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

From year to year it's sort of easy to forget just how rainy Vancouver can be. This summer wasn't the greatest but now that autumn has arrived, so have the constant clouds and rain.

We have more of this to look forward to until next May!

As we've been here many years now, the climate at this time of year isn't depressing. In fact, I rather enjoy when it gets like it's been today. I turn up the gas fireplace one notch and feel all .. snug as a bug in a rug.

When growing up in New Hampshire, I had a similar feeling when a nor'easter blew up the coast burying us in snow. In the Persian Gulf, I felt this way when a shamal blew in with its accompanying dust.

I guess this joy at being inside says something about me.

It shows I am relatively lazy.

Labels: weather

Today, I was a bit late in considering what I could put here. I wondered what information would make a suitable entry.

I have found that sometimes each blog post is a world onto its own. At other times, a number of consecutive, daily entries may be on a similar topic. On rare occasions, there's a reverse continuity in what I write.



The only reason I chose the picture above is that yesterday's entry was a YouTube clip from 1991. It was recorded when I worked in Bahrain, and so today I rifled through my online pictures so I could put a still photo here.

I am standing in shorts with 16 fewer years of excess weight. I'm standing in front of what is referred to as the Tree of Life. Isn't it amazing that one can find just about anything on Wikipedia, even if only a stub?

Labels: Bahrain, blogging, flora and fauna

In order to check out my new Intel Quad processor, I needed to find a CPU intensive task. Since I'm not a game player at all, I spent a little time working with video files. I burnt the video tape of our central European trip to DVD.

While in the folder on my external drive, I discovered a clip from an old analog tape from 1991. I was working in Bahrain at the time. I was a civilian contractor for General Dynamics and taught English to members of the Bahrain Defense Force. This was recorded during the first Gulf War. I now call it The Gulf War: Classic.

Labels: Bahrain, YouTube

I know, I know. The title is so uninspired and predictable.

We've been in this apartment for, coming up on, a decade and have never really had the carpets cleaned. They are original to the construction of the building which makes them close to twenty years old in total. To add insult to injury, they're beige. At least, we never wear shoes around the house.

Having professionals come in to clean would be a major pain as I'm not sure where all the furniture could be put while they were working. Also, it has always seemed like too much bother to rent one of those steam vacs which can be found at the grocery store. So, the only maintenance the nap fibers have seen is a few of those cans of aerosol carpet cleaner. Those were mostly for when I knocked over a glass of red wine or tracked dust in from the balcony.

Furthermore, buying an upright unit didn't make a lot of sense. Spending $250 seems a bit excessive when the whole apartment is less than 750 sq ft and the actual carpeting is just two thirds of that.

This week though, I saw the little Hoover F5505 advertised in a London Drugs flyer. It looked round, red, and sexy. The handle folds down so it can be easily stored. At $94, I thought even if it were cheap and plastic, I'd find it useful. I had to try it out in the hallway. It is a bit flimsy but seems to work better than I expected. It does a great job of sucking the cleaning solution into the side tank.

Labels: review

I can hardly believe that I've spent from sunrise til sunset playing with computer equipment. The day just dashed by. I can almost see why some regular people hate fiddling with a PC. I feel, however, that it was a rather delightful thing to do on a horribly rainy day. Additionally, the reason I bought the new equipment is that I'm not working this week. See, I'm smart and knew it'd take an effort to move over all my life from my previous living room desktop.

I ordered the new box on Friday and picked it up yesterday. Were it not for a rather serious problem, I'd have been up and running much sooner. I wasted a lot of time yesterday. I should restate the problem here, so that Googlebots will catch some of the text and prevent someone else from going half crazy.

I got an Asus P5K motherboard. I also got a fresh copy of Vista loaded onto the computer's new drive. I got through the 35 important updates from Microsoft Update and got many other peripherals sorted out. When I re-ran Update it showed a new driver for the on board LAN card among others. I let it rip. Then, Vista would not load. It snagged on the opening screen with the little 'loading line' indicating indicating no progress. I deftly went to the ASUS site and downloaded the newest drivers from the Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller. I tried and tried by couldn't get the driver loaded without it seemingly hanging the system again. I was at my wit's end and about ready to run to purchase a network adapter card that would fit in a free slot. At last, I decided to check on the Internet.

It seems the driver on Windows Update somehow messed things up. Rebooting the machine didn't clear the board enough to allow for the installation of the correct drivers.

You know what the fix included? I simply had to unplug the computer from the outlet for 30 seconds! I've been playing with Intel PC's since the mid-80's and this is isn't the first time that completely turning off the computer has fixed things, I guess. Damn.

I'm running fine now with a four core processors humming on the Q6600 chip! Time to use some 64-bit applications ...

Labels: complaints, Hardware, software

I wrestled with some new computer equipment this afternoon. Wouldn't you know, I'm writing this on the old setup ... so there won't be much here today. If I can get a suitable Vista driver for the on-board, Asus P5K network adapter, I'll be a little closer to writing blog entries with the new black box with an Intel Quad Core. That will be no sooner than tomorrow. I'll be rebooting in my sleep tonight, I bet.

Labels: complaints, Hardware

I woke up this morning before a lovely sunrise. From the balcony, I was able to look across the Fraser and see the tip of Mt. Baker in Washington State.

After breakfast, we decided to take a little trip as the weather was nice. The rest of the week promises to be rainy, so we jumped in the truck and went to the Aldergrove border crossing into Washington. Apparently, others also had the idea of a road trip today as we had to wait in queue for fifty minutes at the border. Incidentally, in order to jump the line, one just has to stop by the duty-free shop and then be directed back into the line far ahead of others. I'll remember this for next time.

We ended up driving around a bit more than needed, but the roads were nice and the deciduous trees colourful. At the top, Heather Meadows was patiently waiting. There was almost no snow at this point today, but I'm sure in the next couple of weeks, it'll be blanketed.

We came home through Bellingham, stopping at the Country Buffet at the mall for a 3 o'clock lunch. I ate like a pig, and consequently am still full. The wait coming into Canada at the Peace Arch was about a half hour.

Labels: mountains, road trip