Alice Sara Ott plays Chopin Waltzes

I just love this CD and Alice Sara Ott's playing of Chopin Waltzes.  I first got to know Chopin's waltzes from Tamás Vásáry's DG cassette.  He played only 17 and Ott plays 19. I have Ashkenazy's version in the DG Chopin box and Kocsis' version in the Decca Piano Masterworks box.  I also have Luisada's version of 17 of the waltzes. I was struck by how natural everything is with Ott's playing.  She also plays the autograph versions of the waltzes.  I'm addicted.  I've reserved her debut Liszt CD from the library.  Here is someone else's take on her fabulous Chopin CD.

Victoria Day 2011 (May 23)

Yesterday, it was 25°C.  Today it feels like -2°C with the wind chill (+4°C actual temperature).  Here are some pictures of the flowering Saskatoon berry bushes, Norland apple, Thunderchild crab apple, Ohio Buckeye and the food we'll grow this year..  The large ones are smoky cultivar and the small one is a Thiessen.

Norland apple blossoms

Thunderchild crab apple blossom

Snow peas and Russian mammoth sunflower (centre)

Saskatoon Berry Bushes

Saskatoon Berry in flower

Thiessen cultivar (foreground), smoky cultivar (behind)

Ohio Buckeye (lilacs in pots)

Norland apple (damaged last year)

Thunderchild crab apple

Suzuki Book 1 Violin Recital

Today, Samuel had his Suzuki Book 1 violin recital.  A few friends from the former Parkview Church, the TCA, some of Samuel's friends, a teaching colleague and our accompanist's sisters were in the audience.  Two elders from Calvin-Goforth Presbyterian Church also listened in.  One of them provided a very nice commentary for us at the end.  You can't have a performance without an audience, so I was very happy that they could come and hear our son play.  I love the acoustics of Calvin-Goforth church and it really enhanced the experience.

I also listened to Alice Sara Ott's recording of Chopin Waltzes today.  Marvelous.  I noticed she played the autograph version of Op 69, Nr 1 (the one I tried to play) and yes, the notes confirmed that.

Cut losses - Grandich comments on Junior Miners

Peter Grandich Comments from May 12

Sell your losers and put them in your winner.  Most people sell their winners and try to average down the loser!  The opposite of what you should do

Timing of private placements is now 4 months and is a dilution problem for juniors.

The active trading is actually a negative for the juniors.

Single most important factor for junior is management.  Need to raise $$ (they're burning matches).  Does the company get too dilutive as they raise the $$ for exploration? 

Grandich thinks by July it may be another leg up.  The bottom is probably reached right now.

When gold goes up, juniors don't go up, but when gold goes down, the juniors go down.  SO TRUE.    Caveat:  if there's another market crash, everyone will go down!  (LR: watch out QE2 winding down, but producers like AVR should be good to go!).  This is echoed by this good read from the Gold Report.  I have already noted how the mining stocks haven't followed the trend of gold upwards.

PHP MySQL Links

http://tinyurl.com/42fgh2e  Traitorous KMT using the fiction of 1992 consensus to betray Taiwan!


PHP is faster than ASP (even on Windows Platform).  I think I'll try to learn PHP. Maplewood-crappy software is made with ASP.

I was told by someone at Point2 that he uses PHP/MySQL.  Met a teacher from Tisdale today who teaches PHP/MySQL in CS30. He's quite conversant with database programming.  I think I'll have to learn too:

This looks like a good book on PHP (Practical PHP)

PHP101
database intro (so far the most comprehensive intro I've seen)

Using SQLlite instead (need to put database in protected part of webserver)

W3Schools
About.com PHP/MySQL
Using MySQL with PHP
Building a database driven website
50 Extremely Useful PHP Tools

This is where it talks about inserting from an HTML form into a MySQL database
http://www.w3schools.com/PHP/php_mysql_insert.asp

After this, you need to go and learn SQL
http://www.w3schools.com/sql/default.asp

PHP and Wordpress
http://adambrown.info/b/widgets/easy-php-tutorial-for-wordpress-users/

Don't invest by emotions!

Peter Grandich is one of the few honest guys in the investment business.  This audio clip is an example of his honesty.  He predicted the silver peak last weak and noted that 96% bullish sentiment was a sign to take profits.  He also mentioned taking some profits in gold - I did that, but I bought back in!  Don't think that quick bull runs won't be followed by even quicker bear drops!