A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

I set the satellite receiver to record Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2005. A recent stroke prevented Dick from hosting this year but Regis stepped up to the plate. It was shocking to see some of the musical guest stars. Billy Idol has surely lost his baby-face. Madonna looked faded and middle-aged; but wait, she is! Finally, Earth Wind & Fire looked as though they were plucked from a retirement home.

There was too much bad news this week so it was good to get out last night. It, however, would not have been a good night to drive.

That's why I'm thankful for easy travel via the SkyTrain. Our apartment building opens right into the station at Columbia in New Westminster. I go down the elevator and right to Granville Street in twenty-five minutes. Speedy and covenient access to downtown Vancouver seems worth the occasional station noise.

The SkyTrain, SeaBus, and regular bus system played designated driver last night. It was New Year's eve, so public transportation was free. That's an effective way to cut down on traffic fatalities due to drinking and driving. "Give credit where credit is due," I aways say.

Translink has found it necessary to raise fares from today! There's now a slightly greater cost for convenience.

Happy 2005!

Labels: transit

for the New Year!

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My blog site has not been available for about 8 hours. I apologize for this situation. GOTOEcom provides my web space and I probably should have left them for a more reliable service. During my trip overseas, my site was down for more than a month! After I returned and filled out a 'ticket' they fixed the situation. Why weren't they able to diagnose the situation on their own?

Why did I sign on for another year with them in November?

Over the last few days, hundred of guests have landed here via Google searches for facts on the earthquake and tsunami. I appreciate that people are searching for information about what is going on in the world. A normal search engine, however, is not the place to find late-breaking information.

If you are interested in reading the most recent data from current stories, it'd be better to visit a source like Google News. The page is updated a couple of times every hour and will point you towards a fantastic array of international media outlets. You can easily type in your search criteria from there.

There are also plenty of ways to keep up on what's happening in the blogging world by searching Technorati or Feedster.

(To get an idea of the various search terms that pointed people to this page, scroll down to the second section of this link. You'll find some tracking data for my eJournal and images there.)

Labels: Google, Internet

This photo was taken on September 30, 2004. It shows an island area to the west the Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka's north. We headed this way to visit the Buddhist temple of Nagadeepa. It was a low lying area but sheltered somewhat by the top of the country. We wonder what the situation is there.



This area is not controlled by the government in the capital city. A great deal of destruction in the north and east will have occurred in areas controlled by the Tamil-rebels. Hopefully, in the face of tragedy, all people will put aside politics. The statistics of death and damage will be hard to ascertain as these areas are separated politically and physically.

Labels: government, temple

During the past several days, I've been trying to keep up with developments dealing with the Asian earthquake and tsunami. I've spent more time than I care to admit pressing reload in the browser window.

I wonder when the term foreign correspondent was coined. I've been unsuccessful in a search but I suspect it occurred at a time when actual missives were sent back to the head office of the newspaper. Technology and the Internet have surely changed the meaning of this term!

Labels: Internet, technology

Every time Jay had tried, attempted telephone calls were met with messages about circuits being busy. We weren't too worried as the immediate family lives on the west coast, near Colombo, and a number of kilometers away from the sea.

Just minutes ago, he placed a call that went through though. All the relatives are safe. They told many interesting stories of how people are coping.

Labels: technology

Of course there are many concrete ways to help those in need. My basic, political-belief system would point towards donations to NGO's (Non-Governmental Organizations) for disaster relief.

It took just seconds and a credit card to make an online donation to the Canadian Red Cross. Even the tax receipt was received as an email attachment within seconds.

Labels: credit card, money

The scene below, which I photographed on October 10th, no longer exists. Sri Lanka's Arugam Bay was smashed by the massive, Asian tidal-wave that occurred on Christmas day (local time). As the news stories are released, the reported number of victims increases. We don't fear for Jay's relatives, but are unable to make a successful phone connection to the island.



The story seems more tragic to us as we'd also taken vacations in some of the other affected areas too. We've vacationed in the Maldives and visited Madras, India during a summer tour of that country. We also spent one summer travelling around Indonesia. On another occasion, we stayed in Phuket, Thailand. It seems to be taking a long time to collect information on the damage across south Asia.

Labels: Christmas, world

We first noticed the news of the Asian earthquake and tsunami at Google News Canada last night. It seems as if the effects were felt in many places in Asia. Although the news reports are still stetchy, apparently thousands of lives were lost on Sri Lanka's east coast. Entries in this blog highlight some of the affected areas during a vacation. These were written at the end of September and also in October of this year.

Labels: Google