Friday, July 29, 2011 Edmonton

5:40 am

The temperature is +13 C, with a high predicted of +20 C.

From the Environment Canada website: Today Mainly cloudy. 30 percent chance of showers early this morning and late this afternoon. Risk of a thunderstorm. Wind becoming west 20 km/h gusting to 40 this morning. High 20. UV index 5 or moderate. Tonight Mainly cloudy with 30 percent chance of showers early this evening and risk of a thunderstorm. Clearing this evening. Low 9. Normals Max: 23°C Min: 11°C.

12:30 PM Life

I visited my favorite bookstore (Greenwoods) this morning and bought 6 books (3 fiction, 3 non-fiction) plus "The Original Student Calendar 2011 - 2012" which was cleverly placed beside the check-out counter.

What caught my eye when I flipped through a few pages of the Student Calendar was the category "The Rest of Your Life". That is what is missing from these daily web pages - a category for all of the incidental activities that for some reason I would like to include. For example, visiting Greenwoods and buying a few books.

Here is a list of the books, in the order in which I picked them:

• "The Reason Why" (2011) by John Gribbin
  • The subtitle is The Miracle of Life on Earth and describes the numerous special circumstances that lead to life on Earth. I am familiar with this general position but I will buy almost any new book by Gribbin. He is a superb science writer.
• "The Mathematics of Life" (2011) by Ian Stewart
  • Stewart is one of my favorite writers of mathematics and this one promises to be particularly fascinating as he makes a case for the future of biology to be intimately tied to future developments in mathematics. Symmetry is just a small part of this future.
• "The Book of Universes" (2011) by John D. Barrow
  • Barrow is another of favorite science writers. This book is also a blend of mathematics and, this time, cosmology.
• "Zero History" (2010) by William Gibson
  • Gibson is one of my favorite cyber-punk/science fiction authors. His first novel, "Neuromancer",(1984!) is credited with coining the term "cyberspace". I have all of his novels, 10 including this one.
• "Shadow Country" (2008) by Peter Matthiessen
  • This is a rewrite of his earlier trilogy of novels and is considered a major revision and improvement. It has won a number of awards and looks to be well worth the read.
• "The Beauty of Human Movement" (2010) by Camilla Gibb.
  • This novel is also receiving rave reviews by critics. I am looking forward to it.

I read a few pages from Barrow's "The Book of Universes" and noted the following quote which I had not seen before:

"History is the sum total of the things that could have been avoided." Konrad Adenauer [p. 2]

[Addendum: 10:00 PM]

We are back from a trip to the farm where we had a good visit with all of the relatives.

One of the goals of our Edmonton trip was to take a few photos of their raised garden and to pay special attention to exactly how it was constructed. We plan to build a similar one, but smaller, in our backyard when we return to Lethbridge.

Barbequed bratwurst and beer was the evening treat and we topped off the meal with a bottle of bubbly and a series of toasts to everyone in both families.