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

I PVR'd the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday morning. In the three hour presentation there was at least an hour of good, HD entertainment. I developed a real fascination with Manhattan on our trip in the spring of 2005. It's too bad that it's so far away from here as it'd be fun to travel there more frequently. There is just an undefinable something about being there.

We are free from December 22nd to January 2nd but it's far too late to make plans to try to go to New York City over the holidays. In fact, it's a little late to plan much of anything for next month. Travel deals seem to disappear during this special time of year. I don't expect to see any cheap flights anywhere. Damn, what shall we do? Is it time for a road trip? Over the Rockies? Just a tiny trip to Victoria for a few days? A long drive to see the Grand Canyon during the winter?

Labels: New York City, travel planning

I didn't have to go to the campus today. It's the first day I've had off in the last eleven. The upcoming week promises to continue being hectic. My next free day occurs in December. Jay had to use up another of his twelve, use-it-or-lose-it sick leave days. This morning was for shopping. After lunch, we drove to Richmond to see Beowulf in IMAX 3-D. The experience was pretty amazing.

I'd venture the feature would not be nearly as awe-inspiring on a standard screen. By the end of 113 minutes I was delightfully dizzy. The industry is finally getting closer to the day when authentic-looking film making needn't bother with reality at all. Technically, this movie is substantially better than Polar Express. There were far fewer creepy moments this time around when watching the actors do their motion-capture, computerized thing.

Certainly there's a promising future in this type of storytelling. Thirty years ago, I had never seen such real looking spacecraft as Star Wars allowed. I'm sure the audiences 44 years prior to that, thought the effects in King Kong were the ... well ... bee's knees.

So perhaps when at the theatre in 2025, I'll be able to step into the scanner booth when buying my movie ticket. For the price of the ticket, I'll be featured in the big action sequences in a tiny role as an extra. That'll force me to have to look very hard for my fleeting moment on screen, however. I expect if I were to cough up enough extra cash, I'd be able to purchase a much larger segment of screen time. By that time I'll be retired and, most probably, as frugal with cash as I am today. So, don't expect to see me flying around on a dragon ... ever.

Labels: futurecast, movies

Of course, the title may be a little untrue. I always say that about the class I'm currently with. However, I should add that I usually believe it too. Today, my afternoon group met in the library for a one-hour assignment. On the way back to the classroom, we stopped in order to take this class photo.

Labels: BCIT, students

I took this photo on the way home from class at the BCIT Burnaby campus. I avoid heavy traffic to New Westminster by winding my way through a rather complicated maze of side streets. Of course, it's dark at five o'clock in the evening at the end of November.

It's cold in the evenings now too. It's going to be clear for a few days and that'll cause the temperatures to dip further. Although we're in Canada, the rain and drizzle generally prove to keep things relatively warm. Tonight it's going to be freezing though.

Still, I like the weather during this season. It seems to match my preconceived idea of what should be happening during this time of the year. I can't expect actual sleigh rides for Christmas in Vancouver; however, shorter days and cooler weather help create an appropriate motif.

Labels: weather

Things still seem fairly hectic. There are assignments and exams in my briefcase which need to be corrected, even as I type. I cannot even keep up with the programs on the satellite PVR. High definition programming takes up a lot of space on the hard drive. Now, nearly everything worth watching is broadcast in HD.

This is a little ironic as I had an email from a former colleague in Dubai. She asked whether I was still running Psiphon on my computer. It seems that some television that they watch must come via P2P sites.



The United Arab Emirates blocks Internet sites. Locally this is supposedly a way to protect citizens. In reality, of course, it's just a clever means of preventing 'freedom of speech'and the unfettered flow of ideas that may be contradictory to those who hold illegitimate power. Condoning censorship of any sort is a political means to keep others subservient. It happens in all sorts of places, of course. But P2P sites? I bet the greedy national telcom company is more interested in trying to preserve bandwidth than stopping porn.

Anyway, I seem to have forgotten the password to my wireless router and I'm sure I need to open port 443 on it. The thing is, I'm not sure when I'm going to have time to get it up and running. There are too many hours of TV to see first.

Labels: Dubai, Internet, opinions

I like how using labels in this blog has opened up exciting new ways to view the information. Under this and most my eJournal and images entries are specific keywords I've entered.

My daily rants and raves are not especially well-suited to the standard, reverse chronological order of a blog. Except during the times of vacation blogging, most of my entries are fairly random. One day I may be recounting what happened at BCIT. Then next, I might include a decades-old scanned photo. After that, I might paste in something I got as email. Obviously, simply saving weekly pages may not be the most useful way of reviewing the data.

Even better than a search, being able to view entries that I've pinpointed as categories is preferable. Of course labels can be edited, replaced, or modified. From time to time, I can add a new way to view what's already been entered. British Columbia is a fairly new label. I think I'll generally use it to show entries describing trips within our province.

Labels: blogging, British Columbia, labels

On the way home from BCIT this evening, I snapped a picture while uptown. Over the years, I've taken lots of pictures around New Westminster.



For example, this picture shows the New Westminster City Hall. It's a rather plain, 50-year old building, but I like it. There are many things I like about living in New Westminster, BC. It's centrally located in what used to be called the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). As of this year, that loose association of twenty-one municipalities, has become Metro-Vancouver. New West. is also small enough so that we actually feel like a part of it rather than just anonymous residents.

My city is historically important to British Columbia, but I've said all that before. I simply wanted to point out today, that other people have been willing to help show off the city. I created New Westminster, BC (The Royal City) on Flickr. Over seventy other people have joined and now there are over 1370 shots from around town. Come take a look around, even if you can get here in person.

Labels: Flickr, New Westminster