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Find Dom and stay safe, my Floridifriends. Today at work I went to my second Toastmasters International meeting (something that was recommended to me by my Mentor at work.) We drew cards randomly to see who had to give a 2-3 minute "table talk" or a full-blown 5-6 minute speech. I had nothing prepared, and it was my first time speaking, and the area director was there, so of course I went with the 5-6 minute option, because fuck it. I did an off-the-cuff speech about cycling, bringing up the joys of youth, how I had used it as PT, and segued into a few quick tips for getting a "real bike." I got high marks on the speech, especially for off the cuff. I surprised the evaluator by going with a PT angle instead of straight fun, and it rounded out our day with something more enjoyable, as the first speech was work related, the second was tips on voicing during a speech, and mine was interesting. The area director who was sitting in on our meeting today wound up doing a good speech, and won the "best speech" prize, but coming in second to someone who's been doing this for years, who had the framework of this speech worked out, isn't a bad way to jump into a new program. Doing the entire speech with my fly unzipped, however, may come back to haunt me. **BRENT**

Stay safe, Florida.

Carl, I also thought Wilma wasn't going to hit and didn't get accordian shutters because I thought we would never get hit again. Putting them up was exhausting and my back hurts. On the bright side, took a pill and I am drinking. Yay!

Well, except that for tubes this is a measurable phenomenon. In Glass Audio, Vol 1, No.2, Charles King has an article on extending tube life, and it has a graph from GE that shows the transconductance of a tube declining gradually by about 20% during the first 1500 hours, then stable over the next 3500 hours. And from an old post from Kevin Gilmore on biasing replacement tubes in a Stax SRM-T1, "... new tubes drift like crazy." That means the parameters in a new tube change as it is run in. Now whether this is audible or not I can't say, but it certainly is measurable.

Wayne still posting anti "her" posts on FB as of 41 minutes ago so I assume all is ok.

Hey everyone. Final push before our big event Saturday morning! Thanks for all your support so far, and I'm making a final push to have Xavier meet his goal before the ride! We did our final training ride of a just below 20 miles, when we ran out of daylight. https://www.strava.com/activities/733570816 He is SO excited, as this is the reason he's put in so much work riding this year. I'm so proud (if you couldn't tell.) That was taken right after our training ride last week. You cyclists will be happy to know that although most of the time I'm setting the pace, this last ride there was a section he just straight up dropped me on. Oh, did mention he's beating me by over 200$? If you want to help increase the lead, donate to #TeamXavier or #TeamOldMan **BRENT**

Picking up some last minute supplies. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I keep forgetting to donate. Will do it today.

Put up old school plywood shutters on half the house (accordions and roll-ups on the other half). It feels like the damn things having been gaining weight faster than I have in the 22 years since we made them. If Mike (one of the fittest people I know) is too old for this hurricane shit, I'm seriously too friggin' old. Hopefully impact windows on the remaining windows next year....... Like Mike said, this thing is probably not going to hit us, but not doing all the preparations would be like going to a riot without a vest because you think drunk people don't aim well. One twitch in the wrong direction could be seriously bad.......

They are up. We have been under a warning so even though may not hit, can't risk not doing it. Never again. Combo of storm windows and accordians going on after this passes. I'm too old for this shit. Luckily 3 days no vertigo. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So much of Laurie Anderson's genius is as a performance artist. That being,.. I suggest doing some long winded trolling on YouTube.

Not the vinyl version, but the CD.

Giving it a proper go: Got a libretto and some commentary as well, planning on 1-2 hours a night for the next few weeks.

Mike, John, Wayne, and any of the South Florida crew I missed, stay safe. I guess Matthew might be back in our area again next week, so don't take the shutters down too soon. If anyone needs any kind of help after the storm, don't hesitate to ask.

If they have already been used, then they are not NOS, they are just OS.

I consider my T2 to be absolutely silent. I can't hear any noise, might be because my old ears though.

Listening to the Laurie Anderson, Wm. S. Burroughs and John Giorno lp's " You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With". Bought it on the 'bay from a seller in Santa Cruz. For folks who don't know, Santa Cruz is a 25 minute drive from my house. Unfortunately, this record took a wrong turn at the infamous Bell Gardens's USPS sorting station and ended up looking up at faces on Mt Rushmore in South Dakota. Amazingly enough, the double records arrived looking like it was sent this week!

I am a cable burn in skeptic, but I do very much experience tube burn in and burn in on most of my DACs and amps. The tube coatings undergo chemical changes in the first 50 to 300 hours (depending on the tube) - these change impact the emissions and that impacts the sound (at least that is my understanding). Something like a WE300B or TA300B takes about 300 hours (or more) to fully stabilise. I have gone through the burn in process with TA300Bs twice. These tubes are highly variable in the first 100 hours, then settle down and slowly open up all the way to 300+. Most other tubes (like 6SN7s) settle in the first 50 hours or so. The SQ swings can be quite dramatic early on.

If you go back a few pages, I posted something about some that I have marked Burans or something like that:

Lol

Boards received, thanks!

Good luck and stay safe Mike, and all in the path. Anyone hear from Wayne? I saw that the storm should have been far enough away, but haven't seen/heard much for details....

I'd also very much like to know. I was in a similar situation... bought a Sigma Pro and SR-404 in order to do the driver swap, but never ended up doing it because both already sound good. The key to messing with Staxen is to never listen to the beautiful, beautiful music.

Good luck! Sister-in-law has battened down our house in Palm Beach Gardens, hoping for the best.

Congratulations on a very nice build!

Took Zoë to a Pride Day celebration. 9 hours for her, 6 for me. Had a great time. She's on the left in the hat. **BRENT** Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk