Gray Nomad,  gray with an a for active seniors lifestyle.
Retail tharapy 12/08/2009
 
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"We can stay young by focusing on a dream instead of on a regret."   Anonymous

LOL, A great quote to justify a little retail therapyJ.

I won my auction bid for the camera of my gray nomad dreams, on EBay, on Monday night.

I hope my 99% new Canon IXUS 990 IS arrives today. My camera was posted yesterday by registered mail. I bought one from a good seller, on Ebay that was two months old, still under warranty. I paid top dollar due to another last 5 second, snipe bid.  I paid about $250. less than the current listing price and over $200. less than today’s BigPond, shopping discount price. The only comparable price seller on the day would have been to buy from a Hong Kong, importers, and I am cautious about buying brand name electronic from Hong Kong, as while they might be good quality, they are often copies, not worth the same price to begin with.  The night after I won my EBay auction bid, A Current Affair, did a story on how cameras purchased on line from  Hong Kong are usually copies, not the real thing.

On top of this buy, on Monday night my wireless internet modem stopped working so I needed to buy a new one on Tuesday and I had a busy day letting everyone know I have a change in email address as a result. My new contact is Email Kathy  I will be spending time this week changing my email contact details around my web sites.
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My daughter’s husband is a builder by trade and he is building the family a beautiful home,  very modern in style, inside and out. Superb fittings like this Toto toilet only he has been so busy with work prior to Christmas he hasn’t had time to finish the inside of his own bathroom, so it remains unfinished and has been used as a storage room while the family wait for a bathroom.

As happens with storage rooms, lol, eventually they can become such a mess, you forget what is in there and my daughter thought she had lost a valuable camera.  I went to her home on Friday and helped her clean and she found the camera.

I think I have mentioned I have been hankering for a better camera and seeing my daughter’s one, ‘set me off’, in good camera, yearning mode, once more. So today I web searched the Canon IXUS range and I found the 990 was just what I wanted and I have put a snipe bid on it.  Now m fingers are crossed that I win this for a low bid.  Just what the modern gray nomad, needs is a lightweight, compact, great digital camera to record all those great travel shots.
 
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The photo above, is of Indigo, far left, Reg and me, on the left and our wonderful WA friends, Jo and Wayne, on the right. We always visit, Jo and Wayne, when we tour to the other side of Oz. :-). That's one of the great joys, of caravaning, visiting friends, accross the country. Photos like this, that show happy times are worth backing up, so they are never lost.

Reg and I are preparing the Eco-Tourer Caravan for our 2010 tour of Australia. 

It is time to begin thinking of everything, well in advance. My computer is currently running well, but because I am very dependent on it, I will be carrying a spare.  I also need to use online backup for all my pictures and documents. I never only store my word documents and photos on my own computer and hard drives in the same location, as I would not want to risk losing copies of my work.  Last year we had some stupid thefts from our van, a $50. Pair of shoes  and a TV remote control but it was a reminder to us how easily we could have lost our computer and while this would be costly, any unpublished photos and writing are not replaceable, so I recommend getting a password protected area, on line photo and document, host. 

These photo host programs are great. You can have free storage for small home accounts and paid storage for larger space requirements.  You can set up photo albums that you can share with friends and family or keep albums of photos and documents private, only for your own use.

I am also checking out my camera equipment and deciding if I am ready to upgrade to a more professional system before this trip. I will be searching in the post Christmas sales for a superior one, which will help me provide a better quality image to illustrate my blogs, where I use photographs.

I am also considering illustrating more of my blogs with a quick sketch or caricature, where I do not have a quality artwork available to serve as an image.

Photo, fine art image, sketch or caricature, what would you prefer to see illustrate blogs?

I would love your feedback on this questionJ.  
 
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