Tuesday March 21, 2006 5:50 am Ballina NSW

A. Morning Musings

5:50 am I have a few images that I want to insert on yesterday's page, and then I want to update my web site. After that I will have a look at the two priorities that I identified yesteday: digital photography and mathematics.

Chores:

Technology: Begin reading " Teach Yourself Visually: Digital Photography"

C. Actual

5:10 PM We are back from another perfect trip to Lismore. Lunch with four close friends at the Left Bank was very good. We then went over to Lismore Square where I quickly bought 3 fiction books:

• Roald Dahl "Collected Short Stories"
• Stephen Dondaldson "The Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, The Unbeliever."
• Stephen Donaldson "The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant."

All 3 books are ones that I have seen on the newstand for a number of years. Today I bought them.

Here are some images of two beautiful vases of flowers given to us by our friends in Lismore.

D. Reflection

7:00 PM I have finished reading "Everything and More" by David Foster Wallace. Fascinating, interesting and irreverent. I loved it, but still feel that I am not understanding the issues at a deep level. Similar comments apply to "Dr. Riemann's Zeros" by Karl Sabbagh. On the other hand neither books pretends to cover these topics at a deep level. Rather they both are directed at the interested reader who may then decide to pursue the topic at their own pace (and direction). The Wallace book, once again, reiterates the message that a deep understanding of number is integrally entwined with topics such as calculus and analysis as well as with geometry. This is a point that I first saw highlighted in Spivak's book "Calculus". The strategic question now is what should I do next so I understand this point at a deep level. The answer, for me, is to continue my study of calculus using both the Spivak and Larson textbooks.

Is there any point in making notes on either Sabbagh or Wallace? I think not. I can always return to each book at a later time if I feel it important to change my opinion.

I recently bought two psychology books by a corporation called Mind Gym. They have an interesting and original way of providing different ways of designing one's own program. I like the idea but would extend it one step further to suggest that one first try identifying the chapters in a book that are of most interest and then go through the exercise that recommends a particular program and then compare the two approaches. I would expect relatively small differences between the two and use this as one more reason for trusting in one's own judgement for making such decisions. I am going to put both books on the back burner, at least for the present moment.

I have 7 items on the list of activities to work on during March. That seems like a reasonable number. However I now have 47 items on the list of activities to work on in the future. This list seems to be getting out of hand! Yet I am reluctant to move many more items to the list of activities that I am abandoning.

I will move the Literature item Roald Dahl's "Complete Short Stories" from the future list to the March list. I read the first two stories while waiting in the Lismore Square Mall. My priority items are now calculus, digital photography and literature. Overall I still have a workable approach.