Fall postview.

October, yay.
A presidential election between a geriatric, a nutcake, an inspirational story, and a rail commuter.
Adrian spent four nerve racking days weaning while C caught some Nevada sun. She came back for the worst of it though. He's doing much better, getting and staying asleep. He's also getting adept at taking records out of their sleeves. I've asked C to try and get some of the nice record storage boxes from our brother in law. They'll get packed up and put away until I get my very own hifi room. I'll most likely be packing up the turntable as well. That means it'll be strictly digital around here. Hopefully I can get a decent optical dac to go with this mac. At least it seems to play music without crashing.

speaking of mac crash. i initiated my third hardrive in this lemon. thank steve, you're advertising scheme has tricked me into a computer that's worse than any pc i've ever owed. i'm a mac. thursday is backup day.

ps. mac users should be using silverkeeper. great program, and has saved my lemon flavored tush.

TEETH/diarrhea/WEENING

so, as my first twice in one day blog, i'm going to just say that today has been pretty tough.

a-drain is going through a rough patch here, and the wife and i are at our wits end. she's got him sleeping in her beco carrier right now, but he wakes up if she stops walking. he's got extremely light (like the walls of an apartments) diarrhea, his eye teeth coming in, and we've been doing the weening thing for the past week.

yeah. it's been a long day. probably going to be a long night as well.

coffee of the sunday

type: guatamala finca la florencia 100% bourbon.
roast: fluidized bed 80 s after first crack. (city +)
brew: french press

and?

Dry Fragrance: A little on the mild side, subtle flowers? 4.0
Wet Aroma: Smells like good coffee 3.9
Brightness/Acidity: ZING! 9.1
Flavor Depth: Tons of spice. Is that mint? 9.0
Body/Movement: A little on the thin side. 2.8
Finish/Aftertaste: A happy goodbye. 9.1
+50
-------
87.9

sweetmarias.com score: 87.3

by popular demand: the mess

So, this is where the magic happens. I just mentioned last week that I love coffee. As I write this I'm enjoying a Honduras Organic Maracala -Cocosam Coop via the aeropress that I got as a present. The aeropress makes a great (and strong) cup of coffee. The Honduran is decent... certainly not the best I've ever had, it's far too light and bright. The fluidized bed roaster certainly doesn't help, even at darker roasts it seems to attach a lightness to most coffees.

The roaster is a freshroast plus 8:

From coffee

Which sets nestled in by the la pavoni grinder:

From coffee

(I'm working on getting a baratza. No need for anything more than that as I don't really do espresso)

These two machines comprise the 'lower level', as we rise in elevation we see the nesco and the frech press. This is the french press I keep at home. I also have a bodum 'kenya' that I keep at work with the aeropress:

From coffee

As we pan out we see the giant mess that is my coffee corner.

From coffee

A brief rundown here:
The table itself is made from a randomly extra cabinet door that was behind our fridge. The legs were purchased for $5 each from retro petes in St. Paul. The shade was sewn by my wife. It's a cute take on 1950's life. My favorite is the child in the backseat asking "are we there yet". It reminds me so much of adrian. The little white plastic thing next to the grinder is my scale. 75g batches, oh yeah. The small canning jars are a great way to keep the coffee from excess oxygen after roasting.
The mess is mine. I'm not much for wiping up any stray grounds, and when they get wet they seem to magically stain the table.

Coffee

Thus far I've blogged about my job, my family, and my obsession with audio equipment. I haven't really talked about coffee. Why would I talk about coffee? I might mention the closet and drawers full of unroasted green coffee... probably in the neighborhood of 60 lbs. I might also mention that the coffee area in our kitchen is a mess of chaff and grounds, with the homemade table it rests on a mosaic of brown stains.

Instead I'll focus on how amazing it is to wake up and press a button on my grinder, producing scents that makes folgers smell like poop (cus it is). I brew my fresh ground coffee in the newco ocs system (stainless), and drink from the marimekko (keisanrinkruunu) cups my wife gave to me for our (twas our second) anniversary.

I can close my eyes, and while Adrian eats his cheerios, I live in a magical land were bright floral flavors and lingering apple aftertastes are the stuff of realty.

Todays drink: La Manita Tarrazu, distributed by No Quarter Coffee to the GCBC.

this afternoon I'll be enjoying a Honduran courtesy of Sweet Marias.

Do you understand? No matter what else is going on, at least the coffee can be good.

In the lab.

Another night in the lab. It's strange trying to balance fatherhood and graduate school. I see quite a few women that seem to do ok, but I only know (personally) one other male who managed it. I wish I was home, helping with the chores, playing with Adrian, and chatting with my wife... but I'm not. I feel like I'm disappointing C & A by not being there, but I'm also expected to be here.

Anyhow, today's mood would be conflicted.

Happy birthday to Adrian

So what if I'm posting this a couple of days late? On Sunday Adrian turned one. The poor little guy was looking around with his furrowed brow trying to figure out why everyone was singing and clapping. He then promptly forgot about all that and proceeded to rub chocolate frosting (no transfats or corn syrup, go mom!) all over himself.

He got some neat new toys, some clothes, and a new jogging stroller. Or was the jogging stroller a hint for me? Regardless, it was a really good day.

back and forth of July

So, not really much to say here. C and A have been gone most of the day, and I got to take three wonderful trips to the southdale mall to get my mac fixed. Srsly, I've never had a computer that looked so good. I've also never had a computer that was so slow, crashed, and died so often. At least there are no viruses... only bad logic boards, trackpads that fail, and an OS that doesn't recognize bad RAM.

may showers bring june flowers?

I really wanted to post yesterday, but the day just got away from me. Adrian and I went to the park in the morning. We did the swing and the slide, but that got boring quick. Probably moreso for dad than for A, but regardless we made our way to a grassy knoll.

A was playing with a stick, and I picked one up and tapped his stick. He burst out laughing and started playing swords. Its the third time this weekend that I've seen him use a tool. The first was when he picked up his sippy cup, and started drinking by himself. It shocked both Cindy and I, as we're used to holding a glass for him to drink out of. We got a video of it, but I won't post it out of laziness.

The second tool usage was when he was playing with this strange dino toy. It's got a button that is really hard to push, but when you push it down it makes weird "dinosaur" type noises. His little fingers just aren't strong enough. I showed him that if you hit it with another toy that it would make the sound. He immediately picked up a toy and started banging it against the button. My son is officially smarter than a caveman!

Oh yeah, he started walking last week too.

pass

So, I passed. I'm exhausted with three months of writing and a month of solid studying. It would've been easier if I had just laid down and let them kick me.

The night before the day

So yeah. I've spent the last month holed up in an office overlooking what may be the ugliest building on the University of Minnesota campus (yes, that would be the civil engineering building). I get in around 9 am and have been staying until 8:30 at night. It would be lying if I said I spent ALL that time working, but I feel like I've done everything to prepare for tomorrow.

Tomorrow. My "prelimenary" oral exam. If I pass, I become a Ph.D. candidate. If I fail I could retake the exam in a few months, but most likely I'll just get my MS and a job. I'm way past the part where I care if pass or fail, just knowing that I've done everything I can up to this point.

No matter what happens, I'll be spending Tuesday with Adrian. I'm starting to think he doesn't know who I am anymore.

I'll try and update sometime soon as to the result.

Oh yeah... Summer is here and there are some serious stereo projects in development. Up next is rewiring my pass pearl, followed shortly by the assembly of an aleph mini.

Also in the works: new speakers (Adam, I promise I'll get in touch next week), and a headphone system for the office. I'm looking forward to good sounds in 08.

Written prelim

I've gotten the grades from two of my committee members. Both passed me. I made some pretty egregious mistakes, mostly due to my poor communication skills (at least that's what my wife tells me).

When describing Matthiessen's rule, I said that the deviatory components came from the resistivity due to interaction of the dislocations and the phonons, and that for low dislocation densities, and moderate temperatures that electrons and phonons don't interact. I'm sure that 99% of people reading this (including anyone in my family) has no idea what I just said, but I'll let you know that the last five words are patently false. I felt like a moron, but I really meant to say that the electron-phonon and electron-dislocation components do not interact. It's not a fine distinction, its the difference between a good assumption in most cases and being wrong. Anyhow, I still passed and thats something.

Strangely, my last post was titled "this process is hell", very similar to "the thousand thicknesses of hell" used to describe the Exum ridge route by Glenn Exum. I didn't find this out until after, but as I'm planning to make this climb in August looks like I've scheduled two trips to hell in one calendar year.

I leave you with this:

"this process is hell"

I turned in my written preliminary exam for my Ph. D. candidacy on Tuesday. My oral exam is postponed due to things beyond my control, but it looks like its only going to be pushed back 10 days.

That gives me 10 more days to recover from the 85 page written. This process is hell.

Friday night: being a parent

Watching my son play with his Habas chew toy. It's not quite what I imagined when I found out I was gonna be a dad, but it' magical in it's own way.

Earlier, he and I danced while listening to Oscar Peterson "plays". It was a nice break from this week, which has been full of "work stress." I've got a major project due date coming up, and I'm trying to tie up a lot of loose ends. Hopefully it wraps up nicely!

Digging Deep

This morning has been a blast. My wife had the opportunity to nap while I watched the little guy. We played with some giant stuffed dinosaurs that were a gift from g'ma and g'pa. He's sitting up now, and would just go nuts tipping all over the place trying to tackle and eat the dinosaurs.

Also this am:

Another prize from the "all records except polka" stash:

The Shangoons: Jungle Drums




It's got a pretty nasty gash across side 1 from label to edge, but there's nothing audible until the last track. I guess I'll just miss out on "the lion sleeps tonight" which is a shame, but it's the only track on the whole album that I knew before hand.

The rest is a total gem. I realy like this record!

All 45s, all night

Last night I was witness to one of the most amazing manipulation of the vinyl medium in my short lifetime.

Dj Shadow & Cut Chemist present: The Hard Sell. Dj Shadow is probably most famous for his work "endtroducing", which is an amazing work of sampling that really launched the (now defunct) mowax label. Cut Chemist is probably most famous for his work with Jurassic 5, Ozomatli, and apparently had a role in the movie Juno.

The Hard Sell is an 8 turntables, 4 mixers, 2 dj's, 100's of 45's extravaganza.

The sound manipulation was something I'd never seen before, and a true testament to both of these gentlelmen as dj's and producers. It really doesn't do much good for me to talk about it, but here's a few random tidbits that I really enjoyed.

A free random highlights:

LZ's stairway to heaven cover, using the lyrics to the theme from Gilligan's Island.
*I've found out through a listener more informed than myself that this is Dr. Demento's Stairway to Gilligan's Island

A kaleidoscope of tunes that recreated "potholes in my lawn" by de la soul, including a voiceover of a man who wished he was a plug, morphing into the lyrics "plug one, plug two, plug one, plug two"

The finale, which included 45s being played offcenter creating a wow and flutter event which was a lesson in physics.

Visuals were by Ben Stokes. If you like eye candy, I'd check this guy out. He really put something up that complimented the music playing.

*videos available on youtube if you search for "the hard sell" I'm sure that a DVD will be made available after the tour.

lil' A

It was a big week for my little man. He had his second swimming lesson, which went much better than the first. The first time we went, the instructor told us to dip our children in. Adrian went absolutely ballistic. Apparently it's MUCH better to gently touch their toes in and let them know that they're not in any danger. We didn't listen much to the instructor the second time, and my wife went in with him. He didn't smile until he got out, but I have a feeling that he's going to enjoy going back.

Also, this weekend we went down to my parents house to meet up with a photographer that my wife hired. While we are pretty happy with where we live, and love our place, there are so many massive trees that we don't get hardly any direct sunlight.

Here's a couple of pics of my little guy:

Stylus cleaning

Yesterday I received a package from Mehran of Sorasound. I had ordered a stylus force gauge (how had I lived without one?) and an Onzow zerodust in a package deal. First off, Mehran was very pleasant to deal with. His package arrived via USPS as fast as can possibly be expected.

I first checked my VTF, amazingly it read 1.85-g only 0.05 g over the recommended for the AT 440Mla that's been my main squeeze for over a year. This carts got well over 1000 hours on it, and while I regularly alternate between a b&o stylus brush and the AT brush that came with the cart, there has been a slow accumulation of crap building up on the back of the sylus.

With that in mind I had purchased a magic eraser (ME) per Doug Deacon's recomendation on audioasylum. While the vinyl asylum (VA) is often filled with people jocking the gear and tweaks that they've purchased and/or tried ad infinitum/nauseum there is occasionally the random gem of info. However, the use of ME comes with several warnings of people who have lost their stylus in the material. So, tenderly, with the volume on, I lowered the cart onto the ME hearing a slight crackle, and let it set for a couple of seconds before raising the cart with the arm lever.

Nope, there was still some gunk back there. Not quite visible with the naked eye, but easily visible with my loupe. (Why I have a loupe is quite a different story, but hey, it was free!). That was last week. I was hoping the zerodust would be able to take of that for me.

and it did. The cart sounds like it did at 100 hours. Shallbehealed class (A*+)^3 recommended. The wife likes it too. (ie, takes up no space in our house, didn't have to take out the equivalent of a home loan, and makes our system sound better.)

Decisions!

I've decided to keep my Pearl preamp. It didn't help that when I went to demo it again, the damn thing wouldn't make a peep. I'm sure this is it's way of saying it wants to stay in our house!

Today plays

Last weekend my wife, my son, and I went on a short record buying roadtrip to a small town in southern minnesota. (I'm deliberately being vague, because I'll definitely be going back.)

This gentleman has 30,000 records in his climate controlled basement. I'd say that at least 3 or 4,000 are 78's, another 2,000 are some thick shellac things I've never seen before, and the remainder are 45's and LP's.

He said that all records are $1, except polka. I bought 27 records, including 3 sealed RCA Victor red seals. However, I'm most pleased so far with some of the offbeat records such as

Taboo "the exotic sounds of arthur lyman"

This is a fantastic record. Some amazing drum subtlety, and dramatic passages. This single record made driving around semi-lost on county roads for 45 minutes worth it.

i'm with the band!

Human Remains
(more important) than any one thing

Rules

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Pass Pearl Phono Preamp

I built this phono preamp almost two years ago now. I've had a couple of issues with the power supply and hum (only appears when I close up the case).

but when that case is open, it makes music like I've never heard before.

Originally I put it away because an open power supply with lots of extra cabling floating around isn't child friendly, and I had given some thought about moving away from a turntable only system. I purchased a Professional Studio Engineering "Studio One" preamp to replace it. Last night, after a friend of mine said he would be interested in taking the pearl off my hands, we had a listen.

I almost cried when I heard the difference. insert audiophilia rambling about clarity here. We dropped some Oscar Peterson and there was a piano in the room. (Okay, there was already a piano in the room, but now it sounded like someone was playing it!)

Anyhow, I don't know if I can let this go. Maybe it's time to move on?

OHMYGOD, I'M A BLOGGER!

Holy first post!

Here I am, might as well say something...

I'm into roasting coffee, building amplifiers, listening to records, collecting turntables, and rock climbing. I'm sure I'll talk more about these later.

More importantly I'm also into being a good husband to my wife, and father for my son, now five months.