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Yesterday: Finally had a clear "two person" day, so Out with the Old. Well 💩, that explains a lot. No time to tilt the the house, so In with the New: Good enough for one day. I must say using a laser level is a game changer ensuring that things are level and line up, even if the building is out of true. Just remember: And then today, some finishing touches, and cable management. And then finally voice automation. Because: Of course. Some non ideal / contrived syntax commands because: reasons, but that's balkanized home automation. Looks nice though (Marin OLED 2 time club)

I've finally been able to see the photos I took in London (I was there 3 weeks ago)

I've been cleaning the house and doing some organizing. I'm maybe 5% of the way there..... 😮 Karen would always call me a hoarder....and she's right, for certain things (like audio gear). But today I gave the second of two sets of wicker baskets away. Twenty-seven baskets given. Twenty-fucking-seven! I have a long road ahead of me. But it's feeling good to clean, and lots of goodies being given away. I've had 8 visitors collecting things between yesterday and today. I think one, maybe two more tomorrow; and one Monday. That's if I don't add any more stuff, which will likely happen. Twenty-seven fucking wicker baskets....🤣 EDIT: pics of 21 of the 27 (a few look the same, but not repeats), the others I had in another area and brought them over when one person came by

Yes, Dear.

Whenever I visit London, I always end up taking photos of these three places. The colors really catch my eye: blue, red... I'm posting some of the many photos I took, although I haven't looked at them all yet. In my defense, it's hard to concentrate while chasing after your pre-teen son... although I did manage to sneak a nod to Wings.

It was a good day, a touch breezy at times, a very good engaged crowd. Some of the board members, {and my beard and belly} Many thanks all... cheers - Mikey

Thanks again everyone. I have the Falcon all loaded up for the long drive to Northern Seattle tomorrow. So just one last post for any last minute supporters. https://givebutter.com/WalkforBelonging2026/michaels-walking-team Hey look, I found some spring... cheers and thanks - Mikey

new to me. Pretty melodies plus soundscapes.

Spring is the perfect time to get out on long rides before the staggering summer heat comes my way. LOVING the 40mm tires. They are maybe a little sluggish on accelerations but they ride so smooth and are ace on descents. I'm also starting to love climbing on this thing. You really have no choice but to put down the power once the grade gets to be over 8-9% and you are already in the little cog.

Random Access Memories by Daft Punk (2013) https://open.qobuz.com/album/0886443927087 Example: Some testing - so I might as well have fun.

A little gem I bought in London

Goddamn size queens.

April 23, 1976, the Ramones released their debut album. Hey, ho, 50 years ago(!) As I snarked in 2016, "Sheee-it, some tiny insignificant punk rock album by a band you've never heard of dropped 40 years ago today. It sold poorly, probably because it didn't have any good songs on it." I know I don't have to explain the significance of the Ramones to the crowd of codgers that is head case. I will be lecturing some mostly uninterested zoomers on the subject.

Watched the OKC Comets (AAA Club of Dodgers) lose 3 - 2 to the Tacoma Rainiers. Have not been to a Baseball game in ages. It was a lot of fun.

With the Hormuz shipping situation, thought I’d mention Richard Misrach’s Cargo oversized photo book arrived recently and I swear it is one of the best printed books I own. Stunning. Online? Less so. Check it out or as the prints tour. https://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/richard-misrach-cargo https://museemagazine.com/culture/2025/1/15/nbsprichard-misrach-cargo-ships-pace-gallery

GoGo Penguin "Necessary Fictions" The interplay between the drummers of GoGo Penguin and Mammal Hands is fascinating: Rob Turner, Jesse Barrett and Jon Scott. I consider all three drummers to be great, with fantastic sounds and grooves that give both trios a lot of character. I love the tracks where they play syncopated rhythms... microtextures or simply seem to be off-beat before returning to the correct tempo.

Having delivered Margaritas, yesterday to our Brit Mother and daughter neighbors, Today I made good on our offer of the previous owners TV and mount, starting at a civilized time. So out with their previous owners old TV and mount (not shown). It was so old it was small, thicc, 1080, and had composite inputs on the back. So off it came Lasing ... Ok Time for lunch, a local Mexican take away plus Usual, and bubbles for the ladies. It all went well until disaster struck The previous occupants when making room for their TV had cut through the wall and studs to run the cables and just replaced / patched the dry wall - the brown area. So no studs / adhesion for any of the top right anchor bolts. 💩 🤬 I couldn't really abandon them, or rebuild the wall that day. What to do? Apparently there were still studs higher up in the wall. Maybe just maybe, A trip to Pini Hardware, and a conversation with some very helpful staff later ... It's like it was meant to be! You can't really tell in the up position. Watching position, just watch the TV, OK Ok, set up Wifi, Xfinity, etc. What's on Telly? WAT? At least I got some cadburys mini eggs and endless cups of tea out of the deal. They seem happy with it.

Good walking Mikey!

Not really, just aged. Such is life, Jose. I thought they could be film for the 3 week delay.

I don't use film for pragmatic reasons... I took the R6 MKII with me. By the way... I found this. 10 years difference?... shit, I have aged badly 🙂

I admit I don't listen to much Spanish music (ironic, right?), but she has something...

So many reason... Gershwin: Rhapsody In Blue, Second Rhapsody for Piano with Orchestra, Preludes, Unpublished Piano Works by Michael Tilson Thomas (1985) https://open.qobuz.com/album/alx83fnr8pexa Example: RIP MTT - a big influence on my early classical music exploration. I didn't have any classical listeners in my circle growing up. I found it on my own with the help of Columbia House record deals, and lots of CBS Masterworks recordings. This being one of my early purchases, so much more jazz inspired than I had heard before. I became a fan. Michael was on my short list of recordings to look for. I was lucky enough to move to the bay area for work and was able to see him in action at least a handful of times in the 90's. In the queue for today....

Ghosts, nudes and lesbian pageant queens: highlights from NYC’s Photography Show – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2026/apr/22/aipad-photography-show-new-york

Highs and lows.....sorry if TL;DR The highs: I love my neighborhood, and the people within. I maintain a website for the "Bunco Babes" here, a group of women who would get together monthly to socialize, play bunco...and drink. Since Karen passed, much of the organizing has dropped off. But the OG's of the babes invited me to a get-together; little did I know if was partially to thank me for the web site and congratulate my retirement. Pics below. A low with a little bit of high: we have a local "Buy Nothing" FB group, for free things. I have refurbed and donated computers perhaps a dozen times now. Gave two laptops away this weekend, one to a gent who has been out of work for almost 4 years because he was in an accident where a Mack truck blew a red light and slammed into him. He is now in somewhat constant discomfort or pain, and can't do much physically; insurance fights every step of the way. He even gets PTSD driving long trips.... Yet still, he does a lot of nice small things for others, and we shared our stories about that. Oh, yes: we had one FB friend in common, a wonderful woman with whom I used to work. She passed away from cancer and pneumonia complications recently; it turns out this is her distant cousin, and he didn't even know of her passing. The lower low: another laptop I gave to a woman who has an autistic son (two other kids too, one of whom has pretty high functioning autism). I volunteered to bring the laptop and a full docking station with monitor setup I had over. This amazing woman and her husband spend almost 24x7 watching her youngest, as he has non-verbal autism and also has a potentially deadly condition where his digestive tract will get blocked. Constant monitoring and care, advocating for him at hospital and doctor visits, etc. Hugs and tears resulted. They don't even have a place right now to set up the full monitor, so I told her I will come and help when they do find the space. You can see the strain, yet the strength all at once. Humans are such amazing creatures. But the two situations above point out how much the system works against so many, though!

Rhapsodies by Léopold Stokowski (1961) https://open.qobuz.com/album/qy7npo4bfqa9b Example: Not the version I am listening to - but it is fun.

This is going to be a long walk for fairly little payoff. Everyone knows the 1994 hit film Pulp Fiction, which made Samuel L Jackson a household name and revitalized the career of John Travolta. There's a scene where Quentin Tarantino has a cameo (as he likes to do) playing Jimmie Dimmick. Jimmy has three noteworthy traits: he's the person who the two main character seek out when they need to hide a corpse, his wife (never seen) is black, and he casually drops the N-word (something else Quentin likes to do.) That scene birth the phrase "Dead N-Word Storage" which has lived on on the internet since 1994. Certainly it's popular with people who were going to find a reason to say the N-word anyway, but even outside such circles, the phrase is a cultural touchstone. With that in mind, this meme came across my radar earlier: Even as far back as 1994, I thought Jimmy's kitchen looked very dated. That rage hood reeks of the 1970s. A few google searches later I learned that "Jimmie Dimmick's house in Pulp Fiction is located at 4145 Kraft Avenue, Studio City, California." The property is listed in Zillow and Redfin. It's far older than I'd have guessed, built in 1936. Also it's $2 million, but that's hardly batting an eye about these days. The place has been completely redone since 1994. Very deceptive photo that makes the kitchen look far larger than it actually is. Significantly more realistic shot. Note in both that the range hood (now an iconic screen-used prop) is there in all its glory. The hallway has a print of the Banksy work of the same name (which is so famous it has its own Wiki page.)

Killer cover IMO.

Beck will depress you and make it feel so damn good.

I am smitten -- this is gorgeous, right up there with Ólafur Arnalds. Thank you for sharing.

I've always been a fan of her as an actress, but jiminy, this 1 minute as a musician is sublime.

I have a (not so) secret soft spot for yacht rock. That one blonde backup singer looks familiar, it's almost like she has... TV appearances that aren't lip syncs are a treasure.

Jeremy Dutcher - Tiny Desk "Jeremy Dutcher came to the Tiny Desk with sparkling, purple streams of glitter draped around his shoulders. Then he set his iPad on our Yamaha upright piano, not to read his score as pianists do these days, but to play a centuries-old wax cylinder recording of a song sung in the incredibly rare language of Wolastoq."

I love Charles Bradley! One of the many great finds from Daptone Records.

Speaking of covers

A lovely cover

🐔 🍛

Good Lord. He's the Akakichi no Eleven meme come to life.

I know there isn't much interest in these amps anymore, but wanted to post my findings regarding thermals. I spent around 3 hours yesterday testing the one I have in for repair to evaluate whether these run cooler with no heatsink, heatsink only, or heatsink with a spreader bar to tie it to the top cover. @johnwmclean had at one point suggested that he thought these might run cooler without. I forget which user suggested and implemented a spreader bar, which for them resulted in lower temps. I used a thermocouple with the covers on to do this test. For the 1st case (no HS), I put the thermocouple on top of the upper right transistor in the L- channel. For the other two tests, the thermocouple was touching the collector tab. I tried to wait long enough for things to stabilize completely, which never really happened. Even after an hour or more, the temp would go up 0.1 ºC every minute or so. Here are the results: bare 91.8 (shortest test, around 45 minutes) HS only 92.6 (approx 1 hour +) HS w/spreader 87.1 (1 hr 20 min) all temps in ºC. Ambient temp 22.1 ºC. It appears that w/spreader is the winner. That temp was going up slower than the other two, so I would guess that the margin is a bit larger. i made the spreader with a couple of pieces of 1/8" and 1/16" thick aluminum x 1" stock.

Got the Cervelo back out on the road on one of our few sunny spring days so far. It was windy, but still a nice rip around town.

Finished the right channel today. Feedback as suggested by Justin. Bias servo as suggested by Kevin. Red smoke – Super Symmetrical mode. Green smoke – Zero Feedback mode.

❤️ Belated Happy Piano Day ∞ ∞

Tim Apple stepping down to be replaced by John Temu. Oh, sorry! I don't have my reading glasses on. that's John Ternus.

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.

The new cars seem like a complete disaster. Not only are they dog-slow without the downforce of the old cars, the boost button stuff is just dumb. Formula 1 really whiffed on a 50/50 split.