It’s been a month >crickets< - Nice! Anyhoo, my site still works. So, I got a pre-driven Trek Madone 5.1 road bike. I used https://www.bicyclebluebook.com and bought it from a gent in South Bend, Indiana. Sweet! It’s light as hell (carbon fiber). Did the trail last weekend with my neighbor, Chris. Was my first time out on a path this year. The cardio part kicked my butt. Did it again Friday and wasn’t too bad. Still a butt kicker but not as bad. I think I am going to put my light on the bike this week and see how 5:30am feels on the trail. Been working like a dog still. Got some more vintage stereo stuff and bought a Topping DAC D50s (see https://drop.com/buy/topping-d50s-dac) with a linear power source. The thing is built like a brick shit house. You could beat someone to death with it. It’s that solid. I’m going to pair it with my DVD changer. My mini-disk players have built in 192kHz 24bit DACs and they sound killer. So, this should work just as good since it has a Toslink optical up-link. Need to get some new cable with banana connectors for my speakers and run them to different places in the basement. I like sonics. So, I have 6 speakers, 3 pairs in different parts of the basement. I’ve been listening to vinyl lately and occasionally, flip to CD/DVD however, I don’t typically like the sound due to the low bit rates and crappy channel separation. The streaming sounds really good if I can find the right album version. I’m a bit of an audiophile.
The sense thing has been fairly interesting and enlightening. Had to hire an electrician to install, which was good because to get it on, he did have to take the central neutral off to get the induction clips on and that sucker is a huge wire. My circuit box is an upgraded 200amp. I bought this gizmo almost 2 years ago when it was in the prototype phase. You can check it out at https://sense.com I was using an electric space heater for the laundry room which is part of the currently unheated garage. It turned out to cost us an arm and a leg. I think this year I will re-pipe the existing garage heater. Last year at the beginning of the fall, I was hell-bent on getting it to run. I almost blew up the house in the process. Luckily I have a gas shut off valve for that line in the basement. In any event, I found out that my average vampire power is around 213v per second. Which as it also turns out, is pretty good. I was able to identify almost all electrical appliances in the house. Its kind of nifty with it’s own app and up to the second power consumption/real time information via my iPhone. Vampire power is the power that your “turned off” electronics use to keep their IC’s up to date with your last channel, channel line up, clock, configurations and settings, time, etc..
On a sad note, my friend Father Peter Jarosz passed away on April 26th, 2020 – I think from COVID. Nowhere is it really stated, nor disproved and frankly, I wouldn’t trust the data anyway. Using common sense and looking/thinking concerning the things that happened and length in the ICU on a vent, COVID-19 makes sense. Anyway, he was just a good guy to spend some time with or just sit and talk to. Rest in peace Father Peter.
I am praying for our first responders including my paramedic nephew Mike, my niece Megan who is an addiction counselor, and my friend who is a nurse at Rush.
-Rat