YARDCRAP

Romney

“I’m happy to introduce a son of Detroit, a friend, a guy who makes great music, who introduces me by DVD everywhere I go,” Romney said. “Kid Rock!”

The curtain opened, and Kid Rock launched into “Born Free.” Romney and his wife, Ann, went into the front row of the theater. The crowd waved its arms in the air. At least once, Mitt Romney joined in. At the end of the song, Mitt and Ann Romney jumped back onto the stage, shaking hands with Kid Rock and began to work the rest of the crowd

I think this is off the charts if you know who Kid Rock is. I am a big fan of Kid Rock, and he is so opposite of Romney and most every politician.
Romney on stage with with Kid Rock is just really dumb or really smart. I don't see see how that is going to energize anyone who actually votes, and only voters count.

Makes me sorry I voted for Newt in the SC primary.

 

Try some Artists not in your playlist

I am a fan of Sarah Brightman for more than just her singing. If she lived closer I might become a stalker. If you don't get it, WTF.
I like the songs she chooses, and the fact she IS the girl 'The Phantom' wants -- not because she is so hot but because she has "the music".
Sarah B has an "above average" voice she trained to perfection using the best teachers in the world. She could do that because she married Andrew Lloyd Webber who is beyond money. Instead of sitting on her ass in his mansions, she worked hard at her craft and became (in my opinion) the best entertainer of that style.

Her story reminds me of when a 'National Class' marathoner walked into a Boston bar and met a hot chick smoking at the bar and married her. He got her jogging and she turned out to be 'World Class' Patty Catalano. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_Catalano


Others singers have more talent than SB - like Charlotte Church who I believe best days are yet to come.

Nana Mouskouri has the talent and worked hard. The results are incredible, and I bet none here have a CD by her. (shame) This year, give the girl a spin. There is no 'perfect voice', but I suspect her photo shows up if you pull that phrase up on the web. Turn your system up and it will clip long before her talent does. She has recorded songs in many languages, including Greek, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, Welsh, Mandarin Chinese, Maori and Turkish. It is said she has no accent in any language. She is now 77 and still near perfect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nana_Mouskouri

Growing On the Deck

I was over at Kingman's this week and saw he has a rear deck in full Sun. Growing things on a deck is difficult unless you have the time to water a couple times a day. Once will not be enough for vegetables in the South. You can put a water timer that comes on a couple times a day, but that wastes a lot of water.

A few years back I bought a couple of these - http://www.amazon.com/EarthBox-10100...9680911&sr=8-1

They work. My problem is lack of Sun, but if you have it, these work.
You can build your own. http://www.seattleoil.com/Flyers/Earthbox.pdf

I moved mine into a deck flower bed, and bought some bigger ones like this - http://www.gardeners.com/Organic-Tom...efault,cp.html
These are pricey, but just great. Plus they come with a really useful frame for tomatoes. Right now I have cabbage, parsley and leaf lettuce growing in them. Yes, right now in Feb.


Last fall on sale I bought some bigger ones that seem to not be available right now but they are similar to this, but narrow and cost me less, but if I had the room --> http://www.gardeners.com/Self-Wateri...efault,cp.html I have spinach growing in mine right now and recommend this big one if you have the room - I don't.

At the end of the day, these things really will grow things for you with little effort on your part. The pre made ones cost, but all I have mentioned above are tried and true - by me. Others are out there and may be better. The trick is to look for (or build) the ones with as big a water reservoir as possible. Watering is not the same as constant moisture for vegetables.

I have 3 raised beds in the yard that are about 4X10 with good dirt I hauled in. I add cow crap every year in the Spring. I grow a lot in them. Watering them in this on going Summer drought is a problem. At the end of the day, due to no rain, the deck planters produce more for the space and better quality stuff. One box can produce enough lettuce type things for a couple people as the more you take, the faster it grows. In Summer, tomatoes grow best with constant moisture and these do that. Throw in a couple Basil plants and - good eating! Add a few Marigolds (also great in salads) to pretty it all up for the Bride.

If you are lazy, or not, these are great because they work and you don't have to.

Obama

The Defense Department will force out career Army soldiers, Marines or other members of the military of the services for the first time since the aftermath of the Cold War to achieve the spending reductions in Obama's budget proposal.

The Pentagon plans to cut 67,100 soldiers.

Shields, spears, tanks, computers and all of it do not not equal a soldier.

In my Mom's day they took kids at 18 by force and many died as they were not trained, not professionals.
They made a good show of it, but many died because they were just kids.

Now we have a well trained professional Army that is like nothing history has ever seen.
You can't replace that with better planes and rockets.

History shows you can't just go out and draft kids as needed and end up with a winning Army.  Make no mistake, the guys being drafted were 18, not the older guys portraying them in the movies yall love who made millions and were never fired on. 


Cutting these professional soldiers is shit.  It is more than just saving a few bucks, but selling out America.
Next year Obama will  be taking on the tough task of finding these guys a job and throwing tax payer money at it. These guys have a job now and they are good at it. Their job is one of the few covered by taxes by the founding fathers.

TWO DOG NIGHT

Sunny and 43 on the deck right now with a stiff wind blowing from the North.
Daffodils are blooming.

A North wind is never a good sign in my garden and the temps are expected to hit 20 tonight.  Winter is coming back after nice days with a SLAM.  Me and my lap warmer "Rosey" hate that.

The experts say all will be OK.  Apparently, it is the late April freeze like in '08 that we need to worry about, not tonight.
The garden will be fine.
This does look like a 2 dog night around here though.

SORRY

Thanks to all of my YardCrap readers for being so patience.
Lately most of the computer time has been spent getting up the new Message Forum.  I am not a geek (wish I was) and learn as I go.

The YardCrap message Forum will be improving, but is going great.
In the first 6 weeks we have over 30 members and over 2000 posts.  Yardcrap thanks all who have joined there and hope many more of you will check it out.  This is is a kinda hard place to get into to keep out undesirables.  If any of you have problems getting through the crap (some have), email me and I will put you in as all my long time readers get silver service.

The YardCrap blog has been going on for 3 or 4 years (hard to imagine), and I thank all yall for the many comments, emails and just for reading the crap here and joining in.

This blog will go on.  Thanks to yall, new ideas and improvements are in the works for the blog.  I might need to take on at least one helper (unpaid) this year.

Thanks again and when you have the time, check out the Message Forum - The Message Forum is just a fun, real time place for all YardCrap readers to interact and maybe make new friends.  It is not for the faint of heart, but don't worry as I got your back there. If you don't see a niche there for you, this is new and we can put it up and see how it plays - good fun!

          YardCrap Forum

Audio Wire

Not trying to start the usual war, just some of my thoughts on it all for the new guys who have not been down this fun road many times.

Doug has an excellent shop of cables and wires. http://www.douglasconnection.com/
We all have different opinions on what is the best wire and how much it should cost. Years back there were many skeptics, but the numbers investing in higher end cables has increased and now it is the rage. I believe part of that is just guys who has dropped a bundle on a wire and are reluctant to admit they got took. Part of it may be the placebo effect as many well administered blind tests have produced mixed results at best and made fools out of many expert ears. Also, the audio industry is pushing the market as they have found extravagant wires to be a new cash cow. I am OK with it. A guy earns his money and deserves as many ways to spend it as possible, but I don't them getting any of mine.

I believe money is well spent on a good, solid cable. Good wire and good connectors should do the job of transferring the sound as true as possible. I am not in favor of paying more for the wire to distort the signal even if it is pleasing. You can better control that distortion in many ways with the components and these days with software.

Many here are not audio nuts and are quite happy with wire bought at the Dollar Store or using what ever was included with the equipment they have. They laugh at a few feet of wire going for a hundred dollars. We know of course that wire can go for thousands of dollars. Is it worth that?

For me the simple answer is that it depends on the system and the customer. If you have really good junk and want to add some high end wire or many of the other marginal items, I am for it. If you expect miracles or actually hear miracles , you or you system need to be checked as something is wrong.

I don't have high end equipment, but I have very good equipment. Like many here, I have accumulated a collection of various wires. I buy good solid wire, mostly better than what you find at Radio Shack or Walmart, both of which have decent wire, just maybe over priced for what you get (Monster). I have bought in custom length and bulk. Often custom is cheaper as you can buy the length you need with no left over. Under Mark's helpful eye, I recently build a pair of cheap interconnects with the solder gun the Rabbit recommended I buy. Now I could build a better set, but doubt I could do as good a job as a guy who does a lot of that. You can even make some pretty good stuff with the connectors that need no soldering, but they cost about what you would pay an expert for a good solder job on a similar connect, so I find it a mixed bag leaning in my case toward the premade.

In my opinion by the time you get to wondering if a set of $1000 (or $500) cables can be worth the cost, you already have a good system and are just playing around. That is fun and I am for it. For the average guy - NO WAY is that a good audio investment. Investing or upgrading to decent wires with solid interconnects is a good investment as you can be pretty sure you are getting 99% of the music. Going for 110% cost money and most (even "audiophiles") can't pick them apart in a blind test. Good solid cables also look so much better, and we all like that. Everything in the music chain adds distortion. Even if a million dollar wire sounds slightly different, is that improvement or just difference?

What is a good solid wire? I think Doug has it covered well at his web company. He has a good assortment of wire at good prices. As a plus, we all know him to be a stand up guy. You don't have to worry about buying there and being ripped off or put off. All you newer guys just getting interested in better audio and now sitting on your ass more enjoying a tune and an adult beverage have the AO guarantee. If you get ripped on this site in any way, I will refund your money. I have not yet seen his personal work, but the next wire I buy will be from Doug. I will report back. I actually need some longer speaker wires right now for my bedroom speakers and thinking on going with a set of the Douglas Connection Copperhead 11AWG OFHC Speaker Cables with copper bannas on one end and nothing on the other as (I hate to say this) that is what the Carver 400t uses. To that end, Bob Carver uses junk wire. Even at CarverFest he brought a box of interconnects that must have gone for a dollar each. That is yet another reason why I suspect most of us do not need thousand dollar wires.

All are welcome (as usual) to say I am full of shit. Many already call Bob Carver out over it, so I am in rare company. Over the years I have read all the pros and cons on wire and even seen some flip flops by people here. I think wire makes a difference in the sound and in other areas. I also think if you have decent wire and you ain't happy, you might want to check out the controls on your pre amp before you plunk a bundle on "magic" wire. The money might be better spent upgrading some weak piece in your system or joining the craze these days - add something with tubes.

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As a side note, I see Doug sells Canare 4S11. I have been using that for about 5 years and approve in every way. I sorta run it as bi-amp wire out here on the deck and standard in my main system as no bi-amp is appropriate there. I wonder if Doug (or any of you) have any thoughts on it as opposed to the Vampire Wire SC1108?
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Many of my interconnects are LC-1 Low Capacitance Audio Cable with Taversoe Crimp RCA connectors.
"The most important attributes of a line-level unbalanced audio cable are (1) shielding, and (2) capacitance. Heavy shielding protects audio signals from interference from outside sources. LC-1 Audio Cable uses a heavy double-braid shield, with one bare copper braid laid directly over another for extreme high coverage and high conductivity to ground."

On the deck I used balanced cables - > Belden 1800F wire with Neutrik XLR connectors.
These seem to do a good job, but I am not hooked at the hip to them or anything.
Maybe Doug has some thoughts on them and how they compare with his line.

One day I might get in 4 tube mono blocks (I paid for months ago) and will want good, solid interconnects for them. What do yall suggest for an old cop now getting by on SS.

Thanks again to Doug for starting this company to provide a guy with great wire at an affordable price.