Friday January 13, 2006 5:55 am Ballina NSW

A. Morning Musings

5:55 am I think there may have been a nice sunrise this morning, but by the time I was up it was already beginning to fade. It looks like the rainy weather is over although I believe the forecast is for possible late afternoon thunderstorms.

Unlike yesterday, I am feeling alive and alert this morning. Good. The first thing I like to do in the morning is set up a plan for the day. Then I may return to this section for some additional musings. 6:00 am

6:20 am The plan for the day looks quite manageable. The activities related to health (Exercise and Food) will only involve a fairly focused shopping trip to a grocery store. I must try to remember stopping at a newsagency to see about some rectangular stickers for the cookbooks. That leaves the rest of the day for Technology (scanning and Stylus Studio) and Literature. I will keep an option open for reading another chapter from Peter Watson's book on Ideas (History). Now to try the scanning and then I will have a look at the Internet as I skim the news. Then the tummy exercises. 6:30 am

B. Plan

6:00 am Oops. I just realized that I wanted to do my tummy exercises both in the morning and early evening. I forgot about this last evening. Hopefully I will do better today. I keep forgetting to look for some rectangular stickers that I can put in the recipe books indicating the date that we tried the recipe and a one-word comment such as "good", "excellent", "bland", etc.

Thinking about Learning:

Exercise: Tummy exercises morning and afternoon, beach walk.

Technology. A session with Stylus Studio would be a good idea. I feel that I now have the basic ideas under control and can begin focusing on the techniques for using the software. I definitely want to finish section 4 on stylesheets today. This is my top priority for Learning. I also want to try scanning with our new HP PSC1402 All-in-One Printer Scanner Copier.

Literature. I need to make notes for chapter 8 of "The Story of the Stone" and read at least one additional chapter.

Food. I need to make a shopping list for a couple of menu meals. I am not yet sure if I will then tackle one of these for tonight's dinner.

Mathematics, History and Art are taking a break. Drawing has yet to begin. 6:20 am

C. Actual

6:30 am I will try scanning the cover of the novel "The Story of the Stone". There is a button called Scan on the machine. I will try that first.

I am impressed. An on-screen display guided me through the steps. This is the single best approach to a new piece of hardware that I have seen in the last 10 years. I will try one more:

Fantastic. I have tentatively identified two recipes from this book for my next adventures. Now to have a look at the Internet. 6:50 am

6:50 am No email of note. Web: 70 % chance of late showers (5 - 10 mm) for the coast. High of 28 (32 in Lismore). 345 die in Hajj stampede in Mecca. Tories lead in Canadian election polls. Lethbridge temperatures still above zero. 7:30 am

10:20 am A good start to the day. I made a quick trip to Woolies at Ballina Fair and bought the groceries for the next two menus. I also found some stickers for inserting in the cookbooks on the menus that I try. I have now followed four recipes from "The Complete Stir-Fry Cookbook":

All menus have been very good (3) or excellent (4). (5) is for fantastic! I have the t-bone steaks marinating for tomorrow for "Mustard and Thyme T-bone Steaks with Honey Sweet Potato and Kumara" [p. 18] and will be making "Cajun Chicken with Pineapple Salsa" [p. 60], both from The Australian Women's Weekly "Barbecue Meals in Minutes". I warmed up the barbeque and cooked 3 Old English Style sausages for breakfast.

They were quite good, but different than a regular pork or beef sausage. When I put the nutritional information into my database I learned that the saturated fat in two sausages was 90% of the RDA. I doubt I will buy any more of these. 10:35 am

10:35 am Time to begin my tummy muscle routine for the morning. Done. Now for a walk to Shelly beach.

Lighthouse beach

Shelly beach

Here is a Black-tailed Godwit on Shelly beach:

10:45 am

11:30 am Back from Shelly. Go figure. Yesterday we saw our first Little Wattlebird. Today I saw one on the path just as one enters Lighthouse beach. Then on my return I saw a group of three right above me and then another two flew right in front of me while I was walking across the park in front of our house. I have images of all three events. I also realized that I need to learn how to take short video sequences with the camera. I tried a couple but am not sure if they worked. Now to download my camera and see what I have.

I have an avi video clip which is a poor image of the little wattlebirds (3) but is good for the audio. Unfortunately Dreamweaver can't play avi files. I will need to do a little research on this before I have it working.

Here is one of the Little Wattlebird in flight!

I tried to set Dreamweaver up to handle AVI files but it didn't work. I'll give it another try later. 1:00 PM

2:00 PM Lunch was some tasty Castello white cream cheese on crackers. We must find a way to get this cheese in Lethbridge. The Danish website is www.tholstrup.com . I will check on this when next on the web and see if there is a way to communicate with them. I then moved my January files over to a new website that will be a standalone site that I can upload to the web server for others to view. However I am not putting my notes for the various subjects on the web for the moment. That means that the links on the Learning Chart will not work. 4:00 PM

4:00 PM I am almost finished revising the web site for uploading. But it is time for a late afternoon beach walk along Shelly beach. I will take a few video sequences and see if they work. 5:00 PM

5:00 PM Back from the walk. Now to check the video. It works. I can now feel confident of my ability to capture some video sequences. I still have to learn how to insert them into my web pages. 5:15 PM

D. Reflection

8:00 PM A good day. This web site is showing marked development.

Food. The evening meal was quite good. "Cajun Chicken with Pineapple Salsa". I would rate the salsa as a 5 and the chicken as a 4. The difficulty with the chicken is cooking it without charring it. Patience helps, as does low heat with the cover down. Here are a couple of images:

Exercise: This was fine: I did 2 beach walks plus a morning tummy exercise. Now to do the evening one. Done. I am pleased with my staying with this. I have now completed the routine for 4 consecutive days - not too impressive, but it is a start.

Technology. The primary activity was revising these pages so they could stand alone as an independent web site. I learned to use the HP PSC 1402 to scan images. Great. I have revised my web site as a stand-alone suitable for viewing by people that I send the URL to. However it will be in the public domain, so I am still a little leary. I think the inclusion of daily images adds dramatically to the context within which one views the pages. I have learned how to take video with the little Canon Powershot camera. But I have yet to figure out how to include an avi file into a Dreamweaver page. Maybe tomorrow. I failed to work on Stylus Studio today. I think the web site is ready for uploading but will give it one more review tomorrow morning before trying to upload it.

Literature: I have yet to work on this today. I will read chapter 9 in a moment, but will leave the note making for chapters 8 and 9 until tomorrow.