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

I just jotted out this short email to our best, little local paper, New Westminster's The Royal City Record. I did so as I may have seen the first evidence of street work at the west end of Columbia Street. The city initiated back-in parking last summer and I believe that some actual street improvements are now beginning.

Dear Editor:

As a downtown resident, I see that renovation work has begun on Columbia Street by city engineering.

The New Westminster City website has only an old bit of the initial planning information about the Columbia Street Improvement Project. It has not been updated. I don't know what options were eventually chosen. I don't know for example whether there will be plants in a median strip during any portion. I don't know if any public art is planned.

I would think that an article ... perhaps a front page article ... on the project is due. I, for one, would like to see what is taking place this summer along "the heart of the city".

I look forward to hearing back from you about whether you will be able to have a writer investigate this important story.

-- Dennis Hurd

Labels: New Westminster

Today's television news mentioned that Michael Jackson's Thriller video marks its twenty-fifth anniversary this year.



In reality there's still more than seven months before it celebrates the actual quarter century mark. Wikipedia states that the classic video was released on December, 2, 1983. That was a different time and certainly a different artist. Michael Jackson was cute, black, and popular in those days. I was young, poor, and in graduate school at the University of Washington.

Labels: music

This is midterm Thursday and were it not for the fact I will soon have twenty-one tests to correct, I'd be very happy at this moment. Right now, we're having our class in the regularly-scheduled computer lab. My students are writing the three hour exam by hand but will have access to the computers during the final hour of class.

As usual, I have a few extra minutes after getting all stray papers corrected. So, at the moment, I'm typing on the teacher's console in the front of the room. Of course the LCD projector is switched off today. Even if it were on, the students are far too busy on the exam to notice I'm blogging now.

I wrote an email to the class a few minutes ago and needed to put in specific dates. I am very used to just clicking on the current time in the task-bar. This will open a calendar in Vista. Unfortunately, the lab computers do not allow that function. So, I typed calendar into a net search. I ended up at this Canadian calendar. Who ever looks ahead to see when holidays are going to fall during the year? I guess this can only happen when one's got a little extra time.

I discovered that Labour Day is on the first of September! That means schools will probably be getting right back in session near the beginning of the month. That's good news as I generally try to schedule my big autumn vacation at that time. The price of air tickets go down as soon as kids are back in school. Yet, the weather is still great in most places.

Where to this fall? We've been sort of discussing a possible month in Italy ...

Labels: computer lab, travel planning

There was a certain comfort as a consumer of media in the old days. Lest I simply sound like every other aging boomer, let me explain in more detail. Because of the frightening lack of media options, one could be relatively certain others knew what you watched or listened to. We had common exposure to many cultural references. I'm not so sure that knowing how Gilligan prevented the stranded folks from escaping the island was crucial. At least there was commonality in that banality.

Now of course, media outlets and options continue to explode. I have very little hope that your world will mash up with mine. It's highly likely that today we will not have listened to, watched, or read any media in common. Other than this blog, in fact, I must assume that you probably did not.

I guess having choice is good. News, music, and information itself is becoming ever so more personalized. I do feel that the enormous variety may lead to cultural loneliness, a term I thought I had invented. Of course googling it turns up countless references of a different sort. My definition means to be alone within one's own culture because of the deluge of unshared media. You may not want to listen yourself, but I do have a need to include something which I listened to when driving home from work earlier. It's not an extraordinary episode but I want others to be able to experience some of the ideas which affected me today. I regularly listen to Buzz Out Loud from the folks at CNET. I first listened because of the subject matter but continue due to the personalities involved.

Buzz Out Loud 708: Meat Parade

Labels: Creative Zen, podcasts, technology

Back in the 1990's I knew it would happen. I forecast that when everybody and their grandmother had email, people would still seldom write. Email is easy, basically free, and nearly instantaneous yet people, at least the ones I know, are not wired for creating consistent messages regardless of form.



On a related note, I was pleased to receive some tourist information in the post today. I had asked for some information on Palm Springs, California as we're planning to spend a few days there next month during a road trip to the American Southwest. The Bureau of Tourism was happy to oblige. The whole concept of traditional, old mail through the post office is really quite amazing. Imagine, if I affix a token proof of payment on an envelope, a cooperative agreement between governments guarantees to physically deliver the item to nearly any physical location on the earth. What a spectacular service!

Labels: Desert Southwest, technology, travel planning

Here's an entry which really isn't one. Here, I'm simply blogging about blogging again. I like to check statistics on my eJournal and images. I can collect them in a number of ways. The chart below contains the information from last month. It shows data collected by the server software at my domain. I think it's fairly interesting to see where visitors to the site have come from. I don't know if you're interested but I don't feel like saying anything else today. I discovered that people from only 86 countries stopped by. Well, oodles of guests ended up as unresolved, so perhaps I'm more of a global phenomenon than that!

Labels: blogging

The whole concept of YouTube has never excited me much. I mean I enjoy the opportunity of adding clips to this blog, but who'd want to sit for an hour and simply watch the stupid things that other people do? If I'm going to give up a half hour or more of my life watching a screen, I want what's on it to be professionally produced.

Luckily, it appears as if broadcasters are adapting to the new potential of the Net. It all deals with people not wanting to have to bend to someone else's schedule. With Tivo and other digital recorders, the idea of having to be home in order to not miss a show already seems like a quaint anachronism. I don't think most of us are going to be ready for high-definition Internet streaming for a while. Many other countries are better suited for fast, universal Internet access. In the Americas, we must contend with our vast geography and dispersed population.

I like NBC's 30 Rock. Satire is hard to pull off but this show seems to do it with ease. I sometimes give credit to the network for allowing so many sarcastic, and often self-critical references. Here Tina Fey takes on reality TV and cuts a little close to CBS's Survivor. Watch all 22 minutes of it now on Hulu.



If you're not in the US, try loading Hotspot Shield first. The program allows you to VPN to a US-based IP. It is easy to start and stop and a whole lot easier than messing around with permanent configuration on your computer. You only need to run it when you need to appear to be in the United States.

Labels: Hulu, humour, Internet, television