5:20 am
It is -7 °C, with a high forecast of -16 °C
From the Environment Canada website:
Today Snow and blowing snow. Amount 5 cm. Wind north 40 km/h gusting to 60. Temperature falling to minus 16 this afternoon. Wind chill minus 25.
Tonight Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Wind north 30 km/h becoming light late this evening. Low minus 23. Wind chill minus 29.
Normals: Max. -2 °C Min. -14 °C
5:25 am Musings
Early morning is a good time for musing.
The weather forecast suggests the next week will primarily be handled indoors. It is also a good excuse to build a real fire in the fireplace. The bean soup will be welcome as well.
Literature and Model Trains are now at the top of my list of priorities.
Literature: First, to select my next novel. I am fortunate to have a number of unread novels in the house. At the same time I must not let my reading of Rumi slip (as it is at the moment).
Model Trains: This will be a good time to focus on assembling the viaduct for my layout.
One of the weaknesses with this new web site is the lack of a summary page of some kind for the activities. Another weakness is the lack of an index page for the activities. Neither is a problem as one begins the year, but will become more noticeable as the number of entries increases.
5:25 am Literature
The next novel I will be reading is a classic from 1857, Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. I have seen many references to this novel over the years, but have never read it. I spotted this edition while we were in New York last fall and immediately decided to buy it. It is time to begin.
Now for a second cup, and Rumi.
12:30 PM Model Trains
A few years ago I bought some ballast for placing on my layout main line tracks. Today I began placing it on the track and glueing it down. There is a technique to both stages. I am getting better at placing the ballast (small grey granules to simulate gravel) now that I am using a teaspoon to carefully place the stuff on the track ties. I then use a brush to sweep the granules between the railway ties. Easier said than done.
Applying the special glue mixture turned out to be more difficult than I envisaged. The instructions say use an eye dropper. Done. But the surface tension of the mixture forms a large globule that sits on the ballast and rearranges the particles before slowly being absorbed into the material. I'm not sure if there is a better way to do this. At the moment it is slow going. But what I have completed looks good.
3:00 PM Technology
I received a reply (on a Sunday) from the makes of Sandvox indicating that the only solution at the moment for inserting a table into a web site is to use HTML code. Darn.
But I then went to last year's Dreamweaver files and copied the code for three tables, made a couple of simple changes, and I soon have both my Literature Summary and Geocaching Summary web pages up and running.
3:10 PM Birding
We watched a Merlin in the large spruce tree across our front yard enjoy a meal of a small bird. We then saw 3 Juncos in our back yard. This will be 2 new birds for 2012. Report submitted to eBird and Bento data base updated. Total new birds for 2012 is now 7.
9:00 PM Technology
I have now produced a summary table for my bird identification for 2012.