Friday, 12 August 2016

I got up extra early this morning and was out walking by 4:30. I headed up highway 12, hoping to get away from the city lights well before the light of day began to arrive. I did, mostly, but I still didn't see any meteorites, which I had thought I might, since we're in the middle of the Perseid shower. However, it was a nice walk anyway. I walked almost all the way to army base "Camp 396" before turning around.

Shortly after heading back, I met the first bicyclists going up the hill. In total, I met 25 of them during the course of my walk back down highway 12. In addition, 2 whizzed by on the other side of the road, riding downhill.

I took a few pictures along the way, including today's pic of the day, the sun just coming up over the distant Jordanian mountains and a nearby hill:

I returned home after a brief stop at the local bakery to buy challah, having been out about 2 hours and 20 minutes.

I easily got all the weekly household chores done before my lesson today.

I taught only one 2-unit Berlitz class: 11:30-1:00.

I had a salad and cheese sandwiches for lunch today.

I completed my Machine Learning: Classification class today with an overall average of 97.6%. I managed to get 12 out of 13 on the last quiz, even though I never got the program on which it was based right. In fact, I only got 10 out of 13 on my first try, due to a fair amount of intelligent guessing. I then started the next class in the sequence, Machine Learning: Clustering & Retrieval.

I got more work done on my orchestral music. I've got a fairly big problem that I've got to deal with, though. When I set the volume on my computer (playing through my headphones) on max, I'm getting quite a bit of distortion, especially from the brass, and to a somewhat lesser extent from the woodwinds. It's going to take quite a bit of editing on nearly ALL the pieces to make sure this doesn't happen in the end. I know what I can do; it's just quite a bit of work to do it while making sure the balance and expression don't get messed up in the process.

As the day drew to an end, I lit candles, drank a little sweet red wine, and ate some challah to welcome another Shabbat.

I walked a total of 8.67 kilometers today.

I leave you with these verses from Psalm 8:

יי אדנינו מה-אדיר שמך בכל-הארץ אשר-תנה הודך על-השמים

Oh Eternal One, our Lord, how powerful is Your name is all the earth,

You, who have set Your glory upon the heavens!