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

On September 3rd of last year, Jay and I were in Sri Lanka on vacation. We'd done lots of island-wide travelling in 2004 but still found there were places we wanted to see during this one-month stay. One such place is near the town of Maho.

You may read about that day right here in this blog.

After last Sunday's successful inclusion of a video clip in my eJournal and images, I've thrown all caution to the wind and have decided to try a real mash-up. First, I had to figure out how to export a clip from a previously-created vacation DVD. Choosing a clip which can be under 100 megabytes is as tough as finding a virgin working in a whorehouse. I successfully exported a clip using my copy of Movie Factory. Then, I uploaded the file to YouTube. Finally, I've linked it to the viewer below, so you can take a peek.


Although it was family outing by van, only Jay, his younger sister,
and I saw the view from the very top. Why is it that inspiring places
so often require a lot of hard work to get to?

Labels: YouTube

Today is pretty slow as many people have off Good Friday here. As well, I have off Easter Monday which is a statutory holiday for many in Canada. Jay and I visited the new shopping center I blogged about on March 27th. The grocery store has a nice assortment of speciality goods as in many imported cheeses. Some prices are good on national brands but I don't think their housebrand called Western Family is as good as President's Choice which we are used to at the Canadian Superstore. We also crossed over the Queensborough Bridge but I couldn't find a bottle of liquid that makes tap water okay for the goldfish.

After lunch, I put The Night of the Iguana (1964) into the DVD player. Imagine deciding to make a movie in Puerto Vallarta in black and white! Still in some ways it was probably more seductive that way. Wasn't Ava Gardner much sexier than Sue Lyon? Maybe it's just my age or appreciation for butch broads.

Labels: Mexico, movies, stars

We got the hydro bill the other day. I am talking about the bi-monthly electricity charges. BC Hydro is the largest electrical utility and is owned by the province of British Columbia. By North American standards, our prices are quite reasonable. Most people living in this west coast province pay for their power directly to them. However, for historical reasons, households in New Westminster differ. Our city buys power from BC Hydro and then bills us. So we pay the City of New Westminster for our power usage.

I remember running up to city hall six time a year to pay these bills. From the very start, we always used a card for direct withdrawal from the bank account. Yet things do change. I was trying to recall the last time I actually went up to make a payment in person though. For years and years, all our banking has involved clicking a computer mouse.

I hardly ever handle cash nowadays.

Labels: New Westminster

I have a few minutes before the apartment's swimming pool opens. They now close the area from 8:00 to 10:00 for cleaning and maintenance. So, I should be doing something constructive online but I find myself checking www.facebook.com.

If you search this blog, you'll know I got all excited about orkut once. Initially, these social-networking programs are a bit addicting. Eventually however, my interest wained. My orkut contacts no longer seemed fascinating. Just last month, I deleted that account completely.

So, it's rather weird that I have kept my facebook account active. I still feel like a fish out of water as the average user's age is probably about 30 years younger.

Labels: errands

I think I've changed over time. Whereas, I'm sure I would've once rather hiked through a forest, now I prefer a quick walk through town.


This is where Translink's SkyTrain enters the tunnel in
downtown New Westminster. This view is about one block west of
Columbia Station.

Labels: New Westminster, transit

This is the second day of a new month and the third start of a new class in 2007. I'm looking forward to meeting my new students at the Burnaby campus at 1:00 pm. At first the four-hour classes seemed a lot, but after years of practice, it no longer seems difficult. In January it was dark at 5:00 pm, but now the days are substantially longer.

Whereas generally my afternoon classes fill to capacity, today's appears to have fewer students. This fact is very welcome as we'll have opportunities to do things not possible when there are over twenty students.

Labels: BCIT

The theory is excellent. If one could reuse and combine Internet data from various sources in one place, the results could be efficient and effective. Yet, I must've lived too long to be so trusting. What if a repository site went out of business? Just because it works at the moment, doesn't mean it'll last. Unfortunately, I take perverse enjoyment in the idea that data contained in this blog will be available down the road. It is clearly the archivist in me that keeps me adding an entry a day.

Net things surely come and go. The original form of GeoCities wasn't as permanent as initial users might have expected. Flickr has supplanted Webshots as my place for storing images. For heaven's sakes, I once had an @home.net email address. So although web velocity has slowed, I have a hard time thinking of anything as very permanent. A mash-up is no good if a part ends up falling by the wayside.

This may be why I've been slow to get all giddy about YouTube. If I want to spend my time watching video, I'd prefer it be created professionally. I really can't imagine getting all excited over someone's dog doing something stupid. I doubt anyone could create two minutes of anything that I'd kill for. Most importantly, until today, for the reason above, I've avoided mashing up their vids here.

I generally 30-second-skip past television commercials because of the PRV. Yet, somehow, particular TV ads become such favorites that I may want to showcase one. For example, I loved the Stella Artois pig commercial so much, I copied it and tried to tie it to my eJournal and images. That was a lot of work and took a lot of space. More recently, I saw a PBS promo advertisement that I thought was very cool. Of course it is on YouTube, so here goes something new:

Labels: Flickr, YouTube