Thursday, December 1, 2011 Lethbridge
6:30 am
The temperature is -4° C, with a high predicted of +1° C. From the Environment Canada website: Today Mainly sunny. Wind southwest 30 km/h gusting to 50. High plus 1. Tonight Clear. Wind west 40 km/h gusting to 60. Low minus 4.
8:30 am Morning Musings
Let me play with a few thoughts.
I have been reading "The Tree of Knowledge" this morning (chapters 3 - 6). I am reading for understanding. I am underlining some passages and occasionally making marks in the margins.
I was not making notes but these comments may constitute the beginning of some.
However there are competitors for my time (attention?).
Yesterday I formed the consist (i.e. arranged some of the cars on my model train layout to form a train that will move between locations). How can I communicate what I did to this web site? A video camera of the process seems the obvious choice but my computer is too slow to playback the HD file that my digital camera can make. I did make detailed notes of the various steps in the process but typing all of that into this web page will take some time (and effort) and may not be worth it. In order to supplement the steps I will also need to make a schematic drawing of the track layout in the switching area where the activity took place. More time and effort.
Last evening I began reading Haruki Murakami's latest novel, "1Q84". At a minimum I need to scan the covers so I can add that to this web page. I also want to set aside a couple of hours today to continue the novel which has something to do with parallel universes.
These are the front and back covers of the novel. Fascinating.
Then there are model trains. I now know where the shop that supplies model train gear has moved. I want to visit this and buy some magazines plus see what cars and stuff he has in stock.
Back to "The Tree of Knowledge". Should I simply continue to read, and underline, or should I make some notes? Maybe I should try creating a map of the key ideas. Should I have a separate map for each activity?
I do not need to find a geocache for December 1. But after today the rest of the month is blank.
10:00 am Science
Here is a map of the first 2 chapters of "The Tree of Knowledge":
5:00 PM Life
This is a continuation of my morning muse. The trip to Costco resulted in 2 more books for my library:
- "The Sisters Brothers" (2011) by Patrick DeWitt
- This has won a number of awards, including a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.
- "Micro" (2011) by Michael Crichton & Richard Preston
- Crichton died in 2008 and Preston was hired to complete the manuscript.
5:30 PM Model Trains
I then visited the hobby store where I bought a number of back issues of a couple of train magazines plus one new gondola car for my layout.