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Son Andrew and I saw my favorite band The Chameleons again, his third time with me. This ranks as one of their best shows for me....incredible passion and energy throughout! First opening band was my second time seeing them, Lovina Falls. Lots of great music, and got a couple nice pics: one with Reg Smithies of The Chameleons; he doesn't pose for pics that much and when he does, he points his finger at his picture partner. I got to do the same. And Valerie Forgione from Lovina Falls took a nice pic with me as well.

Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JkAjH5G-ZSPHcsxV6QDItb0Nh_Wb-L3f?usp=sharing

On you tube, full set. We were bang in the middle of the front row of a crammed 10000 seat venue. From there the whole experience was immersive.

There's a guy I follow on Flickr who has a Fuji X-E3 mirrorless body. He adapts a variety of old manual lenses to it, which is how he caught my attention. He's got a taste for old and custom tube gear and has a whole album of space heaters and funny wooden boxes.

Another Maphra - source. Elizabeth's take. I have said it before, God bless female Metal singers.

A Matter of Time: The Final Hour by Laufey (2026) https://open.qobuz.com/album/flacllvcjozx0 Example: It is not easy to pick an example: Part jazz, part musical, part pop. 19 tracks and just over an hour. It is pretty album, with lots of arrangements by Spencer Stewart. Big production album. Listening deep there is like 40+ tracks per song (probably a lot more).

I took my daughter to see Jean-Michel Jarre maybe 12 years ago in Birmingham (UK). I got us tickets in the middle of the front row. Now I've seen Jarre before, so I warned Liz of a spectacular entry. Sure enough, fan of light and then a fist comes through it. Once it really starts, Liz says "wow - he's cute"; so I told her that he was 7 years older than me - and he'd had a bit of work done to keep the cuteness factor. It was, it has to be said, a totally awsome Jarre experience. Ancient synths, laser harp - the full beans.

My kayak instructor from Chile is playing as “Granny’s Mason Jar” tonight. Good bluegrass.

Travelin McCourys Young Guns tour https://archive.org/details/travelinmccourys2026-04-09_202604 The Young Guns were a group of kids from 16 to 7 1/2. They were fantastic players who drove from all over the southeast to play last night, they'd never met each other before sound check.

I think I've lost count of how many Winters I've had this year.

Reworking my CFA3 for ZF/SS switching. Inspired by ang728's hat board, I designed a split-board version. It works fine with ZF but has issues with SS: R channel: 0.2V offset, fluctuating ±0.1V. L channel: <30mV offset, fluctuating ±0.1V. Bias: Stable. Tried those solutions from previous posts but unsuccessful to solve any issues: -Removed hat board; use original jumpers for ZF/SS. -Added 680pF between B-C of output transistors. -Removed C9, C10 (20pF). -Replaced all PZTA56/06. -Swapped THAT340 / K389-J109 / K170-J74. Changing R171, R211, R272, R322 from 300R(silkscreen) to 600R(schematic) fixed the 0.2V offset, but both channels still fluctuate. Suspecting trace interference, I directly wired the jumpers to SS mode. The fluctuation is gone. So I redesign the hat board. SS resistors(R44, R49) sit on hat boards. SS jumpers and SS resistors are removed from cfp3smt2splitpre. My final result to get stable and low DC offet will be: -Using the hat board -R171, R211, R272, R322 = 600R. -Remove C3, C7, C9, C10 (600pF & 20pF) Thanks ang728, his posts helped me a lot.

Done!!

I kind of despise this guy and his opinions. He’s so happy of meeting himself…

I have chosen Omron G6KU-2F relays, 5.2 mm high. Present space between pcb and heat sink is 9 mm. Can be increase with 1.5 mm. Use of a mica insulator will add another 2 mm. According to datasheet allowed ambient temperature is up to 85 degrees Celsius. Small 3D printed tool to bend output transistor legs. Makes my life easier. Intend to send gerbers to fabhouse in a few days.

There may have been rain and wind in Marin, but at least there was power, so Quite the performance

It's the start of the Holiday Concert Season at the College of Marin

Saw Mary Fahl last night, I think the 6th time I've seen her (7th if you count October Project in 1995). Wonderful concert, some of her hits, October Project hits, and covers. The whole second set was her adaptation of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, pretty stunning. I think this may have been my favorite show of hers. Got to chat with her and her husband after the show, and also met 3 folks with whom I'll keep in contact ongoing; just some amazingly nice people.

Not a person, but RIP Hampshire College. "Hamster" or "Hempshire" as it was known was always the junior sibling to the other four colleges in the happy valley. Hampshire has been plagued by rumors of financial troubles for years at this point. I grew up going to shows at a couple different Hampshire venues. Phish played there regularly in the late 80s and early 90s. There is a longstanding urban legend that the characters in Scooby Doo are modeled after the five colleges: Fred is Amherst, Daphne is Smith, Velma is Mount Holyoke (these roles have reversed in my observance), Shaggy is Hampshire and Scooby is UMASS. The legend is not true of course, but the parallels between Shaggy and Hampshire are particularly strong. For 60 years, Hampshire was an important part of the landscape of the Pioneer Valley and the Five (now Four) College area. It's sad to see it go.