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

I've just not the drive today to include much of an entry. We did the weekly grocery shopping at the Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam as is the custom. This evening we're invited to dinner with friends in the West End.

In the interim, I've been playing with the new satellite receiver. I once thought the Bell ExpressVu 5100 (shown in center below) was absolutely amazing in its ability to save TV to an internal hard disk. That was in 2002.



Now the HD 9200 is much more advanced in this feature because of improved timers. Rather than just set up recordings by time slot, it uses name-based recording. For example, I can highlight a future event such as Family Guy. Then, rather than keeping my fingers crossed that the station will always show at this time, I can select Family Guy and have the system find and record all new episodes.

This improvement makes the unit a small step closer to being like TiVo which is not available in Canada. I could also in theory input the name of an actor and have the receiver find and record all upcoming instances.

Labels: PVR, television

A few minutes ago, I returned from the doctor's office as I needed to go to renew my prescriptions. During the consultation I mentioned travelling which prompted Dr. de Couto to ask when my last tetanus shot was. Knowing that I haven't had one in Canada means that it has been at least ten years. He gave me the injection, quite skillfully I might add. Now my arm feels as though someone slugged me though.

In the future, I will have to blog about the Canadian medical system and my views about it.

Labels: errands

I just searched for a photo to add as a reminder of a December in past years. This shot was taken three years ago when we went over to Calgary for a short break. This image marks the transition in my blog. At the time it was taken my eJournal and images was maturing into the beginning of my documented existence.



Since 2003, no major event has gone on in my life without being archived. The combination of digital pics and text is more powerful than an old-fashioned, personal diary. What's most amazing is I do have the resolve to continue this daily blogging routine to the end. Let's hope that's quite far in coming ...

Labels: Alberta, Canada

Links come and go; however, I can always, with confidence, link back to myself. I returned to the first month of my eJournal and images in 2003 in order to find my initial reference to television.

Of course I grew up with it, but 45 years ago it was mostly in black and white. This blog even contains former screens in my life.

Nothing though, quite prepared me for the seductiveness of high definition in my living room. I spent nearly a month with the Toshiba 42" LCD and my old Bell ExpressVu Personal Video Recorder 5100. Let's be frank, one shouldn't even consider moving to a flat screen if one's got access to just regular broadcasting. For you see, standard TV sucks on a wide screen.



When activating the 9200 satellite receiver yesterday, I dropped all additional programming except the high definition bundle. Wow! I'm sure the thrill will quickly wear off, but I can just stare at nearly anything in HD. I feel as though I'll be spending a bit of quality time this week with PBS from either Boston or Seattle! I've also set up timers to catch my favourites like CSI: New York, Grey's Anatomy, and even Scrubs.

Labels: PVR, television

The satellite installation guy called at about 10:30 am yesterday and asked if I preferred him coming in the morning or afternoon. I said that I was staying home for the whole day, so he could come whenever it was convenient. He went on to say that he wasn't sure if he had a big job but we agreed he'd call back and let me know. He has special parts that are required for this job so I can't do it myself. He never called back or showed up.

I was really irked when he didn't keep the appointment. There was a mañana principle at work. It exists under many guises and across different cultures. You'd think with all those years in the Gulf and additional travel, I'd have developed stronger skin and more understanding nature. I haven't.



I had to keep busy but stay close, should he have actually come.

While waiting, I did get to several housekeeping tasks on the computer. I always let my BCIT email go unorganized during a term. Now that my class is over, it literally took over an hour to sort through the email, separating the important from the junk. I freed up a whole lot of hard disk space because of erasing dozens of messages with pesky file attachments.

Also, I started to clean my Internet Explorer favourites. Perhaps it's because I have been using the Internet so long, but those links were treated like gold. They've come from machine to machine during each upgrade. In many cases, I still save one when I come across new or interesting but I'll never really need to return to most of these. Moreover, it's often much easier to search anew. Although I am fairly organized, I wonder why I sometimes search through the tangled listings when Google or MSN beckon with an easier solution.

Labels: errands

It's one of those mornings where I have to keep the inside lights on. It's grey and is promising to stay rainy all week. This is the time when air ticket sales to sunny destinations must soar.

Still, this season I haven't felt depressed by the extended darkness. In fact I feel upbeat about most everything. I'd not change a thing in my life even if given the chance. I'm pleased with relationships, finances, and the minutia of everyday existence.

Being happy is surely impacted by outside influences but it's probably more affected by brain chemistry. Clearly, there's an interaction between the environment and what's occurring in the old grey matter. Perhaps if the details of one's world are lined up right, then suitable endorphins are released.

Labels: feelings, weather

I called yesterday afternoon and set up an appointment to have a technician come to install the new ExpressVu satellite receiver. I was pleased that someone will be able to come tomorrow. The appointment time was set for sometime between 10:00 am and 7:00 pm. How's that for being specific? I will gladly stick around all day knowing that if I step out even for one second, then that'll be exact time of his arrival.

A division of Bell Canada runs a satellite TV service. I've been a customer for four years and I've never been impressed with their customer service. The entire company suffers from one section not knowing what another is doing. As I live in a building with a roof satellite, I cannot deal directly with the residential division. Every time I enquired about moving to hi-def, I got totally different stories.

It's really of no consquence, because they offer the equipment and programming that I want. With the Toshiba LCD screen purchased last month, I simply have to have new programming. So far the TV hasn't been able to show anything in HD. Click to see a new page with Bell ExpressVu's High Definition Channel Lineup. Each channel has a link. You can probably expect more comments on this subject this week.

Labels: HDTV, PVR, television