Saturday, October 29, 2011 Lethbridge
6:30 am
The temperature is +7 C, with a high predicted of +10 C. From the Environment Canada website: Today Clearing this morning. Wind west 40 km/h gusting to 60. High 10. Tonight Clear. Wind west 40 km/h gusting to 60 becoming southwest 20 overnight. Low plus 1. Normals Max: 8°C Min: -4°C.
6:40 am Morning Musings
I now have four activities that will each require a substantial commitment of time and effort: model trains, literature, mathematics and geocaching. Two involve physical activity (geocaching and model trains) and two involve books and thinking (mathematics and literature). The challenge will be to keep all four on the front burner.
Model Trains: There is an electrical problem of some kind with 4 of my switches. At the moment I have no idea of what is causing it. It seems to be either the Digitrax decoder or the strength of the current going to the switches. I also have a problem with the Ship It software. I think it is working fine if I ignore the information for the two unit trains (the passenger train and the unit coal train). But it would be nice to have this coordinated into the overall set of reports. I'm not sure of the problem here but am leaning toward some of the settings that distinguish a town's yard and its industries. This also may have something to do with the idea of staging. Lots to think about.
Literature: I'm presently reading, and making notes for "Infinite Jest". I am pleased with this system and now feel that I have the structure of the novel under control. I love the writing and am looking forward to staying immersed in this for some time.
Mathematics: Once again, I feel I have this under control, but it will need some serious study before I feel that I fully understand the content of "The Symmetry of Things". Basically it is a matter of learning a new notational system and then seeing why this system facilitates certain powerful ideas about the patterns.
Geocaching: I now need to develop an overall strategy that balances effort and cost. This means taking full advantage of trips away from Lethbridge to maximize the number of searches. It also means tempering my local efforts over the winter months to maximize the number of (trivial) sub-goals. One of these is to try and find a cache on each day of the year. The next four months have many days that currently have no searches for them. This means looking for only one cache on such days in order to spread out the number of local caches. There are about 25 caches in the Lethbridge vicinity. There are 15 days in November that still have zero caches against their number. November 8, 9, and 11 are the first ones up. Then there is a string of 7 consective days (November 13-19). On a different level, I would like to have found all the caches in Lethbridge, as well as all of the Prairie Winds caches. There are 3 caches in the Foremost area (one is a Prairie Winds cache), and there are a few Prairie Winds caches in the Medicine Hat area. There are a few caches in the Pincher Creek/Beauvais Lake area that will require some hiking. And it has been a few months since I ventured into the Crowsnest Pass. There are lots of new ones there.
11:00 am Literature
While shopping at Costco I bought 2 books: "A Good Man" by Guy Vanderhauge and "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson.
2:30 PM Mathematics
While taking my coulee walk I took a few photos of various signs and objects that exhibited symmetry. I was surprised at the variety of automobile hub caps.
Here are examples of * kaleidoscope symmetry. This is also known as bilateral symmetry. There is one mirror that bisects the image.
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Here are some examples of gyrational symmetry (also called rotational symmetry)
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| 2 point | 8 point | 5 point |
Here is an example of symmetry on the surface of a sphere: 
I do not know how to describe this at the moment.
3:00 PM Photography
Here are 3 photos of the coulees:
