The Age of Miracles and Wonders

I've been in audio geek mode the past week or so.

The Guinea Pigs sound system lost a monitor amplifier at our last gig - one of two ancient amps that Dan trucks around, and I volunteered to pick up a solid-state replacement that could feed both mains and monitors. I'm slowly building up my own PA system (having previously purchased a mixer, snake, monitor speakers, and accessories), so added a 500W / Channel solid state amplifier at low cost, and a wooden rack to mount it in. I feel very professional.

That got me thinking about Om Street: Yoga on LaSalle Road - I'm the audio engineer in charge, and have been running a "two amplifier" system there for a few years (with digital delay to control echoes for the satellite system, 200' down the road). So while I was prepping and messing with the new amp, I picked up some way too inexpensive (seemingly) speaker cables: 2 x 30' Speakon-to-1/2" ($12.50 per) and 2 x 15' 1/4"-to-1/4" ($12 per) and some 1/4" couplers - which will give me some additional flexibility when setting things up this July. The cables came in today and I spent some time unwrapping them, marking them (I use blue tape on the ends of my cables, and blue velcro ties), and stowing them in the gack bags and bins. 

And while I was at it, I picked up an old audio engineers bible, The Sound Reinforcement Handbook by Gary Davis. (which apparently you can download for free online at PDF Shack - not sure if that's legit or not, but with a 1988 printing date, I am sure they've made their money by now. I'd just as soon have it in print, old school like.

A lot of what's in the handbook will be, I am sure old hat to me, but there are a few things I'd like to learn more about - compression, tone control for various instruments (drums, guitars, voice), speaker placement, etc. I've picked up some stuff over the years; as a musician with electric guitars and basses, as a utility and computer geek at various corporate productions. But always more to learn.

As I lay on the couch reading this afternoon, I thought about how many fun toys I have at my fingertips, in my arsenal these days. I've got a portable o-scope that interfaces with a laptop. I've got a signal generator, both a hardware version and an app on my phone. I've got a kicking audio signal analyzer for my iPad. I can set up a sound system throw some pink noise in, and tweak the tone for the room. I have amazing tech for very little money that would have cost 10's of thousands back in the late 70's / early 80's.

I thought back to my 8th grade self, who wanted very much to mess around with this stuff. How I would love to jump back in time with all my toys and help that little kid with a science fair project. I thought about my college self, getting a EE degree in analog design, running around Worcester county recording marimbas to characterize the frequency content and envelope the better to synthesize the instrument. I was minoring in music, mucking around with an ARP 2600 and a four-track recorder when I could get my hands on it. Having fun.

I never did much with music out of school - the Carter / Reagan recession was in full swing, the cool companies like Bose were not hiring, and I was happy to get my first job that led me down the power quality road. And it was not too many years later that digital sound came along and blew analog synthesizers out of the water. 

But here I am, 30+ years down the road, and whatever fire was there is still burning. I'll probably never be much more than an audio hobbyist, but it gives me great joy to have the right tools, the right knowledge, the experience to put a decent system together. Back to the couch, to geek out. Watch out world!

Office Clean Up: Fax Line and Spam

For whatever reason, this was a good week to do some clean-up and tech organizing.

First off, my fax line. Way back in 2007, I noted the way my professional need for a dedicated fax line had changed (I was renting space in an office building at the time). Nevertheless, when I set up my New Britain home office in 2009, I opted in for a second landline in the place to be used as a fax line.

Somewhere along the line, I gave up that second line (probably about the time my Comcast TV / Internet / Phone bill started to hit the pain threshold and I bought a digital television), I cut the video cable and probably let go of that second phone line.

Not wanting to lose the cachet of a dedicated fax line, I signed up for a digital fax service, OnlineFaxes to be specific. For $36 bucks a month I get a dedicated, 860 fax number, and 25 free pages per month. I almost never receive any faxes, but I at least have the capability.

Today I *finally* got my in-office tech up to speed - plugged my all-in-one printer / scanner / fax into my voice phone circuit (so I could send a hard-copy fax if I needed to), set up the header to reflect the "new" digital fax number, and programmed the fax machine to pick up "after" my landline goes to voice mail (which is to say, never)

Faxes are all but dead, I know, but it's nice to have the capability.

On the spam front, I spent some time trying to shovel sand against the sea of spam. I've owned my powerlines.com domain since the dawn of the internet, and have been using my primary email address since 2001 or thereabouts. So I get a *lot* of unwanted email. And while a pile of that is clearly spam that is not going to change regardless of my actions, a second pile is stuff that I have deliberately or inadvertently opted-in to over the years. It's not that big a deal on my dedicated computer - I have spam filters, junk filters, folder filters to move stuff around and my in-box is traditionally a dozen or so emails a day. But on my phone or tablet - well, there are 100s of emails every day to scroll through. 

So this week I set out to thin the email herd a little bit. I sorted my SPAM / JUNK folder by sender, and for anything that looked like opt-in email (SPAM comes in 1-2 day waves, opt-in stuff comes pretty consistently) I chose to either accept it (setting a filter to dump it into a semi-organized / useful folder, such as "electrical newsletters" or "consumer" or "musical" for places I do frequent) or to unsubscribe.

It's a huge task (over a decade of not really paying attention) but I think I'm making some inroads. the work continues....

Website Redesign Fail: Real Art Ways

Dear Real Art Ways:

Please put your old website back up. The new one truly and verily sucks. I mean, it looks nice and all, but from a user experience perspective, it's nearly useless.

The ONE THING that I visit your website regularly to do is to find out movie showtimes. I'd go to your calendar page, which used to look like this:

And there, I'd easily see your film showtimes for the week, make some quick decisions about going to the movies, and perhaps even notice another upcoming event.

Flash forward to today - I visited your site to see what's playing - maybe catch a movie tonight. So here's the calendar page. And....I have no idea what is playing tonight.

 

There are four films listed as playing over Dec 5th, today's date, but no clue as to which films are playing today, nor what time said films are playing. So I dutifully click on Citizenfour (what I'm really interested in). There, on the far right, I see Dec 5th - No Screening. So I click back to the main page. How about Diplomacy then? Again, click, look, again, No Screening. Hit the back button. So now I am four clicks past where I used to be able to see the schedule, and I still have no idea what's playing. 

Turns out 4 clicks later, 8 clicks total, that Pelican Dreams is playing at 5:15 pm and Force Majeure is playing at 7:00 pm. 

Guess what, Real Art Ways? Your website is no longer useful to me. I will, in the future, be relying on Moviefone or Fandango or Yahoo to figure out what to see and when. 

That has two results that negatively impact Real Art Ways: 

1. I'll be easily able to see what is playing at other area theaters, and might be lured away from your otherwise lovely arts center. 
2. I will fail to see news about your live events, openings, special events, etc. that I suspect you would hope I would notice if I went to your site. 

I'm not being a bitch capriciously. I'm a member, I'm a fan, I regularly visit for movies, speakers, live events, arts openings, and social events - and I want you to continue to thrive. I will, no doubt, continue to visit often. But bad web design damages, and sometimes kills, businesses and organizations - even ones as good-hearted and progressive as yours.

Oh, and P.S. - Your site is not responsive, and all that hunting and clicking, annoying as it was on my desktop and tablet, is 10x as bad on my iPhone 5S. But you knew that, right? 

Lighting the Stairs

A somewhat random home improvement post in betwixt and between NERFA updates and life updates.

The previous owner of my condo put up some basement walls that effectively blocked any light source from the stairway (a code violation, to be sure). I ignored the issue for a while, relying on a top of the stairs hallway lamp. Later on, I installed a small halogen "under counter" lamp on the wall, plugged into the switched basement lamp fixture, to light the stairs. But I never really loved that solution - the light was somewhat harsh, unidirectional, and blinding. When the light stopped working yesterday (fuse? bulb? not 100% sure...) I decided to replace rather than repair.

I took advantage of the seasonal holiday lights available at Lowe's  to buy a couple of strings of white rope lighting, which I fixed (using white plastic coax staples along the stair reads and along the ceiling / walls. The result is enough light to travel the stairs, without being too bright.

On the downside - the light along the stair tread really shows the collected dog hair; I will have to vacuum more regularly. And the whole thing is a little trailer park. But I'm good with that....

Self-reminder: You Are Handy

I had a dream a few nights back - I was back in my house in Watebury, which had fallen on hard times - windows warped and not closing, floors damaged. As I woke, part of my "rooted in the present" mind reminded me of the storm windows I had installed at that house. I could not really afford replacement windows (many window, very large), but I removed and discarded the removable storms / screens, stripped and repainted the sills, and installed new triple track storm windows throughout the house. I count 10 large windows downstairs, and 4 smaller windows upstairs. It was a pretty big project - done by hand (with the aid of a heat gun to strip the old paint)

That reminded me of all the home repair / infrastructure upgrade projects I have completed over the years at that place:

•  Upgraded electrical panel from an old screw-fuse panel (I think there were 6 total fuses, including two for the dryer) to a 200 Amp breaker panel. The electrical inspector was impressed by my workmanship (and could tell I did it, because I put service loops in all the wires as they entered the breakers)
•  Ran a hot water line over to the washing machine
• Installed 240 VAC electric heater baseboards on the second floor
• Replaced the gas hot water heater
• Built a bulkhead door (admittedly, this was kind of a horror)
• Replaced front storm door
• Installed three motion lights (after we got broken into early in my time there)

So yeah. I'm handy.

I was reminded of this yesterday - my iPhone (an older 4S model that is in good condition, meets my needs, and is perfectly serviceable) went from 30% charge to OFF in about 15 seconds. I've had it a while; time for a new battery. And my first thought was to go to the local indie geek store to get it done. But then I thought "you're a geek, you can do this" and indeed, for about $20 one can get a new battery and a toolkit to make the replacement, with plenty of online help via youtube and other places.

 Replacement battery and toolkit are en route, probably show up tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes....

Persistence

I've been getting phone calls for my brother. It's a foreign sounding gentleman (india? middle east?) and he asks specifically for my brother. I tell him there is nobody by that name here. He hangs up, and a few days later, same dude calls back. Bill Collector? Telemarketer?

What's really weird is that my brother has not lived with me since the mid 90's. And there is a whole raft of changes that have come between then and now, including:

* I have a new name
* I've moved twice
* I've changed phone numbers 4-5 times, moving from personal lines to business lines, and back
* For 7-8 years, I had no personal utilities (electric, gas, cable, phone, water) in my name (I moved in with a roommate)
* My brother never had utilities in his name at the old place.
* I do not get a lot of telemarketing calls (on do not call list) and I also do not get calls to other folks who share my last name. So it seems kind of targeted.
* I do get occasional bill collector / marketer calls for other folks who used to have my number.

Totally weird. All I can think of is that this guy has followed a string of "call forward" references from Waterbury to Newington to Hartford to Newington to New Britain.

Alternately, the guy I bought my condo from shares my brother's given name, and perhaps they are conflating that with my last name. Next time they call I am gonna see if I can find out what the heck they want....

2013 Recap

One of the benefits of being a cranky holiday curmudgeon with a social network insufficient to drag me out on New Year's Eve is that I have the internets to myself this New Year's Day. And although 7:00 am is far from early, it should be noted that's I've already made myself breakfast (the "almost never in the larder, but left over from xmas" bacon and blueberry pancakes) and done the dishes. So I'm up and at 'em.

Once upon a time I would scroll back through this blog to recap the past year. Alas, social media has cannibalized a lot of the minutia and epherma of the blogosphere - so I'll resort to Facebook to remind myself what the past year wrought.

Recurring Events

Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (for the 20th time, I think. Or 21st. I forget). Camp Camp (third year). Both commitment I'm planing to keep for 2014. As a single person who has done a lot of traveling over the years, without a ton of money, these are perfect times to get off the grid, step out of the ordinary, and immerse myself in loving and entertaining communities. Although "working vacations" (I spend most of the "fest" time at Falcon Ridge in the merch trailer, and teach 10 yoga classes at camp) are probably something I ought to take a long hard look at.

On the yoga front, still teaching yoga, 3x a week plus occasional subs and intro classes. Still assisting with the teacher training program at the studio (since mid-way through the 2010 training; this will be my 4th full year). The studio did Om Street: Yoga on Lasalle Road again, and I (again) ran the sound system. (again with the "working vacation" theme)

On the ballooning front, I actually dragged myself out to the Frozen Buns Rally (coming up again soon), the CLAS annual dinner / banquet (on a very snowy night in Southington), and the CLAS Safety Seminar. All three are on the calendar for 2014. I have (thankfully) stayed out of management with the CT Lighter Than Air Society (although they keep trying to drag me in)

New and Notable Events

We had a pretty awesome snowstorm last February that took several days to escape from. Power and cable stayed intact, so a few days of hunkering down and nesting. I went to Boston to see a Red Sox game for the first time in decades, with the Camp Camp crew. Got down to Pennsylvania for the Trees Family Reunion for the first time in years - Falcon Ridge Folk Fest has historically conflicted about 80% of the time, but with the new fest dates, I hope to be more of a regular.

I had two natural visitors this year - a mother robin nested under my back porch, laying four eggs and fledging her chicks. And a pretty cool spider spun an orb web at my front porch over several weeks this summer. Those, along with my perennial suet cake feeder friends, provided good feedback that I'm carving out nourishing and nurturing space in my life.

And I made two runs at cleaning up my life, food wise this year - a 21 day Detox Cleanse and a 7 day juice fast (with 6 am kundalini yoga, what the hell was I thinking?) - and although both were interesting and useful, neither seemed to be the key to unlock whatever physical, psychological, and emotional impediments I bear that keep me eating poorly.

Music, Playing

My beloved Guinea Pigs kept busy this year. We started the year at MCC on Main (for the first of two gigs), opened for 41 Prospect at the Hartford Road Cafe in Manchester, played Hartford Hodge Podge, Blue Back Square, numerous farmer's markets (Wethersfield, Higganum, Billings Forge, and Bozrah, where we played without AC power), the Audubon Nature Center, and the Glastonbury Apple Harvest Festival. We snuck in an open mike appearance at Lasalle Market in December to close out the year.

In addition, I made my Camp Camp musical debut playing bass for the Scat Orrs (don't ask, it's kinda gross), the infamous camp lesbian folk rock ensemble. I also backed up one of the solo artists on bass. Lot of fun! And although I barely have memory of this, apparently I played bass for several Grateful Dead songs at a UU service in Manchester.


Although it does not really count as playing per se, I ran the sound for kirtan at West Hartford Yoga (twice) and for Little Ugly at Blue Back Square.

And broadening the category to all performance art, I did a piece at the December edition of The Mouth - the theme was "I Fought the Law" and my piece was titled Burger Prank Foiled

Music, Listening

As usual, a diverse musical year. Dervish and Deborah Voight were two "tag along with friends because I'm the one who can drive at night" shows that were nevertheless delightful. The many artists of Falcon Ridge (of course). I snuck down to the CT Folk Fest this year (which has become a mini Falcon Ridge reunion) and saw several notables, among them Honor Finnegan and Poor Old Shine.

Also, Dar Williams at the Iron Horse (twice!) as well as Meg Hutchinson. The Iron Horse has become a nice place to meet up with friends from that part of the world (holla, Amy and Patty!). Little Ugly (total age-inappropriate music crush) many times, most notably a WNPR livecast from downtown Hartford. Kate Callahan twice (once at West Hartford Yoga, once at the nascent Hartfolk Fest). String Theorie (loved 'em!). Hugh Blumenfeld's new group, The Faithful Sky at Roaring Brook Nature Center.  FRFF Emerging Artists from years ago Danny Schmidt and Carrie Elkin. And Girlfriend Project, one of my friend Julie's many musical projects.

Home Improvement

So yeah, I was a busy beaver. My friend Nykki moved into a new condo, and watching her spiff up the new place motivated me to redo my upstairs bathroom. What started out as a "slap a coat of paint on the walls" became two steps shy of a total tear-down. I replaced all the lighting fixtures, all the electrical switches, the thermostat, the towel racks and sink fixtures, the faucet and drain, and, to ice the cake, the shower curtain, towels, and rug.

In addition, I replaced an old (and never used) ceiling fan / light fixture in my kitchen with pendant lamps (dimmable LED technology), replaced my kitchen sink fixture with undercabinet light bars (which force me to clean the sink area far more often), two outdoor light flxtures (front porch and back deck) with downward facing fixtures (to reduce light pollution).

I also fabricated some spiffy shade screens for my front porch (to both block afternoon sunlight and give me some privacy from the building next door)

In the sense that ART = HOME IMPROVEMENT, I picked up some nice pieces - a series of Guinea Pigs doing yoga poses (keywords META YOGA CUTE), a beautiful photo of a blue heron in flight, an original hand-drawn bird print. My home's walls have become a nice reflection of my soul....


Toys and Consumerism

The biggies this year were sound and audio gack. I picked up a 14 channel audio mixer, 16 channel snake, and a pile of audio gear (mics, stands, monitors, power cables) - building myself up a nice little sound system. Right now it (mostly) augments the studio's sound system for kirtans, but I aspire to do more.

I also picked up a cheap ukulele (I blame Camp Camp, and my friends Eden and Kaia) and a cheap Epiphone electric guitar (I blame fellow Guinea Pig and guitar hoarder Dan)

In the non-musical territory - a tripod sunscreen / shade for Falcon ridge (intended to provide rain and sun shade for my tent, not all that effective), a small windo A/C unit for the basement office (the summer got pretty insufferable around August) 

I finally gave up and purchased a flat-screen HDTV (totally a late-acquirer, the cost came down to the point it was cheaper than my CRT television was when I bought it in the early 90's) - and with that came the decision to "cut the cord" (with HDTV, the low cost analog cable I was buying seemed kind of stupid) - I bought a cheap antenna which I hooked up on the outside of a second floor window, and that, along with a Roku box and subscriptions to Netflix, Hulu Plus, and the free apps on my iPad, are all the television I really need).

And lastly, I retired my old canister vacuum cleaner (a Kenmore unit I'd been lugging around since the mid 80's, one of my first adult purchases with my Sears credit card), replacing it with a much lighter Dirt Devil unit. I also started to use the vacuum cleaner to clean kitchen and bathroom floors (heretofore I've been sweeping them, how dumb / luddite-ish am I?). And bought the first dustbuster I've owned in 20+ years. (I had taken to using a hand broom to brush the dog hair off the bed each morning, and came to the realization that this might be one contributor to the dog hair covered rug up there). So now I vacuum my bed most mornings. TMI, I know.

Transitions

I'd note all the new babies in my life, except THERE ARE TOO DAMN MANY OF THEM. But special welcome to Nate and Freya, who parents are particularly beloved. I will say that, although there are many young children in my world, without exception their parents are amazing, healthy, sane, and full of love and life, and the world will be a better place for each of these new life journeys.

I was fortunate to have no significant deaths in my life this past year, although friends did lose parents and loved ones. RIP especially to Lola the pug; her mama moved to Califormia this past year and although we did not spend a lot of time together, she was always a bit of a guardian angel to me.

This year I decided to stop playing with the studio's kirtan group - I was finding the events to be a huge sink of energy for me; I'd end up with a 2-3 day "hangover" from each kirtan, and be filled with resentment at those who I saw as taking from me, but not sustaining me. The group has survived (with a new bass player and guitarist, apparently it takes two people to fill my seat, although both are far better musicians, and their involvement has affirmed my decision) and I've taken on a new role a sound engineer which lets me be part of it (OK, I'm still there for hours of set-up and tear-down) without draining my energy. I'm very happy with that decision. 

This year I also seem to have made a decision to stop traveling for work. It was less than conscious - it was in fact very awkward. I took a trip out to Portland, OR - and never finished the trip report, never billed the customer. I've just grown tired of that aspect of my work - I'm busy enough with the things I can do remotely, it disrupts my financial, teaching life, and travel has become such an unpleasant chore. Getting older? World changing? Life changing? Not really sure.

Finally, my yoga practice has transitioned this year into something different. I've been (over the years) a "Type A" yogi - hitting the mat 5+ times a week for a vigorous power practice. Whether it's age, the physical cost of being overweight and eating poorly, wear-and-tear from the practice, or some combination, I know I am good for maybe 2 power practices a week with a very select set of teachers. Add an angsty relationship with the community itself (and my own difficulties balancing my expectations and roles as teacher, student, friend, community member) and lack of resonance with some of the available less vigorous classes, and I'm just not spending a lot of time on the mat there.

Friends and Relationships

It's been a tough year on that front - a lot of holidays and weekends spent by myself, digging in to a cave of loneliness and self-pity. Yet there have been some highlights.

My friend Cheryl, the dark spirit of my teacher training class who terrified me (and was therefore someone I was curious about) has become such a good friend. Although we are on such different wavelengths (she runs somewhere between 4x and 10x as fast as I in just about everything - jobs, passions, living arrangements, relationships - so it's hard to keep up with her) she is nevertheless the one person who I can count on for a "how you doing?" text or an out of the blue invite for pancakes or pho. 

My friend Amy, who has transitioned from being on the periphery of my life (we've been Dar List / Dar Camp and Falcon Ridge acquaintances for many years, although truthfully she was mostly memorable for her hat and her camera for a lot of years) to being a good friend through Camp Camp and Falcon Ridge. She's helped to bridge the lonely weekends with Facebook chat and the occasional folk music foray (yeah, Iron Horse!) - and I can only admire her stamina when it comes to getting out to see live music!

And my "Little Buddy", Kaia (which she has noted, makes me "The Skipper") . I've no kids, but if I did, and could pick, she'd be atop the list - smart, talented, beautiful, real. It's been such a pleasure (and honor) to watch her life journey unfolding and she's one of those "I knew her back before she was famous" people.

Finally, my friend and teacher Barbara, who puts up with all my bullshit and flailing around (and 2013 was a big year for both) and neverthless continues to hold a place for me in the yoga teaching ranks, honors me with the opportunity to assist teacher training, makes sure I have at least one healthy meal per month, and drags my sorry ass up and down the hills of Colchester periodically, occasionally in a downpour. 

And although my single status and lack of a life partner seems to be a recurring source of struggle for me, well, there are signs of life. Faint maybe, but they are there.

In Summary

So...much as I whine and kvetch about how sucky / empty / lonely my life is - don't let that fool you. I had a pretty full and awesome year. If 2014 brings more of the same, who am I to complain?

I'm going to publish this now (while the day is young) and then go back and hyperlink the hell out of it. Because that's how I roll.

A Lifetime of Geekery

I spent the evening sorting through nearly 20 years of self employed electrical engineer / earnest do-it-yourself junk. I've been involved in several design / development projects that have resulted in a pile of supplies; along with a few dozen field service situations requiring little baggies of spare parts, hardware, fuses, etc. And while I've purged some of the larger piles and boxes over the years, there was still a lot of stuff collecting dust.

Here's the short list:

* Emptied a jam-packed plastic storage bin filled with drill bits and drivers, and moved those into two separate Dewalt plastic cases specifically designed for the purpose - one now labelled DRILLS and the other labeled DRIVERS.

* Combined electrical supplies (box fitting, wire nuts, etc.) that had gathered in three places (a home kit, a field service kit, and a miscellaneous stuff kit) into a single kit. I'm not doing much work traveling anymore and when I do I am not doing a lot of wiring - so no need for all these supplies.

* Rounded up all the ty-wraps (and affiliated cable fastening devices) in my life, sorted by size and color, and put into two plastic bins.

* Sorted all the screws, anchors, bolts, washers, nuts, etc. into two plastic bins.

* Emptied a fishing tackle box that had collected a lot of odds and ends - put the odds and ends into more appropriate places, and moved all my soldering and wiring supplies into the box. Who knew I had a professional wire stripping gun?

* Emptied a Craftsman tool box, ready for my loose and "unable to hang on the peg board" tools and supplies.


Feels good to have things more organized and to cut down on the "loose shit floating around" factor in my basement, which serves as my office, my laundry, and my tool / utility storage area.

Bigger != Better

An addendum to the "cutting the cable" project.

I found a larger (and presumably better) indoor / outdoor antenna at MCM Electronics. Dimensions: 21.5” (H) x 10.5” (W) x 4.5” (D), 40 db signal amplifier. It ought to (I assumed) meet or exceed the performance of the small indoor antenna (like a thick plastic sheet of paper) I am presently using.

Indoor / Outdoor UHF/VHF/FM HDTV Amplified Antenna
MCM Part #: 30-2455  |  Stellar Labs Part #: 30-2455

Wrong! After mounting the device to the same place (upper floor, facing south to grab WTNH-8), I found my digital reception degraded, both as a passive device and with the signal amplifier. I could not get WTNH-8 at all with the new antenna, and the Ion affiliate (Channel 26) was also gone.

So the old small antenna is back in place (attached to the outside of a window using 3M velcro knock-off strips), this one is going back in the box and either being returned or fobbed off on Craigslist.

Live and learn.

Killing Off Cable

Scrolling back through my blog posts, I see I have failed to document my recent explorations in the land of "mass media trends". Although my 50-something life is 2-3 decades away from the 20-somethings that have pioneered this movement, I've joined the ranks of those who have cut the cable.

Of course, being me, it was a gradual process. I toyed with the idea a few years back - had an old analog CRT television that I've owned for 25+ years, so I picked up a digital converter and tried to see what I could get over the air. At that time, and with that technology, the answer was "not much" - so I returned the converter and stayed connected. However, somewhere along the line I realized I was spending blocks of time on the couch watching reality show reruns (Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and Storage Wars were faves) and that was just stupid, so I downgraded my cable to the lifeline or tier - a handful of broadcast channels, TBS, the weather channel, and NECN. And that seemed to work fine - I missed a few things (Rachel Maddow,  Daily Show) but I survived.

A few months back, in a fit of late winter pique, I did a little retail therapy, and bought an inexpensive LCD digital television. While I was there, I decided to pick up a digital antenna, and the combination of reasonable channel selection and the superior HDTV picture made me rethink the cable decision. Specifically, to get HDTV I'd have to upgrade my cable plan to something more expensive (uh, no) and I realized that I got almost everything over the air (plus a few) that I was getting from lifeline.

So I disconnected the cable boxes (I had a converter for a seldom used small TV down in the office) and kept them in a box, just in case I had recriminations. A few weeks later, when Comcast (in their wisdom, and abetted no doubt by efficiencies in the US Postal Service) gifted me with no fewer than four (4) bundle offers on the same day, I decided to take the boxes back and kill off cable entirely.

In the ensuring days, I've been relatively happy with over the air broadcast, although my inability to capture WTNH 8 (ABC affiliate out of New Haven) was causing some angst (Grey's Anatomy is my one primetime vice). So this last week I bought a 100' of CATV cable and ran the indoor antenna (through the house) to the second floor and pointed it south. And voila - WTNH-8 came in (along with a few other lower power stations). I've since run the antenna cable through the basement and outside, and am awaiting a better exterior antenna (designed to mount inconspicuously and with an amplifier which might work even better)

So, here's what I get on my television, over the air and for free:

3.1 - WFSB 3 / CBS
3.3 - Mostly weather / some news

8.1 - WTNH 8 / ABC
8.2 - Bounce TV (african-american)

18 - Four spanish language stations

20.1 - WCCT / CW
20.2 - This TV (movies and reruns)

24.1 - CPTV Main
24.2 - CPTV4U
24.3 - CPTVS (mostly local sports)

26.1 - ION
26.2 - qubo (kids)
26.3 - ION Life


30.1 - WVIT 30 / NBC
30.1 - COZI (movies and reruns)

59.1- WCTX (MYTV-9) - sketchy reception

61.1 - Fox 61
61.2 - Antenna TV (movies and reruns, think Nick at Night)

More content, actually, then the lifeline cable I was buying - the only thing I really miss is NECN which was a decent substitute for CNN / MSNBC mostly.

What makes it work for me is my Roku Box, which gives me high quality shows via several services. Netflix (long time subscriber, via Roku and iPad), PBS (like having a public television DVR, amazing), Hulu Plus (I stopped subscribing but might sign up again if I find some broadcast shows I like). That, plus the ABC and NBC iPad apps (to catch things I've missed) and my media life is doing fine.

Late Summer Consumerism

For whatever reason, I returned from a week of camping (Falcon Ridge Folk Fest) and a week of Camp, and decided to go on a buying spree. No "change of season" clothes shopping, of course (that would be way too normal), but rather some tech / audio gack. Specifically:

• A 50' audio snake (12 in / 4 out / XLR)
• (2) 50' power cables (1/4" in and out)
• (4) each, XLR to 1/4 adapters (M-F and F-M), to use the snake for instrument feeds if needed
• (3) passive direct boxes (again, to use instruments with the snake)

Not actually sure why I bought all this stuff; doing sound for Little Ugly a few weeks back was fun and I'd like to do more of that, the snake especially will come in handy for kirtan sound (I've stepped back from playing kirtan but will be running the sound for WHY's kirtan in October and December), and I am sure it will come in handy with the Guinea Pigs at some point.

In addition, I've got some textured plastic "sunshade" material coming - the late day sun streaming into the living room with the door open has been a problem this year (as well as the neighbors seeing in) so I plan to put up some panels on the front porch. Might help with wind screen as well. And the roll of material is big enough that I might try to fabricate and mount some UV screens for the south facing yoga room windows and sliding glass door onto the deck. 

Life Hack: Electric Heat and Digital Thermostats

When I purchased my condo in the lovely city of New Britain, one of my big concerns was the heating system - specifically, electric baseboard heat. I've been living with gas heat for years - hot water baseboard in Waterbury, forced air in Hartford. I was concerned about comfort, of course, but mostly I've heard much about the high cost of electric heat.

Balancing the cost issues, electric heat brings one big  benefit - it's inherently zoned. Which means, instead of one thermostat for the whole condo, or at best two (upstairs / downstairs) I have seven thermostats in the place: living room, kitchen, master bedroom, spare bedroom (my yoga room), two bathrooms, and the basement. So there's a lot of possibility for fine tuning the heat - to heat just the spaces I commonly use, and perhaps save some money.

When I moved in, all of the thermostats in the place were old-school electro-mechanical devices. There was no visible thermostat or feedback, the rotary dial was exceptionally coarse (with a resolution of 10ºF) , the calibration was highly suspect, and the heat control was simply ON / OFF. If the temperature dropped below a set point, the device turned on 100%, the space heated, and the device eventually turned off.

So my first thought was: Digital Thermostat. I found these Honeywell Thermostats at Lowes for about $25 a shot (cheap!) and replaced five of the seven thermostats (I left the bathroom thermostats in place, they are permanently switched off).

An aphorism I picked up in the corporate quality world was "If you measure something, it gets better" and the digital thermostats have a thermometer on them. So instead of simply "feeling cold" I can look and see the actual temperature. It's amazing how much things like my own health / energy / activity, as well as the ambient humidity and outdoor light level, affects my perception of temperature. So with a digital thermostat, I can now see that the room temp is 65 F (my usual occupied setting) and put on a sweater or sweatshirt. I think a lot of "heat creep" in electric systems comes from this lack of feedback.

In addition, the digital thermostats have a much finer resolution (1ºF) which means even if I decide to "crank the heat" I can restrict that to a few degrees. Finally, the digital thermostats use proportionate triac controls - which means that the heat is not simply ON / OFF, but appears to have four setting: ON / LOW / MEDIUM / HIGH. So as the temperature drops, the heat turns on LOW - and if that's enough to warm the space, it never gets past that. So the heat is a lot more even and therefore comfortable.

The electrical installation was pretty simple - easier than changing a light switch IMHO. The only complexity is that the older thermostats are DPST (Double Pole, Single Throw) - which is to say they break both lines (in my case, the heat is 240 VAC, two hot lines). The digital device is SPST - so one of the lines needs to be connected directly.

Now, simply adding digital thermostats still leaves a lot of room for energy waste - if I forget to turn the thermostats down. In addition, when I turn the thermostats down at night, I wake to a cold home. So I added programmable thermostats to key areas: the living room, the master bedroom, and the basement (where I have my office). This device is a bit more expensive: $50 at Loews. It has the same general functions as the digital thermostat, but adds a programmable function. This particular device permits four different timed settings (typically WAKE / LEAVE / RETURN / SLEEP) and can be programmed differently for weekdays (Mon-Fri) and weekends (Sat-Sun).

So I drop the house down to 58ºF at night (I tend to like a cool house to sleep; flannel sheets, blankets, and a bed dog keep me warm) and just prior to my normal wake-up, I heat the house up to 65ºF. During the day, I drop things down to 62ºF (I'm either in the basement working, teaching yoga, or out and about). I pop it back to 65ºF in the late afternoon, and back down at bed time. If I want it a little warmer, or happen to be hanging in the living spaces during the day, I bump the thermostat up confident that it will reset at the next timed change.

In hindsite, I'm retrofitting all the digital thermostats with programmable ones - I often leave the kitchen up at 65ºF by accident, and on more than one occasion, I've heated up the yoga room to 80ºF (for a warmer practice) and left it on for a day or more. So now the yoga room is permanently set to 55ºF and if I accidentally leave the temperature up, it will reset within a few hours. I'm transferring the old digital thermostats to the bathrooms.

Does it work? I think so. My electric bills (which include dryer, hot water, and range, as well as lights and heat) range from $80 (summer) to $250 (winter) - which is not too bad, especially considering there is no gas or oil bill coming. The total retrofit costs ($250 to go 100% programmable digital) - minimal really and I'm guessing the energy savings have covered that in a single heating season. And with electric heat, I do not need to maintain (and consider replacing) a much more finicky gas or oil furnace, fan, pumps, etc.   

The downside - need to program the thermostats (not really that difficult, as compared to the timer on my front door light) and maintain the clocks (daylight savings time). But so far no real issues with power outages causing resets - I guess these things have some internal capacitor or battery backup, or store the program in non-volatile memory.  

Blogger App for iPad

This could be trouble. Just saying.

I have not blogged from bed in many years.....

Why I Love Southwest Airlines

As if the fares, free checked bags, flights that leave on time, cheery attendants, and as  egalitarian a seating policy as one might hope for we're not enough....Southwest now offers WIFI on many flights. 

All four segments this trip had wifi, for a very reasonable $8 per day (not per segment) - permitting me to get some work done, listen to a streaming radio show, and muck around on social media. I am impressed and thrilled. 

Plus, the flight tracker (which is free!) so I can watch our progress across the country.

Life Hack: Rebate Division

I recently received a rebate from Pep Boys for some things I bought over the holidays. In the past, the rebate shows up as a check, which I eventually deposited into my account. But this time (and more frequently, of late) rebates are coming in the form of a debit card.

Now, these things are kind of annoying. They are rarely sufficient to buy much (in this case, $10), and it's a hassle to pay for something with multiple cards, card / cash, etc. On more than one occasion, I put the card in a pile with my unused gift cards, and promptly forgot about it. Or I rang up a small purchase, and left a buck or two on the card. In either case, the card expires, I lose my money.

But now, I have a new Square account / swiper. I simply charged myself $10 and ran it through my Square account - and within a day, $9.72 was deposited in my bank account. The small Square fee (in this case, 28 cents) is less than the gas it would cost to run down to a bank or ATM, less than a first class stamp. And I can dispose of the card promptly.

Laptop vs. Tablet

Once upon a time, I could pretty much run my life off my laptop. Sure, there were some apps that I never installed, some files and resources that stayed back at the office, and some packages that jut needed the full throttle performance of my desktop box. But I could get out of town, do email, update websites, write reports - you name it.

No more. It's June 2012. The last time I used this laptop for anything significant (according to my incoming emails) was Dec 2011. And Sept 2011 before that. So maybe 3-4 times a year. Just not enough to warrant the time to install all the apps, the cost to purchase the software, the maintenance of keeping files and stuff up to date on two boxes.

My cloud is not a great option yet (I am often slinging around 1 Gig files) although it might be workable for some things.

Probably not a bad plan to get a basic FTP program up and working on this box, and install some basic graphic package and HTML editors - so I can update websites at the very least. And perhaps commit to working off of this box once in a while so it stays updated.

But more evidence of how my work life is changing.....

Comcast Makes a Comeback

I've been on the verge of killing off my cable for a while now. Between over the air digital, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and ABC / NBC / PBS Apps, I've been sorely tempted.

But this week, Comcast picked up a few points. They've recently switched from analog to digital for their basic cable - and as a result, they sent out a notice to arrange to pick up a mini-converter box, free of charge. Took me two months to actually do that (which tells you how much I watch TV on the small set in my basement office) - but I finally did.

Well, bonus channels! The old "analog" 2nd set option (no converter box) gave me pretty much the over-the air channels - the local broadcast channels, TBS, weather, CSPAN. The new "digital" 2nd set option gives me pretty much up through Channel 100 on my cable program. And added features - the Comcast remote control actually works with my old Zenith set - I never could get the Zenith Universal remote I had purchased (after a dog ate the factory remote) to so MUTE which is kind of annoying in my office.

The extra channels are actually quite handy. I had (engineer / video geekily) run the video out of my TV into a modulator, and from thence into an A/B switch (I like me a good Rube Goldberg design), so I could get some of the cable channels down in the office - when I am working late I can geek out to MSNBC or Comedy Central. Now, all that has been rendered obsolete. I could have kept it to see On Demand or Netflix downstairs - but not gonna bother.

So Comcast lives for another day.

Of course, this very week I also received 3 "Comcast New Customer" letters in the mail. You'd think they could figure out I was already a customer - and (a) save the money for the bulk mailing, as well as (b) avoid pissing me off by telling me over and over that I am overpaying for my bundle. But no.....

New GPS

I am not exactly an early acquirer, and I tend to hang on to technology long past its average life. Witness my old iPhone 2 (still working fine), my iPad (a first generation device that I bought on closeout when the iPad 2 came out, and I'm still enchanted) and, until now, my GPS. I have had one of those old fat Garmin GPS devices that looked like a miniature CRT. The batteries died years ago (only worked when plugged in), the power cable was getting a little wonky, the touchscreen would occasionally and intermittently get out of registration, and the maps and software had never been updated (last time I checked, a few years back, it was $99 or something and it seemed better to buy a new box)

It owed me nothing - not exactly sure when I purchased it, probably 2006 - it went with me (via checked luggage) all over the USA on business trips. Occasionally, I'd pull up the history and find directions to a hospital 2000 miles away, to the southwest. It was, all in all, a VERY USEFUL and  RELIABLE bit of technology.

The last few months, I have found myself relying on my iPhone maps app for directions (and more importantly, traffic) so I knew it was time to update. 

Picked up a Garmin Nuvi 40LS (hey, I'm still not an early acquirer and I'm cheap!) that came with a lifetime map / software update for $120, on sale at Staples. I'ev never liked the Tom Tom User Interface, so Garmin it is again, even 10 years later the Garmin GUI is familiar.  A real impulse buy (I went in looking for a low profile extension cord, came out with a notebook, pens, and a GPS.)

Deus Ex Machina

Locked my keys in the car this morning, pumping gas en route to yoga. I opened the passenger side door to clear out some trash, left the keys on the passenger seat. A few seconds after I closed the door, I heard the ominous click of the car doors locking. No idea how that happened; the automatic door locks are pretty smart - I've tried to to this in the past without success. Best I can guess, the door lock button was inadvertantly pressed as the keys were sitting.

Anyway, I have OnStar - came with the car with a free year subscription and I've procrastinated killing off the subscription. Found the toll free number on the little window sticker, and borrowed the gas station phone to call. Took about 3 minutes (an extra minute because I never updated the subscription with my new address / phone number) but the satellite unlocked my car. Was not even late for yoga.

Once upon a time, pay phones would have been ubiquitous. And remarkably, there was a working pay phone in the lot, but for some reason, it did not seem to want to dial OnStar's toll free number, and I had no quarters to mess around with it.

I understand OnStar has smartphone apps that are cool and powerful; though they do not work for my vintage device (it's a 2007 car). Next vehicle, perhaps.

Had OnStar not been active, would have been a minor annoyance - I was about a mile from home, and could have walked home, gotten my hide-a-key to get into the house, and gotten my spare car key. But this worked faster!

Dear Netflix....

Two words - SPELL CHECK. In Reed's "An Explanation and Some Reflections", you blew "streeaming". And in today's retraction email, "DVDs will be staying at netflix.com" you bring us "..in other words, no Qwwikster." This in spite of spelling it Qwikster in the initial email.

Seriously. I am getting the feeling you are making this stuff up after a couple of drinks too many, and hitting SEND before someone changes their mind....