I was talking with drummer John last night. Actually, we were very nearly arguing about equipment for Collision, as I was trying to explain to him that if I could not find an eight inch four ohm fifty watt speaker to replace the one that burned out in the nice compact PA columns I wanted to use, this did not mean that I had to replace the entire sound system. John is a drummer, and although Animal does not capture his personality, he is mildly technophobic and quite justly uninformed about amplifiers. However, it proved to be a rather productive argu–er, discussion–as in making my point I was reminded that maybe a year ago my sound wizard Grey Vanaman of Audio-clear dropped off a pair of tall columns he had ripped out of a church where he was doing an install. They had these weird mounting brackets on them and were painted white, and although I checked them briefly at the time to see if they worked I stuffed them in the attic pretty quickly. But I figured with the compact boxes I really wanted to use out of commission, these four foot narrow columns would have to do. Turns out they’re pretty decent speakers–Electrovoice Radiators–and so my PA system is now up and running.
I’ve also been loaned a solder iron, so assuming I also can find some solder I hope to repair the Hartke speaker tomorrow and get my instrument amplifier up and running. Maybe if things go well I’ll put together the effects boxes I’ve intended to construct.
Today things did not go so well. Fortunately, last week I made a decision to put an end to my participation in the Lutheran forum. I kept inviting Lutheran friends of mine to participate there, and they never do; and some of the new members of that board weren’t really keen on having input from some weird multi-denominational Baptist when they were really hoping to have their own opinions confirmed by others who shared them. More to the point, I needed to free up some time, and even though I was visiting them only once a week, it was tending to be a long visit that needed shortening. I’ve now cleared some time on Tuesdays for other projects.
Today, though, did not go particularly well. Most of the problems lay in the personal problems areas, and outside the purview of this blog; however, one thing that was a bit vexing is that I attempted to e-mail eight files (attached to separate letters) to the radio station to be four episodes of the Quick Word radio show on Faith and Gaming. Since I still can’t convert to mp3, these are rather large files, and it seems that once seven were moving I was unable to connect to anything else on the Internet for several hours. This definitely put me behind schedule, and I really ought in future to send fewer at a time and make sure to do so when I go to bed.
It’s getting late, but I’m not tired, so I’m going to attempt to get through a few forum posts at least.
–M. J. Young
