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

This photo was taken last Sunday. You can see some buildings near Vancouver's Canada Place. It was good to see a bit of blue sky last weekend too. Overall, the past week and a half has been a bit of a wash out. It reminds me more of typical February weather than what we should be having at the very end of May.

The gas fireplace is on right now and has been burning for the past few days.

Any movie in which people start singing in order to express a thought or feeling is obvious fantasy. Many of us cannot carry a tune in a bucket.



Once upon a time, I didn't know singing occurred on film other than My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Mary Poppins. Then a few years ago DVD's had became so widespread, all sorts of old material were pressed on them.

In 1954, MGM shot Brigadoon. Two American stumbling into a magical village which only appears every one hundred years is a really silly concept. At least fifty years later, it doesn't really matter that every scene was shot in a studio rather than in Scotland. It amazes me that all that work was cheaper than sending a crew overseas.

I've not finished this film but soon I will have ticked off another piece of Hollywood from a bygone era. Who was Gene Kelly?

Labels: movies, musical

Yesterday's entry had one of the first photos I posted on Flickr. In fact the reason I investigated the service was in order to share the photos of the trip with those friends.

That was a long time and over 1800 uploaded photos ago!

I started my 'My Daily Picture Parade' on July 1st of last year. In the fall, I was even able to document our Euro trip as it occurred.

My photos can be divided into several categories. One way would be to separate into: everyday life, special events, and slightly artistic photos. The one to the right is a part of the latter group. Strangely, hardly anyone has looked at it, so I figured I could give it a second wind on my blog.

It was taken in London. We rode the London Eye for fantastic view of the Parliament, the Thames, and Westminster.

Labels: Daily Picture Parade, Flickr, London

The guys were over on Monday. Among the things discussed were possible plans for future activities.

We talked about a previous trip to the wineries in the BC Okanagan. It seems quite amazing that we rented that minivan nearly a year ago! Although we were only away for two nights, it was a highlight of last summer. This is why taking trips, large or small, is so important. I have no recollection of the weekend before or after that late June trip.

Routines are nice but memories occur only when they're broken. This is why I think travel is one of the most important things that people do. Nobody on their deathbed looks back at their life and wishes they'd spent more time at the office.

Labels: driving, road trip, travel planning

Why do we just lounge around all the time?



This morning I'm hastily correcting assignments. My students wrote them last Thursday. I don't work Fridays and this was a 3-day weekend due to the Canadian celebration of Victoria Day.

So, I've had four days. I put off the doing the correction until this morning. Why?

Labels: BCIT

Okay, I'm experienced which is a politically correct way of saying 'old'. I remember putting a:>time and a:>date in my computer's DOS 2.1 autoexe.bat file. I guess that meant the PC XT-clone didn't even have a back up CMOS battery.

For years however, I've depended on a little watch-like battery helping to keep the time as well as BIOS configuration settings. Actually, for quite a few years my computer has run continuously around the clock.

Why my computer has suddenly stopped keeping the correct time is beyond me. I first assumed it was the battery, so I replaced it with a new $5 Eveready. Hum, that didn't work.

I then looked on the Internet. What about run cmd and the w32tm /register function?

Labels: Hardware

It started yesterday. The annual spring festival always begins during the Victoria Day long weekend and runs through the end of the US Memorial Day weekend. It's a tradition in New Westminster.

Probably the most famous and popular event is the Hyack International parade with around 140 entries from around British Columbia, Washington state, and as far afield as California.

The history of the events spring from festivities around May Day. The city likes to boast that this it the longest-running celebration of its type in the Commonwealth. Another deeply-rooted part of the festival is the anvil firing. The anvil battery has fired a 21-gun salute to Queen Victoria since the late 1800's. The Hyack Voluntary Fire Brigade first used anvils because there was a shortage of guns. In colouful costumes, members continue the event tomorrow at noon. The modern version of the festival with its many scheduled, community events started in the early 1970's.

Fireworks were exploded from a barge on the Fraser River last night. Here's an example I photographed from the balcony of the apartment.

Labels: balcony, fireworks, Fraser River, Hayack, New Westminster