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

As I'm beginning to use labels here more seriously, I can identify areas of my travels that haven't been thoroughly documented. For example, I looked at the tag Indonesia but didn't find adequate references to Bali.



During the summer of 1992, we went to Indonesia for six weeks. We flew into and out of Jakarta but worked our way as far south as Bali. Sixteen years is a long time ago, but I recall even at the time that I'd wanted to return there someday. We got around the island nicely by renting a jeep. It's not a big place at about 95 miles wide and around 70 from north to south. The middle is mountainous with a nice variety of vegetation. We stayed at different beaches with both white and black sands. We also stayed not far from Mt. Batur which is considered an active volcano. The island is unusually Hindu in culture being that it lies in the mostly Moslem Indonesia.

I'd go back in a flash but our travels probably won't lead us in that direction again in the foreseeable future, if ever.

Labels: Indonesia, mountains, Q2_2008

This should tell you who's looked at this particular page. Dozens of the folks who visit in a day are looking for something in the archives and may never actually see this entry. Are you all alone now?

Labels: blogging, Internet, Q2_2008

Because of Flickr, I've been in an email conversation with a guy named Sampath in Sri Lanka. He initially wrote to ask that I include one of my photos in a Flickr group he created. He wants to highlight Sinhala script. I thought perhaps I had other photos with with text from signs and buildings to include. It was easy to add some of them to that group.

In our email conversations, he mentioned that probably Canada was very cold. He's never actually seen snow. It is often necessary to explain that around the city of Vancouver we seldom see snow that stays on the ground. In the winter though, it's only a hop, skip, and a jump to the mountains. Yes, Vancouver is hosting the Winter Olympics in 2010 but many venues are actually going to take place at the Whistler/Blackcomb mountains.

Today, I wondered if I could find a picture of snow on the local ski hills. Although we arrived to live in 1996, I lack many photos until I went to digital photography in 2002. I did find this old one. There is no date but I strongly believe it was taken in February 2000. I think this was taken with friends on a day we had a winter picnic at Mt. Seymour.

Labels: Flickr, mountains, Q2_2008, scanned, Vancouver

The American Film Institute's 10 Top 10 was on CBS earlier in the week. I love seeing how many of the films I have managed to watch. Thankfully, due to the prevalence of DVD's one doesn't have to go to film school in order to screen the classics nowadays.

On the number two slot under the Western genre was High Noon. I'm about 56 years late to this party. But hey, wait a minute, I'm not even that old. I'd never seen it, so I found it at the library. I watched it today and must say it was suspenseful. Upon reading about it, I find it hard to understand why it was considered un-American during the McCarthy era. I think High Noon is pretty true to human nature.

Labels: movies, Q2_2008, stars

I won't hear whether my June 30th course is a 'go' until a few days before it's to start. Being off from teaching right now is good. I didn't plan anything this month but the time surely seems to be zipping by. A lot of people never find the time to get back in touch with themselves. Okay, that sentence looks a little weird and new-agey. I mean to say taking off one's work hat for a while is needed. Far too many make that the hat they wear most often. It's so unfortunate people build their lives in such a way that being off is simply not possible. Not working allows one to reexamine many of one's goals and priorities. In often cases, they need reexamination.

Another thing which needs reexamination is our relationship to energy consumption. While many people feel as though the sky is falling under the impact of $US4.00 a gallon gasoline prices, I look at this with optimism. At present in Vancouver, we pay closer to $5.50 for the equivalent.

The party is over. Under-priced, cheap oil will never be the norm again. I have always been miserly and so the current realization doesn't come back to bite. My 5-speed, 4 cylinder truck is 12 years old. Keeping it going for another four or five years isn't going to break my bank. I don't feel any sympathy for those must fire up a Ford Expedition to pick up the dry cleaning.

Of course, the price of everything is going to go up. It's the price we pay for organizing society the way we have. My kitchen table is made from wood which was cut in Malaysia while I'm living on the edge of one of the largest areas of that resource on the planet. We will have to start forking out the true costs associated with our activities.

Th Saudis are, rightfully, starting to react to fears that prices may actually drive changes to our patterns of consumption. As the price of petroleum increases, the chances for affordable alternatives multiply.

I will be keeping my truck. Actually buying new at this point would take more energy, in the larger scheme of things. Hardly anyone will be saving energy or money buy running out to buy a new vehicle at the moment. I will hold on, in the hopes that gas hits $10 a gallon! When car companies cannot even give away their product, they'll really get to work on creating alternative forms of personal transportation. People aren't going to have to give up their own car. If there's a space-race mentality and an economic imperative, we'll be driving around in things that are a lot smaller but run on something else. When the going gets tough ...

What an opportunity for society!

Labels: cars, opinions, Q2_2008, relaxing

This morning I received an email from Hong Kong. Back in 2006 we stopped there on our way back from a Sri Lankan trip. We had the chance to meet up with Mr. Bill Ryan and family. We'd known them while working in Dubai a decade prior to our visit. I periodically send out test messages to the list of contacts and Bill got one. Each time, I find folks who have abandoned their addresses, presumably for new ones. In these messages I usually just promote this blog.

In the most recent, I had mentioned the vault page. As well as keeping a simple weekly chronology, labels have allowed me to add a little more structure to the chaos. By labeling entries, I have a quick and easy method to create specialized pages all pertaining to the same subject. Bill wrote back and said it was, of course, interesting for him to visit the Hong Kong and Dubai pages. This does make my information here a little more approachable to those with a specific interest, doesn't it? The listing seems to change quite a bit over time. I can only vouch that it is correct as of today.

Alaska, Alberta, Amsterdam, analog, Bahrain, balcony, BBS, BC Ferries, BCIT, beer and wine, blogging, Bratislava, Bret, briefcase, British Columbia, Brussels, Budapest, camcorder, Canada, Canada Day, cars, Christmas, complaints, computer lab, computers, Creative Zen, credit card, cruise, Daily Picture Parade, dentist, Desert Southwest, digital camera, Don, driving, Dubai, errands, Eurotrip 2005, Eurotrip 2007, feelings, file archives, fireworks, flash memory, Flickr, flora and fauna, flying, food, Fraser River, futurecast, games, glasses, Google, government, GPS, grandmothers, hard disk, hardware, Hawaii, Hayack, HDTV, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Hulu, humour, India, Indonesia, Internet, Joel, Kuwait, labels, Las Vegas, Laurie, library, lists, literature, London, Los Angeles, maintenance, the Maldives, Mediaplayer, Mexican cruise, Mexico, money, monkeys, mother, mountains, movie musical, movies, Munich, music, musical theatre, myBCIT, Nepal, New Hampshire, New Westminster, New York City, Niagara Falls, Okanagan, opinions, parade, Paris, passport, Persian, pets, pig, podcasts, Portland, Prague, PS3, PSP, PVR, Quay, Ranger, relaxing, review, road trip, Royal City Mall, Salzburg, San Francisco, Saudi Arabia, scanned, sci-fi, searching, Seattle, sharing, Singapore, SkyTrain, software, souvenirs, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka 2004, Sri Lanka 2006, staff, Stanley Park, stars, students, Sunapee, Surrey, technology, telephone, television, temple, Thailand, The Harbor Gameroom, The Wizard of Oz, Tim, train, transit, travel planning, Turkey, Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Vienna, Walmart, Warner Bros, weather, webcam, weight loss, Windows, World Vision, YouTube, zip.ca, Zurich,

Having things better organized also helps me check what I may have already said or added. For example, Dubai looks a little underrepresented in this blog considering we were there for five years. I'll include this picture of the creek's abra (water taxi) crossing from the Bur Dubai side back in 1991.

Labels: blogging, Dubai, Q2_2008, scanned

I do seem to be adding quite a number of 'clips' and 'mash ups' lately, don't I? I just wanted to add something which shows I was out and about today. (No, I don't say a-boot!)

The sky is wonderful and that makes me feel great. I guess an advantage of having crappy weather is when it stops, it feels so good! The sky really is marvelous when there aren't clouds. Just the weather of yesterday and today has erased the memory of the awful, practically non-existent, spring. Crowds were out yesterday but it was Sunday. Crowds seem to be out today and I don't think they're just taking a long lunch break. Some people may have called in sick.

The New Westminster Quay was beautiful and the babies in strollers, pooches on leashes, and couples in tow seemed to prove it. On the way back I peered into the hole where the old Windsor Hotel used to be. I can hear the pile driving from the apartment although it's three blocks away. I am happy to see downtown booming. The nineteen storey building that's going in there may block my balcony view of the Quay though.

Labels: feelings, New Westminster, Q2_2008, weather

Italy is large and contains lots of must-see cities. It's good that we are doing considerable pre-travel planning just to decide where to go and what to see. Of course, the result of all this homework is just conjecture at this point. We do enjoy being in constant preparation for the next place we may visit.

Naturally, Rome would be the first stop. It's too bad we have noted that the autumn charter flights are cheaper to every other city in Europe. Whether to go north or south first is an important question to answer. Deciding how far south to go is another.

Whether sooner or later, we will need to go far north as Venice is definitely on our list. We've already done a fair amount of reading on what to expect there. The iconic canals are already part of most people's experience though photographs. It even came to mind that Like a Virgin was also in one of the first music videos by Madonna I could remember. It would've been on a Sony Betamax tape sent to my company when I was working in Saudi Arabia.



In 1984, Madonna moved pretty much the same way she does in songs from this year's Hard Candy. However, nearly a quarter of a century ago, although not obvious in the grainy video, she had no need for wrinkle cream.

Labels: Italy 2008, music, Q2_2008, travel planning, YouTube