I shop again, therefore I am, again

Today the spending of the gift vouchers continued unabated.

After a lightning trip to Elsternwick to see Mamma and her two youngest grandsons, it was in to the city to shop.

I had a Readers Feast voucher and a Myer voucher, both expiring at the end of the month, so shopping I went.

I've long had a fascination with book tokens (blogged about elsewhere), I was always very envious when Nicola Marlow, and/or Drina got given book tokens (it seemed such a civilised gift) so my Readers Feast vouchers always seem to remind me of those childhood favourites.

Although, come to think of it, my spending of book vouchers always seems to be more in the Nicola Marlow choosing her form prize in The Cricket Term, style than anything else.

My unofficial rules are that books purchased have to be 'special' (ie: almost certainly not crime fiction) and they have to be something that I will read or consult often.

So once again a pleasurable afternoon spent browsing the shelves for books to purchase - and now to re-organise the Mont Albert branch to accommodate the new purchases.

I shop, therefore I am

With the end of June fast approaching I have several gift vouchers that need spending.

So today it was off to Southland to spend the remainder of my gift card. (The majority was spent on the toy but there was still some left)

What to buy, what to buy?

It wasn't my money, so I could indulge myself but in what? DJ's takes the Westfield card so I spend a delightful few hours wandering round, checking out their 'half yearly clearance'.

In the end I came home with new watch (not a gold watch, sorry to disappoint you!). Most of my watches are of teh robust, wear to work, get bashed on the desk and survive, type so I am now the proud owner of a 'good' watch for wearing 'out' (as opposed to wearing to work). Will post a photo when I find a camera.

Bought lots of other stuff (with credit card, not gift card) mainly for me, although the train obsessed 2 year old nephew scored a 'Thomas the tank engine T shirt ($5 @ ABC shop - bargain)

Unfortunately the soon-to-be-1 year old scored nothing as all the archiearchie sized shirts were still $20. I had hoped to get his birthday present but he hasn't decided whether to go with red wine, white wine, or spirits!

Podcast revisited

i have spent quite a few spare moments working on the improving of the podcast.

Finding appropriate editing software was the first challenge - but I bypassed this by breaking the file into many smaller files and cleaning them up one by one using the zoom's onboard editing facility.

This has been (a) time consuming, and (b) boring, so is being done in very small doses. Then I will reassemble the file, convert it to mp3 and voila - podcast.

Having experimented with the introductions - this might just work - although the mp3 version is not as clear as the wav.

I set the recording level down way low for the next attempt - but it's singing and dancing on a echoey floor so need to work out what is recording level noise and what is 'ambience'!

If at first you don't succeed - go shopping...

In which Fiona fails the podcast

So I recorded the genealogy demo on my new handy dandy digital recorder (aka the zoom). It's a cool little dude - records in wav or mp3 format onto sd cards.

The manual recommends recording in stereo (wav) and then converting to mp3 for best quality. This I did.

However I appear to have had the recording level/volume set to high as even on the max setting Myra sounds crystal clear but faint. Am now trying to amp up the sound before mp3'ing it.

However if you have awesome hearing the clarity is quite good (even if I do say so myself).

So more work to be done on the casting of pod front. damn

Canberra day 2.

Day 2 we started at the War Memorial.

It was a miserable, drizzly, cold, overcast day (and TappingBetty had the lurgy) so we wandered around the AWM (and I decided I needed to read more about the Japanese advance into Sydney Harbour)

We also checked out Parliament House (the house was discussing child care funding) before heading back to the motel - via the hot chocolate shop of course.

In search of the perfect hot chocolate

We found our accommodation in Canberra via rates to go. We wanted to be within reasonable walking distance of the gallery for the exhibition.

We ended up staying at the Bestwestern MotelMonaro in suburban Kingston. A 20 minute walk to the gallery, or a 5 minute bus ride. The motel backed onto the Kingston shops so on our way back to our room at the end of a tough day sightseeing we checked out the shops. In the arcade a secondhand bookshop and, opposite it, All things chocolate - canberra's original chocolate cafe. Well of course we had to go in, we couldn't walk past, what would people think!

We both ordered white hot chocolates (we consider ourselves hot chocolate connoisseurs) and little hand made lemon meringue chocolates - OMG - absolutely delicious.

Amusingly, when I told people at work about this little find - 2 of them, who'd been in Canberra recently both had been to the Kingston shopping centre but had not noticed the choccy shop!

the sisters tap canberra

Well the TappingBetty and I went to the nations's capital to see the Turner to Monet exhibition at the National Gallery.

We flew Tiger (the latest player in the discount airfare stakes - $20 each way Melb to canberra - bargain).

So we arrived in Canberra at 10, am threw our luggage into the motel room, and headed for the gallery. TB is a Monet fan so we explored the exhibition thoroughly before checking out the indiginous art on display and heading, via the reconciliation path, to the National Library (where there was a display of Bridging the distance which highlighted the distances Australians can and must travel). On display were such treasures as Kingsford-Smith's application for a pilot's licence, a GPS, an Aus drivers licence from 1921, maps, ads, extracts from exploration diaries and so on.