 21°C Min: 11°C.
We will drive back to Montreal later this morning and drop off the car rental and then stay in a motel near the airport. Hopefully we will fly back to Calgary tomorrow but there is a strike scheduled for tomorrow by some Air Canada employees so we will have to see how it goes.
2:30 PM Musings
We are settled into our motel room (we received an upgrade without even asking for one!) after dropping off the rental car and printing out our boarding passes (using the motel facilities). So we are ready to deal with whatever comes our way tomorrow morning. The strike is still on but the airline is saying all flights will depart as scheduled.
More importantly, the 6th game of the Stanley Cup playoffs begins in about 6 hours.
There is a small alcove/kitchenette in the unit so I am sitting down with a freshly brewed cup of coffee and tryin to collect a few thoughts.
This trip has been a good opportunity to let my mind run off in all directions. Now to rein it in.
I am about a third of the way through reading "Picturing the Land" which is a nice blend of Canadian history and Canadian landscape art. I also bought a small book a few days ago called "Notebooks from Brome-Missisquoi - Heritage sketches". The latter has re-infused my desire to create something similar. A prerequisite is to learn to sketch. Some of the pictures are pencil, others are beautiful watercolors. Not only would I like to be able to do this, but I would like to integrate it with my interest in photography. Clearly I must set aside specific times for this. This being both practicing technique as well as spending time outdoors paying attention to what I am seeing.
Another interest that has been rekindled on this trip is my study of mathematics with an emphasis on symmetry. I need to keep up my study of linear algebra and at the same time begin a careful reading of "The Symmetries of Things". Note that the title refers to symmetry in the plural. "Things" may have many different symmetries.
My playing of Go is continuing to provide me with a challenge. As soon as I am home I want to continue reading "Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go" by Toshiro Kageyama. This is good discipline at slowing down and thinking before acting.
Another activity that deserves some time is Model Trains. I have just learned about an App for the iPad that allows me to control my Laptop PC using Windows 7 from the iPad. However before I can do this I need to download some special software from MRC. There is some real learning ahead of me here. Which reminds me that I still need to complete the re-setting up of my Ship It! files so I can begin operational running of trains.
Where am I? Four major activities:
- art/sketching/photography
- math/symmetry/linear algebra
- Go
- Model Trains.
As a first cut at handling all of this, I will set aside 5 hours/week for each activity. That only commits me to 20 hours/week which should still leave lots of time for everything else.
9:00 PM
Early in the first period, Boston scored 4 goals in the space of 3 minutes. We turned off the tv and went to sleep. (Next morning we learned the final score was 5 - 2 for Boston. Game 7 will be on Wednesday. The winner of that game wins the Stanley Cup.