Great weekend!

Saturday night my beloved Carlton Blues football team won - great way to start the pre-season, and there was a real excitement amongst the fans.

Today I attended a workshop learning how to do lino prints so I can decorate some of my books. I am mightily pleased with myself because I actually created something that looks like what I meant it to. Ever since primary school (a long time ago, folks,) I regarded myself as having not one bit of skill in producing any kind of art or craft. I can still remember my art teacher in Year 7, the last year I was required to do art, looking at my work and sadly shaking his head. Since starting on bookbinding, I've developed a little confidence in being able to make nice looking books. Today I was required to come up with a small design for a first practice piece. Help! But I thought I'd do something really simple and fun (remember my motto), and I did this:

On the left is the inked up piece of lino, which I drew myself (I said the design had to be simple). And on the right is the print, with a bit of color added. Hopefully I don't have to tell you what it is.




This is my second, larger print, the original is beneath.


For the final piece, the tram was traced onto a piece of foam, but this is not very robust and may not be worth doing again. Although the Man Who Cooks (and also Has Good Ideas) said I could glue it onto a piece of wood to make it last longer.




















The next great thing was meeting a blogger buddy Sharon at the workshop; this was the first time I've met a blogger buddy face to face. We're going to get together for coffee near a local craft shop. We've had our blogs through which we have communicated, now we've attended a workshop together and can share ideas on that. I've seen and admired Sharon's seahorse on her blog, a theme she used today in class. It turned out beautifully. Hopefully she'll post a photo of it too.

Finally, tomorrow is the first day of the academic year, with hundreds of new students pouring through the library, and guess who is NOT going to be there: me! because...














I...










am...













retired!

Handwriting

Cris, in a comment on my last post, so kindly said my handwriting is "great". I however was appalled to see it when enlarged - it looks to me like a child wrote it. BUT, at least I can still use pen and paper. After years of using a computer I found that I was getting quite rusty at writing until I started learning Greek and had to make notes, and keeping a diary/journal has also helped.

There is one interesting and rather disturbing thing I've noticed about people who have grown up in the computer age. Good examples are my two sons, who went to a school where there was a computer in the room when they first started school, and access to computers increased rapidly after that. They, like many of their contemporaries, cannot write cursive/running writing/linked writing, whatever you want to call it. They PRINT everything, and I also noticed this when I worked with students at the reference desk in the university library. I know for a fact that my sons were taught how to write in school but there was an ever increasing requirement for them to hand in work that had been typed up on a computer.

Has anyone else noticed this, or does this not happen elsewhere? I wonder: what do they do when they have to sign important documents, like when they get a loan, buy a house, etc? Their "signatures" are just printed...

From my San Francisco diary

I made this book last year and chose it as my San Francisco diary. Here is the cover and title page. I'm not sure the scanned pages below can be read, even if enlarged. And then you have to be able to read my writing! But I am having difficulty in changing the position of the scanned images, and even putting in text at the bottom of the post. I thought new Blogger was going to change all that...

Dad's on his way

Dad is winging his way up to Sydney as I type this. He'll stay there overnight before flying back to Hawaii tomorrow. As always it is a terrible wrench to say goodbye at the airport, but I'm hoping to be able to find some cheap airfares later in the year and visit him there.

It was very hot while he was here, and we didn't get to do as much as we might have, but still...

• There was the obligatory visit to Williamstown Beach, which we love, and there was a nice breeze off the water that day.
• We went to an aviation museum - Dad was a commercial pilot and has always been interested in planes. On that same trip we discovered a bayside beach which I'll return to when it's not so hot.
• We visited the City Museum which has a wonderful exhibition about Melbourne beaches. The museum is in the old Treasury Building which has very thick walls, and it was a cool escape from the heat.
• We did a couple of hikes in local bushland, both of which turned out to be longer than anticipated, as both of us like to do a loop and not retrace our steps and we sometimes lose our way. On yesterday's hike we retreated to the shade of a tree after climbing a hill with no shade. Here is a photo of us, but as Dad informed me a while back, he doesn't really like his photo on the internet, so I've made some changes to protect his privacy. heh heh!

Cats need to maintain their privacy too!

Am I the last to know?

I was just fiddling around with the posts via the dashboard (yes I know I should be working on getting a "real" post together), and I accidentally clicked on the little arrow (>) next to the post title, rather than View. The latter may take a while to open and it will open yet another browser window. However, you usually want to just have a quick look at the contents of a post before you apply a label or do an edit. Well that little arrow (>) will expand the post entry, without photos, to just the text. It's quick and no extra browser window is opened.

Everyone has probably figured that out long ago, but just in case you hadn't...

Aaargh!

When I switched to "layout" just now, rather than "template", things are not as I wish them to look AND I've lost my list of Blogs I Like to Read. Anybody have any ideas or advice, other than constructing the list manually??

Good instructions for applying labels

I see that like me, a number of you have been putting off the inevitable (switching to new Blogger) - well we hung on as long as we could! I wonder how many people there were left at the end?

And now there's the question of taking advantage of some of the new features. One of those features is applying labels. Not everyone wants to do that; some of you may want to but think that the only way to do that is to go through each and every post and apply the labels individually. That would be tedious! Sue has sent me the link to Zoey's instructions on a MUCH EASIER way to do this, and it works a treat. Click on the title link above - she's even got screen dumps to make the job easier!

So, now I'm on the new Blogger...

...and I didn't have a choice! When I went to do a post (because Peter made me feel guilty about not having a new post when he visited today - thanks Peter!), I was FORCED to switch to the new Blogger NOW!

Ok, so it really only took less than a minute (gee, what does that say about my blog?), but I wasn't ready. What if something weird happens, and of course I've never made a copy of my blog on a cd. Ok, so I've had a peek and it still looks the same, the blog AND this post form. One thing is different though, and that is I can now apply labels.

Great, just when I was thinking I'm not posting because I'm not sure people would be interested, and then I'm prompted to put in labels! However, that activity is very related to a librarian's work, so I suppose I'll get used to it, despite being retired. Oh, did I mention that I'm retired? heh heh

Well, here goes. I'll press the publish button and see what happens...

Melbourne's Chinatown

Yesterday I was in the city and made an unplanned walk up Little Bourke Street, which is Melbourne's Chinatown. I didn't have my camera with me so I got this photo off the net. I finally got around to visiting the Chinese Museum, which I fully enjoyed and highly recommend. I spent a good hour looking at the exhibit, which on one floor even recreated various aspects of Chinese life in 1850s Australia.