Something a little more fun

OK something better…

After getting the frustration of my working out week out yesterday I have been trying to think about the good things that have been going on to try and get myself out of the downer that I have been in for the last few days.

There is enough good going on at the moment, but it's difficult to sit and write a post about it.

Last night though was something to post about…  Mrs Stace, her parents and I went to the Hoogland Church in Leiden to listen the The Bach Choir & Orchestra of the Netherlands perform Bach’s ‘Matteus Passion’.

It was simply stunning!  The acoustics of the church just added to the atmosphere – with the dramatic cut offs in some of the movements resonating around for seconds after the orchestra and choir have stopped.

I’m always in awe when I see a live classical concert – the volume that can be produced without any electrical amplification is just amazing, and no matter how good your system at home there is nothing like hearing it live.

It was a wonderful evening and just what I needed.

Just as an aside…  I t was interesting to see the way that the performers interacted.  Specifically the two sopranos…  They both performed solo’s, but the looks that were passed from one to the other as they left their position in the choir to come to the front of the stage were enough to let anyone who saw know that there is no love lost between the two…  Must make for some interesting rehersals!

The Great CD Rip is Over

Well it's taken a week or so of swapping CD's whenever I remembered, but it's done.

244 discs
76GB of space
8+ days of music
3400+ songs
65+ Genres

It was boring as hell!

But hopefully it's the last time I need to do it, as it's lossless encoded now!  And it does sound wonderful on the new system, soooo worth it!

What does that much music look like?

This:

Stace

Fun weekend

Well, it’s been a busy weekend so far – but all good.

Yesterday morning I went for my normal run.  I have cut it to 3.5KM per day for the weekend as my knees are playing up (I could barely walk on Thursday – before I fell down the stairs in my heels ;p).  I think the problem is with my running shoes.  They are a few years old, and have had quite some use; and I think that the heels have just worn out and collapsed internally – meaning I have no support or cushioning.  So on Friday I brought new shoes.  Interesting experience.  As I can’t buy men’s shoes in my size I always have to go for women’s shoes.  The guy in the first shop was great.  He went looking for the size I needed, came back saying they didn’t have it.  Then he very nervously asked if they were for me or someone else.  Me I said.  Oh, in that case we have lots of other women’s running shoes if you’d care to pick something else.  I declined (I like Asics for running – they are comfortable and give good support) – but I thought that he handled it very well.  In the second shop it was less good.  The guy did his job well enough – but there was something in his attitude that said here is a bloke buying women’s shoes.  I think that they had a laugh about it when I left. Hoh hum.  The shoes themselves are great though.  No issues when I got back yesterday, and going for a run with Mrs Stace later today.

Then I had to go into town to get the car that I am building for my niece fixed.  I brought the bits I needed a couple of weeks ago, and I thought they didn’t fit.  A quick trip back to the model store with the car, transmitter and receiver and the guy showed me that I was being stupid :)  There has been a change in technology since I first brought the car 14 years ago and I just wasn’t up to date.

The plus side is that I now have a working chassis.  I had forgotten how much fun it was to play with.  I hope that she likes it and that it’s not too much for someone her age…  It’s a little quick, and she is going to have to practice with it to be able to control it well – mind you it’s going to be great for hand eye coordination!  Now we just have to pant the shell before her birthday.  We brought a convertible shell, are going to paint it metallic lilac, and we are going to paint a Hello Kitty on the bonnet and boot lid as she loves that.  It’s going to be quite a family collaboration to get it done.  I am going to spray the shell, and have built the chassis.  Mrs Stace is going to stencil the Hello Kitty on the shell.  My sister in law is going to fine line the Hello Kitty as she has a very steady hand, and then Mrs Stace is going to fill it in afterwards.  I can’t wait to see the finished result.

Then it was time to do some baking.  We ordered ‘The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook’ from Amazon and it arrived on Friday.  Hehe.  The recipes look amazing, mind you for the two of us there is possibly too much – I see my team getting lots of treats in the near future as I try more recipes.  Yesterday I tried the recipe for New York Cheesecake.  It’s in the fridge looking lovely at the moment – but as it had to chill overnight I can’t say what it tastes like just yet.  That comes this afternoon.  Yum.

Finally… Having played with the new speakers for a week I have found some unexpected work.  Our set up has been an iPod for background music, and the Blu-ray for playing CD’s when we really wanted to listen to something.  There has always been a clear difference between the two, but it was always good enough.

The new speakers / amplifier have spoilt us somewhat.  It’s not that the iPod sounds worse per say.  It’s that the new set-up show’s up all of the missing signal that the iPods poor circuitry, and the MP3’s poor encoding introduces.  It sounded hollow compared to listening to CD’s – and was not pleasant anymore – even for background listening.  When you know what it can sound like, it’s disappointing to have the iPod on.

So…  I have spent yesterday afternoon sorting the CD’s back into alphabetical order (something we do every couple of years as they get mixed up) and now I am busy encoding my whole collection again; for the fourth time (hopefully the last time!).  First time was encoded for MiniDisc using Sony Sonic Stage; second time was as 196kbps MP3, then 320kbps.  Now I am using FLAC – that is about half the size of a CD (three times bigger than the 320 MP3) but crucially is a lossless encoding (it sounds as good as a CD, and contains all the information of a CD – so I can convert the FLAC to any other format I need in the future).  After spending 6 hours doing it yesterday I managed to complete ‘A’.  25 albums.  That’s about 10% of the collection.  I think it’s going to take a while before the rest are complete (I’m 4 albums into ‘B’ at the moment from the 40 that we have).  I think I may need to buy more storage as well :)

False Hope, Panic and Validations

I've had a bit of a mixed bag over the last couple of weeks. I've been really down, a couple of anxiety attacks meaning that I had to walk out from my office with my eyes welling up five minutes before a meeting last week and I've been back on my Validispert herbal tablets again. The reasons I won't go into just yet. I have not worked then through my head properly yet...  (But please don't panic - it's nothing bad)

But...

The fasle hope in the title comes from last Thursday. I had just finished my weekly run with colleagues and called Mrs Stace to let her know that I had left and would be home in an hour or so.

She told me that there was a letter from the VU (the hospital where the gender clinic is based) so we assumed it was the date for my first appointment. Hope.

Then the panic started about what this means for my life (is this normal?). It made for a not very pleasent drive home.

I got in picked up the letter and looked at it for a while, Mrs Stace asked what was wrong, I told her I was panicing a little. Eventually opened it and found out that it wasn't the appointment after all. (False Hope then).

They are having a lecture on the details of the treatment, and it was an invitation for me (and family & friends) to go and see what the process involes. From first appointment through to after GRS care.

Me and Mrs Stace are going, I don't think we'll be taking the family along. Mrs Stace is concerned because it covers the whole process - which is not my aim at present. But we've discussed it and seeing as whether I go down the path or not it's useful information, and the first phase is something that will affect me no matter what.

The validations... Phone calls again. But I was over the moon - it really picked me up yesterday.

I had to call UPS as they have messed up the invoice of sending my amp back to Cyrus - and it's now (incorrectly) in the financial system of my employer...

I called them, got into a bit of a heated discussion and kept being told 'Calm down madam' by the person on the other end of the phone :) Even when I was quite angry... Mrs Stace thought that I would get too distracted by being happy with the 'madam' to keep focused on why I was angry with them, but I managed it ;p

And the other... I have to have a medical check-up to transfer my UK license to an NL one, as the UK license from the 90's has a whole bunch of interesting categories that you have to take seperate tests for in Holland - complete with regular medicals. So I called the 'Arbo' doctors who can do the test, gave them my name and address (gender was never asked) and recieved a letter yesterday that started with 'Dear Mrs' (Well 'mevrouw' - but close enough).

(Oh, and for Leslie - my current ear worm is 'The Blue Danube' from the 1987 Vienna New Years Concert)

Chlling with music

Last year, not long after starting this blog in fact, I treated myself to a nice new amplifier. Whilst no music buff I like good sounding music and having completed my lens collection for my camera wanted something to collect for the next few years.

I settled on a Cyrus system - small, reasonably good looking and good quality. And the added bonus that the style of boxes has not changed in recent years, and that you can build and expand the system over the years without losing any of your investment. Hopefully.

I was over the moon when the I got it home (brought it from Leicester HiFi as they have always done me right over the years and seem to know their stuff). Even Mrs Stace who doesn't overly care providing it produces sound commented that it sounded nice once it was running.

Until December when it started make a whole platter of not nice noises and no noise at all. It went back to the UK and after being software upgraded and tested was returned. It is much better now, so far. Touch wood.

So yesterday evening I spent 30 mins plugging everthing back in and making sure that every input produced the desired sound.

To test the BluRay I sat in the floor picking my way through ald and new CD's, listening to a few songs whilst searching for the next and repeating.

I had totally forgotten just how much I love doing that. I've got so used to just plugging the iPod into the aux input and leaving it on shuffle that I didn't even realise how much I missed the whole searching for songs, picking a CD, listening and swapping it out for another. Takes me back to when I was growing up and I would do it with vinyl on my dad's stereo. Loved it, and have to make sure that I do it more often!

Stace

Sennheiser RS 160 Headphones (time for something more fun)

As I work for an internet insurance broker I get cheap car insurance, but I have to wait until the end of the year when I get a refund. This came through in January so I decided to treat myself and Mrs Stace to some nice headphones for in home.

I use Sennheiser ear buds for use with my iPhone and I am really impressed with them, so I started my search there. On the register I saw a review for some new wireless 'phones.

Now, over the years I have always been a little nervous about wireless headphones after using a friends pair and hearing the hissover the music - totally spoint the effect. But the review said they were great, and I liked the technology they used - 44KHz 16bit (ala CD quality) non compressed. So I thought I'd give them a try.

I should have been able to write this last week (they arrived Tuesday) but as I always have things delivered to the office as I am never home during the day I had to wait until I went back after my recent bout of tonsilitis.

Got there today, ripped open the packaging and hoped the rechargable batteries for the receiver had enough charge in them. They did! So I plugged in my iPhone and started playing my latest album - Muse / Origin of Symmetry. I didn't know how much time I was going to get on the batteries so I flicked through my favorite tracks (Bliss, Plug in Baby and Feeling Good).

The sound is stunning, everything you would expect for tripple figure Sennheiser headphones. The bass is rich, the treble is crisp. There is no tinnyness in the top end, and no distortion in the base, even at the volume Muse demands. On top of that my colleague sitting at the next desk heard nothing, neither did I when they tried the set.

And the tramission quality? Flawless. Nearly. There were a couple of times when it sounded like a CD skipping. Whether that was from the iPhone (it does it from time to time) or the headphones I don't know. I'm charging the batteries for the receiver now and then I'll try again on a nice classical CD and see. When paused they are silent, when not paused it's as good as any wired set I have tried.

Set up was simple. Plug the base unit into the power and sound source, put the batteries into the head set and press play in the iPhone. No set up to pair the phones to the base station. I'm almost sure that my parents could cope with it :)

The batteries lasted the whole day in the end, 8 hours of listening almost - on batteries that came out of the packaging. With no pain or discomfort on my ears either.

I'll post an update when I've had them a couple of months - but initial impressions are very positive.

Update: Half way through my second CD now with fresh batteries and it hasn't missed a beat, so I am guessing that it was the iPhone that was struggling not the headphones.