HeadphoneAddict

Got another call from the insurance company, after I had appealed their decision last week that our water damage claim was not covered. They looked more deeply into the wording of our policy (and other facts of the case) and agreed that since the sump pump "inside the house" had failed and lead to water getting inside, that they'll pay for the dry-out, clean-up, new carpet pad, drywall repair, and etc. So, we can instead focus on repairing and re-grading the landscape at the back of the house (still not cheap). Very thankful for their help, although I'm sure my rates will go up next year.

I still think that Apple doesn't put enough RAM in the baseline Macs to do them justice, and only 4GB is just silly. I'm amazed at how often I see our 16GB iMac or Macbook Pro Retina using up 8-12GB of RAM after running multiple apps over a few days. Sure the OS can "function" with only 4GB but it's clearly slowed down when you have insufficient RAM and more than 1-2 apps loaded. These Macs have always had 16GB so I can't attest to the improvement there from the extra RAM, I just got 16GB to make them a little more "future proof". But I've seen a big improvement in my son's late 2008 Macbook Pro by increasing it from 4GB to 8GB early last year (the max). That RAM plus an Hybrid HD make it run about as quick as our daughter's 8GB 2012 Macbook Pro with std HD - at least in every day tasks. The newer models still convert audio and video files 2x as fast, or zip files faster. But responsiveness and launch times on the old Mac improved noticeably with both more RAM and with a hybrid HD. In an effort to avoid using an external drive for their iTunes library the kids agreed to a slower 750GB HD over a smaller SSD. But with iTunes in the cloud and iTunes Match I'd be okay with a smaller SSD for the additional speed.

As in the Beeeely from Chicago? (our nickname for him)

Glad you guys talked me out of this amp a while back, and anything built by Hennyo. Couldn't be happier than I am with my DIY KGSS and KGBH.

I've heard that the Apple Genius will help if you're screwed/bricked by their iOS software update, even if warranty is out. Might be true. Thanks. Will it let me pick a scene from the home video to make appear as the cover art?

Done

Hoping Quest can be treated medically, non-invasively. I had a himalayan cat with epilepsy that was successfully treated with phenobarbitol.

Wow that sucks - I have many home movies and ripped DVD's that I need the title to show up. Have you found a solution? Try setting up as a new device, and then once it's running try restoring the backup.

Thanks, that's very informative.

The two girls are off at school. Ben was here to help, and was so tired that he missed the first hour of school today. I actually borrowed a portable sump pump from the neighbor, but it didn't work. Our buried home sump pump kicked the circuit breaker last night and we think that's part of why the water didn't drain out of the window well. I didn't realize that had happened, until we checked the pump again about an hour after the 1st time we checked. We got it turned back on after the sand bags and wadding were in place, and the alarm and pump came back online and the window well did drain much faster. I still think we'll have to re-grade the ground at the back of the house, and add a sump pump to the window well just in case. It was terrifying that it was filling up faster than we could fill buckets and dump them out. We could have used a garden hose as a siphon and it wouldn't have been a fat enough pipe. Meanwhile it hasn't stopped raining yet = Non-stop, or at least we assume so because it was pouring down when we went to bed at 3AM and still going when we got up at 7AM. I called the insurance company this AM, and my agent will check on this for me. But she thinks that water from the outside isn't covered and water from inside like a broken pipe is covered. I need to call her back about the sump pump circuit breaker kicking in. My neighbor discovered it when we went to check the sump pump. So I do have a witness about that happening, as well as the text message that power was interrupted. Before I left to buy sandbags I unplugged everything from the wall, and my neighbor came over to evacuate the basement. We can see that the one AC socket next to the window did spark after getting wet. So it could have been dangerous with power still on. I know that El Paso County is a declared federal disaster area, but our block may not be included because we're up high on the mountain, although at the bottom of the mountain had bad flooding. Thanks - because of this I did call the insurance company back to report the above sump pump failure. PS: THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE SUPPORT. I know things could have been much worse. I shudder to think if the water had made it everywhere - I have 6,000 patient medical records and tons of medical books sitting on the floor on the opposite far end of the basement, and all our camping gear, and a bazillion boxes from things we bought that we saved and would have turned to mush. The PS3, PS2, and apple TV were only 1" off the ground, and we got those out along with all the headphone gear. The cable box, DVD, and AVR were only 12" off the ground. So mostly it would have just been a royal pain in the ass. As it is, just hooking everything back up will be a pain, but not insurmountable. Except I'm too sore to move now, after all the sandbagging and shoveling.

Yeah, I have been planning to thin the herd a bit - but can't decide what to keep. Prior to this disaster I wasn't really "needing" to sell anything, but didn't like having so much gear that I can't use it all. Each piece of gear on the table does something that another piece can't do - the KGBH makes the 009 or HE-60 kick like a dynamic headphone, the KGSS is a jack of all trades, the EF6 makes the HD800 kick like a dynamic headphone, the ZDT offers refinement and space that I don't get from the EF6, etc... Sigh... I am still amazed that the window didn't pop and let a flood of water into the basement - it was holding about as much water as our hot tub spa, like maybe 500 gallons! It leaked just enough to get the wall and floor wet, but I had my power supplies and power conditioner just 3" off the floor before we moved them. My son was in the window well and bailing it out with a 5 gallon bucket, but had to get out when the water was up to his shoulders!

Oh, and Comcast went down in the storm - we have no internet, cable or telephone. I'm using my iPad mini as a mobile hotspot...

Nobody is safe from flooding. We don't live in a flood zone. We live high up on Cheyenne Mountain with NORAD in our back yard. Yet, the rain was so bad today that we just spent the last 5 hours clearing out the basement and bailing out water from a flooded basement window well. At one point the window well was COMPLETELY FULL of water to the top, and the window was bulging inward but it didn't implode! We had a torrent of water coming down the hill and past our house, right into our back yard. This 6 foot deep "swimming pool" in the window well was leaking into the basement around the window and from behind the drywall, ruining the drywall and soaking the carpet. The window well casement or barrier is going to need to be torn out and reinstalled, as will the window, and we're going to have to fix the grading in the landscape and re-do everything so this doesn't happen again. My wife and I, our son, and two neighbors were tearing out our rock landscaping to make drainage ditches to divert the water away from the house. We had to do a bucket brigade to clear water out of the window well, and put up sandbags, and finally got things under control. The company that built our house in 2005 apparently did a terrible job with the grading of the lot, and it's going to take a lot of work to fix it. We now have thousands of dollars of damage to the basement. I was able to save over $24,000 in headphone gear, and will have to sell about half of it to pay for the house repairs since we don't live in a flood plain and don't have flood insurance. Most of our disposable income is now writing checks for two kids in college. This sucks big time. I should be happy that the gear was cleared out before the window could burst - the KGBH, KGSS, ZDT, EF6, PWD Mk2, Nuforce CDP-8, Nuforce STA-100 amp with WEE, Emotiva BDP-1 amp with SRD-7 Pro, Audioengine D2 DAC & Airport express, NAD 555 Turntable, Stax SR-009 and SR-007, and HE-60 are safe. While I was out buying sandbags my neighbor came over and disconnected all my headphone gear and put it all on top of the pool table, and we moved it upstairs.

Nice watch. My wish list includes a Patek Philippe Nautilus.

Pebble looks nicer than the Kreyos, which has a benefit of being a BT speaker phone. I considered the Martian watch too, but the Kreyos I can clip to clothing like a 6th gen Nano. I'm hoping Apple will make a decent BT smart watch, since the Samsung is ridiculous. My Citizen Proximity BT watch is pretty much useless. Yeah, I get alerted for a call, and alarm, or an email, but then I have to dig the phone out of my pocket to anything else. It doesn't do anything with SMS at all. It's only useful for BT because many times I can't feel the silenced phone vibrate in my cargo pants pocket, but I can feel the watch vibrate. At least it's a decent looking watch.

Sorry for your loss. When we inherited Greystone when my wife's father passed away 2 years ago, we had to guess he was 12 years old and his kidneys were starting to fail. He's gone 2 more years knock on wood, but it's time for another checkup. Meanwhile he's not been able to gain weight and is still very skinny at 7 lbs. We're all very attached to him, and wish there was a way to help all our pets last as long as we do.

New Hamilton Swiss Automatic - great bang for the buck, even with an ETA 2824 movement. Much less expensive than other Swiss watches with the same movement, and offers a vintage look that reminds me of my previous 50 year old Rolex or a vintage Omega.

Yeah, a manual wind Speedmaster Pro is on my "to do"list.

I guess my watch collection is a little bit silly, as I have few quality pieces although many are decent sub $1000 watches. Top Left are my Casio Tough Solar and Solar Protrek Alt/Baro/Temp/Compass plus a Pulsar titanium solar. Bottom Left are mostly imitation watcheslike Speedmaster Pro moon watch, Rolex Miligauss, Brietling Navitimer, Tag Carrera, a cheap Invicta and Citizen field watch chronograph Bottom Middle are Victorinox, Tag Classic, Luminox, Citizen 300M, Citizen 5430, Stuhrling Original 200M and Nautica day date - Bottom right are Citizen Proximity, Citizen 5250 Titanium, Rolex Submariner real and fake, Seiko SKX173, Orient Mako, Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 007 (fake), Lucien Picard. This doesn't include the watch I'm giving my son, or some $20 Casio's. Uploaded with ImageShack.com

Yeah, there are definitely people out there that enjoy embarrassing people or making them feel bad about a fake watch. i think I did it accidentally once and I felt awful, when I commented on a co-worker's beautiful Submariner and mentioned that I could only afford a fake, only to notice later that he made an effort to keep the watch covered up with his sleeve the rest of the time we were together. I suspect that he didn't want me to detect that it was a fake. Sigh... Foot in mouth comes easy to me. I've been happy with a wide variety of inexpensive watches since my granddad's Rolex was stolen from me. I really like my Seiko SKX173 and Citizen Titanium 5250-53L perpetual calendar chronograph, as well as my newer Citizen 300M dive watch and Orient Mako. The Mako might be the best bang for the buck in an automatic dive watch with a true manufacture movement. I have several other Citizen eco-drive watches, including an inexpensive field chronograph, the Proximity BT watch (don't bother), and a discontinued Citizen 5430-51H which is my dressiest looking watch. I'm usually not dressed up nice enough to wear such a shiny watch, and plan to gift that one to my son or brother. When the Citizen Titanium was discontinued I bought a spare because I liked it so much. My son covets the watch and it may end up being his when he receives this Eagle Scout award soon. Last year I discovered a source for Chinese automatic watches that were decent imitations of Omega, Breitling and Rolex, and bought a few. Half of them were defective right off the bat. But the ones that worked tell time well, but they are meaningless watches. So I wanted some Swiss watches and bought a Luminox 1842 and Victorinox. I didn't know much about watch manufacturer history and the watch snob would have berated me for my collection of mostly quartz watches. A Hamilton or Baume and Mercier automatic might have been a more decent budget Swiss watch to the snob, but I like the style and build quality on these two. As I mentioned before, I only got the Rolex Submariner to have an heirloom watch to hand down to my son, a watch that I've worn and he can connect to for that reason. I would have passed down my granfather's oyster perpetual stainless from the 70’s but the portable fire safe it was stored in was stolen from my garage when I got careless. I've got a nicer 80lb safe in the house that's really hard to move, but it's still only rated for 30 minutes for documents. I store the Rolex in there overnight, and wear it during the day. Since the lume is not glowing anymore I grab my Citizen off the windowsill and the hands glow all night long. GRAWK - I love the look of the orange strap you have on the "Rolex", as they pair well together. The cyclops magnification looks good, despite the suspect crown-guards from the perspective in the photo. Unfortunately the more recent photo shows the wrong font in the date window. On another note - the watch shop that sold me the Rolex has several places that can restore the lume on the Submariner, for $50-$100. He restores a few Rolexes himself, but outsources the lume work. He can also replace the dial/face with a newer used one while letting me keep the original just in case, or he can have Rolex provide a new face with an exchange of the old one plus cash. He's going to call me back early this week with a complete range of prices. I didn't hear that the lume-restoration hurts the value of a vintage watch, but that it's the replacement of the entire original dial that hurts it.

Umm, it would be embarrassing.

I would love to contact your watch restorer about having the lume re-done on my Submariner - after 30 years it also doesn't light up at night, just like yours. Can you PM me his info? I now wonder if the Bezel on mine was replaced at some point after the original purchase, because the single dot does retain some glow with a bright flashlight, although not for very long. Also, does a partial refurb like this (lume) reduce the value of a vintage watch?

Hmmm, just discovered that my imitation Rolex bracelet has a safety clasp and a working diving extension.

So I found that it's really hard to get good photos showing the genuine Submariner and the imitation Rolex side by side, because of the distortion from the camera lens up close and from reflections of light and other objects in the crystals. You can see the cyclops on the imitation Rolex on the left has a lot less magnification than the genuine watch on the right. Also, the crown guards on the imitation overlap the base of the crown. What you can't see in the photos is that the imitation watch has a 60 click bezel, and the genuine watch has 120 clicks. Some of the other visible differences could be due to the imitation being modeled after a newer generation watch, such as the wider hands or larger hour marker dots. The newer watch style doesn't have holes on the outside of case for the pins to attach the bracelet, while my older watch does. Otherwise the imitation watch is an automatic and keeps pretty decent time, but the hands have fewer steps per second in their sweep around the face. Uploaded with ImageShack.com

The watch is real. It's a circa 1983 Submariner with the 3035 movement, and Rolex band. The cyclops viewed at an angle still shows the Rolex's larger magnification factor vs all the fakes out there. I have a very nice looking fake as well, and its cyclops hardly magnifies at all. The fakes usually have too much material at the base of the crown guards as well. I'll post a photo of the two together later. I have never worn the fake out in public, because anyone in the know can tell it's a fake because of the cyclops. The watch shop has sold me several watches over the past year (Citizen, Victorinox, Luminox, etc) and dropped the price on this one slowly over the past two months of haggling, from $5,495 to $4,495. I still had $3,800 from the insurance company last year to replace my stolen oyster perpetual that my grandfather had given me. I haven't had a chance to adjust the band but it's very easy to do. Although I do tend to like to wear my metal bracelet watches slightly loose, this is still too loose (as is the TAG Classic I bought from Marc that I need to adjust). I actually prefer the feel of a leather strap, but the look of a metal bracelet.