Tuesday January 10, 2006 7:15 am Ballina NSW [NEW FORMAT]

A. Morning Musings

7:15 am Rain. But at least yesterday it stopped for awhile. Coffee will be ready soon.

I am beginning to think that my system of three separate table for monitoring and planning my daily/weekly activities is a bit cumbersome. Then again, maybe all that is required is a slightly different mind-set, one where I spend more time on the activity and more time musing. The musing is definitely something I need to work on.

Okay. The first sip of coffee is great. Now for a muse. Should this be called amusing? Bad.

Looking at the first table, I see that I have two hours of reading "The Story of the Stone" and an exercise routine (tummy stuff) tentatively scheduled. I was pleased with the Stylus Studio effort yesterday and would like to keep that going.

I like my many different web sites, but I still do not have the continuity among the various activities manifested very well. Perhaps what I should have is a section that gives the links to each of the activities that I engage in for that day. Another weakness with my system at the moment is that I am not capturing the off-screen activities.

I am about to create a second version of this web page and see how it looks. I will call it Jan1006b. 7:45 am

B. Plan

7:45 am The persistent rain is a factor to consider at the moment. It makes all out door activities a bit tentative. However if it looks like easing up at some point we should aim for a beach walk. We also need to begin taking our binoculars and keeping some records of the birds that we see. Yesterday we did see an osprey on Lighthouse beach. It hovered almost overhead and we had a very good look at it. Thinking of the beach walk reminds me of the intent to engage in a regular exercise routine, particularly for the abdomen. I am too soft and could use some muscle tone. This should work okay if I use a beach towel and do the exercise on the carpet. I am reluctant to lie on the carpet itself as it is likely pretty dirty. Alternatively, I could take the towel to the beach and do this on the sand. Two good exercises are the "crunch" and the "bicycle". I will do this today. 7:55 am

7:55 am Each separate idea will get its own paragraph and time stamp. The idea of exercise is an essential item and will be attended to as a daily priority. Staying with health and fitness, the other component is diet. I am going to try cutting back on the amount I am eating. At the same time I want to continue my idea of at least two "new" meals each week. Tonight I will make "Coriander Pork with Fresh Pineapple" [p. 68] from The Complete Stir-fry Cookbook. I bought all of the ingredients for this a couple of days ago. I also noticed a tag on the pineapple that showed a different way of cutting it up from the approach I use. I will try that today and see if I have a preference. I have just taken the pork out of the freezer, so this is now underway. 8:05

8:05 am Reality is an important part of any plan. Thus one of the first items each day should be "chores". Grocery shopping is one for today. We need some green grapes and a couple of passion fruit for our fruit salad which will use the remainder of the pineapple. We also need some baking soda to get rid of an odour in the bedroom closet. Assuming the rain eases up, we could combine this with a lovely cappuccino at the Pelican. The cappuccino flies in the face of the diet, but I do not want to live a spartan existence either. The cappuccino stays. 8:15 am

8:15 am I like the narrative approach to this page rather than the tabular approach that I have been using. I simply find the table to be too mechanistic. It has the advantage of being clear but it fails to show the fluidity of the day. I "know" that my main areas of interest at the moment are Technology (XML) and Mathematics (Calculus and Number Theory) with Literature as a background activity. As far as appointments go, I must remember to take the car in for maintenance for the Registration procedure. This will happen tomorrow morning at 11:30. We will then meet Sue for lunch at 12ish at the location of the old French Patisserie restaurant on Molesworth street. I have removed the first table from this page. 8:25 am

8:25 am Now to think about how to best keep track of my many Learning activities. I have totally revised my table and placed it on a separate web page. This way it doesn't interfere with the flow of this page. 9:15 am

9:15 am A good beginning to the day. To summarize: I plan to begin the day with some exercise, then do some work on Stylus Studio. At some point I will go downtown and do a little grocery shopping and have a cappuccino. Dinner will be a new recipe. Reading "The Story of the Stone" will complete the day. This looks like a pleasant day. This is much more "human" than my earlier approach. I do not need to be that meticulous in my approach. Flexibility is built in and can be easily handled. The first step is that of exercise. 9:20 am

C. Actual

1:50 PM This is just a progress report on the day to this point. I have completed my abdominable exercises for the morning. Since they are pretty basic, I will try to repeat them again in the afternoon. We drove downtown, had a cuppucino and did all of our grocery shopping at woolies. When we returned home we had a light lunch (I had the last lamb sausage in a slice of soy-lin bread). I am now making a few notes about XML. 2:00 PM

3:00 PM I have just put in a solid hour reviewing the book "Learn XML in a Weekend". For the first time I feel that I have a firm grasp of the central concepts of XML data files, XSD schema files and XSL stylesheet files. I want to let his sit for a bit, then I will try to make a set of notes on the important points. Then I want to return to Stylus Studio and see if I can create a working application. I will likely use the Ozbirds file as it is already a well-structured XML file. But I have yet to create an XSD file or an XSL file.

Comparing the day with my comments at 9:15 am, I have completed the exercise. We then went downtown and had a cappuccino and then did the grocery shopping. We returned home and I defragged the hard drive while substituting XML learning for Stylus Studio. I consider this as an equivalent activity. So far so good. Making a fruit salad and then "Coriander Pork with Fresh Pineapple" are still on the schedule for dinner and I can now put "The Story of the Stone" as the last remaining activity for the day. But first a break. I will begin with making the fruit salad. 3:15 PM

8:10 PM I have just finished making my notes for chapter 6 of "The Story of the Stone". Earlier I made the dinner stir-fry meal "Coriander Pork with Fresh Pineapple", which turned out very well. 8:15 PM

D. Reflection

8:15 PM This has been a perfect day. I accomplished everything that I set out to do, while at the same time enjoying myself and feeling under no pressure to do something according to a specified timetable. I am embarrassed that it has taken me this long to realize that I tight timetable is, at least for me, counter-productive.

I am also encouraged by my progress with XML. I now feel that I have most of the important ideas under control and only need to learn to use a couple of tools such as Stylus Studio.

Tomorrow will be far less productive from a Learning perspective as we drive to Lismore in the morning to have maintenance done on the car, getting it ready for the Registration renewal. But I do expect to return in time to try another stir-fry recipe, "Chicken with Lemon and Capers" [p. 105] from The Complete Stir-Fry Cookbook. I did prefer the new way of cutting up a pineapple - it is not as messy as the approach I was using. The procedure involves first cutting off both ends and then cutting it in half vertically. Trim the outside off and cut out the core. Then slice it up and then cut the chunks from each slice.