Sunday, April 8
6:20 am McLeans Ridges, NSW, Australia
15 C forecast high 28 C Sunny
8:00 am Musings
The last hour has been magic. Simply sipping a cuppa while listening to the birds and looking at the distant hills in the mist. There is no better way to begin the day.
Scaly-breasted Lorikeets
Eastern Rosella
I continue to think about making mathematics an important component in my day. Two immediate thoughts come to mind. This should be an early morning activity that lasts a minimum of 2 hours. It is a pen & paper activity. I have good resources at home so this is best left on hold for the moment.
Another activity that I have not engaged in for some time is medium level New York Times crosswords.
And a third activity is learning to play the game of Go at a higher level. I will try this now.
I clearly need to work on this. I began playing SmartGo on the iPad at level 13- and proceeded to lose 7 games in a row before winning 1 game, at level 10.
I think I need a 3-prong approach to improving my game: doing some serious reading about the game, working through a series of problem books, and playing software programs such as SmartGo and Igowin.
The first two approaches will wait until I am home. But I can get a start by playing both SmartGo and Igowin. Now to have a try at Igowin and re-familiarize myself with that software.
A review of the stats for Igowin showed that I had previously played 21 games and won 13 of them. The current level I was playing at was 9.5 with my best level being 8.6. I reset the statistics for Igowin and then began playing at level 27.5. I won that game and the next at level 23, but then lost the game at level 19. I should have won that game. I will play again until I lose and see what level that puts me at. I won at levels 21, 19, and 17 before losing at level 13. I seem to be near levels 10 to 15 with both software programs. My next goal will be to see if can get this down to single digits.
All three activities (Mathematics, NYT crosswords, Go) are mental stretchers. That is what I need - a mental challenge.
7:00 PM Cooking
This evening we prepared the dinner. We made a perfect Aussi meal - seafood linguini. Yesterday we bought some prawns, 2 squid tubes (aka calamari rings), ling cod, Tassy mussels, scallops and fresh egg linguini. Everything was Australian, including the wine that accompanied the meal. We followed a recipe on the Web and even though the whole process was new to us, it turned out to be a great meal. Fortunately we had a very large wok as well as a large serving bowl.
9:30 PM Life
We rented a DVD for evening fare - "Shakespeare in Love". We must have been the only two people on the planet that had not seen it. It was spectacular - deserving of the Oscar for Best Picture in 1998. The perfect ending to a fine day.