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I have a Cousin from Texas that I've had a rocky relationship with. I attended his wedding when we were both 18. I loved his wife. She had the ability to find humor in bad situations and disarm people with laughter. Honestly she was the sole reason that my Cousin and I had any shred of a relationship. He belonged to an odd and small church. I believed them to be a cult. We got along fine as kids and later when I was in Texas my first year of college. Once I came out that changed. He wasn't aggressive about it, just believed like so many that I had made some type of choice, and would be going to hell because of that. I didn't correspond with him for many years. Later, while I was commercial fishing in Alaska, I took my Mom on a trip during my two months off. We flew to Seattle, rented a car and slowly made our way to Walnut Creek, CA. to visit a good friend. During that trip she told me that my Cousin David was battling cancer. He was stationed in Merced, CA in the military. She wanted to visit him. Honestly I would rather have eaten a gallon of earthworms, but I could see the concern in my Mother's eyes and in her voice. So we made the short trip to Merced. He was gracious and I felt sorry for his situation. At the same time, I had met his 4 y.o. Son for the first time. As boys will do, he quickly decided to see if I was friend or foe and within minutes was treating me like a jungle Jim. I could see the concern in David's face. My Mom tried to explain to him that I loved kids and was happy to entertain his Son as they caught up. What my Mom couldn't understand and what I understood immediately was that the concern was not about the boy annoying me. It was a look I'd come to know all too well when innocent child play meets adults that equate gay men with pedophiles. I was absolutely fuming inside, but kept my feelings hidden. Then just like on command his wife Shirley recognized his distress and immediately put me at ease while making him look ridiculous all at the same time. She invented new games and initiated more roughousing between us. I loved that woman! My Mother completely oblivious to the whole interaction. Honestly, she made my uncomfortable trip fun and I chuckled to myself about her understanding and good nature. I had seen them on a half dozen occasions or so while in Texas. Especially when first our Grandmother took ill. And again later with our Grandfather. Fast forward to about a year ago and his wife Shirley passed away quickly and unexpectedly after a massive heart attack. She was his whole world and again I found myself feeling sorry for him. Then about 6 months ago or thereabouts he called me out of the blue. He told me he was planning to visit his Son in California. The same Son. We had developed a friendship, while he and his Father had become estranged. I had built the Son Logan a custom gaming desk when he was a teen, and we shared several interests and ideologies. Anyway, David called and asked if he could drive up and see me after visiting his Son in Arizona. I almost said no thanks, but my Mom hadn't been gone for that long and I thought about how that would've made her happy. So I once again uncomfortably agreed. He visited for two days. We went to his favorite winery in Sonoma, had a few meals together and I honestly had fun. He seemed a bit lost but had plans to travel some and was in generally good spirits. I can't ever remember laughing with him more than those two days. And he fell in love with my dog Maki. Financially he was in a good place. Owned several rental homes. A nice home in San Antonio, TX and a summer home in Cloudcroft, NM. About a week ago I got a call from my favorite Aunt (his Mom was a fun Aunt too, but had passed a year or so before my own Mother). She informed me that they had found him in one of his rental homes. He had committed suicide and had been dead a few days. I was shocked! He just didn't seem the type to ever even consider suicide. We weren't the best of friends and he was full on MAGA, but I am really glad that I welcomed him out to visit. R.I.P. David Christiansen I'm not a religious person. I don't believe in a God. But I'm smiling a little bit thinking that he's just entering his "heaven", and it's full of rainbow flags. They've assigned Harvey Firestein to be his guide and mentor.

Who cares what the Maryland State Fair awards it's photography prizes to, but for your enjoyment... ‘With 850 photographs submitted this year, Chamelin says it is difficult for volunteers to determine how every entry was made. He claims that he did not know that AI had been used to modify Alston’s photograph when it was submitted into the competition.’

Vienna Teng, Inland Territory Music on TIDALVienna Teng - Inland TerritoryListen to Inland Territory on TIDAL in exceptional sound quality, or on your choice of service(Super smooth transition from Camille, by the way.)

As I am fond of saying, the size queens have a point.

I managed to get Docker installed on the Debian box. It only took a couple tries. The current problem I am having is getting Pihole installed with Docker. When I paste the command into console, I get an error about NTP (Network Time Protocol) not being installed. I'm still trying to figure out why I am getting that particular error. So far the search results have been conflicting. Aslo, I own Ubuntu an apology. It was not the OS's fault that it could not connect to my M4 Mini file server. The M4 was being a bitch and refusing to play SMB with any non-Mac. A reboot of it later, and it's working fine. This means that the "old enough to get its learner's permit" mid-2010 Mini is actually a useful device. Given the current state of gestures broadly that's not a bad thing. I am actually considering installing Ubuntu on my other micro PC, which was my W11-based TV box ...until I decided I could no longer stand Windows for anything except for video games.

1 hour and 48 minutes of new Camille! Lots of vocal overdubs with minimal additional musical accompaniment. Music on TIDALCamille - The Sound of MilkListen to The Sound of Milk on TIDAL in exceptional sound quality, or on your choice of serviceUnholy carp, I recognized the bass from two decades ago.

Sorry for the TL;DR, but this one is big for me. Short version: seek out Vienna Teng, she is a beautiful human being that plays wonderful music. A soul-filling day & evening this past Friday. My friend Melissa and I saw Vienna Teng in my hometown of Marblehead MA. In the afternoon, she hosted a Climate Change "Workshop" (she has an advanced degree in the subject). It wasn't a doom and gloom that I almost expected, but actually a bit inspirational and hopeful. We all came out with ideas and one or more things to put into practice. The evening show was just stunning! A solo show but she used things like tape loops, vocoder-style & voice duplication choral effects, etc., to make it seem a bit larger. She has one song that I actually emailed and talked with her about to request she play, called The Last Snowfall. A short but lovely song that made me think of Karen. In the weeks before she passed, we were talking about her two sisters coming up from different parts of NY state. A snowstorm was forecasted, and I was telling them they didn't need to drive in it. Karen - who did not love Winter - smirked a bit and said she wouldn't have to worry about snow or Winter anymore. A bit of humor in some pretty fucking dark times. Vienna played the song, dedicated it to me and in memory of Karen. Tears were falling, and my friend Melissa was kind enough to provide some tissues. We both loved the show and everything about the day, and remarked that just her presence and words & music raises good feelings and hope. Got a pic and a hug after the show. Quite the gift she has! Link to the video of The Last Snowfall: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FotpPHUgl_pvTJi_cdYRL3fMWtfpAbk1/view?usp=sharing Other pics, of the workshop and show.

RIP Duncan Sheik I have a song in my head that I thought was written/performed by him, but cannot find it in my searching. But another loss of a talented singer/songwriter....

Each of his three marriages has been to a model. The mind boggles.

!!!!!

RIP Gerrit

Gerrit Graham, ‘Phantom of the Paradise’ Actor and Grateful Dead Collaborator, Dies at 77

Patio dining with the Brits.

Yesterday I listened to a couple new hard rock releases: Playgrounded, A Flower to Water Villagers of Ioannina City, Venceremos Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats, Shapes of Midnight

Bill Evans - The Paris Concert: Editions 1 & 2 Full (Edition 2 starts at 53:04)

NPR editor and reporter (mostly culture and arts) Rose Friedman dies at 38 from cancer. Fuck cancer. NPREditor Rose Friedman, who helped shape NPR's cultural cov...Friedman was in her early 20s when she landed her first position as an editorial assistant at NPR. She became an editor and reporter, and a co-creator of the annual Books We Love reading guide.

Autechre, Wolfgang Voigt's Gas, and Squarepusher mentioned by one of my heroes, Steven Wilson One of us one of us one of us

First new cat species discovered in a hunnert years! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdZki9zi3nc/

More goodness from Joseph Crowe Audio.

New Rodrigo y Gabriela

Is the HE-1 2.4um? Odd thickness that, as I believe DCA also use it for their sets. I just hate working with anything less than 2um and I have so much of the stuff, so that is what I use. As for the bias, any change in that will make a difference but higher bias is always better but comes with its own challenges. There is no benefit from using 230V and the SR-Lambda has its own reasons to sound the way it does, nothing to do with the bias. Blaming the diaphragm thickness for how something sounds is also very misguided, I adore the HE60 (which uses the same diaphragm material) and I also really like the Lambda Signature, again 1um. It's all about the driver tuning and what sound you are after. My issue with the HE90 was always the utter lack of meaningful bass output at certain spots and that's down to how they were tuned. Btw. the "clones" are now in a fully redesigned version of the housing (well I've sent out for a newer one still to be made) and fitted onto a NOS headband. First prototypes of the metal backs are also ready and look great. Just have to be fitted to the new housings when they arrive. Parts for the DIY headband are also en route and we'll see if that design actually works. Also probably the final prototypes of the "axles" so I should get them properly made soon. Those who know the HE90, know those are bloody expensive tiny pieces of plastic. Also new spacers, dust cover pieces and a redesigned stator too... Now fitted with real HE90 earpads and they have no reason to sound this good. Far from perfect but I'd take these anyday over the original. Still a tiny bit on the bright side and with a bit of a midbass hump Now I just need to make of these "clones" and cram a Stax Lambda driver in it. That upset so many people I kinda have to do it again...

Further update. At most turns, Ubuntu seems a bit more user. It has more useful things installed (it's also a much bigger installer, 3.4GB vs ~750MB.) The GNOME GUI is much nicer than ...whatever ships with Debian. Ubuntu gives you sudo access by default. On Debian I had to su and then enter a command I needed to google to add my account to the sudo list. Then I had to reboot log out and log in again. This might be no big deal for seasoned linux neckbeards users, but I had to learn and muddle through every step. Shout out to Proton VPN for being super Linux friendly. They have a whole page dedicated to installing their client, with easily copyable commands to make things go. On the not so plus side, Ubuntu could connect to my M4 Mini server's file system easily. Thus far, Ubuntu has refused to. I need to install flatpk next...