Saturday February 11, 2006 7:30 am Ballina NSW

A. Morning Musings

7:50 am There was some rain overnight as the roads are wet this morning. There is a lovely cool breeze coming through the windows at the moment. I have only 9 items in my February ToDos list, which is also refreshing. Getting my head around the various activities is becoming much easier. Now to do a check of email and web news. Then I will upload many of these pages to the web server. Saturday is a good day for this as the 10 hour weekly quota gets reset at midnight.

B. Plan

Chores: buy 2 salmon steaks

Exercise: Exercise & Beach walk.

Technology: Review Microsoft Windows xp magazine and CD

Mathematics: Continue reading "Everything and More".

Education: Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man"

C. Actual

7:55 am No email of note. The Turin Winter Olympics have begun. I uploaded all of my web pages, spotted a problem with one of the links and then the line dropped. I'm not sure if I hit my weekly quota but will try again later today and see what happens. 8:45 am

8:50 am Now to have a look at the Microsoft Windows xp magazine and CD. I will have a closer look at widgets when I am back in Lethbridge. I did update MSN Messenger from version 4 to version 7. There are a few other ideas and features that I may play with when I am home and on an ADSL line. For now I can put the magazine away. 9:20 am

9:20 am I have begun creating a mind map for Mathematics. The idea is to continue to modify this as I Learn more about various topics. At the moment it is very preliminary. 10:15 am

I have just learned how to "focus" on a particular node (select the node and use the F6 key):

I have also learned how to add "notes" to a node. These appear on the left side of the screen. The pencil icon indicates that such notes exist. A good morning. 10:45 am

12:15 PM Now to make a note on the Mathematics web site of some loose sheets of paper that I made a year or two ago. Done. This is a good way to "not lose" some scattered thoughts. 1:20 PM

8:10 PM During our walk along the Richmond river we happened to see a Darter, lifer #106. At the time we thought it was a cormorant, but as soon as we compared the photo with the bird books, we realized we had a new bird to add to our list. Using the camera is making a huge difference in our ability to identify birds.

Dinner was another experiment as we followed a recipe for salmon steaks with a pineapple salsa.

barbie	plate

The meal was a success. Putting a watered down honey glaze on the sweet potatoes makes a big difference for preparing them on the barbeque. 8:20 PM

D. Reflection

8:30 PM I have made progress on four different areas today: Mathematics ( preparing some notes from some old papers), Birds (we saw a new lifer - a Darter), Food (a new recipe for salmon), and Literature (reading "Teacher Man"). There is a genuine feeling of accomplishment on a day like today. 8:40 PM