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Speaking of a different experience, yesterday went to London (though some old timers referred to its historical name - “Hollister”) and visited the Queen (lookin’ good!) and the extended royal family, aka lizard people. Also other confusing things.

I checked out The Wooden Boats of Lake Leelanau show.

Well, it seems one person is anxious for this report on the simple mantle. The original idea was to make a mirror to cover a niche over the fireplace that had been occupied by a Madonna and Child sculpture for many years at Claire's family place in Michigan. The other idea was to incorporate decorative tiles made by a local artist that Claire's mom had collected. I built the mirror up here using vintage mirror glass that was in a basic frame and had Sat in the attic for decades. I milled some curly walnut from a chunky board I bought locally and also some nicely figured walnut from a chunk that was in the shop here for many years. Here is the mirror, with one place holder for a tile we have to add later: I didn't like how high the mirror Sat in order to cover most of the niche. Doug was here visiting for a few days so we decided to make some kind of mantle to add to the fireplace. I was thinking about walnut like the mirror but ultimately felt it did not match the simple room or the paneling that is pine, fir, or cedar or something in the soft wood family. The winning idea was to match the paneling to blend it in. In the shop, Doug immediately pointed out a 2 x 12 that was 6.5' long. I never would have thought about it but we used that to make the mantle. It was *just* wide enough and long enough to make a 6" deep top and the tapered legs. We drew out the legs on opposite ends of the remainder and used a jigsaw to separate them before using a tapering jig screwed to a long board to run it through the table saw. I also managed to get Doug to use the Kreg pocket jig and pocket screws to attach the top to the legs and the mantle to the wall. I still felt the mirror was too high. Claire and Doug separately suggested flipping the paneling boards above and below the niche so that the longer bottom boards were on the top and the pierced boards were on the bottom. Hard to explain without a before photo but here is the niche after I flipped them and made a new middle board from the former ledge shelf. I also really like the metal low profile French cleat I got for the mirror. So here's the mirror and the mantle as it is now. We are debating a little stain for the mantle versus waiting until it ages a bit, and secondly whether to chamfer the mantle edges or perhaps make a miter cut across the front to give the simple mantle a little visual interest.

Got them and soldered. Those are just phenomenal connectors, solidly held in place by a knob to the board so no moving at all, very solid, HV with enough space between pins, completely isolated pins (doubled by the inserted plugs), keyed, no screws to fiddle with, etc. Just rock solid and my favourite so far.

Obviously good, live performance with good sound quality (on Qobuz)

Please let me know where I can locally pick up one of these Shop Foxes.

According to YouTube, everyone with a wood shop should be making these now so, why not. I call this one “Brent, after they used the jaws of life to get that go-cart helmet off”

My local supply house is out of that model Naaman, but they'll upgrade you to this premium model for the same price.

Sorry, but in the bay area this seems like any Saturday to me. OK, maybe the Queen is usually a man, but other than that...

At this point the differences are subtle, but each successive layer gets me further along the non-stick pathway. A carbon steel pan will never release like a coated pan, but once you learn how to use it, it's very close. And I like knowing that I'm not slowly poisoning myself and others. And let's face it... Every non-stick pan has a limited life span. It's a disposable pan. I like the idea that my cookware could find it's second life with a Niece, Nephew or friend, and then on from there. I'm inline to inherit my Mom's cast iron pieces. They're numerous and I'll be the fourth generation to use them. That means more to me the older I get.

They are such beautiful things! I saw some great ones year ago, Karen and I went to a wedding in Skaneateles NY; they had a Wooden Craft show in town that weekend...some beauties there, even down to some awesome hand-crafted canoes and more.

I like it as is but for any additional interest I would go Mitre across the front and some finish that won’t see the wood non-uniformly darken with smoke for my vote. I found a woodworker neighbor that used to have a cabinet shop. He is offering my choice of these for a set of chairs. Both older models but fairly heavy duty and appear to be in good shape. I typically have about $450 invested in a pair of chairs at this point so either would be worthwhile, just not sure if I want anything that I have to try to track down helical heads for. https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-8-x-65-super-heavy-duty-jointer/g1018 https://www.woodstockint.com/products/w1741w

Here is my CFA2 built on dip 16 sockets as 2 balanced dual mono amps with 2 GRLV power supplies (also built on dip 16 sockets). Balanced input is from a Benchmark DAC and balanced output is to Grado PS500e with Mogami quad 2534 cable (each amp cabled to each ear). There are eight sockets with 125 pins used (3 pins are not used on the opamp) and 40 wires. Six wires go the the heatsink components. First channel is running 150 mA bias and DC offset was 30 mV without the opamp, 0.2 mV with it. Still have to build the other three channels.

This design would lend itself to a Frankenstein's monster's head really well.

Close. There are other subtle reminders of differences, like the all the Fuck Newsom flags on surrounding properties and the 60ft Trump Nation banner right across the street. Still other similarities inside the time warp bubble…

I’ve been using that series for a bunch of years now and I’ve been very happy.

Friday's show is up:

Day 5.

Agree. Helical heads are nice, but not necessary. People jointed boards for a long time without them. The shopfox is 2x the hp, has more knives, and has some other features that might be worth having. Either should be great. I think the simplicity belies the amount of consideration and thought that went into it. We went through a lot of design ideas before coming to this. Minimalism is harder than maximlism.

Excellent! And the idea to swap the boards above and below the niche was spot on. Everything is proportionate and balanced now. I also love the simple look of the mantle, with the elegant tapered legs! Personally I would avoid staining. It never matches quite right, but I like how the lighter mantle kind of mimics the frame around the hearth tiles. Really nice design!

Annihilator "Alice in Hell" Very cool the instrumental "Crystal Ann" with Spanish guitars and acoustic guitars

That '41 Chris Craft gives me wood.

How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last? Big Red Machine 2021 https://album.link/i/1571575880 Example: I went into this one blind, like I do with most new music. And it was all over the place, and in the end I really liked it. It has some Elliot Smith type stuff like the example. And then there are things that I didn't like. But there are songs with Anaïs Mitchell , Fleet Foxes and Taylor Swift among others. Just before posting I had to look them up.. helmed by Bon Iver's, Justin Vernon and the National's, Aaron Dessner, ah I understand more now and how they had pull of getting big names. Anyway, I think I will have to put this into rotation to figure it all out more.

Took my 13 year old grandson Logan up to see the Mariners vs Padres yesterday. It was his first ball game as well as his first train ride and his first time to Seattle. Fortunately we squeezed in before the rail strike caused a bunch of cancellations. It was a great day. Perfect weather and the short walk from King Station to T-Mobile Park takes you right by the Seahawks stadium so it was cool to see that. It was Hispanic Heritage Day and Rodriguez and Suarez both homered in the 1st inning so that was pretty badass. Mariners won 6-1. I am really liking the M's this year. Rodriguez is the real deal and Saurez is a beast, and they have good defense and pitching so the pieces are in place for a deep playoff run 🤞 I am a bit of a purist so in the past I was always a National League guy because I hated the DH rule and I loved the chess game-within-the-game and small ball type baseball. Now, given the ubiquity of the DH rule, I have decided to dump the Dodgers and go full rabid fan on the Mariners. I just can't do the Dodgers anymore. They are the new Yankees (best team money can buy). So GO MARINERS!!! The other American League team I thought about are the Angels. The Angels and I were both born in LA in the same year and I really like Ohtani but I don't think he's going to be an Angel for long and in the end I decided to go NW local. I also looked hard @ the Rays because I admire how they are perennially competitive despite their relatively low salary and TB is my initials 😆. Speaking of purism: stop fucking with baseball! The rule next year forbidding shifts is ridiculous. They should play wherever the hell is most strategic and if it's causing you grief as a hitter then learn to go opposite field. Adapt. Although I suppose the shift is a relatively recent phenomenon so I dunno. Seems like they are trying to make the game more offensively oriented and for me a 1-0 pitcher's duel is a thing of beauty. So crack a cold one Al, there is one less Dodgers fan 🍻

Made with double sided bread board. HVPS (LT8365) are on the way from JPN. I planning to divide it into four and stack these in 2 or 4 layers, but I don't think it will be a size that can be called "portable" but I will try...

Colin's IV (which is a common base topology) is a good alternative for a current out DAC. It is similar to Jocko's circuit, or Nelson Pass', and it can be made differential without too much trouble. For a voltage out DAC, a simple emitter or source follower works great as a buffer. Even a diamond buffer is a good alternative, and it can be made DC couple-able with the help of a servo (unlike some off the shelf diamond buffers.) Or any of Pass' recent buffers are good options. There is this myth of tubes as being pleasant sounding, and tooby. The reality is that tubes are very linear amplifiers with excellent bandwidth, and the bulk of the added distortion and limited bandwidth attributed to them has to do with the topologies and the surrounding components used. Similarly, the myth of DAC digital glare probably has more to do with the opamps used in the IV than the DAC chips themselves.

Jean-Luc Godard: New Wave director dies at 91 https://www.instagram.com/p/CicX-yjjKi5/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= https://www.lemonde.fr/en/obituaries/article/2022/09/13/jean-luc-godard-legendary-french-film-director-dies-aged-91_5996746_15.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-62886470