Monday, July 18, 2011 Lethbridge

6:00 am

The temperature is +15 C, with a high predicted of +32 C.

From the Environment Canada website: Today Sunny. Becoming a mix of sun and cloud this afternoon. High 32. UV index 8 or very high. Tonight Partly cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers and risk of a thunderstorm. Wind southwest 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low 12. Normals Max: 26°C Min: 11°C.

1:00 PM Model Trains

I have just received the Wireless Computer/Prodigy Interface dongle that should allow me to communicate between my PC laptop and my Prodigy wireless DCC system for running my model trains. Another step forward.

4:00 PM Technology

I ran into a serious problem with my new Garmin Montana 600 today. While moving between the two maps that I have installed (Garmin City Navigator North America and Backroads BC/Alberta) the entire unit locked up and there didn't seem to be any way to reinitialize. A phone call to Garmin soon indicated the problem was some form of incompatibility between the two maps. The Backroads map is not a Garmin product. The solution was to remove the microSD card and then power up the unit. I am now trying to determine the exact conditions that brought about the problem so I can avoid doing that in the future.

A second problem (weakness?) is that there is no way to edit the geocaching file of sites that have been downloaded onto the unit. This is definitely annoying as it is a common activity.

But overall I still love the unit. The screen display is great and the profile feature for switching between the auto mode and the geocaching mode is a delight.

9:00 PM Literature

I read two more short stories from "Ward No. 6 and Other Stories" by Anton Chekov at various times during the day. Here are the titles: "The Lady with the Dog" and "In the Ravine".

Once again, I was impressed.