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

I like to think that I'm not terribly attached to possessions. Without trying to sound trite, it really is true that when you have your health you have everything. It is also true that you come into the world with nothing and leave it that way too. The decades in between those events shouldn't be diminished due to a desire to collect material things.

We have friends who once lost near everything in a house fire. Belongings can, for the most part, be replaced. The memories of an item can be almost as powerful as the actual object.

The things we might miss do not have any financial value. Small objects can remind us of a vacation or different time in life. I want to start saving these items in photographs in case they somehow get seperated from us.

Labels: feelings, souvenirs

Even if you've not yet upgraded to Internet Explorer 7, it'll happen automatically through Windows Update this month. It may take you a while to get used to tabbed browsing but here's some added functionality you can install today.

The IE7 search bar defaults to MSN search but you can choose and install dozens of alternatives. Google will probably, at some point, attempt to gain control too. I'd like to suggest you add another important source of information. With over three years of entries, this blog can be a interesting resource. I bet you most likely wonder several times a day if Dennis has written about a particular subject. Now there's a method to quickly and easily find out.


HOW TO ADD THIS BLOG TO INTERNET EXPLORER 7 SEARCHES

1) Open the Microsoft search guide.

2) On the search guide, locate the form as shown to the right.

3) Proceed to cut and paste the following URL:

http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=TEST&sp-a=sp1002b391&sp-p=all&sp-f=ISO-8859-1

4) Specify my eJournal and images as the name.

5) Click install.

Labels: Internet, Windows

An envelope arrived in the mailbox yesterday. As soon as I got home from work and a few errands, I unsealed it. It was software I'd ordered from a Wisconsin company through eBay. Maybe I should give you a little background.

During the vacation in Sri Lanka, I made a few resolutions right in this blog. First, I said that I was going to lose a bit of weight. The first week back I bought new digital bathroom scales and I'm pleased to say that I average between one and two kilograms lighter than the day I got them. My other promise to myself was to learn a little Sinhala.

Although language acquisition is part of my livelihood, I generally deal with Intermediate to High Intermediate learners of English. It has been years since I worked with beginners. As for my own skills in any other language beside English, well let's just say, I have none.



The people in the screenshot above have the patience of Job. (Either the company uses the same man and woman for all their language series or these folks are Burghers!) I put the disc in the drive and when I looked at the clock again an hour had passed. I still have a bit of trouble distinguishing between the men's washroom and passport. Also, it should be noted that hotel, credit card and water sound nearly the same as in the language I already use. Remarkably, I still feel that I learned more Sinhala language in the hour than I had since first visiting Sri Lanka in the 1980's.

Jay is a patient fellow but I don't think he could bear an hour of flashcard flipping just so I could memorize a dozen vocabulary words. Excuse me if I end this entry now. I am itching to get back to my "Essential words and phrases for absolute beginners."

Labels: software

Yesterday afternoon, I dropped my vehicle off for an oil change and a cooling system flush. It was ten years old last July. That means we've been in the country for more than ten years because it was one of the first purchases after arriving from overseas. It was time to change the radiator fluid as I do every two years. I also brought it in for a regular oil change. I always have it done every 3,000 miles. This was the 22nd time. I can state this with confidence as I keep very accurate maintenance records!

If I've only put on 66,000 miles in over ten years that means I barely drive 6,500 miles per year. Even that figure is probably misleading. Were it not for long-distance trips, it wouldn't even have travelled that far. For example, a camping trip to St. John's and back racked up the ole' mileage. Even a round trip to mere San Francisco put on more than two thousand. And there's a lot of highway in British Columbia that those wheels have traversed. So, I'd say I don't average near the calculated 6,500 miles on an annual basis.

Is it driven by The Little Old Lady from Pasadena? No. I don't really think she would be happy behind the wheel of a stripped-down Ford Ranger. I don't put on a lot of highway miles simply because I don't work a great deal. It would probably be fair to assume the numbers on most people's odometer increase due to their daily commute.

Let me get this straight for you. So, if you didn't work as much, you wouldn't need to buy a new car every few years. Therefore, you wouldn't need to work as much because you wouldn't need a car every few ... in turn ...

Labels: maintenance, Ranger

... then you look absolutely ridiculous in that costume.



I have to admit I now find Halloween extremely embarrassing. Americans are expected to spend close to $5,000,000,000 on the poor excuse for a holiday this year. Five billion! Halloween should be for little children but baby boomers and their spoiled offspring just refuse to grow up!

Someone has gone to great time and expense in setting up a scary scene in front of my strata building. I can't help but shake my head in thinking there'd be better ways to volunteer one's precious hours on this earth. As for the cost, I hate to be a party-pooper, but it'd be better sent on a donation on something that helps humanity. Here's the link to FAQs at World Vision Canada.

Labels: World Vision

I usually blog my ideas. Occasionally, I blog about the details of life too. Below is just a tiny glimpse of how terribly unorganized Bell Canada can be. I love having their satellite television service delivered through our building's internal wiring. I fear a dish would take up too much of my balcony space. I also am enamored with the four year old, Bell ExpressVu personal video recorder.

Unfortunately, when having to deal with people in the organisation, it's clear that one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. Therefore, it's nearly impossible to get a straight answer that can be trusted. I received this message after trying for a few days to find out if High Definition broadcasts were available via our presently installed Multiple Dwelling Unit access.

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Dear Dennis Hurd,

Thank you kindly for taking the time to enquire about ExpressVu TV for condos. You are currently in an area that is not scheduled to receive service within the next year; however we will keep you on our waiting list. We are constantly expanding our footprint and will contact you if and when our service becomes available in your area.

If you should have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact our Sales Coordinator, Melissa Morra at Melissa.Morra@bell.ca.

Sincerely,
Courtney Elliott
Administrative Sales Assistant

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Dennis Sylvester Hurd (Google Mail)
to courtney.elliott@bell.ca, melissa.morra@bell.ca

What a blunder!

I already have MDU access to ExpressVu in my building now. I have been a loyal customer for quite some time. I was trying to figure out how to inquire if all MDU buildings are set up for HD access.

I've spent lots of time and as usual with your company, I cannot find anyone who can give me an accurate answer!

==Dennis

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Labels: PVR, television

I first got the idea of moving my resume off a single piece of paper and onto a web server years ago. At that time, I knew more about ANSI formatting than HTML. It simply seemed that one day everybody would have online access.

One week ago, I stated how we seldom really have a chance to start many things from scratch. Generally, our time is spent modifying and hopefully improving. This theory holds especially true with technological advances. Even bold new products live within a framework of past decisions.

As additional proof, I really needed to update the travel section of main website. The only reason this section exists is due to the fact my current pages were first created when the Internet was young. Prior to sophisticated searches, people would collect favourite URL addresses. I wanted to showcase the official tourism sites which were just coming online in the 1995.

I've found that it's just as easy to ignore the need to modify electronic files as paper ones. Somehow, I had to add this month's stay in Hong Kong to this listing of my international travel but simply continuing the alphabetical organization seemed unwieldy. So, I have tried to group by region. Does Turkey belong under Europe or the Middle East?

Labels: blogging