MexicanDragon

**BRENT**

I had insurance through K... I can get it through work now for everyone, but not sure if I can get it. Thankfully, Open Enrollment is this week, so worst case, I'll get it Jan1, but I SHOULD be able to get something sooner. I just hate the the coverage isn't as good, co-pays, deductibles, and max out-of-pocket is higher, coverage levels lower, and the cost is about 2/3rds higher/pay period. The hospital I had the surgery at isn't covered period, and I found out that no hospitals in Nashville (2 hours away) take the insurance. I work at an insurance company in TN. Tennessee is in the NAME, yet their coverage isn't good in the state's capital? Yeah... **BRENT**

I'm medically uninsured, yes. I should be able to get insurance again soon, worst case, January, it just won't be as good as what I had, OR as inexpensive. I wish I would have had more notice than 11 hours... kids have dentist appointments that could have been moved up if given a week's head's up. Grrrr... The kids have a back-up insurance, but it's nowhere near as good as what paid for my back surgery, and a bunch of other stuff the past 5 years. **BRENT**

I woke up to find the screen on my CR-48 (Google laptop) is shot because someone closed it with a pair of IEMs between the keyboard and screen. This was on top of a horrible day yesterday (I'm uninsured as of Midnight last night), and my baller cellphone plans are going away in 6 more days. Today was also the first day of not having the FMLA option at work, and they call mandatory overtime for the rest of the week. Luckily I was able to call the doc and get a bunch of prescriptions called in before insurance ended (an abrupt stop), so nabbed enough pain meds to get me through 2-3 months, if need be. Fun fun, no? **BRENT**

:whale: **BRENT**

XBOX 360

The stuffed toys are awesome. Seems her site went down so she had to open up tumbler. Not taking any more orders til Jan 1, 2012, but I'm tempted to send something in. **BRENT**

**BRENT**

Yeah, it was that messed up. My buddy's friend/BMW Certified Mechanic wound up doing the work. Feels great now, and probably 1/3rd to 1/4 the price of having BMW do it. The rear main seal was leaking, the clutch master cylinder was leaking hydraulic fluid (shared reservoir with brake fluid, iirc). It was a mess. The clutch slave cylinder was 30$ tops, and may or may not have needed replacing. My buddy has owned and raced BMWs much of his life, and he knows I was on a tight budget. If it was done, it needed to be done. Still, all the OEM parts at dealer cost is VERY nice. I know one part at a local pep boys was 141 if you walked in the store. $55 shop price. Wasn't OEM, and for 6$ more, I threw down. **BRENT**

I just renewed my Audible Platinum subscription to get "Steve Jobs". Going to start listening to it at work tomorrow. Trying to decide between "Bossypants" by Tina Fey, "God, No: Signs You May Already Be An Atheist and Other Magical Tales" by Penn Jillette, "Public Parts" or "What Would Google Do" by Jeff Jarvis, or "In The Plex" by Steven Levy. Any recs out of those (or others?) **BRENT**

Don't you hate when you triple post? **BRENT**

Don't you hate when you double post? **BRENT**

Don't you hate when you type up a big post and then your comp crashes? Anyways, my subscription to the thread isn't working for some reason, so I miss this for weeks at a time. Here's some of the stuff I've gotten since just before the surgery. http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/LX.RHM02.029 Picked this up the weekend before my surgery to replace the windows machine that died in June. The specs don't mention USB3.0 or S/PDIF out, but it's there. At 33% off and tax free locally, hard to resist. Instead of posting the pics again, I'll just list the other stuff. Nirvana - Nevermind Deluxe 20th Anniversary 2-disc CD Wilco - The Whole Love Deluxe Edition Oxycodone - A crapload Hydrocodone - A lot Morphine Sulate - A little Mini-S/PDIF -> S/PDIF cable from Monoprice Denon DA-500 and Trends UD-10 if I didn't mention it previously Incase CL55197 Messenger bag. 70% off or so on a sale one day. Was supposed to have free next day shipping, wound up being 2 month shipping. The thing is huge, but carries the laptop in the back pocket and an iPad in a folio in a zippered pocket in the front. Sold RS-1s to cover the laptop (with some leftover) and came across some HD580/600 grills/650 cable for a smokin' deal from someone who was drunk in the chat. I also bought a new clutch, pressure plate, throwout bearing, clutch master cylinder, clutch slave cylinder, rear main seal, and assorted odds and ends to put it all together for my car. (Luckily I have a buddy with a shop, but that whole "fast, cheap, good; pick two" adage holds true. I chose the two latter. In the 8 weeks I was carless, I bought a lot of gas, lunches, and a few movie tickets for all the buddies who helped me out getting around, getting groceries, back and forth to work, and to help with getting my walker in and out of the car. Oh yeah, I also bought a walker, and a cane. Now, to buy my Halloween costume. I'm debating two cane-having costumes. Gregory House (complete with Vicodin bottle), or Winnie The Pimp. **BRENT**

Not the same amp. Full Orpheus rig and O2 Mk1s on an SRM-323S. The O2s seemed to do decently well as far as tone, but not quite there vs Orpheus. There was something with the imaging that wasn't quite there, at least on that album. SACD out of purk's Exemplar 5910, fwiw. Tom's system was great. The front to back imaging was crazy. The speakers were at least 6-7 feet from the back wall, but vocals were coming off the room treatment in the center. But yeah, we had a good time spinning some vinyl. I took a few albums down (all sealed). Wound up opening one. Tom cleaned it and told me it sounded really good/was well recorded (Foo Fighters - Medium Rare). He listened while we were out to dinner and I got back too late to take a listen, but there was some stuff that I was pretty familiar with. 3 heads in the room, all bobbing. I may have to head down again one day. No problem, Scott. I got it working in the home rig great. When I took it to the meeting, NOTHING worked. It took a long time to even get the Pico dac working, and WASAPI never even worked. It was rather frustrating, but oh well... I hooked up the iPad to everything and virtually everyone really dug it. iPad -> pico dac -> aripower -> HD580s... my work rig. It was so crazy at the meet I never even took my camera out. I did get some pics of Tom's rig I hope turned out well. I'll try to check it out tonight. **BRENT**

I went down to Tom Hankins' place last night and hung out with him and his wonderful wife Lyra. We spun some vinyl on Tom's very nice rig and then purk and fitz snuck up on us whilst we were all rockin' out. As Tom had to be at work early the next morning, the three of us headed out, along with purk's wife, and went out for some Chinese. I went from wanting Sweet & Sour Chicken to getting a Lamb Hot Pot, bbq combo (duck and two different pork varieties), some sort of S&S-esque slather bbq pork (fried-ish) that was great. Seemingly Hong-Kong-esque authentic food. Good choice, purk. Woke up today to find Tom sadly ill, but it was good to get to talk a little longer. After a light breakfast and saying adieu to Lyra I headed over to Purk's to listen to the Orpheus for the first time, the Qualias, and the O2s for a bit. 'Twas rather enjoyable, and it sounded great. I dug the Orpheus with the music I was listening to Time Out and Paul Desmond's sax on "Blue Rondo a la Turk" was just spot on. As an alto sax player, I'm not sure if I've ever heard as true of a representation of it as I heard today with the Orpheus. After that, we broke it down and packed up for the meet with the Audio-Video Club Of Atlanta. They do a headphone meeting every couple of years, but will probably bump it up to 18 months after today's successful turnout. (Their club is very interested in helping host a CanJam or large regional meet, if those will exist anymore). Of course, none of my gear is working right, but after an hour or so of fiddling I gave up on the comp rig and just ran the AriPower and M^3 off the Pico DAC out of the iPad. Everyone who heard it either thought it was pretty good or really liked it. I think some were even shocked when, after having a conversation earlier about how AIFF sounded so much better than ALAC, a few were surprised to hear a track I played them they that loved was actually a 256k AAC file. Had a great time in Atlanta with the boys, got to show some speaker guys how the headphone guys roll (even though we're into speakers as well). I heard HD800s in the 7th rig I've listened to them on, and I still have only liked them on one. After 4 hours on the road today, though, I'm about ready to pass out. **BRENT**

Heh. I was in Atlanta for a meet last night and all of today. I didn't really have access to wireless, and forgot to try to set up my team. Saw Deepak say something about A. Foster. "Name sounds familiar" I said to meself... So far, AF is up 5 points over Raffy's, who was predicted to win by 6. 'Twas a good day. I've won two in a row, Jeff is going to lose two in a row (or was it 3?) Playoffs, here I come. **BRENT**

Who needs Siri when you have Iris? **BRENT**

In the vane of Shelly, here's some advice. You want big, decent, blah blah blah... Check out some used Shure 840s. I'm not sure if you can get them where you're at within your budget new, but that will probably be a big step up from what you are after. If you're needing new, take a step down in quality and go with 440s. The PX100s she recommended are very good for the $$$, and well under your price ceiling, but they're lightweight portable cans that are open... not really what you're looking FWIW, this is usually more friendly of a bar if you bring a bottle of whisk(e)y older than you are... just some helpful advice. **BRENT** Oh yeah, just like on HF, I recommended cans I've never heard (840s and 440s). I own PX100s, though.

Thanks guys... I'll probably buy it tonight, maybe tomorrow morning, to try it out. Have a meet where I'm going to have a few rigs, and 2 (one home amp, one portable amp) running off a pico dac off an iPad. Wanna be able to play everything we throw at it. It's worth 10$ to me, as I have some stuff that only plays flac, as far as lossless/compressed goes. **BRENT**

Hey guys, is FLAC Player still the best way to, well, play FLAC on iOS? I know someone mentioned it here a while back, but not sure if there's anything better that's come out. Thanks. **BRENT**

@CB... I saw that posted on FB or G+ a couple days ago, I shoulda looked. Love it. Thx. **BRENT**

@Shelly + Al... maybe we should all pop Vicodin, get canes (already have mine), and go as House for Halloween. (There's a girl I work with who begged me to go as him... the popping Vicodin part works, the cane plays, not much different than usual here). You should get a sword cane, Shelly. Cold Steel makes one with an entertaining video as well. or @Al Hope the AIs help. Glad you got czeched out, though. And look on the bright side... gives you a good excuse to hire the movers to carry you in on a sofa while you direct them from your Throne Lounge. **BRENT**

I live in Chattanooga. These kids are jelly. **BRENT**

Sorry to hear, Shelly. I figure, have the surgery on 1/11/12, then bring in a comfy couch or something to chill on in your classroom. Make a grad student write the stuff on the board while you teach. Throw in a cane and some Vicodin and do a House impersonation. (Just my 2c). I went to a 2 month followup for my surgery today. The doctor is rather impressed at how much strength I've regained. Still have degraded responses to the hammer->knee thing, and also to the lower leg, but it happens. The surgeon seems to think that I'll still have some permanent numbness and tingling, but it seems like it's a good thing that I can still walk and/or not have to wear Depends. One thing I did find out today was the diagnosis. If they said it when I first went there, I didn't remember... the pain was at it's height. I had them write it down today, because I knew I'd forget. Cauda Equina. Doctors out there, anyone care to fill me in beyond WebMD and Wikipedia? Seems like it's pretty serious. On the bright side, harkening back to one of Shelly's concerns about futureproofing one's body, it seems that it's incredibly rare that CES resurfaces. http://www.webmd.com/back-pain/guide/cauda-equina-syndrome-overview Again, g'luck, Shelly. And Al, go get your hip looked at. You can always NOT get treatment, you know... **BRENT**