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Just got home from our SF/Phoenix trip. ‘Twas fun and great to see my brother and his wife and our son. Gratuitous pictures

Highs and lows.....sorry if TL;DR The highs: I love my neighborhood, and the people within. I maintain a website for the "Bunco Babes" here, a group of women who would get together monthly to socialize, play bunco...and drink. Since Karen passed, much of the organizing has dropped off. But the OG's of the babes invited me to a get-together; little did I know if was partially to thank me for the web site and congratulate my retirement. Pics below. A low with a little bit of high: we have a local "Buy Nothing" FB group, for free things. I have refurbed and donated computers perhaps a dozen times now. Gave two laptops away this weekend, one to a gent who has been out of work for almost 4 years because he was in an accident where a Mack truck blew a red light and slammed into him. He is now in somewhat constant discomfort or pain, and can't do much physically; insurance fights every step of the way. He even gets PTSD driving long trips.... Yet still, he does a lot of nice small things for others, and we shared our stories about that. Oh, yes: we had one FB friend in common, a wonderful woman with whom I used to work. She passed away from cancer and pneumonia complications recently; it turns out this is her distant cousin, and he didn't even know of her passing. The lower low: another laptop I gave to a woman who has an autistic son (two other kids too, one of whom has pretty high functioning autism). I volunteered to bring the laptop and a full docking station with monitor setup I had over. This amazing woman and her husband spend almost 24x7 watching her youngest, as he has non-verbal autism and also has a potentially deadly condition where his digestive tract will get blocked. Constant monitoring and care, advocating for him at hospital and doctor visits, etc. Hugs and tears resulted. They don't even have a place right now to set up the full monitor, so I told her I will come and help when they do find the space. You can see the strain, yet the strength all at once. Humans are such amazing creatures. But the two situations above point out how much the system works against so many, though!

Last night Andrew made me dinner to celebrate my retirement. Also got to see his condo just about fully done with renovations. This kid did amazing design work for it! Even the Designer he worked with - who also did our bathroom remodels in 2024 - said he had an great sense of taste and style, doing some things even she didn't think about..... Dinner was awesome, roast seasoned chicken (amazingly tender), dan dan noodles with a decent kick/spice, and sauteed and seasoned spinach. Watched Buckaroo Banzai (*) and listened to a bunch of music and just chatted. A really wonderful night! (*) I updated my LinkedIn profile to list my "new" job as Laser Engineer, Oscillation Overthruster Division at Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. That is the fictitious company in the movie. Only one person got it so I had to update my "About" section to tell people to Google it, and that I was retired.

Yesterday: Installed (functional) matching tie backs. Fixed hissing / pinprick leak in valve that caused rise from set point to edge of overflow by replacing entire valve assembly after replacing and lubricating just the washer valve failed to improve the situation. Now stays silently at set point. Today: Then: For the house. Replaced With one of For the 'fridge. I think I may deserve a Usual after all that.

I decided that it was time for a proper camera to capture the kids. My iPhone appears to have over-processed the shit out of this photo of the photo-taking tool.

You're an amazing person, Todd. Cheers! EDIT: And that was before I saw the other post. I'm at a loss for words. Thank you so much, Todd and everyone.

Thank you, Todd. This last post of yours helped me to recover some faith in the human race, which I’ve been losing for a few years now.

No worries at all! I had found your original comment funny too, but this is even better! BTW, forgot to mention that I even put "John" as my....nickname? And no one asked me about that as well! (For those that haven't seen the movie, the aliens, both good and evil/male and female) are all named John or some variant)

"Fly me to the moon..." https://www.twitch.tv/nasa Direct on Twitch. getting pretty big.

The Carpenters

Thirsty Barrel Taphouse Our Signature 6oz All-Grass-Fed Beef/Lamb patty with a twist! Stout Dijonnaise, Pomegranate Gastrique, Caramelized Onions, Chèvre Goat Cheese, and Arugula on a Brioche Bun + Pliny on tap & patty for the dogs.

Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp (2000) https://open.qobuz.com/album/u1lencfygsq0e Example: Some frapp for taco Tuesday.

Mushroom medley and leek pizza

Haters will saw it Photomeowshopped.

Oh, man....I just had a triggered flashback (no drugs involved!). My grandparents used to take us 3 boys out to an IHOP near their condo many (many) years ago. Tuesday nights were 2-for-1 pancake nights; always super-busy with lots of "opinionated" older people. I would often order a huge apple pancake, quite good and could never finish it so would have leftovers. One time, the waitress delivers my dish, and my grandmother practically jumps down her throat, saying "...it looks sick, bring a new one...." (it DID look like one of those above). I saw the harried and worried look on the waitress' face and told her to leave it, I'm sure it will be fine. Relieved, she did, and indeed it was fine. Later I got a nice smile and a mouthed "thank you" from her. Since then, I will always give the "first" pancake the benefit of the doubt 🙂 Funny the stuff one remembers.....I must have all of like 10 or 11 years old.

^^ Because it's a goddamn brilliant camera. I got to shoot with a D4S at work for a bit but have too much Sony stuff at this point to ever practically think about another system. Speaking of Sony, the A7V's 30fps is goddamn bonkers. Sounds like a Gatling gun but allows for capturing some pretty great shots even in mediocre hands. Edit - yes, that's Andrew with the glasses running the 800m today.

My kayak instructor from Chile is playing as “Granny’s Mason Jar” tonight. Good bluegrass.

Let's see how deep we can go into Chinese lens recreations. After success with several Light Lens Lab models, and reading/watching too many reviews on this, just ordered the even cheaper Mandler (named after Walter Mandler, the Leica and IMAX lens designer) 35mm F2 “7 elements” based on the Leica Summicron 35mm Type IV (KOB). We'll see.

Rush - Permanent Waves

I just really love this song so much. I was actually working on translating it to guitar, back when I played.

Alec's International Relations professor dug this up as the last time they had any good musical protests at SMU (not exactly UC Berkeley being in Texas and all) over a stupid war. Pity we have one.

Clafoutis, Katharine Hepburn's Brownies, Ice Cream, Nice Cup Of Tea, and Scrabble!

hot pot soup with tofu, daikon radish, regular(?) radish, bok choy, bell pepper guts...and a wee bit of chicken

Easter Brunch, Al Fresco

Nice program! Paganini also composed a set of variations to God Save the King

I will see your Brit Brunch and lower you an Irish Interlude.

Travelin McCourys Young Guns tour https://archive.org/details/travelinmccourys2026-04-09_202604 The Young Guns were a group of kids from 16 to 7 1/2. They were fantastic players who drove from all over the southeast to play last night, they'd never met each other before sound check.

Saw that on a Hannah short this morning.

No reference, just vibes.

🦃 🌶️ 🤖 🥒 🍆

Turkey Chilli with AI extra veggies PDF please? Turkey_Chili_Pierre_Franey_Customized.pdf

No work on the turbo encabulator, or the Rockwell retro encabulator? Dissapoint.

it is a shame that Nikon no longer has that in production. I think I counted about 23 times today that they said D5. ...earth...

Brit Brunch

Sorry, one more…

Merry White Easter from my cousin in MN...

So true!

This!

If, like previously, from memory without sheet music.

Super happy for you. Me: didn't die. Not even joking.

I mentioned in the rest in peace thread that DJ Dan died unexpectedly at 57. I did some digging. I was wrong when I said I did a 4 our set downstairs at RISE. It was 5 hours (1AM-6AM). The entire thing is on Mixcloud and has been since 2012. Mixcloud has fallen down the path of enshittificaiton in the last decade. The entire tracklisting is on the page, but only I can see it now. I don't have a copy (of the list) locally anymore. After entirely too much futzing: 1 Freeland - Wish I Was Here 2 Carmen Cuesta-Loeb - While My Guitar Gently Weeps 3 Bazille Noir - Big Time 4 Bally Sagoo - Dil Cheez 5 Funki Porcini - Dubble 6 Mr Scruff - Honeydew 7 Massive Attack - Karmacoma (Bumper Ball Dub) 8 Kid loco - She Woolf Daydreaming 9 Urban Species - Blanket 10 Tricky - YOU DONT 11 Waldeck - Floater (Dubblestandart mix) 12 Flight Facilities - Crave You (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix) 13 Freestylers - Cracks (Flux Pavillion remix) 14 John lennon - Imagine (Nicoluminous Remix) 15 Sofa Surfers - SEE THE LIGHT 16 Chin chillaz - Konkret 17 Death In Vegas - Rematerialised 18 Massive Attack - Teardrop (Phutureprimitive Remix) 19 Saafi Brothers - TOGETHER IN SILENCE 20 Kruder & Dorfmeister - Shakatakadoodub 21 Alex Cortiz - Chambre 606 22 The Delta - As A Child I Could Walk On The Ceiling (Dub Edit) 23 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan - Mustt Mustt (Duck Pond Dub Mix) 24 Shen - Embrace 25 NENEH CHERRY - Move With Me 26 Tycho - From Home 27 Pitch Black - The Random Smiler (Live) 28 Small World - Shuttle 3-5-8 29 J Boogie's Dubtronic Science - Le Booty Cinematique 30 Alex Cortiz - SMOOTH 31 Gary Jules - Mad World (Phutureprimitive Mix) 32 Andain - You Once Told Me 33 Sneaker Pimps - Six Underground (The Perfecto Dub) 34 Minuit - Except You 35 Minot - Distant Lights 36 Dj Food - 3 Pound Skank 37 Hol Baumann - Benares (live edit) 38 Pretty Lights - Hot Like Sauce Rustified Remix 39 Pretty Lights - Country Roads (Pretty Lights Remix) 40 Pretty Lights - Gold Coast Hustle 41 THIEVERY CORPORATION - The State Of The Union 42 THIEVERY CORPORATION - Lebanese blonde (French Version) 43 Hooverphonic - Club Montepulciano (Bugs Downtown Remix) 44 Nacho Sotomayor - Song for a Lonely Men (Part 1) 45 RJD2 - Ghostwriter 46 Shen - Symbol Range 47 Heyoka - Diesel 48 Statik Sound System - Valentine 49 The Smiths - How Soon Is Now 50 Planet E - Klub Kola (Uptight On The Rocks Mix) 51 Heyoka - Two Sea Blues 52 Ennio Morricone - L' Estasi Dell' Oro (Bandini Remix) 53 Depeche Mode - It's No Good 54 DNA feat Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner (12'') 55 Dj Food - Dark Lady 56 Beef Wellington - Tacet 57 BANCO DE GAIA - Qurna (Mister Christian on the Decks) 58 Leftfield - Inspection (Check One) 59 Heyoka - Shmazdipdoodlydurkayoda 60 Tosca - Mango di Bango 61 Bush - Letting The Cables Sleep (The N.O.W. Remix) 62 Baby Mammoth - Frank's Angels 63 Rabbit In The Moon - Dubassex 64 Jester - Free 65 Bullitnuts - Heavy Air 66 The cure - Burn 67 Neotropic - Here i am 68 Nightmares On Wax - You wish 69 Pretty Lights - Finally Moving 70 The Nomad - Check The Pitch It's a pretty good selection. TBH there are a few tracks in there I'd skip these days. IIRC it took me a solid week to program that set.

Unexpected sunset serenade on the ferry ride back.

When I've had time recently I've assembled a few more DIY electrostatic headphones: First off, the last of the Superex chassis I had in stock so I designed a new stator design for them: This has been a long running project to to make drivers and test the various aspects in a controlled housing. They are not ideal as they are mostly closed but I got a bunch of them for next to nothing years ago. New stators with some minor tweaks and a protective grill too: These are not really built for sound quality but to test different coatings, distortion tests on drivers and all that jive but still fun to have a pile of these here. Since the Superex is just a Beyerdynamic clone, I found some DT880's with blown drivers that could also work: The need to be modified internally a bit to open up the back but nothing major. Different stators on this one and the drivers have to be at a 45° angle to get it all to fit (not that it matters at all) but same basic idea as above Round them off with some nice leather pads, silicone 6 core cable and my new Stax plugs that I've been refining recently. These do sound better than the Superex shell as the backwave is more open. Finally, the second of those Kiwi Ears headphones was fitted with drivers: No major changes here except I didn't use the bayonet plate to fix the earpads, I rather slipped the stock pads over the lip of the housing which helped a lot Also some simple tweaks to ensure better baffle seal: Thick cloth tape here and it works nicely. These are okey sounding headphones for next to no money at all.

Leftover salmon with Jason Carter band opening. Walker theater in Chattanooga

Tonight, in the dark of West Marin. https://poeticruckus.org/ And their latest release, on vinyl, no less.

Halestorm. She really can belt it!