Saturday June 10, 2006 6:30 am Lethbridge Alberta

A. Morning Musings

6:30 am The temperature is + 9 C with a high forecast of + 14 and a light rain is falling.

We will be leaving at 8 am for Calgary and a birthday celebration for mom.

Yesterday we finished adding cement to the corner of the foundation and prepared the ground for the addition of sand to prepare the sidewalk area for the patio bricks. I visited a couple of shops and learned a bit about parging. I now have a bag of powder and a foam trowel for stippling the parge once it has been applied. That will be the next task. Then we add the sand and lay the bricks down. Hopefully we will get much of this done on Tuesday and Wednesday. I am looking forward to the parging. This will be another new activity for me.

My idea of thinking about a camper for the truck hit a wall. All campers assume a long box (8') but our truck has a short box (6'). C'est la vie. Now to get the 5th wheel fixed up and ready to go.

I bought an electric wok yesterday. I am determined to learn to use this new toy and to get proficient at a wide variety of wok dishes. I was surprised to see that the first recipe in the little book that came with it was for soup. There is so much to learn. Most recipes seem to be for 4 - 6 servings, so the first principle will be to halve all of these recipes.

Then I may begin to focus on my model trains.... The next steps here are to review the layout for the turnouts and see if I want to install some of them with the controller under the table. Then wire the lower mainline track for a power block using 18 guage wire and feeder connectors. This will involve attaching the track to the table (glue and/or small nails). This must be done very carefully to minimize derailments later.

Chores, model trains and literature are all activities that can be done in the afternoon and evening. My early morning time is best spent on Learning activities (which includes maintaining this web site). I need to establish a few priorities for this time. Three items that come to mind are Technology: digital photography, Mathematics: calculus, and History: read "Ideas". I need a second item for Mathematics as I want to do more than just study calculus. I also want to play a bit with recreational mathematics.

B. Plan

Immediate
Chores	Apply parging to front basement wall	2 hr
	Buy sand and lay on foundation	4 hr
	Buy patio bricks and install	6 hr
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "A Dream of Eagles: The Singing Sword"	1 hr
Mathematics	Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles"	1 hr
Later
Chores	Take 5th wheel in for maintenance	2 hr
	Investigate water softeners for home	2 hr
History	Continue reading "Citizens"	1 hr
Technology	Read manual for cell phone	1 hr
Technology	digital photography
Mathematics	Larson "Calculus"
History	Watson "Ideas"

C. Actual/Notes

Previous	Food 2	Next
Food Chronology
7:05 am I am having a look at the small booklet that came with the electric wok. Interestingly, the wok is made by an Australian company. The first thing I noticed was that the wok may be used for a variety of cooking techniques: stir fry (this is what I had always associated with a wok) shallow frying (this is the same idea as deep frying in oil but one moves the food in and out of the oil). About 3 cups (750 ml) of oil are used for this. Vegetable, peanut or canola oil are recommended. slow cooking (braising). This is the same idea as with a slow cooker. The pamphlet mentions that peanut oil is traditionally used for Asian cooking. I wonder if there are any nutritional factors to consider when comparing peanut, canola and olive oil. Here is a site that compares the amount of different types of fat in various oils. http://www.virtualsciencefair.org/2004/thog4n0/public_html/fatchart.jpg Canola oil is the best: it has the lowest saturated fat and the highest omega-3 acid content. Olive oil is next and peanut oil comes in third. This may be more important when shallow frying than when stir frying or slow cooking since little oil is used in the latter two situations. 7:25 am

D. Reflection