Thursday, July 7, 2011 Lethbridge

5:00 am

The temperature is +12 C, with a high predicted of +30 C.

From the Environment Canada website: Today Sunny. High 30. UV index 8 or very high. Tonight Clear. Wind southwest 30 km/h gusting to 60. Low 15. Normals Max: 25°C Min: 10°C.

5:00 PM

It is" officially" summer (at least in this household). The temperature today reached +30 C.

5:30 PM Technology

An interesting day. I continue to learn. Earlier this morning I was leaning strongly toward the eventual purchase of a Garmin Montana 650 GPS unit. One of the features of this model was a built in camera that would automatically add geotag information to each photo.

Then later in the morning I went for my daily coulee walk. I took my iPhone with me and took a few photos of the trip. The photos looked okay but when I tried to digitally zoom them on my computer in order to identify a bird the photos quickly pixelated and the photo was useless. Clearly I want a much better photo when I am geocaching (or travelling in general) than what the iPhone (and by extension, the Garmin) can produce.

Conclusion: continue to take my Canon Rebel camera with me at all times.

A couple of hours later I was browsing the web to see what others were saying about geotagging photos and came across an iPhone app (GeoLogTag) that claimed to be able to easily geotag any photos taken by any camera. The price as right: only $2.99. I decided to try it. Yes, it works. The basic idea is well-known. You need 2 separate devices: one is the camera, the second is a device that keeps track of where you are as you move about. The second device is called a Tracker and I have one that I have used briefly. However the idea behind the app is that the tracker role is taken on by the iPhone. The critical idea is that both the camera and the iPhone must have a clock that is synchronized to the other. The app then takes the information on its location at each time interval and places it on the photo information for the appropriate photo. The steps to do this are relatively simple and easy to do

I tried this by taking a few photos as I walked around the block. I was able to verify that the approriate GPS information was added to each photo. I was also able to save the complete set of tracking information and plot my route on Google Earth.

I now realize that I do not need (or want) the Montana 650 model but instead I should buy the Montana 600 model which has all of the same features except the camera. And I save $60. A very good day. I had no idea when I woke up this morning that the solution to my needs was an iPhone app.

The remaining issue is not the actual GPS unit but the maps that should be placed in it. One map should definitely be the City Navigator for North America map with a lifetime update feature. I should buy this in a DVD format so it can be uploaded to both the Montana 600 as well as to my Mac. This is straight-forward. However I am also looking at a topo map produced by Backcountry Maps. There are a couple of questions that still need to be addressed. One is whether it works on the Montana 600 and the other is whether it also works on the Mac using a software program called Garmin Base Camp. In this case I will want (I think) the micro-SD form which simply fits in the Montana 600. When I register the product I then receive a file of the same map that will work on the Mac. In theory this should all work. Now to see what reality has to say about this.

9:00 PM Literature

I have decided to begin rereading Jane Urquhart's novel "Sanctuary Line" again from the beginning. I had read the first hundred pages but became so enamored with her writing that it is worth repeating. In my view, this is great writing.

Here are a few quotes:

"My uncle looked at his wife, and for the first time I was able to read his thoughts, dark fish swimming behind the solemnity of his blue eyes. He needs her, I thought, and he admires her, but he is not at ease with either his need or his admiration." [p. 15]

"I've been taught that we can define every life form in this manner, by simply moving in a deliberate way down the list. Everything, that is, except for extinction, which carries out its own scientific duties in an opposite manner. Working its way slowly up through the divisions, it is creation in reverse. First a species disappears, then a genus, then a family, an order, a class. Extinction is relentless, and it is flourishing. I believe it will win in the end." [p. 18-19]

"There is no one, no one left. I live in a landscape where absence confronts me daily." [p. 28]

"There is also a harmonica my uncle sometimes played and a timetable for trains that no longer stop at the abandoned station and probably a schedule of Saturday events for the Sanctuary Point Summer Dance Pavilion, which closed and then was burned by vandals at least fifteen years ago." [p. 29]

"Now that I am living in this place, I miss the children we all used to be before everything broke apart, and I miss the children who should have replaced us but haven't." [p. 31]

"Sometimes my only connection to it is the map made by all the fine lines on a monarch's wing. Still. in those days, I would never have examined such a wing carefully enough to know it resembled a map." [p. 50]

Why do I select some passages and not others. Sometimes the sentence is simply beautiful as in the first quote above. Sometimes it is because it makes me think. I like that. Sometimes it is because it strikes a responsive chord. There are many more passages that I could add, and perhaps I should.