User:Dragonsinger57/My sandbox/jmftemplate/Interests

Music
My user name holds clues to some of my interests! The character of 'Dragonsinger' (aka Menolly) is from Anne_McCaffrey's Dragon Rider series of books. Menolly was a musician, singer and teacher.

I was grew up with a love of orchestral music (my mother played second fiddle in the Napier Evening Orchestra) and guitar music (my father was a passionate follower of Manitas de Plata and Chet Atkins) with sprinkling of brass (Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass to be precise).

After a brief fling with the cello I settled on the guitar as my instrument and have been playing for over 30 years now. These days only at school - usually for Kapa Haka and singing assemblies.

2003-2009 I was a member of the Kapiti Chorale singing choral music. I enjoyed being one of the female tenors! In 2006 I sung in the NZ premiere performance of Karl Jenkins' Armed Man and in 2009 sung in another NZ premiere - once again a Karl Jenkins.

Reading
I also love to read and love holiday times when I can just sit and read all day. I've been known to read 3-4 books a day. As a child it was a real pain when I went to the library as I was only allowed 2 books out at any one time. Luckily the library was walking distance from my home as I'd visit daily.

I love having lots of books on my iPad - it's certainly made reading a lot easier for me. My favourite authors are all from the Baen publishing stable.

Technology
Computers

My other passion is technology. I've been tinkering with computers since the '80s. My first computer was a Commodore PET 2001 followed by a VIC-20. These days I love using my MacBook (school supplied) and my iBook (personal) and am frequently found playing with my iPod Touch and Nokia 6121 - it's not unusual for me to be online with 4 devices at once. Updating to say I now have a MacbookPro, an iPad and an iPhone - as well as my old Macbook, iBook and iTouch in the classroom.

Wikis and Blogs and Web2.0 oh my!

When my children were very young I was an active BB (Bulletin Board) participant and then the internet came along. I decided I wanted to learn how to write web pages and so taught myself how to hand code html pages. While I love the blog format and the ease of which people are now able to have an online presence, I miss my hand coding days. Wikis allow me to recapture the satisfaction I feel when I've finished a well coded page.