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Looking forward to dinner with good friends at my favorite Japanese restaurant, then I'm going to relish in watching a movie in a theater with the official senior priced ticket Al bought for me. And dinner is at 5:30, so moving closer to the official senior dinner time of 4:00 pm.

About half of this coffered ceiling and 1/3 of the wainscoting was missing. I had to manufacture some of the trim that is no longer available. Painters have done a fantastic job making my work look even better.

Heading to the biggest RV and camping show in the Northeast, in beautiful Springfield, MA.

Sakura Sushi. And it was great! As was the Bill Nighy movie, Living!

Everyone knows the Go-Go's. In 1980, when they were a (pop) punk band, they recorded a version of their future hit "We Got The Beat" with Paul Wexler at the helm and releasted it on Stiff Records (a label best known for ska, early punk and new wave.) I remember hearing about the original version many decades ago. It was only available on vinyl, the original 7" was rare and kind a spendy and we weren't in the Information Age yet. Now of course we have the world at our fingertips (and the ocean at our door.) A guy I know who does very fastidious vinyl rips gave me a FLAC copy on slsk. Also it's on YouTube of course: It ...kinda rocks. I like the Go-Go's with rough edges.

Got another car control class on the books (with the BMW club, hopefully they accept my car 🙃) and I'm going to try my first road rally with the Porsche club. When I thought rally I thought of sliding cars around on dirt rally stages but this isn't like that at all. It is more like a scavenger hunt that you do from your car and that rewards precision, not speed. I like it! Trying to nail down a co-driver/co-navigator (@Grahame ?). I think maybe I'll do my first auto cross in April. This car hobby is quite the rabbit-hole of stuff to do. It is helpful that a large portion of hobbyist motorsport seems to be organized on a single website, https://www.motorsportreg.com, making it easy to find out a good amount of what is going on nearby.

Took Suzy for a nice drive through Napa.

Anybody claiming that Stax bias voltage needs to increased, immediately file that with "doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about".

Kenny is one of my favourite jazz trumpetists. This is the one album that comes to mind when I think of him. Billy Childs - Rebirth

^ This On Giacometti Hania Rani 2023 https://album.link/i/1657231124 Example: I have been waiting for this for over two months. Ever since Tidal showed me the album as a new release in December: I was all excited to have new Hania for the holidays. And all they gave us was two tracks and everything else grayed out. It was a long winter. So, then I had it as a mental note that on Feb 17th, I will get the full deal. I would say it is worth the wait, but then again there were two months that I didn't get to listen to new Rani. It is a really good album though. Overall pretty mello, but good themes and great recording. Her music harkens me back to when I first heard Philip Glass, and was introduced to a new world of music that I didn't know existed. The use of a close mic on a mechanical piano is not new, but she writes for it, so it is another percussive element that is planned for and enhances the music. It will stay at the top of my queue for a while.

Some nonfusion jazz this evening. Quiet Kenny Kenny Dorham 1959 https://album.link/i/1440948435 Example: I don't know much of Kenny's catalog, and that is my bad. A good '59 recording.

Looks good, reminds me of my Texas house.

Hope you have an awesome day Steve!

I like the Go-Gos with all edges. If a better rock song exists, I've not heard it.

Belated Happy Birthday, Steve! Hope it was great.

You fellas aren't keeping up with the current trends. I'd imagine these would be interchangeable as penis hats as well. No judgment here. I always assumed Naaman had a little helicopter helmet.

Happy Birthday, Steve!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Steve! Hope it was a great one. Cheers

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday Steve! Hope you had a great day !!

New Hania Rami

Happy Birthday Steve!

Happy Birthday Steve! Village Sake I assume?

Happy birthday!

I would check octopart.com and see if you can find any of the semis from a distributor. For the DN2540N3s the other part would be fine if it is the TO92 package you need, not TO220. For the MJW21194, I would look for the 21196 as well (higher rated). If you are in the US, I would use Antek transformers. Something like this: https://www.antekinc.com/as-1230-100va-30v-transformer/ Dual primaries, shielded. These work very well. They also have 28V or 24V if you want to drop that a bit. If you are in Europe, not sure what shipping would look like for these. Otherwise there are probably better options in Europe than buying transformers from Mouser.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday!

Looks beautiful.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Steve! May you get all the literal and figurative wood your heart desires!

Oh, I did get my VST 18g Basket in the other day. I have switched over from my 20g. It is working great. As I thought the automatic grinder is now dialed in to 20g in (down from 22+). It took a few pulls to get the grind and extraction right with 2g+ less coffee in the basket. But it is pulling really nice and even and giving good extraction as I am now grinding finer with this setup. With the 20 in and about 42 out in about 35 seconds. The final bag of Brazilian roast from Dan tasting good.

Many Cheers Steve! -- Wishing you a Happy Birthday and some wood tools under the tree.

Happy Birthday Steve!

Happy birthday, Tice-man!

Happy Birthday, Steve!!! It's friday, so it must be awesome

happy birthday!

Even more discounts and early bird specials await! Cheers!

Happy Birthday!!!

DAT stands for Data All Trashed

Is that my imagination, or does that say, "AspHat"?

Worked with Rev. Run on a virtual event this morning. That was a hoot.

I learned a ton and had a blast at my Driver's Academy class on Saturday. There were 24 students, about 16 of the 24 were teens and young-twenty-somethings and the other 8 of us were older drivers. For the 24 of us they had 6 cars and 6 instructors, so we were four to a car plus an instructor. The day was almost entirely cone drills and was all about car control. While car control is obviously important to the enthusiast, I really do think this is a class that anyone could benefit from. Knowing how to handle your vehicle in an emergency like a sudden lane change, slide, or emergency braking situation is something all drivers should know. Getting to learn these skills on a closed course in a safe environment rather than doing it for the first time out on the public roads under duress is tremendously valuable. I think auto insurance companies should offer discounts or subsidies towards paying for one of these types of classes. They really are that beneficial. As an experienced driver I found that while I intellectually know what a lot of car control theory is, there is a difference between knowing it and being able to execute it while under stress. There is also a "feel" component to things that a video game or simulator just can't replace. A lot of driving at the limit is being able to feel what the rear tires are doing through the seat. It was great to be able to ride along as a passenger while the other students were getting instruction. Not only could you soak in what the instructor was telling them, you could feel through the seat what the car was doing. The difference in feel between doing something the right way and the wrong way is really something you have to experience in person. Most of the drills were done in normal cars. Camry, Altima, Malibu, CLA250. Tires were shitty all seasons. All drills were done with traction and stability fully off. I think the idea behind this was you can find the limit at much lower speeds than you could in some of the race cars they had. It worked great. Driving a slow car fast is a heck of a lot of fun, as always. We cycled between three drills in a morning and an afternoon session. In the morning the drills were: Skidpad (my favorite!) - Go around until the car understeered, learned how to handle understeer. Then oversteer. Get a feel for how to catch it, what it is like to not catch it and spin. I was good about counter steering but I needed to learn to wait until the rear end hooked back up before correcting my steering input. ABS emergency brake + maneuver - Do a full ABS slow down and then maneuver to avoid hitting a "wall" of cones. I was familiar with doing ABS stops but adding the maneuver element to end was a new twist. Under full ABS all the available traction is going to braking so if you don't lift a little on the brake you are just going to understeer and plow in to the cone wall. Proper cornering - they had a hairpin turn set up with cones. Drill was to trail brake in, hit the apex, power out as you unwound the wheel. Hairpins are hard because everyone's natural tendency is to turn in early. The apex on a hairpin is well past the geometric center of the curve, so this drill was all about eye training and visualizing your line. It is amazing how much speed you can carry when you get the line right. Afternoon drills were: Introduction to autocross - They took the hairpin in the morning session and added a bunch more corners to make an autocross course. I loved this. Taking it slow at first and then building up speed on consecutive laps felt great. Emergency Lane Change - Speed towards a cone wall with a lane to the left and right of it. A second before you get to the wall the instructor shouts "left" or "right" and you have to make an emergency change to that lane, then slow the car. Scariest drill of the day, as you feel like you could roll the car. Doing this kind of emergency lane change at 45mph felt extremely FAST, but we built up to it. Driving a Manual Transmission Car - I basically have never driven stick before ever, but I know how things are supposed to work. We did this one in the Mustang race cars they had, which was fun. After stalling once I got a feel for how heavy a race clutch is. After that it was pretty simple. I don't think I need to go out and buy a car with a stick, but I get the appeal. On the whole, an awesome day. I feel like I learned a lot and it was the kind of learning that I only get by actually doing the thing. As I said before, I'd recommend this kind of Driving Academy or defensive driving class to anyone. It was pricey, but worth it. Instructors were great and we got plenty of seat time.