I got up early today. I went for a walk in Glendover Park. This park is so close to my house that I can leave the front door, turn right on the sidewalk, and walk there in a few minutes. A circuit of the pond and back to my house takes half an hour.
I saw a cardinal singing on a tree on Landsford drive. When I got to the park,
I saw red-bellied woodpeckers, western kingbirds, barn swallows, a mallard duck and her single duckling, blue jays, and a robin on a rooftop.
I went to 10:30 church at Living Light Church. This is a satellite church of
First Methodist, to which we belong. It meets in an elementary school, and is actually a little closer drive than the church to which we belong. Yesterday the sermon was about the part of the book of Romans which includes the exhortation to be transformed by the renewing of one's mind. The sermon also included scenes from the movie "Coach Carter". I liked the scenes, but I did not like the fact that these were spoilers.
The music is contemporary Christian, which is not my favorite genre of music. I do like the way that genre's facile pop stylings makes all the the songs easy to sing.
I suppose the day has not yet arrived for ambient and downtempo electronica in church. A 20something married couple led the church worship band--their voices were both quite good.
Back at home, I had to wrestle a bit with my desktop computer. It had a "serious error". I got it to reset its settings to a time in April. I like that my Linux computer's updates never break the computer. With my Windows computer, I get hesitant to upgrade or to even turn the machine off because of the fear of a broken upgrade pack. But all ended well, because I got the computer working in good order again.
I went to Weight Watchers at 2 p.m. I had lost 1.8 pounds. This was a good result, but not as extraordinary as the prior two "first weeks" I have had.
This makes sense, though, since I had already been losing weight and eating better. I want to lose 12 pounds by Christmas, so now I have 10.2 to go.
I stopped off at the Chisholm Trail in Plano, a little sidewalk trail by a little creek. I took pictures of blue jays who inhabited a tree on the trail.
On the way home, I was going to get turkey at Boston Market. Then I was going to get a sandwich at Subway. I decided instead to go to Legacy Wok and have chicken with broccoli. I ordered healthy things--vietnamese spring rolls,
hot and sour soup,and chicken with broccoli. I did indulge in some of those won ton chips they serve with soup. I worried that my large lunch would mean a small dinner would be required to stay on plan, but I did not need to worry.
I recorded little .wav file samples of a cheap Indian wooden flute I got on eBay for 10 dollars. I also used Audacity, a piece of recording studio software, to create an oscillator sound. Then I tried to make a song using Sawcutter 2.0, a simple synthesizer program. I ran it on my Linux computer,
using the program WINE that allows one to run Windows programs in Linux. Though I have made songs before on my Linux machine, the system kept freezing a bit. I suppose I must keep my Windows rig for a while longer. I need to learn the native Linux programs LMMS or Seq 24 (or both) to permit me to
create songs with Linux. My needs are simple--a piano roll sequencer, and the ability to use sound recordings as patches or samples. My goal this Summer is to break my dependence on Sawcutter 2.0. Still, I am glad I did not yield to my first impulse and over-write Linux over Windows on my desktop. I may need my windows machine for a while yet.
I headed into the bedroom to read my Peter Hamilton sci-fi book on my e-reader.
I was formerly moving slowly on this book, but now I am chewing up starfields.
Then I used my little Android pengpod tablet to watch "Wreck it Ralph", a Disney animated film I had rented yesterday. I watched for half an hour, and then turned it off and went to sleep.
I woke up at 10 p.m. I had fallen asleep without dinner, which means that my fear of having over-eaten at the Wok was misplaced. I got up, watched more of my movie (which I like) and installed the Weight Watchers app on my tablet. I then got up and ate clementines, wasa crackers and a banana.