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I am officially fucking re-tired....and retired. A wonderful last week of work, topped off by a small celebration with some team members, and our CIO (blond-haired woman). The first couple of my cube, with the obligatory note that - as of today - everything is now MY fault. But a shirtload of notes on multiple cards and extra pieces of paper. I ended up topping the night off with a call with a hometown friend. She is a troubled soul and needed a supporting voice. We talked until 3:30am this morning! I wish I could do more to help people, but being a good listener and supporter is good for now.

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

My nephew is doing a space walk (his first, the woman he's doing it with is on her fourth)! Live link, think it will be saved as well: Trying to watch while at work, very cool stuff!

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.

Yumi was out of town for 8 days last week. I guess the cats were so lonely they started bonding (they are from the same litter - 2018). This never happens!

Shee-it. I went to Chicken Alley today and they had an Apple A1407 Thunderbolt display for $28, sold "as is" because they had no means to test it. I lugged it home and worked perfectly. The only part I can't quite figure out is which revision this one is. It has a physical latch that blocks off the webcam. Every other version of the Thunderbolt Display that I've owned has lacked this feature.

I don't normally do birthday greetings for long absent Head-casers, but noticed that @Duggeh turned 40 today. Seems like only yesterday that he was a young Scottish squire experimenting with large obscure headphones. If you happen to see this, then I hope you are well, Duggeh, and would love to hear tales of your middle age! Cheers!

Even this guy gets the role.

Saturday was Pie Day so we had previously agreed to celebrate this week. So tonight I made but did not bake Taco Pie and also made the crust (and did bake) for a Chocolate Chess Pie.

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.

Mexican night in NH. Enchiladas Verdes Cilantro-Lime Rice

Calling him a cunt is too kind. RIP Bob Mueller

Rode 20 miles with a fair amount of climbing in the heat today and felt like I had done something. But then I watched the 150th Milano - Torino race that was a bit longer with more climbing. Oh well. HBO Max and Peacock have way more cycling during the classics season than was available here before and I watch lots of it.

Sweet Italian sausage and leek Detroit pizza

Finished this morning, devoured at work.

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.

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

Well deserved time to rest and focus on yourself -- even though you started by helping someone else! You'll always be a mensch, which is one of your many great traits. Cheers on joining the formerly employed! 🎊

It's an interesting unit Not the sharpest thing in the world, but it focuses quickly. The out of focus areas are warm and fuzzy, so it has good bork-eh. Probably best used outdoors.

Katsu tofu with Japanese curry

Funny you should mention that. We finally did the surrender of the vehicle and got our check -- even though the "transfer agent" didn't have the check at first. Apparently it was sent before our prior appointment date and the agent went and found it after completely pissing me off telling us there was no check in her paperwork. Anyway, thanks for all the good wishes everyone!

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.

A few roadside graffiti snaps from two mostly grey days on a recent trip to Monument Valley and Route 66, that aren’t at Monument Valley or on Route 66. Colors are from the SL2 (CV 50mm f/1 Nokton) and monochrome the M9M (LLL 28 f/2.8 9E). Final two are with the Sigma BF (24mm f/2 Contemporary). I need more road trips in my life.

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

If, like previously, from memory without sheet music.

Welcome to the club. We are currently sitting in the Phoenix airport waiting for our son’s flight to land. Oh and we are both drinking a beer because what is a better deal than airport beer.

Here are a couple of posts in Audio Asylum from the late Mr. Charles Hansen (founder of Avalon speakers and later Ayre electronics) where he illustrated the history and inner working of HDCD. There are many more related posts you can find in Audio Asylum. I found them both educational and very interesting read. https://www.audioasylum.com/audio/digital/messages/18/184385.html https://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=digital&n=184436&highlight=HDCD+pacific+charles+hansen&search_url=%2Fcgi%2Fsearch.mpl%3Fsearchtext%3DHDCD%26b%3DAND%26topic%3D%26topics_only%3DN%26author%3Dcharles%2Bhansen%26date1%3D%26date2%3D%26slowmessage%3D%26sort%3Dscore%26sortOrder%3DDESC%26forum%3DALL

Turned This: Into This: Because: This:

Martin L. Kennedy, the main man behind the Australian space rock project All India Radio has a very nice kitty.

I had a leftover crust, so tonight I decided to make spinach-bacon quiche so I'd have something good for breakfast.

Happy Birthday Al!, Last year's prompts, this years images, plus a bonus image incorporating your recent car troubles!

Shepherd's Pie...sort of -- used ground turkey instead of lamb and beef culinary stock, but otherwise...NAILED IT! It came out delicious. Didn't overwhelm with any one particular spice (I'm looking at you, the usual suspects garlic and black pepper), but it was sweet and savory and the carrots came out perfectly al dente...just...(chef's kiss)... Yes, I realize I'm kissing myself.

Happy PI Day

Brit Brunch

Also hung some non functional "decorative" curtains.

Few more from the interwebz via my drive. The one about chocolate I especially love because it is SO much Karen - sent it to her sisters and one said she cried she laughed so hard.

Rain starts again tonight, so burning through some of my newly split logs. So another gift smoke - 5 Vegas Classic. - nice. ...and as much as I may miss some of my trees, I am really enjoying additional sky access.

Previously: One day lad, all this will be yours. What, the curtains?

Shepherd's Pie from Dogfish Head Alehouse

Update - woke up to 2" of new snow. It is time for winter to end.

One of those songs that sneaks up on you gradually. Robert Quine (Voidoids, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, Tom Waits) on guitar.