World Wide Real Time Swine Flu Map

        

Just got back from lunch at Kabul in Sunnyvale. There are two boxes of leftovers sitting on the counter attesting to the huge portions served here. Although we were a little late for lunch, the service was spot on, attentive yet unobtrusive.

We started with two appetizers, the ashak (spring onion-filled dumplings topped with yogurt and meat sauce, sprinkled with mint), and the pakawra-e- badenjan (batter dipped slices of eggplant topped with yogurt and meat sauce.) Both arrived to the table on the same plate, making for more room on the cramped real estate. They were very tasty with an ever so slight edge going to the dumplings in my book simply for the novelty of a meat and mint combination. The eggplant tasted nothing of eggplant, just a light batter and the excellent yogurt. The meat sauce was mildly spicy. Not hot, just enough to put it squarely on your taste buds.

Next came kabobs of prawn and salmon (seafood combo) that were well seasoned and kissed perfectly by the grill. The shrimp were firm on the outside but moist and plump on the inside. The tasty, mildly spicy marinade made you want to lick your fingers. It was served with vegetables and some kind of rice dish that reminded me of fried rice except dryer, with an almost smokey aroma and a not overpowering spiciness.

The salmon was just a touch overdone for me but was also very tasty; ever so crunchy on the outside but steamy and flavorful on the inside. A treat.

We also had the vegetarian special. I'm not a vegetarian but had ordered this dish the last time I came here in deference to a vegetarian table mate. It was delicious then and it was delicious today also. In fact, it was this dish that brought me back. I'd been craving it all morning for some reason.

The sweet pumpkin was like sweet potato covered in a yogurt sauce. The slightly garlicky/spicy tomato sauce that the cauliflower was cooked in made an excellent foil for the sweetness. Also up was a spinach that was at once creamy, salty, and very unspinach like. I've always been told that spinach gets bitter if you cook it too long but even though this stuff looked like it had been cooked to death, it was extremely good! And I hate spinach!

I also ordered the Afghan tea which was, to my mind, Earl Grey. The glass was kept full by the attentive waitstaff along with the water tumblers.

It would be hard to point out a flaw in the whole lunch. The portions were large and the appetizers were a bargain at $4.50 each. However the entrees were just a bit pricey for lunch. The vegetarian dish was $9.95 and the seafood combo was $14.94. We probably could have had smaller portions and paid a bit less. Even though the dishes were expensive, the value was good since there were salads and rice served and of course the service was excellent. Just a bit heavy for lunch but like I said, there's leftovers!

 

        

Loft Bar and Bistro
90 South 2nd Street, San Jose, California 95113 

Valentine's Day Massacre,
a review of Loft Bar and Bistro

We booked our table on opentable.com.  Arrived early but parking made us 10 minutes late.  Hostess was poised and seated us immediately.  We were seated on the roof, a canvass converted indoorish area.  The busser came immediately with water and bread.  There were probably about 10% more tables then neccessary and so we were packed in tightly.  The noise level was quite high.

Our server was efficient but uninformed that they had run out of the lamb shanks so she made a second pass at the table so we could reorder the filet instead.  The cosmo arrived tepid.  The server did not deliver the drinks or food.  She checked in just a few seconds after the food arrived but otherwise did not return until we had pushed away our plates.  We skipped desert.  Nothing specific was suggested.  We weren't offered coffee.

We ordered the crab cake app which normally sells for $12.95 but was a Valentines Day "Special" at $18.95.  The order consisted of two smallish cakes resting on a bed of field greens. We both liked the crab cakes but they were not well paired with the thin lemon butter caper dressing.  The field greens under the cakes were de rigour for appetizers these days. They were fresh.

The filet mignon (normally $28.95) was on special for $33.95.  They arrived in a very reasonable time but were probably just a little undercooked for what we ordered. However they were well seasoned and practically fell apart on your tounge.

The garlic mashed potatoes did not come with gravy so we both used the 'cabernet dipping sauce' in that role.  It tasted like gravy to me.  The potatoes seemed to have been missed by the garlic fairy.  However it could have been so sublte to have been overshadowed by the 'dipping sauce'.  I'm not sure.

The mixed vegitables were stand out.  Corn cut from the cob, snap peas,  waffle cut carrots, etc and were deliciously salty and spicy and not a bit overcooked.

The usual menu was truncated and the prices were increased for Valentines Day.  I suspect there were more tables added then usual but I've never been there before so I could be mistaken.  Perhaps they always pack their guest in rubbing seat backs.

The decor was sparse on the roof but warm and romantic inside (if a bit crowed).  The noise level was uncomfortably loud.  Less tables and more plants would have made the date more romantic and quieter.

The exit is separate from the entrance so when you come down the stairs, it's like a cattle shoot shunting you out the door.  Without a greeter (goodbye'er?) there I felt like they had taken my money and were now finished with me.  I felt like I should be hanging my head down and covering my face.

Nothing was exactly bad about the experience but with the shortened menu and increased prices, I felt like I had been taken advantage of.   We certainly didn't get anything extra for the rather steep increase in price from the normal menu.

I would have prioritized giving diners a memorable experience on Valentines Day in hopes of capturing more business in the future.  Instead is was a bit like war profiteering: Whatever the traffic will bare.  But once the war is over, you haven't really garnered any repeat business.

Booked our table on opentable.com.  Arrived early but parking made us 10 minutes late.  Hostess was poised and seated us immediately.  We were seated on the roof, a canvass converted indoorish area.  The busser came immediately with water and bread.  There were probably about 10% more tables then neccessary and so we were packed in tightly.  The noise level was quite high.

Our server was efficient but uninformed that they had run out of the lamb shanks so she made a second pass at the table so we could reorder the filet instead.  The cosmo arrived tepid.  The server did not deliver the drinks or food.  She checked in just a few seconds after the food arrived but otherwise did not return until we had pushed away our plates.  We skipped desert.  Nothing specific was suggested.  We weren't offered coffee.

We ordered the crab cake app which normally sells for $12.95 but was a Valentines Day "Special" at $18.95.  The order consisted of two smallish cakes resting on a bed of field greens. We both liked the crab cakes but they were not well paired with the thin lemon butter caper dressing.  The field greens under the cakes were de rigour for appetizers these days. They were fresh.

The filet mignon (normally $28.95) was on special for $33.95.  They arrived in a very reasonable time but were probably just a little undercooked for what we ordered. However they were well seasoned and practically fell apart on your tounge.

The garlic mashed potatoes did not come with gravy so we both used the 'cabernet dipping sauce' in that role.  It tasted like gravy to me.  The potatoes seemed to have been missed by the garlic fairy.  However it could have been so sublte to have been overshadowed by the 'dipping sauce'.  I'm not sure.

The mixed vegitables were stand out.  Corn cut from the cob, snap peas,  waffle cut carrots, etc and were deliciously salty and spicy and not a bit overcooked.

The usual menu was truncated and the prices were increased for Valentines Day.  I suspect there were more tables added then usual but I've never been there before so I could be mistaken.  Perhaps they always pack their guest in rubbing seat backs.

The decor was sparse on the roof but warm and romantic inside (if a bit crowed).  The noise level was uncomfortably loud.  Less tables and more plants would have made the date more romantic and quieter.

The exit is separate from the entrance so when you come down the stairs, it's like a cattle shoot shunting you out the door.  Without a greeter (goodbye'er?) there I felt like they had taken my money and were now finished with me.  I felt like I should be hanging my head down and covering my face.

Nothing was exactly bad about the experience but with the shortened menu and increased prices, I felt like I had been taken advantage of.   We certainly didn't get anything extra for the rather steep increase in price from the normal menu.

I would have prioritized giving diners a memorable experience on Valentines Day in hopes of capturing more business in the future.  Instead is was a bit like war profiteering: Whatever the traffic will bare.  But once the war is over, you haven't really garnered any repeat business.

        

How to Refoam your Woofer - More DIY How To Projects

        

The capsule endoscopy  is a new procedure promising to show here to fore uncharted areas of the alimentary canal.  Up until recently there was only the endoscope to look inside the colon (colonoscopy), or the stomach or duodenum or small intestine.  Since the length of the scope is limited by how far you can successfully run the controls and pass the fiber optics, they are limited to about 36 inches.  With the adult small intestine being 23 feet long, you quickly run up against  the limitation of what you can observe.  Before the capsule endoscopy or pill endoscopy, if you wanted to look further down the or up the gut you would have to literally take it out and look at it.  Not a very comfortable solution for the patient.  Even with laproscopic procedures, you are placing the patient under dangerous general anesthesia, putting holes (small ones) in the body and disturbing an area of the body that really doesn't like to be disturbed that much.  Adhesions are just one of the complications that can be caused by invasive procedures into the abdomen.

Now you can just swallow a pill!  Admittedly, it's a pretty large pill.  However now the entire length of the small and large bowel can be visualized!  For people with chronic abdominal pain or other conditions, up until now, the small intestine was a black box into which no one could look.  The capsule passes through the intestines with little preparation, just a fast the morning before and maybe a laxative to make sure view is not blocked.  Patients with known swallowing problems, poor transit, strictures, or blockages may not be able to utilize this procedure.  If there is doubt, the patient can take a 'blank' or sugar pill of the same size as the camera capsule and see if it passes.  If it doesn't, it will dissolve by itself and pass in time.

The beauty of this thing is the incredible elegance of the pictures.  Before the pill endoscopy, the lumen of the intestine was inflated with air, but the pill just passes with water or the normal fluids of digestion.  In the picture above you can see the amazing structure of the wall of the small intestine.  The cilia are clearly visible like fingers in the river.  Pictures of regular endoscopic visualization only show  a glistening wall of mucus covered lining.  No floating, weightless fine structure.  Amazing.  To think that this little thing is going along taking pictures with a flash!  Ha ha ha, say cheese!  I wonder if you can see it when the lights are off?  Wouldn't it be great to swallow the pill with some food and watch it get dissolved?  How cool.

Of course the draw back to this system is that you cannot do anything while you are in there.  There is no way to steer the machine or manipulate tissue with it.  For instance, you can't ligate a polyp or cauterize a bleeding ulcer with it.  It just takes pictures for now.  I'm sure some smarty will eventually make something like a radio controlled submarine that has lasers and stuff on it...wait, i think they did that already but they didn't have remote control back then so they had to actually shrink a real submarine with real people down to fit inside a needle and they injected the guy with it... but they almost died, thank god they got out through the tear duct...or was that a movie, I forget....just kidding.  Ha ha.  That was "The Incredible Voyage".  What a great movie, eh?

Thanks for your attention.  If you have questions or comments about this entry or anything else on emergencydpt.com please feel free to contact me.

Best regards,
Spencer

        

I got a pair of speakers for free on Craigslist.  They are a pair of twenty year old Advent Heritage speakers.   The nice thing about speaker drivers is that they only get better with age.  However one thing that can happen and frequently does is that the foam surround that allows the paper cone to move back and forth deteriorates and turns into dust.  If not corrected, this can allow the voice coil to rub against the magnet and break.  That would be the end of the speaker unless you can replace the coil.  The coil is held suspended away from the magnet by the equally opposing forces of the circular foam surround.  You can see from this picture that the previous owner attempted to use silicone caulking to repair the disintegrating foam surround.  Props for trying!



So I got the speakers home, disassembled them and gave them a thorough cleaning.  This consisted of cleaning with Howard's Restore-a-Finish.  I swear by  that stuff.  These speakers are fronted with Pecan wood.  It's very ridged and I think it accounts for the accurate and 'present' sound of these excellent speakers.  I have found five pair of these things over the last six months, all on Craigslist.  I paid $40 or less for each pair and they make excellent HT speakers.  Just take those little plastic jobs your HTIB (home theater in a box) came with and throw those things away.  Replace them with some vintage wood speakers for an incredibly cheap upgrade that can't be beat.  Your speakers are the mouthpiece of your stereo and the rest of the system lives or dies at their interface with the air.  Buy a good pair of speakers and they will last you a lifetime.  No kidding.







Now with this little tutorial and less than $20 in parts, you can take any old crapped out pair of speakers and replace the ruined foam surrounds and have yourself a proper face melting system like the gods of rock intended.  Ear buds are for losers!

After removing the drivers from their cabinets I inspected the connections and noted the wiring in these things was pretty thin.  It's amazing they put out as much sound as they do with those little strands.  You have to remember that these speakers were made after Mr. Koss sold the Advent name to Jensen and they basically ruined all respect they had.  These speakers, though, with the pecan fronts, are a gleam of sunshine in the dark.  Even with the thin wire and decomposing foam surrounds, they put out a very good sound.  In fact no matter how many times I've listened to other speakers, I just can't bring myself away from the conclusion that their really is nothing better for under grand a copy and even then, the difference isn't worth the money because it's just a difference, not necessarily better.  I can't bring myself to pay the difference.

OK, time for surgery.  The first thing I did was to use a stiff nylon brush to remove the rest of the ailing foam surround.  I ordered the replacement surrounds from Ebay from an outfit : http://stores.ebay.com/GeoAli-Vintage-Stereo-and-More.  They put together everything need to do the job except screwdrivers and ship it out by USPS priority mail.  They were kind enough to provide personal help when I couldn't get the plastic vanity surrounds off the front of the speaker cage.  Hairdryer!








So after scrubbing all the old stuff off and gently prying off the vanity plastic surrounds by judicious use of the hair dryer, it was time for the real scary part.  In order to recenter the speaker driver coil on the magnet to keep it from rubbing, you have to shim it into place using the included paper shims.  I first tried to cut the dust cap off by getting in between the layers where the original glue was.  This proved to be too much work.  After doing it that way for one speaker, and then just cutting the cap off through the fibers, and re gluing them when done, I can't tell the difference between the two jobs.  If anything, the one that I cut the simpler way looks better because by cutting the hardened glue, I left more damage.






After cutting the dust caps almost all the way off, I folded them back on the last flap of skin.  If you ever seen a radial keratotomy done, you will recognize this as it looks just like what happens after the dermatome is used to cut a flap open in the cornea of the eye.  After the surgery is complete, the flap is placed back on. 



Time to shim this bad boy up!  Using the paper shims supplied, I placed them in in the gap between the voice coil and the magnet one at a time. I kept going until I couldn't get any more shims in.  This centers the speaker cone on the magnet/voice coil assembly. 





Using the supplied, clear drying glue and paint brushes, I painted a layer of glue on each surface.  One layer on the speaker and one layer on the rubber surround.  The instructions say to do the inside first then the outside.  I did that for one but couldn't' find a reason to do it on all the speakers so I did everything at once on the other three.  You just have to remember that you can't have an uneven pull between the cone and the surround.  The plastic beauty surround made for an excellent way to apply force to press the edges together evenly, and all at once.  In a couple of hours the glue was dry and it was totally transparent.  I was pretty careful with the glue job and that care paid off in an invisible replacement.






Time to break out the clamps!  If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, you can't have too many clamps!




In order to evenly apply force to the rather fragile and easily deformable dust cap, I devised a special clamp using two small cups and a few drywall screws.  This allows the glue to make contact all around the dust cap.  The glue drys clear.  Even though it looks like I slopped it on, it came out looking great.




I removed the shims and let the speaker float free in its frame.  The speaker floated perfectly centered and there was no rubbing.  Success!  Time to button the top.  The dust cap on one was a little dented up.  A quick heating with the hair dryer and by using a form (golf ball), I put it back into a smooth shape.  The gluing of the dust caps was accomplished after I made sure there was no contamination in the voice coil area.  I used a can of air to blow out the area well. The glue dried invisible.  I can tell that they were re foamed but I doubt any one else could.  I let them dry overnight before putting them back in the boxes.  The cabinets came out really nice.  I used the Howard's Restore-a-Finish to pretty much erase a water stain off the top of the speaker.  It's not totally gone but it looks much better.  You definitely can't hear it!



I replaced the thin gauge wire with something thicker I had around.  You can't hear the difference but it's just a matter of principle to me.  You need big wires for big sounds as far as I'm concerned.  These need to play rock and roll after all.

Time to pray to the Gods of Rock!  Melt my face baby!

        

Tao and I have two dogs.  BB is a 5 year old Miniature Schnauzer.  Teddy is an 8 month old Yorkshire Terrier.  They are picky picky eaters.  They simply refuse to eat kibble dog food.  I kind of wonder if BB might have gotten a little sick during the melamine poisoning and has grown a distaste for kibble.  Teddy would never touch it.  In fact, to date, they won't touch Purina Puppy Chow, Purina Canned food, or those little Pedigree Little Champions packets. They turn their noses up at Science Diet Nature's Best, and Milk Bones Treats.  They also hate Purina T-Bonz treats.  Frankly, I was getting tired of taking uneaten food to the pound.  Not that I mind helping out pound dogs.

We take them to a local park each day for a good run.  One of the people there told me about the raw food diet or the BARF diet for dogs.  Basically you give them what their ancestors would have eaten and what feral dogs eat which is raw meat.  To me, the benefit is that I don't have to trust profit motivated mega companies with the health of my loved ones.  Thousands of pets were killed by poisoning, kidney failure: a horrible way to die where your poisons and fluids just back up in your body and you drown in it.  That really opened my eyes to what my pets are worth to me and the thought of saving a nickel on pet food and ending up somehow killing them Chinese poison stuck in my craw.

BB has ALWAYS had diahrrea, always.  I can count on one hand the number of solid stools he's had no matter what I feed him.  The only time he has had decent poops is when we started him on that food that comes like a sausage...I can't remember the name right now.  It's sold out of its own little refrigerator.  They would tolerate that food as long as it wasn't frozen.  Once you freeze it, the texture or something changes and they don't like it anymore.  We would purchase a couple of loaves of that stuff at a time, cut it up into small pieces and keep about a half a week's worth at a time in the fridge and the rest in the freezer.  No-go.  Once the frozen stuff thawed out it would start loosing it's texture and seemed to just go bad fast.  By the third day it would have a tangy odor to it and the dog's wouldn't go for it. 

So about a week ago I started on the BARF diet, or my own version of it.  Dogs, being domesticated animals have for thousands of years survived off the scraps from the table of mankind.  I don't mind feeding people food to dogs but I don't want them to get sick.  All things in moderation is what a proper diet looks like.  BB's stools have turned into chalky dry pellets after starting the raw food diet!  He strains a little at times but I think this will only help to express those stink glands he has back there and keep them drained.  He's never had a problem with them but I keep an eye open anyway.  Teddy has never had diahrrea a day in his life and his stools look like regular brown dog poop.  Neither of their stools is smelly!  That's the amazing thing.  I always pick up after the dogs so I like the smaller, dryer, less smelly stools.  And the dogs love the diet.

So far I've been feeding them chicken wings, chicken feet, chicken backs, livers, gizzards, and hearts.  All from chicken or duck depending on what's available at the local Asian supermarket.  The ethnic supermarkets have these less expensive cuts of meat, even pig snouts and 'pizzles'.   The dogs chew up those bones like machines!  The bones are amazingly soft.  It's not until you cook them that chicken bones get splintery, sharp, and brittle.  Even the backs and necks are quite soft on a chicken.  I tried turkey necks but those bird bones are harder and the small dogs can't handle them as well.  I supplement this food with some carrots and some table scraps.  I don't give them much from the table, but they always get a little.  Just a couple of bites most times because I think a family aught to eat together.  However I feed them the raw stuff out in the garage for safety's sake.  They like to drag the bones around to somewhere comfortable and work on them and I don't want raw poultry on my couch.  I have a couple of dog beds in the garage for them go dine at...like a booth at a restaurant! 

I have kept a bowl of kibble in the kitchen to see if they crave anything in there.  In case there are vitamins or something that the chicken isn't providing.  They don't touch it.  The instructions at the BARF for beginners website says they should eat about 2% of the dog's body weight per day.  60% of this is raw meat and bones, and 40% of this amount is veggies.  The dog's don't chew much and their alimentary canal is fairly short so they don't get much out the veggies unless you grind them up to break open the cell walls.  In the wild, dogs don't eat vegetation except the occasional grass to clean them out.  It comes out looking basically the same way as it did when it went in.  Grinding the veggies lets them get some vitamins from them.  For this I usually tempt them with table scraps.  Both dogs like carrots, either cooked or raw.  Who knew?  I can usually talk BB into eating anything at least once.  He's so cute that way. He will eat water melon with me and apples and other veggies if I tempt him by eating it first.  There are some other tricks for getting them to eat veggies but frankly, I let the dog be the arbitrator for what he wants to eat.  I just do portion control.  A wild dog will eat and eat and eat until it's sick, then it will walk away from the kill and sleep and then it will go back and repeat the process until the carcass is gone or something drives them away.  This is great in the wild where food is hard to come by.  But at my house, they would eat until they get fat and suffer from obesity related disease.  The last time we were at the vet, this HUGE woman came in and right behind her was a HUGE basset hound.  I felt so sorry for that dog because his low slung frame made carrying around that extra weight difficult.  He was obviously uncomfortable and he didn't even look that old.  Diabetes in animals can only come from diet. Insulin glands get worn out, inefficient and the cells get immune to the insulin.  It's a system that gets worn thin with too much carbohydrate metabolism.  It's a disease humans are all to familiar with.  Obesity and diabetes go hand in hand.  It's not something I want to give to my babies.  There is no known nutritional need for carbohydrates in a dog's diet.

So I portion out the meat and offer them a small amount of table scraps each day to round out their diet.  Never more than a bite or two of scraps unless it consists of veggies.  Over the next few weeks I'll change up the mixture away from the chicken a little.  By feeding the dogs this diet, it isn't really any more expensive than kibble!  That's the amazing part.  Choosing a mixture of inexpensive organ meat, backs, feet, and wings is cheap and fairly easy to prepare.  The only real work is the portioning.

Last night I went over to the local Asian market and picked up two weeks worth of food for less than twenty bucks.  I bought wings, gizzards, hearts, and feet.  The dogs love the feet!  I put everything out on the counter and brought out the scales.  I portion about a half a pound of food per day per dog which is a little light for the bigger dog and a little heavy for the smaller dog.  I mixed up the different parts and chop the feet up a little since the smaller dog has a harder time getting the bigger bones of the metacarpals broken down.  Usually Teddy will get the fingers off and BB will take what he can't eat so they self regulate their portions a little that way.  I put everything into some portion bags and put them in the freezer.  I will buy some little containers from the dollar store this week and use those for storage next time.  I take down two bags at night and put them on the counter.  By morning they are thawed but still cool to the touch.  I give one bag in the morning and one bag at night.  Essentially each dog gets a half a bag, twice a day.  They are satisfied with these portions.  BB is a little lighter.  I think he's lost some weight and that's good since he was just a few pounds over his ideal weight.  This isn't totally due to the new diet.  He has been loosing weight since we got Teddy.  BB's health is one of the reasons we invested in Teddy.  He was getting depressed, uninterested in doing anything.  Since we got Teddy, he's much more active.





BB's teeth also look better.  Without the sticky food clinging to his gum line, the tartar has decreased a great deal.  This benefit alone is worth the effort.  My friends have an old dog missing most of his dentition and to see him gumming down his food is sad.

The formula for feeding, as well as the answers to a host of other questions including my favorite, "will my dog get the blood lust from this diet?" at this site: http://www.njboxers.com/faqs.htm#started

The dogs love the diet.  Their stools are fewer, firmer, and less smelly.  The cost is close to or the same as, or even less than the cost of premium brand mega company pet food.  The benefits of this diet are hard to dispute.  However the diet is not without it's detractors.  There is a firestorm in the pet food industry, ($35.3billion by 2012!) regarding this topic.  These companies would have you believe you have to be a scientist to formulate food for your pets.  This carefully contrived view is the result of years of marketing by some of the largest corporations in the world.  One only has to look at the name brand "Science Diet" to see they are peddling a certain image.  You pets are animals that in the grand scale of things, have only just this second came out of the forest and moved to the warm spot by the kitchen table.  They are perfectly able to get all their nutrients from fresh meat.  That they should be kept on a diet of brown pellets for their entire life is a harsh punishment for the crime of offering their undying love to us.

As far as food born illness, I don't worry about it.  I've seen the things these dogs eat off the side of the road.  Their stomach acid is much stronger.  They don't chew their food at all.  The teeth are only there to break the food material into pieces small enough to get to the stomach.  The muscular stomach wall,  secreting hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes destroy all manner of bacteria.  In fact, a dog's saliva does not contain any digestive enzymes like ours does.  The saliva's only purpose is to lubricate the chunks on their way down the shoot.

Of course factory farmed poultry and the cruelty inflicted on these poor animals is a whole different matter.  Something for another essay I guess.  If you have any questions about this entry, or anything on this website, please don't hesitate to contact me.  I'm no expert on this diet.  I have only been using it for a few weeks.  However the beauty and simplicity, the idea behind it is really a good one.  The effects on my dogs were immediate and obvious as far as the diahrrea and foul breath went.  Good luck with your doggies.  Let me know how they are!

Best regards

        

I have a tube amp.  It's an old Stromburg 8 tube that has been rebuilt into a sort of mixing console to warm up recording or performance music.  My friend Robert gave it to me.  While it's plenty powerful to drive anything modern, it gets in a hurry when over driven and starts imparting a little too much warmth if you know what I mean.  However when the volume is just right, the thing really shines with the right speakers.  The right speakers are these Golden Idol Tao speakers and they really work synergistically with tube systems.  I built them myself!  The sound is amazing.

One thing that tube amps impart is a certain fuzzyness around the edges, a kind of little bump right at the beginning of a sound, just like if the sound waves were really coming from a person's mouth, hitting your ears fresh for the first time instead of being recorded, played back, and amplified, sent through a speaker and then to your ears.  For some reason, it's an effect that bur-brown, transistors, op-amps-chips, whatever, just can't seem to get right.  However without the right speakers, you may as well have a two dollar radio.

The Golden Idol Tao speakers use Fostex 4 inch full range drivers.  The benefit is that the small driver is super efficient.  It can be driven with just 15 watts of power and still get a huge dynamic range.  To wring the most out of this little beauty, I researched all over and found the absolute best cabinet for it.  Then I put my small touch...an incredibly hard 4 layers of varnish.  The piano black finish with all the varnish makes for an incredibly tight structure.  The 13 layer Baltic birch plywood already has rigidity and homogeneity of structure, with the hand painted and sanded varnish, the speaker box components become one thing!  No screws, only glue is used to hold the box together.  Screws could set up interference waves in the box.  I wanted a stiff and homogeneous structure, with as few parts as possible.

The double horn design with cascading steps is another feature.  The benifit is that the small speakers can couple with a large volume of air so every bit of energy is transformed into sound.  The cascading steps trap high frequencies and allow the lower frequencies to propagate out of the mouths, backing up the brightness of the small speaker with a realistic portrayal of bass.  What you end up with is an effortless, easy, and airy sound reproduction without holes or cracks, unnessessary brightness, or harshness.  The depth of sound is amazing for such a small driver.  Coupled with my cabinet, the drivers just keep on giving, way way down!  It's like the perfomers are right there.  The two horns spread so far away from the driver give a huge wall of music.  The sound stage illusion is almost creepy in its realness.  It's what I listen to music for.

I can make these speakers for you.  They cost $3k a pair.  I know that's a lot but they will last you for the rest of your life.  I hand make everything and hand paint on the finish, inside and out.  They take about three weeks to make so get your order in now!


New website! www.goldenidolsound.com
Check it out!  NOW!

        

Thanksgiving came and went.  This year we were proud to have 11 people (and 3 dogs) celebrate at our table.  I made a ham, a roast, and a turkey.  I also made cornbread dressing, fresh cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, candied yams, a green bean casserole, and fresh sweet iced tea with orange slices.  We miss the sweet tea from Atlanta.  For dessert we had fruit tart and home roasted coffee.  The dinner went off without a hitch.  After dinner Jimmy and his friends went to the back bedroom to play Mah Jong and the rest of us slept in front of the TV.  When I woke up the dishes were done!

The main problem was not having enough ovens.  I always thought having two ovens was decadent but really, if you are entertaining, you have to have two.  I roasted the beef outside on the grill.  Without the grill I would have been stuck!

Thank you to everyone who made it to our table.  We enjoyed your company and can't wait to do it again.  To the rest of you, I hope to see you next year, eh?

        

Last night Tao and I went to the Flint Auditorium in Cupertino to see Martin Sheen.  Someone was giving away some tickets on Craigslist and I thought, what the heck, the price is right, lets go! (Thanks Vera!)

We arrived about twenty minutes late and he was already speaking.  Our seats were on the second level toward the front and while they were far away, they were had a good view and there was a large TV screen behind the actor.  The decor of the theater was very elegant.  We had a little round table in front of us that was pretty and the seats were red, comfortable, and spacious.  We were in our own little box.  I recieved four tickets and on the way in the usher was seating us and two other ladies were also coming in and we gave our extra tickets to them so we all sat together in our little sky box.

Mr. Sheen is an anti-war activist and spoke about that as well as his catholic faith.  He talked a little about working on movies and about his heart attack from drinking and hard living.  He spoke a great deal about alcoholism and his struggle with it as well as his son's.  He spoke about having interventions and also about his son's OD and subsequent journey to sobriety.  It was kind of a heavy talk but he kept it lively with little stories in between. 

He was born with a shoulder distocia, a condition caused by a difficult passage through the birth canal that caused his left arm to be half the size of his right arm.  He lacks mobility in that arm and that's why he throws his suit jacket over his head like a cape when he puts it on.  I've always said that we take our weaknesses and use them as strenghts.  I guess it's his signature move in the role of president he plays on West Wing.

The audience was mostly senior citizens.  I kept an eye out for the AED stations.