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

Today was busy. We got up and did shopping first. On the way back we travelled via Lougheed Mall and picked up the Mexican Cruise tickets for the February 10th, Long Beach departure. After that, we decided to make use of the limited-time coupon for a free buffet mentioned a while back.

I'm not so sure that a quick drive across the border is worth the effort nowadays. Even though we got to the Peach Arch Border Crossing in the early afternoon, the lineup started well before getting to the park. Things went fairly fast, but it still took more than thirty minutes. Coming back into Canada was just as long, if not a few minutes more. An hour's drive hardly seems worth an hour's wait. As well as the simple questions one may expect, both sides wanted to know where we worked, the exact reason for our crossing, and of course couldn't fathom we weren't carrying newly-purchased merchandise. I hate being made to feel guilty or fearful for nothing. I mentioned as we were going south that we were going for lunch and she wanted to know where and if we were meeting anyone.

In Europe borders are disappearing. Here, I feel just like in my early days of work when trying to enter or leave Saudi Arabia. The myth of the longest, unprotected border is nothing but a distant memory these days. It's a shame, eh?

Labels: Canada, food

My sister's birthday is tomorrow. I guess it'd be hard to forget as it falls on that quintessential, North-American spring celebration of large rodents called Groundhog Day. At this point, my sister has seen many of them. Alas, I fear my baby sister is no a baby anymore! Strangely, the seven years of difference used to seem expansive. Now, however, it hardly seems so. For another year and a half we'll both be celebrating birthdays in our fourties. Then in July of 2009, I'll be leading the way forward into the next glorious battle of the war with the calendar.

I'm thinking about age not only due to Laurie's special day. At the moment, I'm typing this in the main library on the Burnaby campus of BCIT. It's interesting looking around and seeing all the kids. I guess I now consider anyone under thirty to be a kid. Some in this room are more recently out of high school and are still all lanky and acned. I can't help but wonder if simply being around younger people can affect one's attitude. I love the atmosphere in a college library now. I'm not so sure I used to when I, myself, had to prepare for projects and examinations. My, how times change!

The only picture I could think of that relates to today's topic, is this marmot we saw in a park just across the river from this apartment in 2005.

Labels: flora and fauna, Laurie

Okay, it's a bit unusual for me to put two images from movies in a row. I did record The Searchers (1956) which was on HDNet last night. I recently watched the DVD from the New Westminster library; however, this high definition copy just blew me away.

I am following the Blu-ray / HD-DVD format war with fascination. It's not a healthy fascination though. It's only early adopters such as myself who give a damn. I cannot believe I've owned a flat-panel LCD for approaching a year and a half but haven't bought a disc player that can utilize its potential. I'm angry as the Blu-ray fanboys seem to be winning the battle although from the get-go the HD-DVD camp had superior functionality. Did you know that most all Blu-ray players manufactured before last fall cannot be upgraded to the current equipment profile? Furthermore, the next Blu-ray version will require Internet connectivity and this will render all presently produced models obsolete. Whereas the specs weren't finalized for Blu-ray, the opposition has been producing players with similar capabilities since day one. Clearly, it's not best product that is winning; it's just Sony has somehow managed to pull the wool over lots of eyes. Shoot, I didn't want to be sucked into commenting about this today.



Instead, I wanted to type in this conversation that goes with the graphic show above:

Jeffrey Hunter: Something mighty fish about this trail, Uncle Ethan.
John Wayne: Don't call me uncle. I ain't your uncle.
Jeffrey Hunter: Yes sir.
John Wayne: No need to call me sir, either. Nor grandpa. Nor Methuselah. I can whoop you to a frazzle.
Jeffrey Hunter: What do ya want me to call ya?
John Wayne: My name's Ethan. Now, what's so mighty fishy about this trail?

Labels: HDTV, movies, stars

Forgive me if I appear a little confused. We went back to BCIT today but due to yesterday's snow closure, it was a Tuesday for me. Consequently, rather than the usual 4-day week ending on Thursday, we'll need to make up our lost day by attending class on Friday. So tomorrow, although actually Thursday will be like Wednesday and the real Friday will end up being a pretend Thursday. Just trying to explain that has got me so exhausted, I cannot possibly put much effort into an entry today. Not putting in a lot of effort makes a nice segue to the graphic captured from a DVD. This is due to the fact the 1968 flick requires very little concentration to be enjoyed.



An enormous variety of things can put on film (and now disc). Yesterday, I watched a few chapters of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999). This was the one with Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Calista Flockhart. It was a bit quirky seeing them all riding around on bicycles. In a completely different vein, I've got a few documentaries squirreled away in my collection. The rather serious topics are not the only things that can be recorded on film.

Fourty years ago, Jane Fonda was running around the universe saving us from Durand-Durand. I imagine myself old enough to have participated in life in 1968 but the fact is I was only nine years old. Ms Fonda hadn't participated in anti-war activities at this time but I'm still pretty sure I wouldn't have been allowed by my parents to have seen this movie. Too sexy, I'd venture. Yet now, I can totally appreciate the silly, often tacky, 98 minutes of sci-fi fluff. Long live, Barbarella!

Labels: movies, stars

Of course I really can't imagine a world before television. I grew up with American TV. Actually, by the time I was born, broadcasting was well over a decade old. I saw statistics which stated there were a million televisions in US homes in 1948 and I was born in 1959. I don't really know at what point sets became a standard fare in nearly every home. I know people first used to gather at certain establishments to view. When I was growing up we used to sometimes eat lunch or dinner at The Pine's Restaurant in Guild, New Hampshire. I remember them getting the first colour set that I'd seen. I recall hearing the owners bought one of the first B&W models in the area. So from the end of the 40's to my childhood in the 60's, there'd already been quite a lot of programming.

I've been watching a special series on PBS. I've seen at least three of the episodes of Pioneers of Television. An invention can change the world a lot in ten years.

Likewise, I just sent off an email message to my class. Due to the fact that upon registration all students receive an institutional email address, I can, with confidence, send any last minute notices. This feature works in conjunction with a course web page specifically for each class I teach. Consequently, I can press a single button and be assured that each student gets the information in their inbox. Although I just got a 10-year pin for my work at BCIT, using the Internet to this extent wasn't possible back in 1997/98. The way we operate can change greatly in one decade!



Here's a message I sent earlier this morning:

I'm sure you know that BCIT campuses are closed this morning. The weather forecast suggests that it will get warmer this afternoon, but due to transit trouble, I'm sure it will be reasonable to cancel our afternoon class.

Because we have very little time in the Intensive classes, we must make up the four hours we'll miss today.

We will meet on Friday afternoon this week. Please arrange your schedule so that we can complete all the work necessary in COMM 0004.

(I have added the next Message Board topic to our course page. You may want to take the time to ensure all of them are completed today!)

Labels: BCIT, Internet, television

Of course I ran into the theories of Benjamin Whorf because of my background in linguistics. Although first trained in chemical engineering, in this mid thirties, Whorf went to Yale to study linguistics. During that decade, Benjamin Whorf continued at Yale but as an Anthropology lecturer and never really worked in the field of linguistics. He and fellow academic, Edward Sapir, did have an important contribution in their theory of the Principle of Linguistic Relativity though.

Basically, this idea stems from Whorf's study of the Hopi language and the realization that one's reality is affected by the language one uses. The idea extends to the notion that an individual's thoughts are shaped by the specifics of their language. In the 1940's, Whorf referred to Eskimo languages having seven distinct words for snow.

That statement has erroneously become part of an urban legend. Some accounts now hold the total count in the hundreds. Moreover, there's not a single Eskimo-Aleut language. Lastly, as as my ESL students will attest, there are a number of ways to reference snow in the English language. What actually is the different between sleet and hail?

SNOW

By clicking the big word above, you'll go to my 67 Flickr images which currently have that tag.

Labels: New Hampshire, weather

It doesn't snow enough around these parts for the cities in invest in highway snow-removal equipment. Consequently, on those few days a year when snow sticks, the roads are slick and quite dangerous. As I don't have snow tires on my truck, I only venture out on the highways after things melt.



This shows the bottom of Sixth Street in New Westminster. We wanted to buy vegetables, but we shop uptown at Kin's in the Royal City Mall. As Translink offers two for one rides on Sunday, we decided to take Jay's monthly pass and the bus. When it eventually came, it went over to Eighth and up. It seems beyond what you can see, on the upper part of the hill, several Translink buses had gone sideways.

We travelled back via 22nd Station and even the SkyTrain was recovering from switch problems due to this ice. Transportation becomes so difficult around here when a few centimeters of snow falls. Clearly, here's another reason why the rest of Canada can snicker at the west coast.

Labels: New Westminster, weather