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

I now have a Yahoo identification for Flickr. I use Hotmail to sign onto Expedia. Additionally, I log on to quite a few services with a Google account.

In fact, I cannot imagine why a single computer with Internet access wouldn't have Google Earth loaded. Now at version 4, it seems to be getting better and better. You can easily fly around the entire world for free!



Next weekend, we're going by real airplane to Manchester, New Hampshire. My dad seems to be doing fairly well in a rehab hospital there. On the phone, he sounds as though he's made a great deal of progress in the last month. Although still occasionally confused, he is looking forward to seeing me. I'm very glad I waited to fly out. I believe it's good that he's been able to count down the days to my visit. In the image above, I found the location of the Super 8 near the airport where we'll stay. If we travelled more upscale, we wouldn't be able to travel around so far and so often.

I haven't been in Manchester since I was a kid. It's about 50 miles from my hometown of Sunapee and about halfway to Boston, Massachusetts. My family used to frequently drive to Manchester to go shopping. Those were in the days before much in the way of shopping was available in Claremont or West Lebanon, NH.

Labels: Google, New Hampshire

I knew on the day of its release that I wanted more than Vista Home Premium. Unfortunately, that's all the BCIT Bookstore had in stock. Seeing the package there was intoxicating. I felt a temporary rush just like in the early days of computing. So, I thew down plastic and walked away with the very seductively-shaped case.

Let's be honest, Vista will probably be the very last time that an operating system ships in a box. I had heard the entire code sits on the DVD and so upgrading is as easy as unlocking the higher features with an online payment. I thought I'd get Vista Business or Ultimate version in this manner.

It wasn't long ago that I moved to a 300 gigabyte disk. At that time I started from scratch and loaded a clean copy of Windows XP Pro. I did this in anticipation of upgrading directly when the new OS was released.

Guess what, I cannot keep all my settings by upgrading to the Home Premium version. This is because I am running Windows XP Pro. I use the integrated server software and Microsoft doesn't include that unless one buys at least the Business edition. My idea of stepping through Home to get to Ultimate didn't work. The box doesn't state this. Damn.

"Okay," I thought, "I can at least use the copy to upgrade my old Gateway notebook. It doesn't have enough of a graphics card to run the new interface, but at least I'll be able to play with Vista." Damn, wrong again! The BIOS on my 3522GZ won't work with Vista and I cannot get Gateway to respond with a way to get an upgraded version.

Do you know anyone who'd like an uninstalled CA$180 (before taxes) legit upgrade for a total price of just CA$120?

Labels: Windows

If you've ever looked at blog entries here, you know that I'm not a complainer. A continuous rant that disguises itself as a blog is the ultimate in a waste of time. Blogs that gripe are actually worse than meeting people who are complainers as there's no means of changing the blogged subject.

All that being said, sometimes I wonder if some engineers actually ever use the products that they help design. My cheap, little Audiovox cell phone actually feels quite good. The shape, although the same as offered by most other manufacturers, is almost sexy to hold. As well, most of the menus are fairly easy to discern and navigate.

Recently though, I've sent far more text messages than usual. My father's stroke was a month ago, so my sister and I have been texting a lot. We're in different time zones and a quick text message will generally suffice. Today's comment involves the placement of the symbols.



Questions are fairly common when text messaging. So, why does it take five moves to get to over the question mark on this screen?

Labels: complaints, technology

I know it's probably not politically correct to admit, but I rather enjoy my single-occupancy trip to the BCIT afternoon classes. I have a mere four cylinders sipping on gasoline and although it'd be possible to take transit for the commute, I don't.

From downtown New Westminster, I take Eighth Street. It turns into Canada Way as it crosses into Burnaby. The one-way trip is 12 or 13 kilometers. Even with the current road construction, it only takes about twenty minutes. I find the drive rather relaxing and on some days ... quite beautiful.

Labels: BCIT, driving

I now find myself interested in the topic I mentioned yesterday. Studying the ebb and flow of civilizations does not really make much sense as a youngster. For one thing, the geography involved is pretty meaningless until one has done a lot of traveling. I suppose this means that regardless of age, homebodies may never be able to fathom the concepts even with an expensive globe at hand. Secondly, there is an enormous problem with the whole idea of time.

This quote was pulled from the 11/16/05 entry of this blog:

"Initially, children do not have any real concept of history. They cannot distinguish between yesterday and eons ago. Everything that isn't right now becomes compartmentalized as past. At this stage, last evening's dinner occupies the same cognitive niche as last summer's time at the beach.

Later, as kids learn about things that may have happened before their own birth, there's not much separation between those things that happened last year and those which occurred during the last millennium. Supposedly, we get a handle on these time things as adults."

Rather recently I'm interested in studying the four ancient river civilizations that invented forms of writing. As well as the two societies mentioned yesterday, there were the Indus Valley in the Indian Subcontinent and Yellow River valley in China.


Jay and I visited Nalanda near Patna, India. It is considered one
of the world's first universities. That was only 1,000 to 1,500
years ago which is a far cry from the earliest writings from the
area. We were there in 1994.

I wish I could find a comparison chart showing major differences between the four cultures I've mentioned. The criteria could include various aspects of human endeavor. For example, mathematics would be one category. Did you know that we get our sixty minute hour and 360 degree circle from ancient Mesopotamians!

Labels: India, world

Before I begin today's entry I should let you know, even as a child I was one of those 'world-collector' types. I had literally hundreds of National Geographic magazines all arranged by decade when I was in high school.

I am much more likely to watch educational television nowadays. This can mostly be attributed to the improved experience with high-definition programming. I surely had never been a contributing member of PBS in the past.

I feel there some very engrossing things to be seen on TV. Last night, between other things, we watched an hour program on ancient Mesopotamia. I think I would have fit in better in their society than the ancient civilization of the Egyptians.

Labels: HDTV, television

For a bit more than a year and a half, I've taken at least one photo every day. Even if I can't quite recall what I did on a specific day, it's been recorded and stored. This online collection, which I refer to as my Daily Picture Parade, has been on Flickr since I joined that website. Until this morning, I used to keep just the most recent weeks in the album. I decided that it'd be more impressive if I kept 'em all on display, conveniently arranged in reverse-chronological order.

Each of the last 576 days on this planet is represented by an image of a location or object I witnessed. Can you name something you did or saw in July of 2005?

Labels: Daily Picture Parade, Flickr