My surface thoughts and musings…
This is only a test. Well, I thought I was using Gutenberg in a prior post. Turns out I was using legacy or classic – this is Gutenberg.
My favorite pinball machine (Silverball – vintage 1980) – someday, my ship will come in 🙂
-Rat
So, I’m using the Gutenberg block editor with a standard/legacy theme to see if I want to change my theme to a block supported theme. Not sure yet.
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Now that all my WordPress woes are somewhat behind me for the time being, my music components are giving me grief now! You would think it would be easy, plug and play – nope, plug and prey! In this technological world, everything is inter-connected. From the musical perspective, I have a new school setup, feeding an old school setup. Well, albeit a somewhat new school setup. I have vintage 70’s stereo components being fed by late 2016’s technological stereo components. In otherwards, I have a 2015 NAD M50 streamer with an external DAC feeding CARVER components (PT-1250 Amps and a 4000t Pre-Amp) and a current Node 2i BLUESOUND streamer with external DAC. I was ripping all my music via the NAD and something happened that reset the auto CD setting to play and not rip a CD to a drive. I have an external drive attached to the NAD. Which pisses me off because everything is buried in a “simple” app. Upstairs, I have a Pioneer Elite SC-07 receiver powering a pair of Klipsch RF16s and a Klipsch sub. The speakers sound like shit, no treble (seems blown or crossovers are crap) I was thinking that I would pair the Elite with a Node Vault 2i which would allow me to rip upstairs and play downstairs and use the Node in the living room and keep the NAD downstairs. While I’m upstairs, I have to repair the Klipsch speakers (pull them apart and check the wiring and crossovers) and configure the receiver. I think I may even try a CARVER TFM-25 amp and use the Pioneer as just a preamp (as a check for the output signal in case It’s the Pioneer that has a problem and not the speakers). Always something…
-Rat
I was reminded on the way in to work about the 9/11 attacks in 2001. I kind of forgot about that, but while in the car – all the memories came flooding back. What an interesting and somber morning that was. I remember my mom walking on the treadmill and I was getting ready for work, seeing the fire in the singular tower on the news and trying to figure out how in the hell that could have happened. Multiple floor fires, across the whole tower, and floors above and below not touched. Someone on the news mentioned that someone else (a bystander) saw a plane hit the tower. That made perfect sense as to what I was seeing. Sometime later, my stomach dropped when the news cameras were focused on the tower showing the damage and another plane hit the second tower. I was like, “oh shit”.
This weekend, I am going to try and work on my current watercolor (Chicago skyline from Lincoln Park lagoon) and begin setting up my desktop photography lab at home. Getting closer to creating my Czech Glass Gallery -photography section!
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I wanted to do the Maple Tree Inn for my birthday this year, and while I didn’t get to go… I did get to go to Irish Fest at Galic Park and had a classic Ruben from Ashford House (Flippin’ authentic Irish!) We did the “Guiness Experience” which was an awesome deal and fairly informative. We got to sample a flight of 5 beers – Harp, Smithwick’s (pronounced Smith-ick’s), Guiness Draught (draft – draught is the Gaelic spelling), Guiness Extra Stout, and Guiness Foreign Extra Stout. There were all approximately 6oz pours which I felt was an exceptional deal and a souvenir Guiness pint glass! There was a lot of information to take in and in the end, I felt that I had a better appreciation of the beer and the brew process. I also found out that there is a Guiness Brewery, right here in our Chicago area!! I also heard the wonderful Shannon Rovers and an awesome and extremely talented Abba tribute band! They had an great lineup of talent this year, and I wish I could have attended all the days (Fri, Sat, and Sun). Also, I got a year older. ;(
On a separate note, I ran across a song that I kind of fell in love with – Babylon by David Gray off his album White Ladder. It’s been in my playlist for a long time. It came out in 1998. To funny. I always attributed it to John Mellencamp. Sorry David!
-Rat
I went bike riding with the guys yesterday. To be fair, it was only my second time out this year. But by the time I hit 15 miles, I felt like crap, and I was going to bonk. It took everything I had to get back to the beginning of the trail where we parked. “Old Plank Trail” lived up to its billing. The initial 5 miles were smooth, and the rest was like riding on a metal washboard or wood planks. This trail is in Frankfort IL and runs for about 25mi but we only ride 20mi – Strating at the grain silo – riding West until the end, and then back to the beginning.
A couple of things – first, the cicada mites weren’t that bad for me, (I only got 5 bites) not so for the others. Second, my ass hurt like hell due to a slight seat movement and no amount of padding was gonna change that. Third, the planking was only adding to the hurt. Fourth, my aerobic fitness was sorely lacking (this was the worst part). Usually, I prepare a couple of months before I attempt this. It didn’t help that the second half of the journey was all uphill. I guess I did pretty good compared to the others, I only have 5 bites, some of the other guys have chest welts.
The “Motley Crew”…
You can see the “Grain Silo” behind Rey. Which is where the trail actually is.
-Rat
Work, ugh. Some days, I’m really glad I’m not in management. Today is one of those days.
I had purchased some old Carver audio equipment. Carver always impressed me when I was younger, it was some no bullshit audio gear. So now, I have 2 PT-1250’s, 3 – TFM-25’s and a 4000t. I have one of the 1250 driving my Energy Pro-22 speakers – no wonder I blew 2 tweeters! I like listening to my music loud, but I couldn’t understand why I was blowing the tweeters. Looking at the 1250 stats, now I know why – 465 watts/channel RMS, which means almost 800 watts/channel peak. Yeah, I think that those speakers are rated 25o/channel. I feel like they are kind of getting a rough signal from the amp perspective. I called the audio guys to get a price to do a classic refresh or something similar. So, hopefully my amps will last another 30 years if I can have them restored. In the meantime, I think I’ll stick them on one of the TFM-25s.
-Rat
So, applications have been giving me a hard time this week. If it wasn’t Duo Lingo, it was my blog, or some application at work. Duo-Lingo kept giving me errors no matter what I would do. I was having a hard time getting anything accomplished. So, I filed a bug note with the app manufacturer. I tried all the suggestions they had, from uninstalling the application to restarting the app. Turns out, since I have 3 wireless routers (SSIDs) in my house, the one that was the most convenient was not connecting to the app. It’s lack of connection was causing the errors. Change the WAP, problem solved! Couldn’t log into my blog for a few weeks! I forgot that all I have to do is disable some of my more esoteric plug-ins, the problem goes away! I still have to make everything work together though.
I am sore today. My trainer was on vacation this week, so I worked out by myself. I guess I tend to push myself harder than usual. Chest sore, triceps sore, shoulders sore, Hammie’s sore. I’ve been pounding the protein. I think I need to work out more than once per week – just not as hard though. I think my body needs it.
I am working on a watercolor of the Chicago skyline. A friend suggested it. I am still wrestling on the drawing part of things. I may mount it on a board and stretch the paper since its only on 140lb – it is currently on a pad block. Can’t wait for fall and painting again!
-Rat
Happy June everyone! Last week was kinda sad, since we laid my mother-in-law to rest. She was the last of my parent-in-laws and was a very spirited Irish woman. She was a hoot! We had the family over on Saturday including one of my wife’s cousins from England. He was wonderful to speak with and get to know a bit, albeit it was a short stay. Love the fam time too. Kevin helped me put up the awnings on Sunday. Thank God for that. It helps keep the temperature down on the west side of the house. Usually, it gets done earlier in the year, but due to the early vacation this year and my mother-in-law on the ropes, it just never happened.
-Rat
For the past year, I have been killing myself trying to upgrade PHP and get the code to work on my blog! Turns out, that it’s been my ISP all along with some wonky versions of PHP. Ugh! Now that it’s a standard version, everything is working fine. All I have left to upgrade is MySQL and its associated admin stuff…
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