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Further along in converting the garage to a proper shop, they poured the concrete for the foundation wall today. I had to leave a mark while it was still wet...

And...it's done. We'll, the concrete part. Steve and I need to build a wall, put in doors and a window, get a little electrical done, and then start making sawdust again. This time with a serious dust collection system and air filter in place.

Retirement is like a permanent vacation. Albeit mostly a staycation. “Up North” for a week of leaf peeping, hiking and discovery. Nicest cabin I have ever stayed in.

I built my sister a redwood clad mailbox stand Then Steve and I tried to dig post holes in dry, compacted dirt before hiring a guy named Sergio to do that task. We set the posts with a high tech expanding foam product made by Sika that worked great. It is in a bag with two bladders that you pop to combine and then pour in the hole. It works very fast and was set in three minutes. No bracing and waiting for concrete to set.. The best part is that Home Depot had marked down these bags from $10 to $2.38 and when I checked out they were rung up as $0.01 each. Two cents for footings is pretty cheap.

Some impression of X9000 I would like to share Mine is the first batch in Japan. Serial number is #6. I have it delivered to Australia immediately after launch and receive it today. As my system is incomplete at the moment. There are quite a few good cables coming (Odin 2, Stealth Dream etc). This is only a brief introduction of my first impression of X9000. My setting is: Source: Jeff Rowland Aeris Power conditioner: ISOTEK TITAN + NOVA GII Amp: BHSE (Mullard XF3, Philips Metal Base EL34 Disk Getter), SRM-T8000 (Stock Tube) Reference Headphones: Sennheiser HE90, SR-009S The build quality of SR-009S is worse than SR-009 which made me a bit worried about the X9000. But when I open the box, the SR-X9000 just look gorgeous, its build quality is to the state-of-the-art standard. The grey and brown color combination looks very good. Here are some details of the X9000. Please make sure you read manual when attach the cable to X9000. There are design to stop you attach in a wrong way, but you could still attach the wrong side. I attached the left cable to right unit at the first try and subsequently correct it after I read the manual. There might be some potential harm to the headphone if you attach the headphone cable to the opposite side. RELAXED The main impression of X9000 is RELAXED. Yes, no matter what kind of music you play, it give you a very relaxed sound signature. It is not forwarding sound at all. Even you play most intense Orchestra works like Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 by Teodor Currentzis. You will feel the brass and string instruments hoarse like you are getting fxxked by the Orchestra in climax part when you listen to HE90, but you will never feel that with X9000 even you switch to very high volume. Yes, you can switch to a incredible high volume without getting irritable. However, it is strongly recommended you to control the volume as you wouldn't feel any uncomfortable until you feel pain in your ears. It might cause permanent harm to your ear. It depends on your taste if this kind of relaxed feeling is good or not. For me, I have HE90 for Orchestra works so it is not a issue at all. But if you buy X9000 mainly for Orchestra, you might need to adjust your source and accessories to fit its style. To me, when playing Orchestra works, the HE90 is like BPO, or even BSO, the X9000 is like NHK. I am not saying NHK is not good, I just prefer BPO. SENCE OF TABLEAU The second impression of X9000 is sense of tableau. You sometimes feels that 009/009S is pouring music into your ears like water when there are lot of details, but you will never feel that with X9000. Everything is always well arranged in a good manner, in a relaxed way. It is really a pleasure to enjoy music with it. Unlike 009S, the X9000 focus on the whole picture rather than details. Each part of music combines together and you even feel the sound is tangible. To me, it lack of the ethereal and diffused sound signature of HE90. It feels more 'real'. After you listen to X9000, you will find it express music in a more superior and comprehensive way than other STAX headphones. (except SR-Omega, I've never listened to it before) SOUNDSTAGE The X9000 offer incredible soundstage compared with SR-009S and any other STAX earspeakers I have. To me it is even better than HE90 to some extent. It feels like the the sound is emission and diffused in a very neutral way. You will easily forget you are wearing a headphone. (And yes it is very comfortable to wear it) To compare, when you listen to piano live performance recordings, X9000 is like you seating at the audience seat, HE90 is like you seating on the stage and 009S is like you head is in the grand piano. I am not saying SR-009S is bad. Actually, there are some person prefer to listen to Piano in closest distance to feel the metallic touch of the sound. It's upon your taste. SOME OTHER FEATURES Compared with SR-009S and HE90, X9000 is a more neutral sound headphone, it is neither bright nor warmth, but it is still with very significant 'STAX' style. X9000 is not a bass monster like SR-007. But their base has sort of similarity. Compared with SR-009s, the bass of X9000 is not the rock-firm style. It is a more bouncy, soft yet surrounding style bass. It is more like HE90's bass performance. I personally like it very much. But if you really like lot of bass then the headphone probably is not for you. I have tried X9000 with all sorts of music, including Orchestra, piano solo, violin solo, chamber music, Japanese POP, Animation music, Chinese Pop, Acapella, electronic music. It fits almost all sorts of music in my opinion. I prefer to use HE90 to replay Orchestra and Violin works as it is more energetic, but it is after all personal taste. To me, X9000 is too relaxed for some music, it just lack of the spark that ignite my heard. But when I want to listen to music and take a rest, I will definitely prefer X9000. AMPS OPTION I compare my headphones on BHSE and I've also tried SRM-T8000. SRM-T8000 can drive X9000 pretty well just as SR-009S. But overall it is even more softer than BHSE. To me I think BHSE is a better option.

Moar steel and a vapor barrier.

Currently at our first concert since covid. Wilco outdoors in Napa with proof of vaccination. Feels weird but good.

My favorite days at work are when I get to do something a little creative and unusual. This is the boss' new house. This is the back side of the new kitchen peninsula that I built. Will finish the other sections tomorrow. This was a crappy fence the previous homeowner built badly. Now it's kitchen art.

progress continues

This was a few weeks ago, but just got pictures after installation today. It's a floating bench that a customer asked me to build to match their dining table. It's 8/4" Rift Oak.

Just heard a long segment on the Today current affairs radio 4 programme (in the UK), about the ESA BepiColumbo mission to Mercury. It has just done its first flyby of Mercury - the first of 6 before it gets captured into orbit in 2025. My interest in this, is that I was overall project manager for one of the 12 instruments on board - the Mercury Imaging X-Ray Spectrometer. That uses X-Rays from the sun, the reflected X-Ray light from Mercury having the spectrum of the elements on the surface of the planet - so how much iron, silicon etc, with a 10km resolution. It was launched in October 2018 After shakedown to make sure everything worked after launch, it then did a maneuver past the earth to send it on its way to the inner planets. Since then it has done two Venus flybys and yesterday the first Mercury one. So why go to Mercury? First because it is a rocky planet that has never had an atmosphere, so to learn about how the earth might have formed, Mercury is a good place to learn. Also it is the second densest planet in the solar system - very close to the Earth's density. In addition it has a magnetic field (no-one knows why), and ice at the poles (which is weird given how close it is to the sun). US interest in Ariane 5, is that the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched on one of those, imminently.

For those playing along at home, the short wall to the right is in and all the sheathing is on. I got the copper door pan today but won't put that in place permanently quite yet.

Milo & Otis took a big step towards enclosing the new shop today. We framed two of the three walls with rough openings for double doors and a 4x4 window. All studs are old growth straight grain Douglas Fir that I salvaged from the house my brother is about to tear down. Straight and sound and fun to work with. Tomorrow we will build the third wall on the floor and then plop it into place with the sheathing and clapboards already on it because there is no room to work between the rock wall and the framing over on that side.

boards actually fit. well shit.

Fleet week in SF with Grahame. USS Michael Monseur first up.

The doctor gave me his OK two months ago so I'm finally recovered ... I haven't been able to train much so tomorrow I just want to finish and have a good time in the middle of the peloton with my friends and coleagues.

This morning I built a rustic Redwood table to go on the deck of my boss' new house. Next up, benches. Last week I built a similar table for his dining room.

Latest ping pong action for a retiring Park Ranger.

We have every other form of cooking thread, so why not baking? I'll start with today's lunch, leftover from last night's dinner ... Clearly nobody is going to hire me for my crimping (or photography) skills. But they were delicious nevertheless. The crust is a rough puff pastry made with 1/2 whole rye flour. The filling is yellow potatoes, peas, green onions, and chevre.

this is a put together chassis of a specific size. where he bought the chassis i do not know, but it completely comes apart, all 4 sides, the round corner pieces etc. Then he had the front,back and top all machined. all panels are .2 inch thick. And the front wood piece is esentially a stick on made of unknown wood. absolutely every single thing about this is fucked to the max. broke the anti-spin pin off the pot and did not even bother to drill a single hole to prevent the pot from spinning. Some of the work was definitely done by an nc mill, and a really shitty one at that. on the mill i used, everything was accurate to .00001 inch, and it really was at least this accurate. this thing is barely accurate to .008 inch. nothing on either inch or metric boundaries. and the holes for the power supply board were drilled by hand, and blind tapped, 2 of the 4 holes went all the way thru the panel. But the worst is the way under-rated power transformers which were potted with definitely the wrong stuff. And wiring all the filaments together. And the stax jack it turns out is also massively fucked. And force held in with rubber o-rings. Gold plated hex screws with the gold coming off. And the tube sockets were really low quality garbage, as bad as the russian crap that mikhail used. The 3 boards from jlcpcb were a total of $65 with shipping. and shipping was half the price. The hand dremel tooled boards were so utterly fucked, no reason for any of this. Somebody really high on really bad drugs did this. Not even mikhail or mike bean (hennyo) could do something so utterly and completely fucked. Wow, i gave hennyo a compliment, yikes. The 300v tube supply is actually pretty clever and kind of unique, but also utterly fucked because he had the pass tube cathode wired to ground when it had to be connected to 300v. And the bias supply with a 100k series resistor. Guaranteed to kill your headphones. Its not my money going into this, so i will continue till its either completely finished and working or the tube diode power supply cannot be made to work. Looks like the repair price will be about $1500 in parts, plus the original purchase price of about $5k. All the improvements to the amp board are in the new board. There are places for solid state diodes on the power supply just in case. There is no reason for any of this. So far i have about 30 hours of labor in this. The mikhail es1 ended up about 50 hours of labor. Yes i'm fucking nuts. all you have to do is take my board files, have them made, stuff with parts, slap into chassis. how fucking hard can it be.

Remember to follow all weapons health and safety instructions.

Was talking to my Mom on the phone, when something flew in the front door. I caught it out of my peripheral vision. Assumed it was a big moth, so I kept talking to my Mom. Once I hung up, I went into the bedroom to investigate. Whatever it was, Suzy had it trapped under a nightstand. I flushed it out, to find it was a big ol' scrubjay. Took a little work, but got the poor bird back outside relatively unscathed.

After seeing the new hotness it is pretty wild going 20+ years back in time to the older gen destroyers.

I refinished the top of this Tice Original the original finish hated HD800 headband material - in fact it destroyed multiple pairs and I had to really sand deep to get the gunk off, GooGone failed me. The new finish hopefully will fair better, it’s cooler in color now except for right on the edges where I couldn’t get all the finish off. Time to put this back into use!

everything done as much as possible till the transformers get here.

Fall has finally arrived. So chili (no pic) and cast iron skillet cornbread.

Inspired by Doug, I made a focaccia recipe from the NYT -- focaccia with herbed honey plums and prosciutto. The dough didn't rise as much as expected but it was delicious.

From a few days ago: whole wheat focaccia with fresh mozzarella, parmigiano, and grilled onions and shallots.

Chilling up in Maine.....

Well that was a result. We pay for a landline phone from Virgin Media. We have been paying £27 a month for a long time. I decided to look at alternatives, and Direct Save Telecom came up with £19.50. So I phoned Virgin Media, quoted the alternative prices to them - and with zero negotiation the slashed the charges by £10 to £17 a month. And because of where we are in the billing cycle, they will refund £9.60 and only charge us £7.40 for this month. No idea why I haven't done this years ago!

I too finally got out to my first show post-lockdown to see Phoebe Bridgers at the Greek in Berkeley. It was so much fun to be part of a big crowd again.

Have my dad watching estate sales for woodworking stuff. Got a score tonight with a Supermax 25-50 sander for a whopping $400. Looks to be almost new from the pics. The auction house listed it as a Shopsmith as the guy had a ton of that stuff so no one was watching it.

October is being rather un-Octoberish. It was 70 and sunny today, so I took advantage. Bike is in mullet mode for now after catching a stick last weekened and snapping six spokes in the primary rear wheel. Definitely handles a little weird with the 27.5 on the back and 29 on the front but was better than nothing for sure.

Feels appropriate to leave this here: Pokemon x Grado collab! That is a line I never thought I'd ever write. Life is indeed stranger than fiction sometimes. https://blog.gradolabs.com/pokemon-center-grado-headphones/

more parts stuffage the wire used to hook up the power led inside the switch is pure silver wire from the US military in 1965. the rest of the wiring will be silver plated copper teflon.

Watched The Blue Angels do their fleet week thing from Tiburon.

One of the next-door neighbors brought back croissants from Paris (not kidding) and insisted that they be used within 24hrs. Challenge accepted. Bacon, fried egg, and cheese sandwich complete.

Cinnamon roll. One of a set. Made from some enriched oatmeal and whole wheat dough.

We Get Requests Oscar Peterson 1964 Just a taste:

I'm watching What We Do in the Shadows, The Morning Show, Foundation, Archer, The Premise, QI, Ted Lasso etc.... But, in order to be supportive (I also tend to post when my Hollywood sister has a new project), I feel it fair to announce that my (60 Minutes) brother's written another free-to-download book about plastics...So he's ended up the guest on this podcast... Uncomfortable facts warning:)...

a few impressions from the SoCal meet: no. 1 " Audeze CRBN , silky, great low end for an estat, impressive soundstage, faster than the lcd-5 but without the same tactile feel. Sounded MUCH better out of the mjolnir audio than the Z10e. Very different than Stax, and I really enjoyed these. I may not even need to hear the sr-x9000 before deciding to put my order in. Sounds like the waitlist is until Jan … crazy." no. 2 "The best sound for me were the Audeze CRBN's. These are my next dream headphones. They sound totally different from Stax, and have their own sound signature that I really liked. They were musical and had a visceral slam/punch I haven't heard in my own collection of electrostatics. I've never heard the HE-90's, but the CRBN's sound like what I dream a HE-90 would sound like." no. 3 "Unfortunately I don't think they bring anything to the table. As a big 009 fan, I think if you are making a non typical estat-like estat, you better have something special to justify the specific amplifier requirement. This definitely doesn't have either the 007 magic or the 009's extreme detail and lightness. I might need some more time with it but so far I haven't found anything impressive from them." no. 4 "listened to the CRBN after auditioning the LCD-5. Solid headphone, although I preferred the HFM Shangri-la Jr. due to its superior soundstaging and overall refinement. Probably my favourite headphone that I heard today! I detected a bit of grain in cymbals on the CRBN, although the audition was too brief to make any definitive statements. Bass was definitely above average on both the Audeze and HFM by 'stat standards. Some dynamic compression seems to be a fact of life with this technology vis-a-vis planars, but the Shangri-la Jr. does offer more resolution than even the Susvara, and I'm intrigued for sure. Will listen to both again tomorrow and update my impressions." no. 5 "CRBN (some un-obtainium set up). After hearing these I understand why some people warship e-stats. The CRBNs have a delicate presentation, but they don’t ever sound thin or lacking in body. The overall frequency response is very similar to the LCD-5, but the presentation is a lot different. The bass is excellent in texture and level, easily better than the Susvara. Not as punchy as the LCD-5 though. Midrange is equal to or better than anything here. More body to the vocals than the Susvara. Treble, comparing here again to the Susvara, the Susvara are pretty magical, but I like the texture of the CRBN a little better. The soundstage on these is larger, open and layered in a way where I could easily forget I was wearing headphones. The build quality and comfort here again are equal to or better than anything. As far as pure aesthetics, these are the best looking headphones I have ever seen. In person they are stunning." no. 6 "I had a short opportunity to A/B test CRBN and 009s on Mytek & BH. (Also heard CRBN on Mjolnir Audio but I felt the A/B test was much more interesting.) CRBN sounds very tonally correct, polite, but didn’t carry the sparkles nearly as much. Sound stage is smaller than 009s. I felt CRBN is more similar to Elite and Utopia than to 009s. I personally would pick 009s every time over CRBN. I didn’t get to test bass heavy songs at all, which I heard is what CRBN excels at. What a pity." no. 7 "But now for me and the one BURNING question I had was how does CRBN sound on the Blue Hawaii Special Edition? As some one who still owns and enjoys the original 009 my curiosity was peaked! And honestly... for starters I feel like CRBN does everything the original 009 set out out to, it retains that insane sense of speed and detail I love about 009 BUT has a slightly denser tone with noticeably stronger bass with all the detail and transparency I've come to expect. It's sound stage is a little more intimate too and all in all while I still love the original 009's lovely tone, exceptional nuance and delicacy. I could 100% see my-self picking up CRBN as a compliment for when I want that extra bit of weight, heft and intimacy without any lose in the speed or detail that I love about Electro Stats! But overall I feel that CRBN really captures and delivers the true spirit of Audeze! Powerful, detailed TRUE to life BASS! A natural weighty mid range with amazing speed and clarity that alongside with crystal clear highs are all presented within an outstandingly cohesive and precise sound stage. I for one can't wait to get a little more time with BHSE and CRBN! It's likely going to become my new favourite thing to hear at each show until I'm ready to pick up a set for myself!" no. 8 "Overall a fluidic, semi-sweet / modestly dry (in a good way), linear sound with the full FR represented. Bass texture was spot on but overall leans ever so slightly towards a brighter signature not far off from Stax SR-009. Soundstage was great as well, but may be a small step behind Stax Lambda series in that regard. Sense of PRaT was nearly impeccable, though drums may not hit with quite as much authority as a well driven dynamic or planar headphone (something Mark Cohen of Audeze also confirmed). These pull it off so nicely that one may not even notice any shortcomings whatsoever, and can do almost any genre with finesse and seemingly left over headroom to boot. This paired exceptionally well with what I believe was the Mjolnir Audio Carbon e-stat energizer. For a comparison to the SR-009 I would have to do more testing, but I would say the SR-009 has superior sense of resolution, speed, depth and emotional / visceral quality. Not necessarily better overall, just different." no. 9 "Holy moley this was the headphone of the show for me. I'm an electrostatic headphone fan, and the CRBN's bass surprised me. I find the SR-009/009S to be too bright for me and I much prefer the Dan Clark Audio VOCE over them. I don't know how the Mjölnir Audio Carbon sounds since the only thing usually at these shows is the Blue Hawaii, but the CRBN sounded pretty solid out of it. Volume-wise, I needed to turn the volume knob quite a ways for the CRBN, so either the Carbon doesn't output a lot of power (which I doubt since it's made by spritzer/Mjölnir Audio), or the CRBN isn't very sensitive (whose technical specification is unlisted on Audeze's website). There was good texture and presence in the bass region, more so than the other estats I've heard, but it didn't overwhelm the midrange. The midrange had excellent clarity and timbre overall, but was a tad bit warm-sounding to me from the bass region. Unlike any other estat I've heard, the bass seemed to take the main stage away from the midrange, as the mids seemed laid-back in comparison (which reminds me a bit of the 007 MKI from memory). The frequency response sounded more linear/smooth overall compared to what I'm used to hearing from the SR-404. The treble, like a lot of estats, was silky smooth and retains a lot of detail overall. Image separation paired with the Carbon sounded excellent, which is another feature I find estats to do well compared to other transducer types. The soundstaging seemed a bit small compared to the 009/009s/VOCE to me, and was more rounded than the SR-Lambda series. Compared to what I'm used to hearing with the Lambda series, the images were spaced more around my head versus left/right and vertical, which I appreciate. Also like most estats, I was able to turn up the volume really high without experiencing any fatigue. The other transducer types don't seem to be able to replicate this effect, and I have no idea why. Comfort-wise, these rock. Audeze's headband on the CRBN is quite comfortable. Paired with the supple leather earpads, the CRBN fits snugly, but not too snug on my head. The oval-shaped earcups fit on my head pretty well even with glasses on. At 300 g, this thing is insanely light! The "cube" pattern on the earcups' grill is also pretty unique-looking. I feel like I've seen this pattern somewhere else, but I can't put my finger on it at the moment. The strain relief parts from the earcup look more sturdy than those of STAX."

My dick feels interesting.

Twenty years ago today the world of music changed forever. Tenacious D Tenacious D September 25, 2001 Like you don't know, but opening track:

I got a tape of this album as a present for my birthday in 1984 right after it released and this is still one of my favorite soppy songs to this day. Also has the great Blasphemous Rumours. So I am listening to Some Great Reward.