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The so called oldies station does a pretty good job of avoiding playing the same songs every day, but they do have the habit of rotating what seems like 15 or 20 greatest hits cds all day long. This is how I heard “That’s the way I’ve Always Heard it Should be” on the way to Jaime’s place and “You’re so Vain” on the way back (both by Carly Simon). It always amazes me how much pop music changes over the years. At one time, “That’s the way…” was actually considered deep and insightful, maybe some people still do… Nowadays it really sounds self absorbed and obvious. Certainly compared to “You’re so Vain” it pales in comparison.

I keep threatening to add to my website, I think the next part will be about how to approach and enjoy various types of music. My own types include rock, jazz, hip-hop, popular, country, and classical (with a little “c”). Popular music can take on the trappings of some of the other types, but is set apart in a couple of ways. If I ever get this amp thing started I’ll get right on this… Just one more thing added to the list.

Isaac

Had an interesting experience the other day at work. Kenji called me over by name to help him with some sort of paperwork issue, the lady he was helping asked me inquisitively, “Is your name Isaac?” I’m always a little concerned when people ask questions like that, especially in the way she asked, it was a little more intense than usual. I told her that yes, my name is indeed Isaac, she grasped my hand and went on a prolonged, sermon like monologue that went on for some time. It was a bit circuitous, but she did have a point of some sort… It went something like this.

Just been working. Mom was up for the weekend, that was nice. Saw Jaime, Cindy and the kids for far too short a time on sunday, we’ll have to get together again soon. I went up there to drop off my old FrankenMac, he loves those old machines and mine had quite a few choice parts to make them go. Hope he has as much fun with it as I did. Oh yeah, it has finally happened, I need to get a cheap Windows box to run some software. All of the stuff for designing are for windows only and virtual PC was making me tear my hair out. I think I’ll get one of mom’s office’s old ones, add a soundcard (for turning it into a oscilloscope/fft analysis/ tone generator) and I’ll be ready to go.

Speaking of audio stuff, I’ve ordered my first parts, well first part at least. I’ve decided to build myself a bench power supply. Found a good transformer on Ebay, now all I need is a variac, some capacitors (hmm, wonder if the ones I scavenged would work) and some bridge rectifiers. I figure it’ll be able to put out over 500v DC off of it’s primary winding and around 150v dc off of the secondary windings. Having a variable bench supply will make it much easier to build and design stuff, plus it’s a good practice for making an amp’s power supply… I was reading a guy’s site (tubelab) and he had the good idea and common sense to buy several cheap multimeters and hook them up to the circuit, and THEN turn it on. You can make your readings without having to poke around potentially lethal voltages and then turn it off. Makes a lot of sense, especially since I can buy seven of these things for around $100 these days, cheap insurance. Once I have the supply set up, I can start the amp experimenting/building!

Isaac

I am down to 210 from 223 at thanksgiving. Of course being sick for the past couple of days makes it easier to lose weight. Anyway, I’m taking the positive out of this:-) Makes the resolution to get down to below 200 by march first look simple. Just got to keep watching myself and I’m there…

Isaac

I awoke early this morning feeling very ill. Made up my mind that I wasn’t going in around 8:45 and called my manager. She informed me that I was the only one opening. Shit! I had to run in and open up and wait until someone could relieve me. Things went OK, John got there around 11:15ish and I went home. There’s something going around, some sort of stomach thing. I must have it, I’ve felt nauseous all day although I haven’t actually had any “roman moments” yet. With any luck I can go in tomorrow, we’ll see…

So what did I do today? The same thing anyone else would, I scavenged parts off of a dead amp. It was my dad’s, we cooked one day having it run 3 sets of speakers with their resistance based volume controls turned way down. In other words, we had the amp cranked way up and the speakers turned way down. All that energy got turned into heat. It worked until we shut it off, it never came back on. It looks like we burned part of the circuit board, so there was no repair possible. It looked like the heat was concentrated around a current sink, away from the outputs. So what’d I get? I know you’re dying to know… I got a big old power transformer, 4 large power supply caps, a really nice heatsink and 8 jfets or mosfets (haven’t looked up the part number yet). No, I don’t plan on making a solid state device, but they do make for great current inks or cathode followers, so they might come in handy.

I also got my new phono preamp today! It is easily the ugliest looking piece I’ve ever owned since it doesn’t come with a case. It’s just a circuit board… Still, it’s a pretty fancy thing, dual super low noise power supplies. That’s huge in a phono preamp because of the massive amount of amplification needed to hear the output from the cartridge. So how did I get such a fancy preamp for $150? The power supply is really simple, a pair of 9 volt batteries. Poof, there goes all the circuitry trying to use wall current to power a DC system. Anyway, it sounds great, quite a step up from what I had before, I have bass again! Plus it’s much cleaner and dynamic. Now I can sit down and really enjoy my records!

Isaac

I didn’t do a damn thing yesterday, and it felt really good. It was really my first down day in almost two months… I did exercise and cook, but today I get to run some of the errands that I couldn’t in Dec., like getting my hair cut. Since my usual haircutter has moved up to Frederick (I miss you already Jenny!), I’ll have to find someone else. It’s not as though I’m super worried about my hair, but it sure was nice having someone that actually cared if I looked decent or not:-) So today it’s exercising, hair cutting, laundry, Arabic lessons, and guitar practice. Not a bad day I suppose:-) I also ordered the software that will allow me to design my tube amp. Looks as though I’m going to have to install virtual PC again since these are windows only programs. I’m sure that it’ll run much better on my Mac mini than on the frankenMac or my little iBook, but I really hate XP. Oh well, gotta do what I gotta do. Have a great New Year!

Isaac

This year has been pretty good to me. I’ve stumbled across some things that have made my life quite a bit easier and I have gotten myself into a position to do what I’ve been wanting to do for a long long time, stop working retail… I’ve made more money this year than ever before and I got another 14+% return on my 401k this year, pretty cool.

I’ve never been a big fan of new year’s resolutions but for perhaps the first time in my life I’ve accomplished something that I’ve really had to work had for. I told myself that to make this trip to Egypt work, I would have to have at least 10 grand in the bank by feb. I hit 12,000 this month. I’ve come around to the whole setting goals thing, so here’s some resolutions for the new year:

1) Go to Egypt for a year. This is what is driving me, it is why I am doing what I’m doing at work, I will make this trip happen.

2) Lose 15 pounds by March 1. I’ve lost 12 just by cutting back on the crap I eat, no reason that I can’t lose more if I actually exercise and eat decently. I’m going to have to concentrate to make this happen, but I’ll do it.

3) Exercise at least 3 times a week. I know, I know, exercise resolutions are the most common and the least attained, but I was actually doing this for 4 or 5 months this year. I gave up during november and december, but I’m going to get back to it, I feel pretty weak right now…

4) Build at least one stereo amplifier. Yeah, the preamp is still sitting there, lacking only a few capacitors and resistors, but amps have always been my focus. I’ll put the order in for the parts at the end of january. Not sure if I want a triode push pull or a single ended ultralinear pentode for my first effort, any suggestions?

5) Get through all of the guitar lessons that I have right now and half of my next book by august 20th. I have let my practicing stop during december but I really want to learn more. I’m doing this primarily for learning more about music but I understand that learning music can also open up other pathways in the brain. That makes it easier to learn things, that’s useful for…

6) Learn everything in the Arabic books/cds I own. I would like to have some rudimentary grasp on the basics before I go over. I’d be happy if I could greet people, say thank you, and tell the cabbie to take me to the campus. I don’t have any doubts that I can learn the language, especially since I’ll have to learn to function over there:-)

So that’s my list. It’s front weighted towards the beginning of this year since I’m not sure what is going to happen once I get over there. So I guess I better get cracking!:-) Happy New Year!!!

Isaac

OK, last night I narrowly escaped purchasing a tube tester, for $1300… I came to my senses and realized that I can’t buy an expensive thing like that until I come back from my trip. I have not been able to resist the urge to buy more albums unfortunately. I really really want a copy of “Get Behind Me Satan” on vinyl but apparently it’s a really rare thing and costs a lot of money. Some of their older albums are not, so I bought “Elephant”, an extravagant repackaging of Sonic Youth’s “Dirty” (4 LPs!), and Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins. I’m a sick man, I already own two of those things on CD (albeit without the extras for Dirty), but I do enjoy the better sound from LPs. I can comfort myself with the knowledge that I made an extra $1000 in sales this month, so I guess a little something for me isn’t so bad, right? Just gotta make sure it doesn’t become a habit, again…

Isaac

Wow, just rediscovered Sam Cooke’s Night Beat. What an album, OMG it’s wonderful. It isn’t intense, just really fun and nice. Plus I could listen to him sing all day long. Next up is Belzububba from the Dead Milkmen. I miss them, and there isn’t really anyone to take their place. I’ll be doing nothing but listening to my LPS for weeks:-)

Isaac

Some things just sound better on vinyl. I’m listening to “Tapestry” by Ms. King.I can’t think of a more evocative LP than this for the early 70’s and it just doesn’t sound right on CD. The same goes for early Rolling Stones, and the Cynics should never be heard on anything but LP or maybe a scratchy FM station (like that would ever happen…). Can’t wait to put “Revolver” on in the next day or so, and then there’s my Beach Boys records. Oh how I’ve missed these albums!

Of course with my newfound joy I’ve listened carefully to my phono preamp for the first time. It ain’t all that good unfortunately. Or at least it is sorely lacking compared to what I’ve had in the past, but I’m not going to drop that kind of money right now, not until I can build something or afford a decent phono stage (tubed of course!). I did find a cheapie unit ($150) that is universally considered to be the one to beat when you’re trying to do this sort of stuff on the cheap…

Another thing that I’ve noticed, and that I’ve missed, is that I can literally listen to records all day and not get fatigued. Even the best CD systems wear me out after 2 or 3 albums. I’m on my 5th LP of the night and I’m debating on weather or not I should put another on, and that’s with a sub par preamp! With the right equipment, it can be magical… I need to go on a classical record hunt. They are, for the most part cheap as dirt, but I could have my “brain music” on all day and not get tired or a headache! Gotta start trolling ebay again…

Isaac