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

On Monday, I included a Google Earth screen capture of Jay's house in Sri Lanka. If plans go well we should be there in about a month. We've yet to purchase air tickets yet though.

Today, I thought I might include the center of what I shall always consider my home town. Although there's no satellite image from thirty years ago, apparently not much changes in Sunapee, New Hampshire.



I chose this image from an altitude in which you could see Lower and Upper Main Street. A bit of Sunapee Harbor is to the right. (The actual lake is about nine miles long and is surrounded by several other towns.) Both schools are visible. The smaller white roof near the town's name is the elementary school and the larger white image to the left of the image is Sunapee's Jr./Sr. High School. The major roads include Route 11 running off to the left and 103B which heads south in the center of the image.

Labels: Google, New Hampshire, Sunapee

The students are writing now. I'm at a table in front of the group. I've corrected the listening section, filled in the marks from this week's oral presentations, and cleaned out my briefcase. Now, can I blog? One benefit of having classes in NE 1 is that WiFi blankets this area. When teaching at Royal Oak, on the opposite, south side of the Burnaby Campus, I could never connect wirelessly.

Let's see, if every student had a notebook, then I could save the assignment to my.bcit.ca. Then, they could log on and complete their work in MS Word and email the copy. I've been thinking about such scenarios for years. Eventually, it will come to pass. Using a pencil or pen to save and copy thoughts seems like such an ananchronism.

Labels: BCIT, briefcase

Although my class ends today, I completed the teaching aspects of the course yesterday. Today, we have a short review, the students complete the course evaluation, and the final examination is written.

I do enjoying seeing the progress possible in a mere 5 weeks. Students can quickly get a real grasp of technical paragraph structures, when the material is well-designed and presented. (I'm patting myself on the back now.)

This week, the oral presentations have been stunning. These students sort of put me to shame with how they deftly utilized PowerPoint. Of the MS Office products it's the app in which I spend the least amount of time. Maybe next term, I will start converting some of my classroom materials.

I enjoy most classes but it'll be bitter sweet saying goodbye to this present crew. As a juxtaposition to yesterday's blog photo, I thought I'd include a picture from a recent time in a BCIT computer lab. Unlike the prior scan, you'll note no human-sized flower paintings on these walls!

Labels: BCIT, students

Okay, they are not quite middle aged yet! At the beginning of 2005, I blogged a similar class picture from 1981/82. It had me in it. I also included it on Flickr and guess what? I had a few nice notes from a Kuwaiti, Flickr-user who was a youth at the time!

Isn't the Internet amazing? I scanned two other photos from that set. The classes at the Al-Bayan School were divided into sections and each had a 'home room' teacher. The photo below contains an ex-fellow teacher named Joyce Alverez. Boy, it'd be fun if this picture in some way allowed me to make contact!

Labels: Kuwait

I was once paid salary through a US military kickback slush fund. Well, it wasn't called that. Those words are simply my own way of trying to accurately describe the funding arrangement. When the US decided that Bahrain's Air Force would need shiny new General Dynamics F16 warplanes, lots of arrangements were made. One of the agreements was the company would offer reverse funding for the establishment of a technical school. It all made sense really. That allowed the implementation of a method to help get the locals up to speed with the new hardware that was soon to arrive at their door. Additionally, it made the Bahrainis feel as though they were getting something for free. I functioned as a pawn.

I have never connected the subsequent Gulf War I directly to the purchase but the sophisticated hardware was delivered just in time to be used during the initial conflict. Let's call that just a convenient coincidence, shall we?

Anyway, the only reason I'm mentioning this today, is because I wanted to quote my former boss. The old guy must no longer be with us. He was pretty much on his last legs during the early 90's. If I recall correctly, the good doctor even had heart trouble while on the job. I was acting director when he disappeared for medical leave once.

When requesting a pay raise due to high expenses in the country, he offered that all people had to set their own financial priorities. He was politely saying, "Put up and shut up." I was probably asking for enough to pay for both the rent and buy food, but I digress. Take what I say with a grain of salt for even from my picture you can tell I've never starved.

More recently, yesterday in fact, a colleague's work computer broke. It was fortuitous actually. The replacement computer came with a stylish 19-inch flatscreen and now I want one for my house! I had been checking monitor prices recently. My current Samsung LCD works superbly. It's very clear. Still, I have had it for a few years and it's a mere 15 diagonal inches. Obviously, even though yesterday's entry seems to deny it, big is most definitely better. It's better at least when it comes to computer screens.

I have enough cash to pick up one on the way to school today. Yet, I'm stuck thinking of Dr. Benson's remarks. I do have to set priorities, don't I?

Labels: money, opinions

I love living in New Westminster. It's one of the smaller of the 21 municipalities in the Greater Vancouver Region. In fact, out of the two million people in the region, only 53,000 lived in New West in 2001.

I am aware that the size probably means a slighter higher per capita cost for local government. There is undoubtedly a duplication of services as we need to provide many of the same services as our larger neighbours. Still being smaller can provide responsiveness. For example, I e-mailed a copy and link of Sunday's blog entry on the Columbia Street Facelift to our city's mayor. In less than 24 hours I had the following response from Mayor Wayne Wright. That's service!

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Thanks for email. We are very aware of the changes contemplated for Columbia but with all the new developments coming forward on this street we are going to be doubly sure of our contemplated changes are correct. Good news is we are on the way.

W

Mayor Wayne Wright
City of New Westminster
511 Royal Avenue
New Westminster, BC V3L 1H9

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Labels: government, New Westminster

As a kid, I loved maps. I'm a bit surprised that I seldom open Google Earth. I didn't even know V4 was in beta. Earth is really an amazing example of what can happen when you marry online data, the means manipulate it, and a screen on which to show it.

We're planning a return trip to Sri Lanka in the fall; therefore, I effortlessly zoomed over to the other side of the earth with my mouse. I wanted to see if I could spot Jay's home. I located Minuwangoda fairly easily by knowing where it is located in relation to other landmarks. Yet trying to get to the Yatiyana Junction proved difficult as the resolution in the area isn't excellent.

I was about to give up when I suddenly realized I had the GPS coordinates. When there in 2004, I ran around with my Garmin. It had been loads of fun measuring speed and distances when renting 3-wheel tuktuks. I also kept accurate tabs on country-wide places of interest. So yesterday, I just typed in the waypoint of the house and I immediately flew into the right neighbourhood.



The area in the circle contains the red, tile roof of the house. The white area is his brother's house that's under construction. You can also see the bend in the road right by the house. It seemed somehow fitting that satellite technology let me save the location within a few metres and I could later type in a math string and end up with a satellite image of that far-away spot.

Labels: Google, GPS

Um .. maybe I was a bit harsh about the lack of usefulness in online social networking sites. I received far more birthday greetings via orkut than by card. My birthday generated more online activity than during recent years. For heaven's sake, I even had a telephone call from India!

Thank you. Thank you, all. Growing a year older isn't much of a personal accomplishment but I'll certainly take as many as I can get!

It seems like we've been waiting years for the Columbia-Street development project in downtown New Westminster. Things now seem to be fast-tracked because of vocal support for the greenway initiative.

Any action will be welcomed as this neighbourhood turns into a dragstrip during rush hours. It is, quite literally, dangerous to cross the street even with the pedristrian lights. I'm glad that an understanding has taken root that Columbia will be reduced from the present four lanes to two.

Still, I hope we're not throwing away a perfect opportunity to make the strip a showcase for re-development. After all, one benefit will be the addition of the regional bike route. It seems the project's focus is now shifting towards a way to increase parking along the street. I wholeheartedly support a huge median strip so trees and shrubs can mitigate downtown noise and pollution. I fear, the city may be afraid of having to spend money causing inferior options to be chosen. After all, four lanes can be reduced to two by simply applying yellow paint.



To: Steven Lan <slan@newwestcity.ca>
Date: Jul 22, 2006 5:53 PM
Subject: Re: Columbia St

I was happy to receive a report from you last week.

My question is: I wonder if the drawings on the city website will actually be what is going to be done. I just read today's THE RECORD and saw mention of how council supported the back-in parking initiative. Tell me, does that option go hand-in-hand with a simple, painted median strip?

If that's the choice I'm not happy. I understand how businesses will see the need for additional parking spaces, but as a resident I am, of course, much more concerned with beautification. With all the housing coming online downtown over the next few months and years, I am sure residents should have a greater say. What is good for business is generally good for everybody but not if it means wonderful plans are being set aside because of the option of sticking in 86 more parking places. I had hoped for some place to plant trees that would moderate the temperature, reduce noise, and offer an attractive environment.

Please pass along my comments.

Labels: New Westminster