2024
January 15
Cold and sunny. Big old
house for sale. Large property.
January 7
Not many posts last year.
Perhaps this year will be more
interesting
2023
September 6
The CME last night has passed
and moods around here are better.
September 5
Overcast and gloomy. A cheerful mind
seems impossible at the moment.
August 23
Summer is plodding along. Rather chilly
last night. Mowed the lawn yesterday.
July 11
Installed Triskel yesterday on an old Dell
and ended up with no desktop and a black screen
with a prompt. Installed lynx, openssh and
ed. Tomorrow will look for a file manager and
a desktop. Always a learning curve with updated
distributions.
May 5
Corrected video links and edited
a number of posts. Picked up sticks
in the grove. Very little snow left.
May 4
Did some gardening. Wind NE 10 knots.
Still too cold for sailing.
April 27
Messiaen died on this date in 1992.
April 21
Opened the shed today. Put the snow
shovel away. Got out the rakes. Town
announces Spring Cleanup date as June 21.
April 20
Grass appearing. No daffodils yet.
April 19
Neighbours haved moved: house for sale.
Not many buyers this time of year.
February 8
Running TinyCore 10 just for fun. Not much snow.
Minus 48 C windchill last week. Coldest so far. Brr.
Today we enjoyed a mild -6 but tonight: -20. Thoughts
of green grass and summer.
January 12
Hardly any snow this winter.
Bitter cold reigns supreme. Which
is worse? Swarms of blackflies,
or a windchill of minus forty?
2022
December 16
Beethoven was born today in 1770.
He is 252 years old. Here is a 2018
video of his popular fifth symphony:
Richard Tognetti 34:48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKFLH-y6Ao0
December 15
Many of Messiaen's early works were unpublished
or lost. At age 20, he composed 'The Celestial Banquet',
a short piece for organ. Here are two videos of it:
1. In this video you can see the score:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3KEKwRHLoc
2. In this video you can watch Daniel Ficarri
perform in a very large church. Included are brief
inserts of religious art and architecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfTH-VTBgQE
December 14
When he was 17 Messiaen entered a contest.
He composed a fugue based on a subject by Henri
Rabaud. He won first prize. Here it is played
on the organ and animated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bbEwFqAvFw
December 13
Messiaen's Opus 1 for piano tells the
story of the lady of Shalott. Messiaen was
born in 1908 and composed the piece in 1917.
He was nine years old. You can watch the
notation while listening on viewpure.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxRLRDe-vmY
December 12
Frigid today, moderate tomorrow.
Dress warmly, or stay in with a hot
drink.
August 1
Running OpenBSD. Easy if you read carefully
the initial mail sent, and do the afterboot.
July 27
Drizzle. 14C. Still waiting for summer.
July 26
7:30 PM he sat in his LazyBoy for the last time.
Years ago. Time flies. Universe ponders on.
July 9
Rain. Northeast wind. Gophermap still a mystery.
July 7
Sunny again, windy, rain forecast for the next seven days.
I expect the neighbours will mow their lawns in the afternoon.
July 6
Sunny out, for a change. Expecting
a high of 20 C: pleasant. Breezy too.
July 5
Received help on the gophermap.
This was helpful and I will try it out
soon. Only 13 C here today, on the low
end of normal.
July 4
I am still trying to work out how to use
the gophermap. It seems to function as the
index page in html. I hope to have it going
by the end of the week.
June 26
The decade of the 2020s is nearing 25% completion.
July 1 will mark the day. Then only 7.5 years will
remain.
May 26
Collected five bags of sand from the lawn.
In winter they spread sand on the streets, then
they plow the streets. Then they snowblow the
snowbanks onto the lawns. Then we collect bags
of sand in May. Annual routine.
May 25
Sunny day. Not that warm. Picking up
sticks in the grove.
April 9
At this rate I will not have many posts
in 2022. Once a quarter is not too prolific.
Today I am running tinycorelinux in the
commandline. Pretty basic, but pleasantly
unencumbered.
January 13
Already a couple of weeks into the new year.
Time to add a post here. The weather is cold.
It's winter. Lots of snow. Sunny today. Days
are getting a little longer in the afternoon.
2021
December 31
Next new moon is calculated to occur on January 2
at 18:34 UTC. We might see the crescent around sunset
on January 3.
December 28
It will be more convenient this week
to have temperatures consistently below the
freezing point. The sun is unexpectedly
shining today.
December 20
The solstice will occur tomorrow Dec 21 at 15:59 UTC.
It is already freezing cold where I live. Winter. People
have been enduring it for centuries.
December 16
Beethoven is 251 years old today.
December 12
15 cm snow overnight. Snowblower worked well
today. The chute turned easily because it was not
so cold, around -6 C. The snow was light and we
were able to get down to the asphalt. One of the
windshield wipers broke off. I have a spare one
to put on tomorrow.
November 17
Snowblower action today.
Widened the driveway a little
on each side. Colder tonight.
October 30
Running TinyCore on a laptop today.
Very easy to connect to SDF.org and add
a gopher entry. Sunny today at 15 C.
October 28
-4 C last night. Sunny and +18 today.
No snow. Next week looks sunny too.
October 26
Expecting -2 C tonight and colder each night
until the weekend: -3 -5 -6 ... fortunately no
snow, and sunny days above zero.
OpenBSD requires a careful reading of the
manual pages after first boot. If one is looking
for a time-consuming hobby, here it is. No sense
asking for help without prior personal effort.
October 14
Last sunny day for a while. Rain in the forecast.
If the temperature dips any further, we'll have snow.
People change to snow tires November 1.
October 11
a b c d
e f g h
i j k l m n
o p q r s t
u v w x y z
The distribution of vowels is not haphazard.
October 9
Sunny. 10 C. Trees turning yellow.
Leaves falling. Pleasant time of year.
October 7
The sun appeared for an hour around noon.
It was chilly and overcast in the morning. Eight
stanzas before supper.
October 2
Rain and cold. Hot tea at home.
October 1
Drizzly and cool. Definitely autumn.
Yesterday we raked leaves and spread lime.
There were a few flurries in the morning.
September 15
Minus 1 Celcius last night, first frost.
Forecast to be +23 on the 17th, welcome change.
One more lawn mowing will do it until June.
September 14
Car repairs. Walked 2 miles while waiting.
It was raining a little. Got a bit wet. Fresh air.
August 30
Normal temperatures are 8 C to 18 C. Comfortable
but sometimes chilly. Fresh air is always welcome.
August 29
I had the same experience with a Bach violin concerto.
It was quite lovely and I stopped listening in the middle.
With Messiaen it is easy to dislike the music because it
is strange at first hearing. With Bach the music is good
and expectedly competent. Both men are dead. More of us
have heard of Bach, though.
August 23
25 C: probably the last hot day this summer
Normal high at this time of year is 19 C. Nights
are cool now, we had 6 C recently. One more
grass cutting this season in September. Then
snow will arrive in October, usually around
Halloween. Every winter is different. The
snowiest month is February, but the coldest is
January. Everyone looks forward to May and
grass again.
August 1
19 C. Risk of a thundershower.
Joan Chamorro and Andrea Motis: Summertime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxIPVAPRBi4
July 28
11 C. Drizzle.
Messiaen Symphony:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOnZ1-sOCwo
July 13
Sunny. 27 C. Apricots, mango, figs.
Messiaen's symphony with Dudamel is good
if one is in the mood. Strenuous, not
suitable for moonlight reverie.
July 12
Rain. Green grass.
July 3
21 C. Sunny. Lilacs. Ravens.
June 28
Hot. Narcissus and tulip done.
Grass doing well. Mowing every week.
Getting out old modem to try
sdf.org dialup.
June 19
Sunny morning. Cloudy afternoon.
Grass growing fast. Mowed on the 14th:
have to mow again. Once a week might do.
June 9
The lawn will need a first mowing soon.
Some patches are doing well, others not so much.
We were going to transplant a tree in the
morning but it was too cold and windy.
June 6
Rain, sun, rain, sun. 15 degrees C. Raked the lawn.
Some sticks fell from the tree last night during high winds.
Noodles for lunch today.
June 3
Finally some warm weather: tulip, narcissus, hosta, and
long bright nights. Snow persisted into May, but all that
is forgotten now. Trees are budding; grass is growing.
May 1
A few snowflakes today at suppertime. Chilly wind. Dull skies.
Gray days all week. The last patch of snow melted on the deck
yesterday. Some of the lawn is showing. Waiting for some sun.
April 8
Spring slightly apparent. Snow evaporating day by day.
Sky overcast, gloomy. Driveway mostly bare now. Dreams of
green grass and hot days.
March 18
Winter persists but the sun is getting higher
in the sky day by day: inevitably the snow will
evaporate in the warmer air and grass will appear
again.
February 15
Morse code easy. Learn to receive
complete words at 30 words per minute.
Persistence required.
January 31
It has been a cold month with lots of snow so far. Since
a new month begins tomorrow, we will have to wait a few days to
compare. Groundhog Day has little application here because we
are a long way from the official location of repute. Our snow
usually lasts well beyond the predictions of more southerly
latitude people. Our short and lovely summers are all the more
spectacular and welcome.
January 18
We listened to Mozart's first violin concerto last night. I
doubt we will listen to it again. Every movement was in the major
key, cheerful. We prefer the minor key, sad and troubled. It
seems more realistic. Like reading Samuel Beckett. I am still
working on his Trilogy. Once I had WATT, but I gave it away.
It seems to be unavailable now. Imagine that.
January 15
It turned out that one sister got wine on Dec 31 in the Gregorian
calendar and another sister got wine on Dec 31 of the Julian calendar.
This was not planned.
January 10
I let J know that if I knew red or white preference a FEDEX delivery
would soon take place. She likely heard from her sister about the New Years
surprise.
Snowblower exercise this morning. Sure was a big dump, as forecasted.
January 3
Approximately 3 days and 16 hours equals 1% of a year. So tomorrow at
4 pm we will have achieved 1% of the year. 99% to go.
January 2
Very sunny but cold. Cleared some snow from the driveway, enough to
get out tomorrow. Warmed the car up a bit. Nice lunch. Already the
late afternoon sun heads for the horizon.
2020
November 6
Twelfth Zoo: the word 'twelfth' has seven letters and only one of them
is a vowel. The 'lfth' has three distinct sounds and ought to be pronounced
carefully and accurately. Then the word will come alive and mean what it says.
November 5
I listened again to the Messiaen composition mentioned months ago.
Now I cannot find in it anything strange at all.
November 4
My sister is writing a short story. I am in it. Something about
time zones.
November 2
Wore a black hat all day to keep my head warm. Colder now. Earth tilts.
The sun rises two minutes later each day. Relentless march to December 21.
October 31
Once in a blue moon there is a blue moon. Tonight there was a blue moon.
Did I mention there was a blue moon tonight?
October 15
Overcast. Tomorrow sunny. Sunrise today at 7:40. Dark mornings, one
quarter way into autumn. Cool. Received pic of handwritten letter from
nephew. Fusion of old and new communication tech.
October 10.
Yesterday's snow has disappeared. Autumn has resumed.
October 6
Parcel arrived from a distance. One bottle broken. Refund requested.
Granted. Thank you, Bruno. It really is a wonderful thing to live on a
mountain.
October 3
Autumn day: rainy, cool, wet leaves on the grass. Quiet Saturday as usual,
no one on the streets except a girl and her dog. We bought potatoes and gumdrop
cake. Spaghetti and tuna for lunch with a hot pepper and cold brocoli. Time
passes, writes Beckett. Jane likes Beckett, he makes her laugh.
October 1
Even a new month takes some typing practice to spell correctly.
September 27
The sun was out earlier but the clouds have dulled the day.
This is not surprising. It was forecasted by experts. Sometimes
they are right. A stopped clock is right twice a day. A standard
of excellence to be desired.
September 15
Found a book on a shelf I had forgotten. '50 Trees'.
It gives Latin names as well as English names. Why did they
never teach us these in Latin class all those years ago?
No, Caesar was always ordering his troops to cross a river
and erect a rampart.
August 28
A speaker speaks: emotions emote. Word elicits reaction.
Waves expand. Who can wait until all is still once more?
Stir up mud in a pool. Wait, it will clear again.
August 27
Two ravens on the grass walk north. A grey truck drives away.
We watch videos. Ketchup on spaghetti with cheese: lunch comes
and goes without fanfare. Rinse.
August 22
Cool 12 Celcius today. Jacket, sweatshirt, T-shirt, hat.
Impossible last week. Clouds help lower the temperature.
August 20
When software limits what can be done, be satisfied and work
within the constraints. Eight crayons a box might be enough.
August 19
Core 6.1 five years old is adequate for command line
installation of openssh and logging into SDF.org: what I did
today. Boot Core, type at the prompt:
tce-load -wi openssh
After a minute, ready to go.
The weather has turned. Temperature has dropped to the teens,
set for a week of overcast skies and periodic rain. Normal for this
time of year: relief. Farther north, snow has settled on the mountains.
August 18
Trisquel 9 is out now. Where would we be without the FSF?
Still, SDF.org is foundational. That and CORE fill most of my
requirements.
August 2
I need to get some blank CDs to copy some ISOs and experiment with
up to date distributions. I want to try Trisquel 8, and Arch.
August 1
Running SLAX 9.4 on the Thinkpad. Working OK so far.
We tried installing Dragora but it did not go well. And
Core 10 did not overwrite 6.1 - many conundrums to be
solved.
July 29
Running Core 6.1 on a ThinkPad. I will upgrade to 11.1 later
this week. It is still running Firefox 38, antiquated, hopelessly
outdated.
June 15
The Magna Carta was signed on this date in the year 1215. One
could memorize it in Latin and travel around the country giving lectures
about it. Focusing on the Latin grammar might give new insights into
its meaning, some of which may have been lost in the translation to
English.
June 8
Forecast for tomorrow: snow. What? That's late for snow here. I
don't expect any accumulation. I was planning to get out the lawn
mower. I'll wait until a sunny and warmer day.
June 7
A couple of sunny days in a row. Saw the waning gibbous moon this
morning. Barley soup for lunch. No news from distant family members.
Lawns are a little greener now than they used to be.
May 19
Cold outside. Like November. Go inside. Have tea. Warm up.
May 18
TSX closed today. Dull skies again and cold. Summer a distant
hope. 9646 days until Doug is vindicated. They say. Waiting for
Godot, wrote Samuel Beckett. There is a good version of the play on
YouTube. Another one is 'Long Day's Journey Into Night'. Eugene
O'Neill. Domestic quarrels are trivial compared to the one night.
May 17
Grass is appearing, snow all but gone in most places. Dull days.
Have not seen the moon for a week. Holiday weekend. Another year
gone by.
May 13
Even more snow, all day, big wet flakes, steady accumulation.
Not necessary to clear the driveway. Above freezing next week,
and sunny.
May 9
More snow this week. Slushy. Waiting for the sun to come out one
of these days to send it packing. Time plods. Cloudy skies. No moon.
May 1
Rain. Dull grey. Not too cold. Not warm either. Gloves in the
morning. Raisin cake. Tea. Markets down today. Friday. Everyone
tired. Arctic char, mushrooms, quinoa. Zzz.
Apr 30
End of month. Rain tomorrow. Time passes. 9665 days until 2046.
October 14 that year there will be a full moon. Two days later it will
be Tuesday. All the stars in the universe, including ours, will nova
for three weeks. 12068 year cycle. Our poles will reverse. The earth
will stop turning for 8 hours. Inertia will drive the oceans and
atmosphere eastward over the continents. The earth will begin to
turn the other way. To view the event, climb Pikes Peak on the
Monday. Stay on the east side. Keep out of the wind. Good luck.
cf Doug Vogt, The Diehold Foundation.
Apr 27
A nice crescent moon appeared directly under a shiny
planet the other night. Earlier in the evening it had
been cloudy.
Apr 19
I wrote a long paragraph about Messiaen with ed about prime
numbers and how he liked them. Many do not like Messiaen's pieces
and many have never heard of him.
Apr 7
Big surprise in the morning: more snow. I don't remember reading
about it in the forecast. It stopped in the afternoon and the sun
peeked through the clouds briefly. More tomorrow. We usually see
the last of it in May.
Apr 5
Sitting in the sun on the deck on a rocking chair for ten minutes
can get the vitamin D going after a long winter inside a lot of the
time. A big mound of snow takes up most of the deck. Should I remove
it or let it melt over the next few weeks? At the moment, I am thinking
Let it evaporate naturally.
Apr 4
After a while we return to gopher and continue where we left off.
Later we will fill in the blanks. The dates missing below, that is, all
of March and some of April, were composed on another platform. Some
will appear in due course. TinyCore has been a lifebuoy and
inspiration. Simplicity frees the mind and words appear almost of
themselves.
Mar 20
A big dump of snow coming this afternoon. First day of Spring.
Theoretically. Astronomically. No first rose of summer for while.
Mar 19
Joseph's Day. I wonder what he would think of the stock market's
shenanigans. It's like poker. Some are losing, some are winning.
Mar 18
Only three months until June 18. Sounds like a warmer time of
year. Nothing special about the date that I recall.
Mar 17
Patrick's Day. Nobody around here mentioned Ireland all day.
He was from Scotland anyway. Pirates took him as a youth. He
escaped, grew up and went to Ireland to work.
Mar 16
I was reading about bees. They are important to plants' thriving
but are endangered these days. It would be good to let nature do its
work and take what we need without force.
Mar 15
The Ides of March. The Ides used to identify the full moon day.
When the Romans switched to the solar calendar the significance was
lost.
Mar 14
At one time I had to teach a Grade 4 boy to write sentences. He
learned how to do it and wrote some good ones. Robert Frost wrote,
'A sentence is a sound upon which words are strung.'
Mar 13
Friday the 13th was supposed to be unlucky when I was little.
Nowadays almost every day is unlucky.
Mar 12
Apple. Orange. Eat. Drink. Only the verbs 'eat' and 'drink'
form complete sentences there. There is something logical about a
complete sentence.
Mar 11
After the snowstorm, life must have returned to normal because
I don't remember anything else until July.
Mar 10
There was no snow, none at all, and then around noon snow began
to fall. They let us out of school early so we could get home before
dark. My streetcar never showed up. Off the tracks. Classmates took
me to the next street up and I got home by a different route.
Mar 9
My first day in the new school. I didn't have my own locker and
I had to hang my coat in another classroom full of little kids. They
all looked at me when I went to get my coat.
Mar 8
They brought me to the new school for a grand tour. The
principal showed us around. There was a spooky closet in the
basement. He took a small black book from it and said I could have
it. It had a lot of songs in it. I wrote my name in the book. I
still have it.
Mar 7
On this date they brought me to a boarding school. Mid-year. I
don't recommend it.
Feb 29
Scheduled power outage 6 AM to 10 AM. The back-up generator
could not handle the demand and conked out about 6:30. Power back
on at 10:10.
Feb 28
We heard a bird singing atop a tamarack this morning at seven
o'clock. Sun is up at that time now.
Feb 27
The dentist phoned. I made an appointment for next week.
Feb 26
A little snow overnight. Drifting. Snowblower on the job.
Feb 25
Messiaen was organist in Paris for 61 years. He died in 1992.
Feb 24
Like last year I left for work today without the outdoor
lights on. Sun is up earlier each day. Long bright nights of
summer are on the way.
Feb 23
A new moon is said to occur a hour and a half from now. The
crescent will not be seen here until tomorrow evening at the earliest.
Usually it is cloudy but these few weeks have had clear skies most of
the time.
Feb 22
When one thing winds down another begins. If it's not one thing,
it's another.
Feb 21
Gertrude Stein wrote a book 'How to Write'. It is as strange
as her other books. Most of it is incomprehensible. Some sentences
stand out clearly. This seems to be the lesson. Write sentences.
Feb 20
2020-02-20. How long will it be until 3030-03-30? Past my
bedtime.
Feb 19
We ordered Black Forest Cake a week ago and it did not arrive.
We got a Red Velvet Cake at a discount instead. Today four Black
Forest Cakes appeared on the shelves.
Feb 18
I skipped internet today and read books instead. Late night
catch-up. Books are printed websites.
Feb 17
I won another prize from the town for keeping a nearby hydrant
free of snow. Pre-paid card for Home Hardware. New shovel!
Feb 16
If you stand at the North Pole, every direction you face is
south. If you take a step to the right, are you facing East or
West?
Feb 15
Fresh air today. Minus 39 degrees wind chill. The actual
temperature is minus 24. Sunny. Looking forward to hearing a live
piano recital on YouTube.
Feb 14
Booting TinyCore this morning (command line only) to see if the
backspace key will allow the correction of typos when replying to
mail. No. All I get is ^? so without extreme care my email
messages look careless. I tried mutt instead but it is not
available at the moment.
Update: mutt appeared as usual in the afternoon.
Feb 13
I wanted to see the Andromeda Galaxy after supper. I found a webpage
that shows how to find it. Something to do with the Big Dipper, Polaris,
Cassiopeia, Pegasus, Mirach and Mu Andromeae.
https://www.wikihow.com/Find-the-Andromeda-Galaxy
Feb 12
Oil change today. Went to Tim Hortons for a coffee while waiting.
Feb 11
Town snowblower widened the street today. By moving the snowbank
to my lawn. Wide street: mountain on lawn.
Feb 10
Day 41 of the year. I read page 41 of 'Molloy'. A page in
the middle of a multi-page monologue. He mutters of thunder, the
moon, his window, muck, a butterfly, a mountain. Typical Beckett.
Feb 9
Minus 39 wind-chill this morning. House a bit chilly. Hot coffee
and grilled cheese. Up early, around 4:30. Moon brighter than usual.
Feb 8
Internet conked out last night. Wake up call #3 this week.
Systems we rely on everyday can disappear without notice. Fortunately
it was back in the morning.
Feb 7
Minus 20 Celcius today. According to the weather stats, it's normal.
Feb 6
Pound cake arrived by courier. Delicious.
Feb 5
I saw the moon. I think it's 12 days old. Lost track of the count.
Not that it matters.
Feb 4
I went to the Post Office. Noodles.
Feb 3
A little snow overnight. Enough to get the snowblower out.
Feb 2
Once I was assigned to teach a basic English high school class.
We read Basho's 'Narrow Road to the Deep North'. Brief descriptions
of the places he visited, with a haiku at the end of each little
chapter.
Feb 1
A new month.
Jan 31
Every '31' date ought to be a national holiday. Jan Mar May Jul
Aug Oct Dec. Seven new holidays.
Jan 30
Another sunny day. This makes four weeks without a major
snowfall. Three months of snow left. The last of it is usually gone
in May.
Jan 29
Frescobaldi organ pieces are not that exciting but they are fun to
play. 500 years ago they must have been all the rage.
Jan 28
I haven't seen the new moon yet. I was napping before supper and
missed it.
Jan 27
We had 2 inches of snow, nothing to complain about this time of
year. Temperatures normal. Days pass, each a little longer.
Jan 26
The Z of January: 26 days into the New Year. Not so new anymore.
Lots of things going on, much like last year.
Jan 25
Burns Day in Scotland. Haggis, neeps & tatties on the menu.
The Procession of The Haggis, led by a piper. A long poem is
recited. The Haggis is poked with a sword. Then we eat.
Jan 24
We found a photographer to create a color photo 2 x 2 inches for
$1.75 - all we have to do is email the photo and it will be ready for
pickup on Tuesday.
Jan 23
What is it when a famous author's short poem cannot be found
online? Protective of a treasure? Copyright?
Samuel Beckett. 'Sans'.
Jan 22
People are looking forward to tomorrow when it will warm up to
minus 4 Celcius. The usual January deep freeze has visited us for
two weeks now. Sunrise is a couple of minutes earlier each day.
Jan 21
It is one thing to make a brief gopher comment each day but to
maintain the same minimal activity in HTML is another.
Jan 20
Twenty days done of a year, or of a decade "the 20s". Hope to get
through another 20.
Jan 19
Learning 'Fugue in F minor' from the Well Termpered Clavier.
Fairly awkward fingering in places. Most performers on YouTube play
too fast. Glenn Gould ought to get a speeding ticket.
Jan 18
They had snow there but not too much. It is not as cold there as
it is here. Bright and sunny here and we went shopping. Salt fish.
Jan 17
I booted directly to the command line, input:
tce-load -wi sshpass.tcz
That was easy.
Jan 16
I managed to load sshpass.tcz, move to prompt, and sign in to
sdf.org - all on TinyCore. Pleasant to type on a full black screen
with white letters.
Jan 15
In 2003 Edinburgh had an editor called ECCE which every student had
to learn. It gradually fell out of use until nostalgia kicked in and
it was brought back by popular demand.
Jan 14
Minimal Linux Live is fun to play with. 7 MB OS with only ed and vi
for editors. After a few hours on it after supper yesterday, I was
dreaming about it all night.
Jan 13
Temperature = 250 Kelvin. Moon is 18 days, 7 hours old.
Car started OK this morning. Have to go to town hall today to
pick up a prize from the Friday Draw.
Jan 12
Nowhere does the gibbous moon have such an effect at 5 AM than
in a snowy district. All we need now is a wolf howling in the
distance.
Jan 11
I was working out how to use the Kelvin temperatures in daily
conversation. Water freezes at 273 K and boils at 373 K, so the
size of the degrees equal those of the Celcius degrees. So, a
minus 20 C would equal 253 K. That is what we have today.
Jan 10
For some reason I was writing an email and I thought of something
interesting, but now I have forgotten what it was.
Jan 9
Already nearly a third of the first month has passed and I have
kept my New Year's Resolution. I had decided not to have one this
year and I have managed to banish the tendency to come up with one.
Jan 8
The calendar is often written as a table of seven days to a week.
For example, the dates are lined up in seven columns. Here is part
of a month:
02 03 04 05 06 07 08
09 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19
Jan 7
My niece's birthday arrives again. Years pass by and the little
girl I once knew has kids of her own.
Jan 6
Gold, frankincense and myrrh: not ordinary presents. I am still
waiting.
Jan 5
Sometime ago I knew two people whose birthdays were today and I
always said 'Happy birthday' to them. I wonder where they are now.
Jan 4
It does not take much to alarm our imaginations. We do not
know the future or what someone might do. We hope for the best.
Jan 3
I wonder why Messiaen's music is usually slow. There are very
short notes, of course, but the overall feeling is slow. Slow.
It trudges. I don't listen to it all that often.
Jan 2
More snow. Not very cold. Icicles forming.
Jan 1
Another day for businesses to be closed on a perfectly
good Wednesday. The ancient Romans did not mind the days of
the week but organized their year around calendar dates.
So fixed was the calendar that it was chisled into stone
walls as if it were going to last forever.
2019
Dec 31
There are not many months with an extra day tacked on
at the end of it. I think of the '31' days as holidays and
try not to do too much, take it extra easy.
Dec 30
I cleaned around the fire hydrant and submitted before &
after pix to the town to qualify for a Friday draw for a $50
gift certificate. I am not likely to win anything but it's
nice to know that the town workers can access the hydrant if
they need to.
Dec 29
A little more snow today. I cleared the driveway with a
shovel. I will get gas for the snowblower tomorrow and clean
up the edges. Supposed to be sunny then, not so dismal.
Dec 28
No snowstorms recently, but we have had three days in a row
of an inch a day. This is easily manageable.
Dec 27
When no words come to mind it is impossible to write them.
Dec 26
Letter Gaelic Name English
Aa Ailm Elm
Bb Beith Birch
Cc Coll Hazel
Dd Dair Oak
Ee Eadha Aspen
Ff Fearn Alder
Gg Gort Ivy
Hh Uath Hawthorn
Ii Iogh Yew
Ll Luis Rowan
Mm Muin Vine
Nn Nuin Ash
Oo Oir/Onn Gorse
Pp Peither Guelder Rose
Rr Ruis Elder
Ss Suil Willow
Tt Teine Furze
Uu Ur Heather
In Gaelic the letters are named after trees.
Dec 25
Sunny, minus 13 degrees, staying in today. Streets are quiet.
The holiday spirit has kicked in and daily routine relaxes. Sent
nieces and nephews a link to a brass octet performance. Asparagus
for supper.
Dec 24
How is it that meaning can come out of the rearrangement of 26
letters? In Greek there are only 24 letters. In Gaelic there are
only 18 letters. Thoughts of a whole people can be expressed with
economy.
Dec 23
Bitter cold. Down 24 degrees from this date last year. Not much
traffic on the street. People staying in if they can.
Dec 22
Bright sunny morning. Hard to believe it is minus 29 degrees
wind chill. Until you step outside. "Yes, I guess they're right."
Big mug, hot steaming tea.
Dec 21
Solstice: earth stops tilting one way and begins to tilt the
other: days will grow longer and nights shorter. The effect will become
noticeable in a few weeks. In February we will get up in the morning
without fumbling in the dark.
Dec 20
Potato and cauliflour for lunch. The 'BOLD' tea is rather strong even
in the giant mug. Compared to Latin word order which allows words to
be placed almost anywhere in a sentence, English word order seems
restrictive.
Dec 19
Zero degrees today. Pleasant for a change. I brought gifts to
friends and received in return. That time of year. A carpenter came
over to see what renovations we needed done. I was listening to music
by Tournemire and dozed off.
Dec 18
Still struggling with gopher. There are only a few hints how to go
about creating files. I look at the posts of others and am amazed
at the wonderful work they have done. At the moment I am putting
everything in this one file 'messiaen', though Messiaen is not the
topic. I have created other files in the gopher directory but they
don't show up anywhere. Perhaps I need sub-directories? The
longer I keep at it, the more I'll figure out. I was flummoxed
yesterday when my phlog was posted without a file.
Dec 17
The wind is at 17 knots. Snow is drifting. The snowblower chute is
frozen in one direction. I have a strategy for that.
Dec 16
Today is Beethoven's birthday. He is 249 years old. He was born in
1770 and spent his life composing music. He died in 1827.
Dec 15
I listened to Messiaen for the third time and noticed some parts of the
melody that were pleasing. Strange how the mind adapts to things.
I learned that the piece in question was part of a larger work and that
the melody which I have heard only on the violin was originally written
for cello.
Dec 14
Minus 28 today, really cold. The car started OK. Fortunately I had it
plugged in all night. Funny, tomorrow it will be ZERO degrees.
I think I'll listen to the Messiaen piece again. Maybe I'll like it
this time.
Dec 13, 2019
I can't remember minus 39 degrees wind chill this early
in December. Starting the car at 7 AM, still dark out,
braving the wind: not pleasant. The only solution is
to dress appropriately and carry on with what we have
to do. 48 hours from now the temperature is set to
rise to the freezing point: freezing rain is forecast.
Dec 12, 2019
I am reading The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett.
This is not a page-turner. He expresses the
dismal state of human affairs. We live with
difficulties all our lives and then die.
Bad luck from start to finish. No sunny
days at the beach, no birthday cakes. In
its own way, the book is hilarious. Yes,
we are in a mess and we must make the most
of it by carrying on with life until we
don't.
Dec 11, 2019
Yesterday morning I listened to a violin and piano piece by Messiaen
performed at the New England Conservatory. It seemed so rich in
melodic patterns that I found it difficult to listen to. Today
I listened to the piece again while washing the lunch dishes. It
was the same piece, but seemed not so strange.
