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

What a day! What a day to teach from 8:30 to 4:30! I really had my doubts about spending seven contact hours with the same students. I must admit that it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. The first day's always a good show, so we'll see what transpires tomorrow and next weekend. Maybe today wasn't a fluke.


The weather for the day would've been perfect for the beach.
Here's New Westminster City Hall.

Labels: New Westminster

Summer has begun. Today it was nearly 30C and not a single cloud was visable. I could've gone to the beach but didn't.

Today I went in for a meeting at the office. I also organized materials for tomorrow's classes. I will be teaching 8:30 to 4:30 on Saturdays / Sundays for the next six weeks! That's a schedule I've never tried before.

I found this final photo with the others of this week. Sitting on this ancient snowmobile are my sister, Laurie and cousin, Marti. Because I found this photo, I researched a bit about old snowmobiles on the Internet. It seems as if there were once many manufacturers.

I can even remember an old Diablo Rouge the neighbours, the Nielsens, had. It was like a Gravely with a seat and worked perfectly well pulling flying saucers around the abandoned railroad tracks and fields of Wendell flat. David was a daredevil too. It's a wonder we survived childhood.


This photo must've been taken on a winter on either side of yesterday's
dog days of summer. Still 1970's.

Labels: Laurie

Now I know the reason that I looked fit in yesterday's photo with my grandmother. Apparently as a teenager, I exercised! I lived about three miles from town. For the years before a 100cc Kawasaki, peddling was a major way of getting to school, Sunapee Harbor, or to friends'. I could've ridden the school bus but that was just too uncool.

As I took a photo, I obviously liked this bicycle a lot. Prior to my 'ten-speed' I can remember that my folks had bought a black, 3-speed Raleigh for me. This white bike was much better because it didn't have coaster brakes. A chain guard might have been useful in the days of bell-bottoms though.


This image must have a date approximately the same as the past two.
I am guessing around 1972. This was also scanned from a slide.

Labels: New Hampshire, Sunapee

I spent a bit of time on the non-blog sections of this site today. You can see changes starting right on the initial page. Additionally, why not check out a few of the standard e-resume pages, by clicking on a topic below:

Here's an unusual photo. I remember getting my first camera with a timer. In this shot, I'm standing with my grandmother, Ina Hurd. We must've been waiting for the camera to click and not had enough time to smile. Our seriousness and the weird lighting give this a unique tone. By the background, I know we were visiting Stoddard, NH and the 'camp' where my other grandmother used to spend summers.


This was scanned from a slide. I do not have a date but expect it was in
the early 1970's.

Labels: grandmothers, scanned

A blog can be anything. The other week this blog acted as the journal of events for a trip to NYC. For the rest of this week, I'm going to try something different. Rather than highlighting what's currently going on, I shall include four personal photos from years past.

I often wonder about urban kids. Some probably do not have the facilities needed to have a dog. That is a real shame. I feel that every kid should have the responsibility of taking care of an animal. So let's start with a scanned photo of a dog. Sandy, named because of her color, was my childhood pet. I vaguely remember picking her out a litter as a pre-schooler. We got her at the Johnsons' farm on Sleeper Rd in Wendell, New Hampshire.

I once blogged a black and white picture of this animal and me.


I used my new scanner to copy this from a Kodachrome slide that must
be between 35 to 40 years old.


Today's topic must include this
Paul Simon song. Click the player.

Labels: New Hampshire, pets, scanned

I will admit that the previous entry was written yesterday although it carries today's date. I often write blog entries ahead and just post 'em in the morning. How could I find the correct keys without several cups of coffee, eh? How could I even find the keyboard?

In the previous entry I scanned that PDF of the Firefly News and Views. When doing so, my old scanner started making strange noises. I swear! Well, this was all it took to walk right down to the local London Drugs and buy a new Canon scanner.

My goodness! Scanners have advanced a bit since the old UMAX that's being replaced. If I remember correctly, Futureshop was bundling 'em cheaply with the purchase of Windows 98. So, you can see that it was really about time for an upgrade, regardless of my hesitancy in the last posting. This one does indeed make creating PDF files easy, as there's a single button to push. Look out old documents, you may be heading to the shredder!

There's a handy doodad in the cover that allows one to scan 35mm film negatives and slides too. I would imagine it might make for clearer copies as the negative would be a whole generation closer to the actual event. It's too bad, I threw away most negatives in a cleaning frenzy one time.

Labels: Hardware, scanned

I updated to Adobe Reader 7.0 the other day. It is noticeably faster than the previous versions when loading. It's free. If you ever read PDF files and haven't downloaded it, it would be worth your efforts.

This started me thinking about beginning to digitize personal paperwork. It might be possible to throw away a few boxes of old, yellowing documents and historical data. I know the idea might prove an anathema to pack-rat-like historian friends, such as Bret. Yet, I like the idea that I could make the digital incarnations available online too.

In order to give it a try, I played with a free software download that allows one to scan and convert to PDF. I'm a bit hesitant to run out and replace my aging scanner but it might be reasonable. My current one is so ancient that it uses a parallel port. Additionally, I scan in oodles of old pictures for my eJournal and images, so I could consider it a useful investment.



If you click the banner above, you will open my test copy. It is a four page student publication from 1991. I worked at Dubai Men's College in the UAE at that time. This initial class project eventually turned into The Foundations News. I guess my interest in showcasing students' writings is nothing new.

Labels: Dubai, scanned, software