August has been quite a month.
Concerts: 3
I attended two live Jazz concerts at Wonderland of the Americas with my friend on two successive Fridays. The first one featured Jessy J who has a fabulous band, and I got her CD. The next day I visited an audiophile friend and played it for him. He loved it, as did the members of the River City Audio Society when I played it at the meeting the next week. The second concert featured two great bands but we were in a hurry and I didn't get the CD's. At least for the second concert I had obtained folding chairs, which made it much more comfortable.
Getting the folding chairs required several visits to Academy because of the usual price switcheroo. First the price rang up differently than what the sign had said, so I refused to buy it. On the second visit, the same thing happened so I went back for a price check with the manager. It turned out they had zero chairs at the price listed on the sign. Instead, all the chairs they had were $10 more, and there was no sign for that model. This kind of thing seems to happen all the time these days. So I decided to buy a cheaper chair, which actually turned out fine, possibly better than the more expensive one I had originally intended to buy anyway.
And that wasn't the only concert. My friend and I also attended one of the Olmos Ensemble concerts, something we had never done before (except once where they were playing before a Symphony concert at the Majestic Theater). This too was fabulous.
Meetings:2 3 4
I presided over a meeting of the exotic computer systems of san antonio (XCSSA) on the first Saturday, where I disassembled an ABX comparator and removed caps in the power amplifier switching section. In so doing, I found that my soldering iron really wasn't very good. So a few days later I researched soldering irons and bought one recommended by knowledgeable people on ebay NOS. It has now arrived. But now it seems I may not have demoved all the needed parts.
On the second Saturday I attended the River City Audio Society meeting where as I said I played cuts from the Jessy J CD. But I also brought my Audio GD Dac 19 which served as the digital converter for all the CD's we played. The Audio GD was loved just as much as my CD, and one of the members proceeded to buy an Audio GD for himself, but the Master model which costs twice as much. I stayed pretty late at the meeting because one member had become an employee of the store where it is hosted and he played some music in their best demo room.
On the Third Saturday, one of the best, if not the best, and the sharpest atheist speakers I have ever heard, Seth, I got his book too, Deconverted. My friend and I came separately but met to face the parking challenge, then went to buy the Pants I have needed for years, and a failed visit to a closed furniture store, plus the cat.
It was the Fourth Sunday that there was no Saturday Meeting. But my friend and I went to the Olmos Concert on Sunday, as well as picking up the pants on Saturday, and paying a visit to a unwelcoming furniture store.
The fourth meeting, now scheduled but not experienced, is the Discussion and Movie Party.
So that's at least as much social activity as a person in a traditional society would get from "Church" if not far more. The last party is 6 hours itself, with possible extensions, ,and preparing, and cleaning up. I may have alzberger's, and be a Norwegian Bachelor Farmer (™), but at least I have a social life.
Audio Upgrades: 7 ?
Right after the RCAS meeting I had planned to set up the Audio GD in my current living room system and I did. Previously I had been using the Audio GD only when I ran the Krell power amplifier, and not the cooler running Aragon I use in the summertime. But thanks to a bunch of very high quality but low capacitance interconnect cables I ordered from Blue Jeans Cable, and some very high quality Y adapters and barrel adapters I ordered from Audio Advisor, I was able to hook both amplifiers to the Audio GD at the same time without any loss in quality. I readjusted the crossover for the increased output level of the Audio GD compared with the Onkyo RDV-1 I had been using.
Also that day and later, I changed the ethernet cabling so that the two Sonos zone players in the living room have a direct connection back to the main ethernet switch, rather than daisy-chaining one through the other. I also did the same thing in the King's Bedroom, so now ALL my zone players are directly connected (through installed cabling) to the main ethernet switch. No more daisy-chaining. I had ordered the cables to do this a previous month, but not gotten around to making this change until now.
Unfortunately in the bedroom I didn't have any short Cat6a UTP cables to break the ground path as I need to do. So I temporarily used a Cat5e UTP cable. I don't know if that was the reason or not, but I was getting constant dropouts even after the direct cabling when I tried to use the Turntable+Tape zone to record FM from the Living Room zone on my Nakamichi cassette player, and at the same time listen to that same tape monitor output by sending it from that zone to the Bedroom zone. It could either be the old cable, or the old Zoneplayer (and I thought I had been having problems with that 2005 vintage zone player before, it used to be the Living Room zone player until I got a new one for that and moved it to become the new Turntable+Tape zone figuring that wasn't as demanding a position). To test the cable theory first I bought the cable I needed, which has arrived, but I haven't installed it yet.
Also on the first weekend, I did my first real measurements of the supertweeter level in my living room system. This was challenging to do and I had been planning to do it for years. On the basis of these measurements, which mainly confirmed that I was already pretty close by the previous total-system measurements, I made some adjustments to the supertweeter levels (I think I raised them slightly) and adjusted the crossover slope to a less steep one. A week later I readjusted the crossover slope in between.
I can't remember when I hooked up the Nakamichi for timer recording the broadcasts of the San Antonio Symphony on the radio station KPAC. It might have been this month, or it might have been last month. Anyway I first tried to use it this month but ran into the problem with dropouts. I was also noticing dropouts on the living room system, so I simply pulled the plug on the Turntable+Tape zone. After that, I didn't hear dropouts on the living room system. This shows there is a problem there but it still doesn't show whether the problem is in the cable or the zone player, which I should determine next month if not sooner.
Update: I got the cables, and tried a new cable on the Turntable+Tape zone. Now it seems to handle up to 1 input and 2 output connections; starting or after 3 connections it starts dropping out, then once it starts dropping out it keeps dropping out unless you reset all zones to play a different source. Or at least that's what seemed to happen. All I really need, generally is 2 connections, maybe 3. It may indeed be that everything now sorta works with the oldest node on my system, but that node is looking limited.
Running the app and adjusting preferences seems to elicit dropouts no matter what.
Augie the Cat: 5 weeks inside so far, and it hasn't been bad
It has been a very big month for the cat and for me dealing with and leaning how to deal with the cat. Augie had been an outdoor cat, mostly for about a year when he got a serious tail injury. Just exactly how that happened we don't know. The latest vet analysis is that there were cat bites around the base of his tail, suggesting he was trying to get away but the other cat bit him as he was doing so. But prior to that word, I had taken the blame for accidentally closing the shed door on his tail. The vet didn't see any evidence of that kind of damage when examining him 3 weeks later, but it could have been a contributing factor. It was a week after the door incident that suddenly the base of his tail appeared to be bloody red. And it was just a few days after that, at the end of July I rushed the cat to the emergency pet clinic after seeing how he couldn't move his tail very well. This cost a bundle, but the cat did get treatment he needed that day by my extraordinary effort--driving across town in heavy traffic 4 times to and from the emergency pet clinic with less sleep than usual first to drop him off and then to pick him up. And paying the extraordinary price of $450 for examination, treatment, antibiotic, collar, and sedative. The treatment was just wound cleaning as it turned out that was all that was necessary. The emergency pet center told me that if he wasn't picked up within 1 hour, I'd pay an hourly extra fee of $20, but I wasn't wasting any time anyway. Only it would probably have been smarter if I just stayed at the clinic, but they hadn't suggested that.
Well after that kind of aloof service at high prices, I decided to re-establish my relationship with a local non-corporate vet I had used the previous decades for my previous cat. Two weeks after the emergency treatment, I did just that because my friend and I decided he needed to be looked at again, and had the pleasure of hearing advice directly from my old trusted vet rather than assistants of unknown qualification who are the only ones you talk to at the emergency pet clinic. And I got some answers I hadn't gotten before like the info on the cat bites. And the cost for examining the cat's tail was just the examination fee of $45 and not the $300 charged by the emergency center. I also gave the cat his full set of annual shots and an antibiotic shot at my local vet so the total came there came to $150.
I hadn't planned on going to the emergency center, just the local corporate vet that my friend had been using for this cat and her others. But when I went to that vet on a late July morning, the receptionist (the only person visible) told me I'd have to make an appointment 2 weeks in advance to have my cat seen. Strangely there was nobody in the waiting room (very much unlike my vet) but there were other people going in and out. When I told them the cat needed to be seen right away they told me to go to the Emergency Center. So you wonder if they aren't in cahoots.
But my friend strongly dislikes going to my family vet it seems because they charge a few bucks more for vaccinations. I feel it's most important to establish relationships with the best people, a few bucks here or there means little compared with what you can save in the long run, such as by avoiding unnecessarily expensive trips to the emergency center for example, or getting better advice. My vet still has a sign explaining the terms for walk-ins and says that walk-ins are allowed.
Anyway, for all the arguments my friend and I had about the vet care--which have all reached satisfactory conclusions now--my friend was really the star in cleaning the cat's wound, cleaning his box, and other things on a daily basis this month. She cleaned the wound continuously for the first week, then slacked off for a few days, but then it was back on again. Ultimately this month she has cleaned the would (not easy!) more than 20 days. I could not have done a single day. Not even close. The cat was doomed if this needed to be done and I was the only one who could do it. And I would not be going back to the vet, even my vet, on a daily basis.
Along with these interventions, I have had to get used to now having an indoor cat, as my friend and I have both decided he should now be an indoor cat except when being watched outside, and yet he is now one that isn't entirely socialized yet. He spends most of his time in the Queen's room, but my friend lets him out, and so do I. He seems fine with that, he hasn't been destructive at all, and hardly ever whines through the Queen's door (which can barely be heard thanks to soundproofing).
But there is one big problem for me. Putting him back into the room after he's been out playing in the rest of the house is often very very hard. Most people wouldn't have managed this, or perhaps they relate to cats like my friend does, she can handle a few scratches (though she hates how she has been scratched on the leg). I have taken great care to avoid being scratched or bitten, though he sometimes threaten to do so (mostly playfully), and almost always--sometimes seriously--when I am trying to pick him up and carry him back to the room. Sometimes he threatens me in a menacing way when or just after I try to pick him up.
Well after the first couple days my friend introduced me to the laser light. And that was THE solution for the first 12 days or so. I could laser him around the house a few times…good for exercise and releasing pent-up cat feeling…and then lead him back into the room (where, btw, I have always left a fresh bowl of crunchy food and clean water bowl). But then, after about 12 days, he refused to follow the laser anywhere near the room, and it has become a problem again.
So I think it was that first day that I figured out I could use my large welding gloves, and then I couldn't possibly be scratched or bitten on the hands or arms. And that is precisely what I have had to do. And now he hates the sight of those gloves, and he seems to forget how much I have and continue to care for him, feed him, let him out, visit him, and so on. I'm just the evil jailer, a lot of the time. As for me I wish I didn't have to do this and I only do it because I have to--it's not something I do to be mean to him as he seems to think. If I leave him out long enough, and feed him some of the canned food my friend left, he can also nicely sit near me when I'm at the computer, like a disciple, and be very nice much of the time too. So it's as if he's bipolar.
Sometimes it's true I haven't held him very well with the gloves. One time when I was grabbing him he made like to bite my fingers off. Well he didn't actually, and they they were protected by the very strong gloves, but I squeezed him around the middle more hard than I would have liked to keep him from squirming out of my grasp. He seemed OK afterwards, but I try to do better. The next time I pinched him tightly by the scruff of his neck while carrying him from below, after remembering that the scruff of the neck *is* the way to handle a difficult cat, but I had to pinch the scruff of his neck through the stiff gloves harder than I would like to have squeezed it. Once again he seemed ok afterwards. On the last time, I squeezed the scruff less hard, but as a result my grip kept slipping slightly. The hold worked and I got him to the bedroom, but possibly because I wasn't squeezing hard enough he hissed before I could even let him go.
I have ordered a pair of professional cat handling gloves that seem to be among the best, made in the USA by a company that has been making gloves for cat care professionals for over a decade. I am hoping these will be less stiff, give better feel and equal if not better protection as well. And with the proper gloves I can hold him more nicely, with just enough pressure and not too much, and he might not get so angry.
Many times, I try to get him at such a point where I would feel safe just picking him up without the gloves. And there was one time just a few days ago I did that, after he had gotten out in the morning when he is more lethargic and he didn't seem threatening at all. But mostly that was the exception, mostly when the time comes to go back to the room he starts acting like a feral cat again, looking he is going to resist being picked up by scratching or biting, and I think most people would not feel safe without the gloves.
Though this is still tough, I have survived unscathed, the cat has survived, and I am hopeful this situation will improve over time. As it is, I have dealt with Augie for over a month and not once gotten scratched or bitten. I have also suggested just leaving Augie to freely roam the entire house…but my friend thinks he is not ready for that, and it's true the he still rushes the King's Room door if I have been keeping him out of the bedroom. And that's not good, so she's probably right. And it's probably not a bad thing to learn how to deal with difficult cats given the friend I have. My first cat Kitty who I tended for 16 years was initially somewhat feral too, but since she roamed freely through the entire house and even slept with me, and even went outside whenever she wanted too for the first 4 years, she was quickly socialized, and I think female cats are better that way, and tend to be more docile and less menacing, and especially with a male human. This male cat Augie seemed too dangerous from the start for me to freely sleep with. I think my friend could though. Actually during that week a few months ago when I previously decided briefly he should be an indoor cat, he was on the bed with me several times, he had full access during the night for several days, and in addition to ultimately refusing to get out of my place in bed, which led me to start locking him just out of the bedroom, I think he may also have scratched my nose, there is still a tiny mark but it could be a visible vein as I am getting those too. But in the overall scheme of things, a tiny scratch on the nose, if it even happened, isn't much.
A year after rescuing Augie, my friend rescued another cat in the month of August again this year. She's asked me at least twice if I would take it or allow it in my back yard. I said no, I can only deal with one cat. Count this as another achievement for me, saying no to another cat, and without hesistation. I invited her to move in with all her animals, though I wonder how that might work, presuming she would be responsible for them. But I now know from experience that there is no leaving a cat in my back yard without my not assuming considerable responsibility with that.
I could write as much or more about all the rest of my Achievements this month too:
Replacing the DVD Carousel?
My Sony 400 DVD Carousel died last month, and I spent a fair amount of time researching and considering replacements. New DVD Carousels are not made any more. Blu Ray Carousels appeared briefly in 2009 at very high prices like $3000 and then disappeared from the market.
After much consideration, and testing a never-removed-from-box Magnavox DVD/HDD recorder I bought a few years back, I decided to go with a DVD/HDD recorder like the Magnavox. I can easily load all of my home recorded and re-recorded videos onto the Magnavox hard drive, then it's faster and smoother than the carousel and you can see previous of the videos rather than just punching in numbers and trying to remember which disc number had which program.
Setting up the vintage NOS Magnavox video Player
Reading the Magnavox Thread at AVSForum
Obtaining, setting up, and testing a new Magnavox, then back to the old
Clearing out the car (first time in a year or more?)
Fixing the Printer
I was pleasantly surprised to quickly access the Walmart email through my work email tool (which has often become difficult for me to connect to recently) on my Kitchen Mac. But it was not possible to print it out without replacing the color ink in the printer, as I discovered after more than an hour of frustration. First of all the printer refused to print it in color because the Yellow cartridge was low. It would give a warning, then just hang the printer queue. I would have been happier with "best effort" printing with missing or flaky yellow. I remember the olden days when you could tell a color printer to print in BW. I had literally trashed the last printer, an HP, that was otherwise working fine but some printer driver update had removed the "print in B&W" option and I was forced to buy the ridiculously expensive cartridge for nothing, in my mind, as I only really wanted BW documents for pickup, tickets, and the like.
It was not immediately obvious how to print the document in B&W on this printer, and I struggled with internet searching and going through the very complicated Printer preferences, where at first it seemed I couldn't change the things I would have needed to because they wouldn't change or were greyed out or I couldn't find them at all. After much looking around, I did find an "enable temporary greyscale" switch. But after many frustrating attempts to get this to work, and I was finally able to check the enable box, it seemed like an obsolete feature. It seems now that printer companies INSIST that you have full color print cartridges even if you are only printing in B&W. The purpose of the printer is not, as you might think, to print your documents. The purpose of the printer is to create a revenue stream for the printer company by forcing you to constantly buy more proprietary ink cartridges.
By now it was getting to 11PM, and Walmart would close at midnight. I searched online and figured out I needed Epson 200 series cartridges, and Walmart had them in stock! I would have bought the ink a month ago when I was at Office Depot, but I couldn't remember the printer model let alone the ink cartridge number. I immediately made a trip to Walmart, leaving Augie to roam the house. I can exit through the garage conversion room, giving me a cat airlock to keep him from escaping when I drive out.
Once at Walmart I found the ink cartridge for $24.95 and then proceeded to do some other shopping for already needed items such as bananas and yogurt. I had not had my banana or other fruit yet that day. Then I ran through the checkout, with about two dozen grocery items first, with the printer cartridge last. The printer cartridge rang up as $39.
I am not taking this crap anymore. I told the cashier to cancel that item, and asked if I could leave the rest of my groceries in the front. She said yes.
So I went back and checked again. It was clear I had taken my cartridge from the tray marked $24.95, and it seemed to match the others in that tray. I went to find a salesperson. He figured out that I had gotten a package with single black and single color. I just wanted the color. I asked him to find me the $24.95 color only package, and he did. It was two items back in the tray where I had gotten mine.
So I checked out and brought the ink back home, feeling like I was getting somewhere now. I started going through the Epson ink cartridge installation procedure. After installing a couple of color cartridge, something occurred to me. I had forgotten the groceries! It was now 12:10 and Walmart was closed.
At first I was willing to write off the $22 I spent on groceries. But then I thought of the wasted yogurt. This started to bother me. So I got back in the car and drove back to Walmart just to see if I could save the yogurt. Plus I still needed the banana.
There were Walmart employees in front of the store, and the door was still open with a customer coming out. As I was walking out someone shouted out "We're Closed." I came up to explain how I had left behind my groceries. An off duty employee went back into the store to find it. Finally I was called in, and told them that all the groceries in the cart they had located were the ones I had purchased. I had simply left the cart there.
So I got back home and put the yogurt away. I finished the printer ink installation and went through the Clean Heads and Align Heads steps. Twice because it didn't seem to work very well the first time. A test page was pale. Finally it worked perfectly, and I printed out a perfect Walmart email around 1 am and put in in the car.
It was late Saturday evening, after I had gotten back home from Josephs with my friend. The pick up closed at 8 and I got there around 7. There was nobody at the counter but someone immediately saw me and walked over. She asked for the pickup number. I gave her the paperwork, but it was clear then that I could simply have written down the pickup number from the email, and not bothered to print out the email--which required fixing the printer. But I was glad to have made this a reason to fix the printer, which hadn't worked on a couple of less important previous occasions.
The box looked perfect and I brought it home. Actually the box of the Magnavox 557 looked exactly like the box of the Magnavox 537 I had finally opened the previous week.
Moving the Sony Player to a new King's Equipment Stack
Obtaining the new Panasonic DVD Player
Obtaining other needed video equipment
Ordering new computer books and DVD's
And it has been a pivotal month at work, handled well
Calibrating the Pioneer DVD recorder
Testing and fixing the irrigation…need to do this more often!
Dealing with ants. And dealing with ants.
Repairing the Bathroom Tile
Thinking about more Tile Repair
Edging and clearing the grass mound on the side
Surviving the incidents I caused
The New Driveway Light
The New Queen's Room Light Switch
The New King's Bath Outlet
New Tailored Pants from fine clothier, First Real Black in Many Years
Very much needed, years ago, I had one 8yo black pants heavily fraying
and two mismatching Navy pants because that was all I could find recently
until now at department stores in my size, and even they were fraying, and
one had just ripped through the crotch, so I finally got around to going to Josephs,
as my friend had been pleading for years, to get new pants, and they
delivered what I needed, real black in two different thin denim fabrics, thin
denim and thinner, both classy but the thinner one more formal. Two trips to store
for purchase and then after alteration, which was done perfectly, and buttons, which
seem a bit tight.
New Hook Fastener Shoes
(work better for me than laces, which are always too long
for my short shoes. So no more trailing laces! I've been
hop skipping my own laces for a decade.)
(finally New Shoes!)
New Black Dress Shirt
Loosing the home control system, and getting it back
Some Mac auto-update made it impossible for me to use the home
control system which uses Java. The Mac update even deleted the bookmark I had on my Favorites Bar and I couldn't remember what to set it to. It took several days to figure this
out. I emailed Universal Devices and got a helpful reply. However it took
additional figuring out also. IMO this is more about corporate warfare than
security. Specifically Apple and it's endless warfare against anything not invented
and/or licensed from Cupertino, and especially Java and anything Adobe.
Though I am generally thankful Apple has not abandoned users to commercial
anti-virus companies, who exist in an economic partition that includes virus
creators, who may for example obtain employment after proving their ability.
I use Macs nearly exclusively, and may even return to iPhone. But it has
always been true that Cupertino's heavy handedness has been even greater
than that coming from Redmond, with the latter being more a pushover
for permitting endless adware (and Google, of course, being the adware
giant). If OSX becomes too fascistic, I may try Gnu/Linux desktops
again, still running on my shiny aluminum hardware I hope. In an ideal
world, Java/Adobe updates would be integrated with Mac updates.
But the user always takes a low position compared with corporate
warfare or corporate collusion.
Added new external button for Queen's Room Light.
Priming and Texturing the Queen's Room Speaker Wire
Seeing the new Woody Allen movie
Filling in my collection of Woody Allen movies
Got Highway 61 Revisited at local store
Fixing the vacuum
Finally, after 2 1/2 months, I fixed the vacuum cleaner. When I bought belts last time (about 5 years ago maybe?) I bought one of each kind extra. It only needed the "commonly replaced" one to be back in working order.
Concerts: 3
I attended two live Jazz concerts at Wonderland of the Americas with my friend on two successive Fridays. The first one featured Jessy J who has a fabulous band, and I got her CD. The next day I visited an audiophile friend and played it for him. He loved it, as did the members of the River City Audio Society when I played it at the meeting the next week. The second concert featured two great bands but we were in a hurry and I didn't get the CD's. At least for the second concert I had obtained folding chairs, which made it much more comfortable.
Getting the folding chairs required several visits to Academy because of the usual price switcheroo. First the price rang up differently than what the sign had said, so I refused to buy it. On the second visit, the same thing happened so I went back for a price check with the manager. It turned out they had zero chairs at the price listed on the sign. Instead, all the chairs they had were $10 more, and there was no sign for that model. This kind of thing seems to happen all the time these days. So I decided to buy a cheaper chair, which actually turned out fine, possibly better than the more expensive one I had originally intended to buy anyway.
And that wasn't the only concert. My friend and I also attended one of the Olmos Ensemble concerts, something we had never done before (except once where they were playing before a Symphony concert at the Majestic Theater). This too was fabulous.
Meetings:
I presided over a meeting of the exotic computer systems of san antonio (XCSSA) on the first Saturday, where I disassembled an ABX comparator and removed caps in the power amplifier switching section. In so doing, I found that my soldering iron really wasn't very good. So a few days later I researched soldering irons and bought one recommended by knowledgeable people on ebay NOS. It has now arrived. But now it seems I may not have demoved all the needed parts.
On the second Saturday I attended the River City Audio Society meeting where as I said I played cuts from the Jessy J CD. But I also brought my Audio GD Dac 19 which served as the digital converter for all the CD's we played. The Audio GD was loved just as much as my CD, and one of the members proceeded to buy an Audio GD for himself, but the Master model which costs twice as much. I stayed pretty late at the meeting because one member had become an employee of the store where it is hosted and he played some music in their best demo room.
On the Third Saturday, one of the best, if not the best, and the sharpest atheist speakers I have ever heard, Seth, I got his book too, Deconverted. My friend and I came separately but met to face the parking challenge, then went to buy the Pants I have needed for years, and a failed visit to a closed furniture store, plus the cat.
It was the Fourth Sunday that there was no Saturday Meeting. But my friend and I went to the Olmos Concert on Sunday, as well as picking up the pants on Saturday, and paying a visit to a unwelcoming furniture store.
The fourth meeting, now scheduled but not experienced, is the Discussion and Movie Party.
So that's at least as much social activity as a person in a traditional society would get from "Church" if not far more. The last party is 6 hours itself, with possible extensions, ,and preparing, and cleaning up. I may have alzberger's, and be a Norwegian Bachelor Farmer (™), but at least I have a social life.
Audio Upgrades: 7 ?
Right after the RCAS meeting I had planned to set up the Audio GD in my current living room system and I did. Previously I had been using the Audio GD only when I ran the Krell power amplifier, and not the cooler running Aragon I use in the summertime. But thanks to a bunch of very high quality but low capacitance interconnect cables I ordered from Blue Jeans Cable, and some very high quality Y adapters and barrel adapters I ordered from Audio Advisor, I was able to hook both amplifiers to the Audio GD at the same time without any loss in quality. I readjusted the crossover for the increased output level of the Audio GD compared with the Onkyo RDV-1 I had been using.
Also that day and later, I changed the ethernet cabling so that the two Sonos zone players in the living room have a direct connection back to the main ethernet switch, rather than daisy-chaining one through the other. I also did the same thing in the King's Bedroom, so now ALL my zone players are directly connected (through installed cabling) to the main ethernet switch. No more daisy-chaining. I had ordered the cables to do this a previous month, but not gotten around to making this change until now.
Unfortunately in the bedroom I didn't have any short Cat6a UTP cables to break the ground path as I need to do. So I temporarily used a Cat5e UTP cable. I don't know if that was the reason or not, but I was getting constant dropouts even after the direct cabling when I tried to use the Turntable+Tape zone to record FM from the Living Room zone on my Nakamichi cassette player, and at the same time listen to that same tape monitor output by sending it from that zone to the Bedroom zone. It could either be the old cable, or the old Zoneplayer (and I thought I had been having problems with that 2005 vintage zone player before, it used to be the Living Room zone player until I got a new one for that and moved it to become the new Turntable+Tape zone figuring that wasn't as demanding a position). To test the cable theory first I bought the cable I needed, which has arrived, but I haven't installed it yet.
Also on the first weekend, I did my first real measurements of the supertweeter level in my living room system. This was challenging to do and I had been planning to do it for years. On the basis of these measurements, which mainly confirmed that I was already pretty close by the previous total-system measurements, I made some adjustments to the supertweeter levels (I think I raised them slightly) and adjusted the crossover slope to a less steep one. A week later I readjusted the crossover slope in between.
I can't remember when I hooked up the Nakamichi for timer recording the broadcasts of the San Antonio Symphony on the radio station KPAC. It might have been this month, or it might have been last month. Anyway I first tried to use it this month but ran into the problem with dropouts. I was also noticing dropouts on the living room system, so I simply pulled the plug on the Turntable+Tape zone. After that, I didn't hear dropouts on the living room system. This shows there is a problem there but it still doesn't show whether the problem is in the cable or the zone player, which I should determine next month if not sooner.
Update: I got the cables, and tried a new cable on the Turntable+Tape zone. Now it seems to handle up to 1 input and 2 output connections; starting or after 3 connections it starts dropping out, then once it starts dropping out it keeps dropping out unless you reset all zones to play a different source. Or at least that's what seemed to happen. All I really need, generally is 2 connections, maybe 3. It may indeed be that everything now sorta works with the oldest node on my system, but that node is looking limited.
Running the app and adjusting preferences seems to elicit dropouts no matter what.
Augie the Cat: 5 weeks inside so far, and it hasn't been bad
It has been a very big month for the cat and for me dealing with and leaning how to deal with the cat. Augie had been an outdoor cat, mostly for about a year when he got a serious tail injury. Just exactly how that happened we don't know. The latest vet analysis is that there were cat bites around the base of his tail, suggesting he was trying to get away but the other cat bit him as he was doing so. But prior to that word, I had taken the blame for accidentally closing the shed door on his tail. The vet didn't see any evidence of that kind of damage when examining him 3 weeks later, but it could have been a contributing factor. It was a week after the door incident that suddenly the base of his tail appeared to be bloody red. And it was just a few days after that, at the end of July I rushed the cat to the emergency pet clinic after seeing how he couldn't move his tail very well. This cost a bundle, but the cat did get treatment he needed that day by my extraordinary effort--driving across town in heavy traffic 4 times to and from the emergency pet clinic with less sleep than usual first to drop him off and then to pick him up. And paying the extraordinary price of $450 for examination, treatment, antibiotic, collar, and sedative. The treatment was just wound cleaning as it turned out that was all that was necessary. The emergency pet center told me that if he wasn't picked up within 1 hour, I'd pay an hourly extra fee of $20, but I wasn't wasting any time anyway. Only it would probably have been smarter if I just stayed at the clinic, but they hadn't suggested that.
Well after that kind of aloof service at high prices, I decided to re-establish my relationship with a local non-corporate vet I had used the previous decades for my previous cat. Two weeks after the emergency treatment, I did just that because my friend and I decided he needed to be looked at again, and had the pleasure of hearing advice directly from my old trusted vet rather than assistants of unknown qualification who are the only ones you talk to at the emergency pet clinic. And I got some answers I hadn't gotten before like the info on the cat bites. And the cost for examining the cat's tail was just the examination fee of $45 and not the $300 charged by the emergency center. I also gave the cat his full set of annual shots and an antibiotic shot at my local vet so the total came there came to $150.
I hadn't planned on going to the emergency center, just the local corporate vet that my friend had been using for this cat and her others. But when I went to that vet on a late July morning, the receptionist (the only person visible) told me I'd have to make an appointment 2 weeks in advance to have my cat seen. Strangely there was nobody in the waiting room (very much unlike my vet) but there were other people going in and out. When I told them the cat needed to be seen right away they told me to go to the Emergency Center. So you wonder if they aren't in cahoots.
But my friend strongly dislikes going to my family vet it seems because they charge a few bucks more for vaccinations. I feel it's most important to establish relationships with the best people, a few bucks here or there means little compared with what you can save in the long run, such as by avoiding unnecessarily expensive trips to the emergency center for example, or getting better advice. My vet still has a sign explaining the terms for walk-ins and says that walk-ins are allowed.
Anyway, for all the arguments my friend and I had about the vet care--which have all reached satisfactory conclusions now--my friend was really the star in cleaning the cat's wound, cleaning his box, and other things on a daily basis this month. She cleaned the wound continuously for the first week, then slacked off for a few days, but then it was back on again. Ultimately this month she has cleaned the would (not easy!) more than 20 days. I could not have done a single day. Not even close. The cat was doomed if this needed to be done and I was the only one who could do it. And I would not be going back to the vet, even my vet, on a daily basis.
Along with these interventions, I have had to get used to now having an indoor cat, as my friend and I have both decided he should now be an indoor cat except when being watched outside, and yet he is now one that isn't entirely socialized yet. He spends most of his time in the Queen's room, but my friend lets him out, and so do I. He seems fine with that, he hasn't been destructive at all, and hardly ever whines through the Queen's door (which can barely be heard thanks to soundproofing).
But there is one big problem for me. Putting him back into the room after he's been out playing in the rest of the house is often very very hard. Most people wouldn't have managed this, or perhaps they relate to cats like my friend does, she can handle a few scratches (though she hates how she has been scratched on the leg). I have taken great care to avoid being scratched or bitten, though he sometimes threaten to do so (mostly playfully), and almost always--sometimes seriously--when I am trying to pick him up and carry him back to the room. Sometimes he threatens me in a menacing way when or just after I try to pick him up.
Well after the first couple days my friend introduced me to the laser light. And that was THE solution for the first 12 days or so. I could laser him around the house a few times…good for exercise and releasing pent-up cat feeling…and then lead him back into the room (where, btw, I have always left a fresh bowl of crunchy food and clean water bowl). But then, after about 12 days, he refused to follow the laser anywhere near the room, and it has become a problem again.
So I think it was that first day that I figured out I could use my large welding gloves, and then I couldn't possibly be scratched or bitten on the hands or arms. And that is precisely what I have had to do. And now he hates the sight of those gloves, and he seems to forget how much I have and continue to care for him, feed him, let him out, visit him, and so on. I'm just the evil jailer, a lot of the time. As for me I wish I didn't have to do this and I only do it because I have to--it's not something I do to be mean to him as he seems to think. If I leave him out long enough, and feed him some of the canned food my friend left, he can also nicely sit near me when I'm at the computer, like a disciple, and be very nice much of the time too. So it's as if he's bipolar.
Sometimes it's true I haven't held him very well with the gloves. One time when I was grabbing him he made like to bite my fingers off. Well he didn't actually, and they they were protected by the very strong gloves, but I squeezed him around the middle more hard than I would have liked to keep him from squirming out of my grasp. He seemed OK afterwards, but I try to do better. The next time I pinched him tightly by the scruff of his neck while carrying him from below, after remembering that the scruff of the neck *is* the way to handle a difficult cat, but I had to pinch the scruff of his neck through the stiff gloves harder than I would like to have squeezed it. Once again he seemed ok afterwards. On the last time, I squeezed the scruff less hard, but as a result my grip kept slipping slightly. The hold worked and I got him to the bedroom, but possibly because I wasn't squeezing hard enough he hissed before I could even let him go.
I have ordered a pair of professional cat handling gloves that seem to be among the best, made in the USA by a company that has been making gloves for cat care professionals for over a decade. I am hoping these will be less stiff, give better feel and equal if not better protection as well. And with the proper gloves I can hold him more nicely, with just enough pressure and not too much, and he might not get so angry.
Many times, I try to get him at such a point where I would feel safe just picking him up without the gloves. And there was one time just a few days ago I did that, after he had gotten out in the morning when he is more lethargic and he didn't seem threatening at all. But mostly that was the exception, mostly when the time comes to go back to the room he starts acting like a feral cat again, looking he is going to resist being picked up by scratching or biting, and I think most people would not feel safe without the gloves.
Though this is still tough, I have survived unscathed, the cat has survived, and I am hopeful this situation will improve over time. As it is, I have dealt with Augie for over a month and not once gotten scratched or bitten. I have also suggested just leaving Augie to freely roam the entire house…but my friend thinks he is not ready for that, and it's true the he still rushes the King's Room door if I have been keeping him out of the bedroom. And that's not good, so she's probably right. And it's probably not a bad thing to learn how to deal with difficult cats given the friend I have. My first cat Kitty who I tended for 16 years was initially somewhat feral too, but since she roamed freely through the entire house and even slept with me, and even went outside whenever she wanted too for the first 4 years, she was quickly socialized, and I think female cats are better that way, and tend to be more docile and less menacing, and especially with a male human. This male cat Augie seemed too dangerous from the start for me to freely sleep with. I think my friend could though. Actually during that week a few months ago when I previously decided briefly he should be an indoor cat, he was on the bed with me several times, he had full access during the night for several days, and in addition to ultimately refusing to get out of my place in bed, which led me to start locking him just out of the bedroom, I think he may also have scratched my nose, there is still a tiny mark but it could be a visible vein as I am getting those too. But in the overall scheme of things, a tiny scratch on the nose, if it even happened, isn't much.
A year after rescuing Augie, my friend rescued another cat in the month of August again this year. She's asked me at least twice if I would take it or allow it in my back yard. I said no, I can only deal with one cat. Count this as another achievement for me, saying no to another cat, and without hesistation. I invited her to move in with all her animals, though I wonder how that might work, presuming she would be responsible for them. But I now know from experience that there is no leaving a cat in my back yard without my not assuming considerable responsibility with that.
I could write as much or more about all the rest of my Achievements this month too:
Replacing the DVD Carousel?
My Sony 400 DVD Carousel died last month, and I spent a fair amount of time researching and considering replacements. New DVD Carousels are not made any more. Blu Ray Carousels appeared briefly in 2009 at very high prices like $3000 and then disappeared from the market.
After much consideration, and testing a never-removed-from-box Magnavox DVD/HDD recorder I bought a few years back, I decided to go with a DVD/HDD recorder like the Magnavox. I can easily load all of my home recorded and re-recorded videos onto the Magnavox hard drive, then it's faster and smoother than the carousel and you can see previous of the videos rather than just punching in numbers and trying to remember which disc number had which program.
Setting up the vintage NOS Magnavox video Player
Reading the Magnavox Thread at AVSForum
Obtaining, setting up, and testing a new Magnavox, then back to the old
Clearing out the car (first time in a year or more?)
Fixing the Printer
I was pleasantly surprised to quickly access the Walmart email through my work email tool (which has often become difficult for me to connect to recently) on my Kitchen Mac. But it was not possible to print it out without replacing the color ink in the printer, as I discovered after more than an hour of frustration. First of all the printer refused to print it in color because the Yellow cartridge was low. It would give a warning, then just hang the printer queue. I would have been happier with "best effort" printing with missing or flaky yellow. I remember the olden days when you could tell a color printer to print in BW. I had literally trashed the last printer, an HP, that was otherwise working fine but some printer driver update had removed the "print in B&W" option and I was forced to buy the ridiculously expensive cartridge for nothing, in my mind, as I only really wanted BW documents for pickup, tickets, and the like.
It was not immediately obvious how to print the document in B&W on this printer, and I struggled with internet searching and going through the very complicated Printer preferences, where at first it seemed I couldn't change the things I would have needed to because they wouldn't change or were greyed out or I couldn't find them at all. After much looking around, I did find an "enable temporary greyscale" switch. But after many frustrating attempts to get this to work, and I was finally able to check the enable box, it seemed like an obsolete feature. It seems now that printer companies INSIST that you have full color print cartridges even if you are only printing in B&W. The purpose of the printer is not, as you might think, to print your documents. The purpose of the printer is to create a revenue stream for the printer company by forcing you to constantly buy more proprietary ink cartridges.
By now it was getting to 11PM, and Walmart would close at midnight. I searched online and figured out I needed Epson 200 series cartridges, and Walmart had them in stock! I would have bought the ink a month ago when I was at Office Depot, but I couldn't remember the printer model let alone the ink cartridge number. I immediately made a trip to Walmart, leaving Augie to roam the house. I can exit through the garage conversion room, giving me a cat airlock to keep him from escaping when I drive out.
Once at Walmart I found the ink cartridge for $24.95 and then proceeded to do some other shopping for already needed items such as bananas and yogurt. I had not had my banana or other fruit yet that day. Then I ran through the checkout, with about two dozen grocery items first, with the printer cartridge last. The printer cartridge rang up as $39.
I am not taking this crap anymore. I told the cashier to cancel that item, and asked if I could leave the rest of my groceries in the front. She said yes.
So I went back and checked again. It was clear I had taken my cartridge from the tray marked $24.95, and it seemed to match the others in that tray. I went to find a salesperson. He figured out that I had gotten a package with single black and single color. I just wanted the color. I asked him to find me the $24.95 color only package, and he did. It was two items back in the tray where I had gotten mine.
So I checked out and brought the ink back home, feeling like I was getting somewhere now. I started going through the Epson ink cartridge installation procedure. After installing a couple of color cartridge, something occurred to me. I had forgotten the groceries! It was now 12:10 and Walmart was closed.
At first I was willing to write off the $22 I spent on groceries. But then I thought of the wasted yogurt. This started to bother me. So I got back in the car and drove back to Walmart just to see if I could save the yogurt. Plus I still needed the banana.
There were Walmart employees in front of the store, and the door was still open with a customer coming out. As I was walking out someone shouted out "We're Closed." I came up to explain how I had left behind my groceries. An off duty employee went back into the store to find it. Finally I was called in, and told them that all the groceries in the cart they had located were the ones I had purchased. I had simply left the cart there.
So I got back home and put the yogurt away. I finished the printer ink installation and went through the Clean Heads and Align Heads steps. Twice because it didn't seem to work very well the first time. A test page was pale. Finally it worked perfectly, and I printed out a perfect Walmart email around 1 am and put in in the car.
It was late Saturday evening, after I had gotten back home from Josephs with my friend. The pick up closed at 8 and I got there around 7. There was nobody at the counter but someone immediately saw me and walked over. She asked for the pickup number. I gave her the paperwork, but it was clear then that I could simply have written down the pickup number from the email, and not bothered to print out the email--which required fixing the printer. But I was glad to have made this a reason to fix the printer, which hadn't worked on a couple of less important previous occasions.
The box looked perfect and I brought it home. Actually the box of the Magnavox 557 looked exactly like the box of the Magnavox 537 I had finally opened the previous week.
Moving the Sony Player to a new King's Equipment Stack
Obtaining the new Panasonic DVD Player
Obtaining other needed video equipment
Ordering new computer books and DVD's
And it has been a pivotal month at work, handled well
Calibrating the Pioneer DVD recorder
Testing and fixing the irrigation…need to do this more often!
Dealing with ants. And dealing with ants.
Repairing the Bathroom Tile
Thinking about more Tile Repair
Edging and clearing the grass mound on the side
Surviving the incidents I caused
The New Driveway Light
The New Queen's Room Light Switch
The New King's Bath Outlet
New Tailored Pants from fine clothier, First Real Black in Many Years
Very much needed, years ago, I had one 8yo black pants heavily fraying
and two mismatching Navy pants because that was all I could find recently
until now at department stores in my size, and even they were fraying, and
one had just ripped through the crotch, so I finally got around to going to Josephs,
as my friend had been pleading for years, to get new pants, and they
delivered what I needed, real black in two different thin denim fabrics, thin
denim and thinner, both classy but the thinner one more formal. Two trips to store
for purchase and then after alteration, which was done perfectly, and buttons, which
seem a bit tight.
New Hook Fastener Shoes
(work better for me than laces, which are always too long
for my short shoes. So no more trailing laces! I've been
hop skipping my own laces for a decade.)
(finally New Shoes!)
New Black Dress Shirt
Loosing the home control system, and getting it back
Some Mac auto-update made it impossible for me to use the home
control system which uses Java. The Mac update even deleted the bookmark I had on my Favorites Bar and I couldn't remember what to set it to. It took several days to figure this
out. I emailed Universal Devices and got a helpful reply. However it took
additional figuring out also. IMO this is more about corporate warfare than
security. Specifically Apple and it's endless warfare against anything not invented
and/or licensed from Cupertino, and especially Java and anything Adobe.
Though I am generally thankful Apple has not abandoned users to commercial
anti-virus companies, who exist in an economic partition that includes virus
creators, who may for example obtain employment after proving their ability.
I use Macs nearly exclusively, and may even return to iPhone. But it has
always been true that Cupertino's heavy handedness has been even greater
than that coming from Redmond, with the latter being more a pushover
for permitting endless adware (and Google, of course, being the adware
giant). If OSX becomes too fascistic, I may try Gnu/Linux desktops
again, still running on my shiny aluminum hardware I hope. In an ideal
world, Java/Adobe updates would be integrated with Mac updates.
But the user always takes a low position compared with corporate
warfare or corporate collusion.
Added new external button for Queen's Room Light.
Priming and Texturing the Queen's Room Speaker Wire
Seeing the new Woody Allen movie
Filling in my collection of Woody Allen movies
Got Highway 61 Revisited at local store
Fixing the vacuum
Finally, after 2 1/2 months, I fixed the vacuum cleaner. When I bought belts last time (about 5 years ago maybe?) I bought one of each kind extra. It only needed the "commonly replaced" one to be back in working order.
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