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My friend and former secretary has asked me -- and now Steve -- to build some cabinets for a pantry area next to the kitchen at her new house. That project will take a while to percolate but I decided to build here a kitchen island in the meantime to replace a table she has been using to expand her counter space. Her cabinets have a dark cherry stain so at first I was going to go paint grade to avoid clashing. Rooting around the shop, however, I found enough figured maple boards for the main pieces and thought that would fit well so I went for it. I had to buy the prefab butcher block top and maple 1x3s for the slats below, but all the other maple and one plywood for the drawers and cabinet bottom were in the shop. It's hard to tell from the photos but the figuring on the cabinet and drawer fronts is really pretty. She wanted a knife drawer and another for large cooking utensils, so that's what she got. The knife blocks are maple with non tarnishing felt. Very happy with the results, except that I don't love the coloring of the butcher block. Terri loves it but may not be able to use it fully until she can get over the idea of marring it. 😂

Aumkar came to see me in Bangkok and let me try his INOX. It sounded really nice.

Met Al, Claire, Sophie, Julia and Kaki at The Marshal Store for lunch. The oysters Rockefeller were pretty good, as was my pulled pork sandwich. Then off to Drake's beach to watch the Elephant seals. Also saw some large Elk near there, and a quite large Coyote. Then onto Pt. Reyes for a bit of browsing and buffalo ice cream and natural soda float.

Went to the Battle of the Bulge 60th anniversary exhibit at the [next to NASA Ames] Moffett Field Museum. That tree stump doesn’t stand a chance.

JC was our best ex-president. I worked for him 1994, building houses in Mississippi.

I’ve made a solid state CCS for Megatron to replace the top EL34. Seems to work all right. I think a modified Megatron with solid state CCS will simplify the building of Megatron considerably.

Also going to Casa Bedecarre. This one for New Years friends and guests. My first Coffee Cheesecake. It looks quite dark on top, but smells fantastic. Not sure if the coffee has something to do with the color.

Thanks everyone. Great to have this community. Fun, chill day so far with family gift giving and heading to the coast for a friend's gathering shortly. Hope everyone is having a great holiday too.

Meet Hershel! IMG_4119.mov

Aerial picture of a balanced amplifier for dynamic headphones. Only light from LEDs and tubes. ISO-25600, F4, 1/13 sek. And in day light. 4 x 2A3, 4 x 12BH7, 8 x switch mode filament supplies, 2 x GRHV and 4 x transformers. DIY is still fun.

"If you want to feel older, just try giving an uncooperative cat a series of antibiotic pills." The mighty Hercules trying to give the cat a pill

Peter Yarrow was officially or unofficially the godfather of Claire's step cousin. We attended her wedding years ago and Peter played and sang Puff the Magic Dragon at the reception. Nice man.

Another KGGG alive. I separated the GR power supply and the GG amp into two chassis, making it easy to reuse the GR power supply for the next project. The four holes with the rubber blocker on top of the amp are for balance and offset adjustment. I made a side mount board for the 10M90S instead of using the L bracket. The side mount board is attached if someone is interested in it. It is a 450V version, The tail resistor near the offset pot is 200ohms to track the offset voltages down to 0. To make the servo work, offset voltages must be higher than 15v. The power supply comes with a soft starter of about 50s. I don`t want to talk more about the sound since many comments were mentioned. Pretty decent with my Omega and 009. Thank Kevin Gilmore for bringing the project to the table. SideMountV3.zip

Although I have trepidation about the coming year, I'm going to keep a positive attitude for now. Wishing a great year for our Head - Case family! Even Brent. 🙂 Easy on the biscuits for 2025 though B.

Last night Sophie and I made some pork belly mushroom chive dumplings and ginger scallion pork pot stickers. It's pretty labor intensive but they both turned out great, didn't fall apart, and were quite tasty with dipping sauce and chili crisp. We made a batch for my sister and niece next door who have covid together for a third holiday season, so I was very hungry and didn't take time for glamor shots or even as plated.

How is your sainted octogenarian mother doing Knucks? Has anything frozen off of you? Hope things are looking better today.

This morning it was green-chili-cheese eggs and baked french toast casserole.

M4 Mini finally arrived today. It only took AMZN a month to ship it. I've had a longstanding tradition of naming my Mac Minis (now 4 in number) after film directors. Previous machines were Kubrick, Fellini and Ulmer. The M4 is Kurosawa. I'd say I forgot how much of a PITA it is to set up a new machine, but that'd be a lie. I remember, and it always is one. Google is reasonably painless. Still haven't gotten my password manage up and running yet. Steam initially locked up and refused to play nice, but after a force quit and restart it acted fine. I have no real interest on gaming on this machine but I figured I'd give it a bash. Tomb Raider 2013 works just fine and looks quite good. It's not really my kind of game (I got it free with the GPU I bought in late '13 and played it for 38 minutes) but trying out again it seems ...fine. The M4 plays it at 1080p constantly above 120FPS. The real headaches will be slsk, Transmission (torrent client), inheriting my Backblaze backup state and ...actually setting up Kurosawa s a server to replace Fellini. I have to get my two Windows boxes to play nice with it as well. This process should take well into next year.

A NY steak, just a wee bit of sautéed mushrooms, sourdough baguette, baked potato and iced coffee with Irish Cream Liqueur.

Nope, just guy. This was a solo effort by Voltron alone. I just helped deliver it. The pebble is no longer in my hand.

Ina Garten hybrid lemon / engagement Chicken And instant pot lemon rice.

Sous vide lamb with roasted potatoes and garlic sautéed green beans

used my immersion vacuum sealer to make quick pickled green beans. Holy crap these are tasty.

Friday I work the later shift, so I made some sausage and cheese biscuits for sustainance to get through until a 2:00 lunch. And I'd love the basics of both dishes Nate.

Brit "Fireside" Nibbles Lamb 'n fixin's Tiramisu

Forgot to post this one the other night, but it was a winner. Tandoori baked whole cauliflower and tomato cashew rice recipes were in a feature for vegetarian Thanksgiving. We added some lamb chop lollipops, which made it less vegetarian but more tasty for us omnivores.

I could quit any time I wanted, honest. https://pmamagazine.org/golden-ears-anonymous-a-12-step-program-for-recovering-audiophiles/

Thanks for all the meme-y, AI, and plain old fashioned birthday wishes. Sufficient, albeit, non commemorative, Usuals. Curiously Bacon free, but that will be remedied before too long. And a pro tip if you want to feel younger. Surround yourself (inadvertently) with significantly older people. Why I feel younger already. An I.M Pei designed building helps. If you want to feel older, just try giving an uncooperative cat a series of antibiotic pills.

The pics don't do justice to the incredible flame Maple front section. And the homemade fried chicken, macaroni and cornbread she made us were amazing!

Crime Of The Century [2014 - HD Remaster] by Supertramp (1974) https://album.link/i/1440646658 Example: I always think of Supertramp from 79 into the 80s, not 1974. Even this does not feel like 74 to me. Just a high quality album from the tramp.

Cooking for kids. Cottage pie and gluten free chicken and dumplings

Kimono My House by Sparks (1974) https://album.link/i/1443750483 Example: More fun than I was expecting, and really good.

Vinyl-focused listening bars inspired by ones in Japan are opening across New York, attracting audiophiles and city dwellers looking for a respite from the cacophony outside their doors. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/30/style/vinyl-listening-bars.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mE4.DoPV.rDeIpFwipn7h&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&tgrp=on. (gift article)

Chicken Pot Pie

swt61, Those cheesecakes look AMAZING!!! I bake once a year these days. Cookies for the folks on my block. This year I went with white chocolate macadamia. I baked some proper looking "cakey" ones, but the ones that really sold looked like this...I kept the dough less cold before putting them on the pan. Folks like the more caramelized edges I'm guessing. HS

Cheers HC Team - HNY

50yo album time Autobahn by Kraftwerk (1974) https://album.link/i/726154713 (and yeah I don't know why they don't list QOBUZ as well) Example (THE track): This album is a lot more playful that I remember. I was very used to the later works where they seem more serious.

This looks and smells amazing! Just letting it cool a bit before diving in. Firstly I must admit to altering the recipe on the first trial. I had some breakfast sausage on hand, so I cooked, crumbled and drained off the fat ahead of time, then added on the final blend of ingredients.

Jon Batiste - Beethoven Blues You can find it at most streaming services and Qobuz (I still don't get why Odesli won't link Qobuz pages). TBH I listened to it yesterday and mostly to please a friend who had listened to it and thought it is awesome. I always have certain prevention against jazz or pop albums trying to make something worthy from classical music, especially the one that I find the work of a genius. As much as I tend to dislike pop/jazz/rock played in a classical arrangement, like those abominations of The Beatles for string quartet. This album is something else, yet not fully to my liking. I enjoyed very much a couple of tunes, others were just fine and there were like three that could have been not recorded. If someone listens to it, I'd love reading your thoughts.

Lamb. Yielding (partially)

Wink Bot is getting annoying

Police Squad

Ah the Irish

Joanne made Ina Garten’s Seafood Gratin for Book Club

Selections From Irving Berlin's White Christmas by Bing Crosby (1954) https://album.link/i/1440877877 Example: Instead of watching - I thought I would listen.. Other than a few mic overloads, well done.

A Man on the Inside What starts out as a comedy caper mystery, sends a love letter to San Francisco with its location shoots, finally in blends in a poignant reflection on aging and loss. Well worth binging.

Different drivers, different housing, and different pads? Never affected the sound of a Grado before. 🙃

Steak day two.. Yesterday's was a little heavy on the smoke for me. So I set the Chimp again to 225 until internal probe temp of 115f, but at a lower smoke setting. Then used cast iron pan on induction stove top to sear for 2 min {30 sec per side}. Steak flavors much more in balance with just a touch of smoke. Very close to what I wanted. Science!