Monday, December 12, 2011 Lethbridge
6:20 am
The temperature is -8° C, with a high predicted of -5° C. From the Environment Canada website: Today Periods of light snow ending late this morning then cloudy with 40 percent chance of flurries. Clearing late this afternoon. High minus 5 with temperature falling to minus 9 this afternoon. Tonight Clear. Low minus 14. Normals Max: 0°C Min: -12°
7:00 am Literature
Here are some more quotes from Murakami's "1Q84".
- "The floor's thick, soft carpeting could have been primeval moss on a far northern island." [p. 391]
- "He had that feeling he remembered from childhood when he opened a new textbook at the beginning of term, ignorant of its contents but sensing the new knowledge to come." [p. 426]
- Perfect. He triggered my memory of the same sense of excitement.
- "Let the world move along as it pleased. If it had any business with him, it would be sure to tell him." [p. 427]
- I like this!
- " 'In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil,' the man said. 'Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice-versa. Such is the way of the world that Dostoevsky depicted in The Brothers Karamazov. The most important thing is to maintain the balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals, Indeed, balance itself is the good.' " [p. 447]
- Ignore the logical problem of the contradiction in the last sentence. That sentence is a higher truth.
- "Without your love, it's a honky-tonk parade. ... It's Only a Paper Moon" [p. 463]
- I just listened to the first part of this song on iTunes. Sung by Ella Fitzgerald. Hearing this now, many years later, and while reading "1Q84", is very powerful. Incredible! This is much more than just a novel. The story between the lines is amazing. Not only is the story itself a jigsaw but the blending together of much of Murakami's personal knowledge is a masterpiece. This novel is a true classic. This is literature at its very best.
10:30 am Geocaching
TeamDJM picked one of my geocaches to commemorate their 3,000th find. That is an impressive total!
- GC34KEE - Little Green Things in Trees - 2
2:00 PM Life
We just received the following Christmas card from family members who are aware of our use of GPS systems to navigate while driving around.
This is just too good to not share!
2:30 PM Model Trains
I am back from a visit to the local model train store. My main purpose was to obtain back issues of Branchline (16!), CN Lines (1) and Canadian Railway Modeller (3). I have some heavy reading in front of me.
However I also had a look at the rolling stock and bought 2 cars:
- CN 652486 - a 40' flat car (Athearn #97705)
- CP 228249 - a 1927 40' boxcar (TrueLine Trains #300066)
I have added these to my database and to my Ship It! files so that they will appear in the next session of my operational runs.
I have rekindled my interest in the history of railways in Canada.
Let's begin with a (very) preliminary timeline.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| 1832 | Royal assent to make a railway from Lake Champlain to the River St. Lawrence |
| 1836 | Official opening of the Champlain and St. Lawrence RR |
| 1852 | Grand Trunk Railway incorporated (GTR) - primarily Quebec and Ontario |
| 1853 | Great Western Railway (GWR) incorporated - an Ontario railway |
| 1867 | Confederation |
| 1876 | Intercolonial Railway |
| 1881 | CPR incorporated |
| 1885 | CPR last spike at Craigellachie, BC |
| 1899 | Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) incorporated |
| 1903 | Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTPR) incorporated |
| 1915 | CNoR last spike at Basque, BC |
| 1918 | CNR formed by amalgamating CNoR, Intercolonial, |
| 1920 | CNR takes over GTPR |
| 1923 | CNR takes over GTR |
My main source for a first iteration will be the two-volume history, "Canadian National Railways" by G. R. Stevens (1960).