Happy New Year!

 Here's hoping '24 will be better than '23. I really don't need any additional Hospital Time.

Winter's been a big bust so far. There's been a decent amount of snow in the mountains (still below normal), but nothing down here in the foothills. We have no snow on the ground, and it's hasn't rained in quite a while. The yard plants are desiccated, and without a snow cover, things around here just look all dried-out , desolate, and dead.

So here's my best wishes for all my friends to have a Happy New Year. Keep your head on a swivel, be vigilant, and may you all Live Long and Prosper.

Failed to Publish. Try Again Later... Say, What?

 Huhhhhh....Can't reply to comments in my previous post. It just belches out the reply in the title.

Wonder if I can make a new post? Good Gravy, it's freakin' WINDY tonight. The weather station is reporting pretty steady ~20MPH winds, with gusts to ~35MPH. Sorry guys, can't do it in knots. The weather station only gives me MPH and KPH, although with a bit of code editing, I could add that feature pretty easily to the software used to get it on the network. Gotta love Open Source.

Here we go....bonna pull the pin and lob this with the "Publish" button.

Merry Christmas

 All the kids and the littles will be over this evening to have our Traditional Christmas Dinner of Sloppy Joes, French Fries, and other things to nibble on.

Wishing you all the best for Christmas and the coming New Year.

I just hope the road's a bit smoother this coming year!

Peace to All Men of Good Will.....

How Do You Guys (and gals) Manage Your Blogging?

 I just don't understand how people who blog can be so prolific, and on a continuous basis. There are times I posted daily, like when I rebuilt the suspension on the Supra, or on various other projects, and during our move here, but it seems like I just run out of steam at times.

I stick to techie and humor stuff, things I know well, and stay away from politics, which others know far better. Besides, I have to watch my blood pressure, and discussing politics gives me heartburn!

So here it is, a week from Christmas. We have *some* snow still laying around, the streams and drainage ditches are full of frozen water, and the damn geese are all over the place, but it doesn't feel like "Winter" this year. Houses are decorated, and our neighbor at the end of the street collaborated with his next door neighbor, and have "crossover" decorations. One of which is the Grinch and Sam, in neighbor #1's yard, pulling down the lights from neighbor #2's eaves. Funny and creative, and I'll bust out my tripod so I can get some decent 'available light' pix of it. NWS is saying there's a "Chance of Snow" for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and the Denver and Front Range Weather guy on Fakebook says it might be nothing, and we might get clobbered, as there's TWO systems which will converge this weekend.

So have a good week, stay observant, and always remember....

Geez....AWOL again, Jim?

 Yeah, been another week lurking in the basement slaving away over some "Hot Tinkers". Can't show you pix as it was a paying customer with a God-Knows-How-Old-It-Is sick Fender Twin Reverb (A blackface, no less!), and he wanted it yesterday. As in BIG $$$, Have The Parts Shipped Overnight, yesterday.

 Made me an offer I couldn't refuse for my labor. I've worked on quite a few of these, and the whole key is understanding their lineage. This one dates to the late 1960's, and while well used, it was in Very Good condition.

This will help with the Christmas gifts I purchased over the last couple of months.

As promised, we had an episode of "Baking With Grandma!" take place over last weekend. This was the "Don't bother us, we're doing the second batch!" scene:

And I'm busy doing several things.

1)Finishing up those speakers that got delivered during The Week Of The Femur Fracture. Should have them in use by Christmas Day, God willin' and the paint dries hard!

2) The aforementioned Fender Amp repair.

3)Misc things involving the recommissioning a Windows 7 PC, and getting my instruments on the HPIB. Anybody know HP/Agilent/Keysight VEE? Any LabVIEW users? I really want to get my HP-8903B Audio Analyzer automated so I can do swept measurements automagically, and plot them.

4) And I'm doing my "second batch" of Nakamichi BX-300. Since I can find no evidence of the cover ever being removed, this is quite likely the first time anybody's ever been in the unit. I took a lot of detailed photos of mundane things like how the cables are run, how many, and where, are all the cable ties, and other stuff of interest.

Here it is with the transport out. These are much easier to work on than that Pioneer I got burned on. I think it's built better, too.

This will have all new belts, a new idler assembly, and a set of "Athan" pinch rollers when it's finished. This one is a much later SERNO than the one I just shipped out, so it should sound really good when finished.

Oh, I'm building a 1:12 scale model of a 1982 Supra. I have all the various kits of Supras that I was able to find, and I picked the simplest kit to start with. Simple interior, no engine, and the white plastic the body is molded from is very close to the white my 1:1 scale is painted. The interior was molded in black, so I painted it with SEM "Shadow Blue", which is an exact match for the real interior out in the garage.

Still Here, Still Busy, Proper Post in Progress!

 Been super busy down in the shop. I had a PC I built for Audio/Video work some time back, so I finally took a deep breath, and decided to repurpose that one as the "Lab PC". All my HP equipment has an HPIB/GPIB Interface, and I have plenty of various length HPIB cables, and a Prologix HPIB-to-USB interface. Ultimate goal is to automate my audio testing with the HP-8903, and automate generating RF signals from my HP-8657B, modulated by the HP-8904A Multifunction Synthesizer.

And I have some "Baking with Grandma" stuff, too.

Enjoy your coming weekend, and stay observant.