The Phonograph, a public service announcement

Dust Magnet, I need to gets me a Discwasher

Having moved recently, the house is still in a state of flux. By flux I mean all the stuff that used to be in "storage" is now piled in the dining room. This is okay for now seeing as how we don't own a formal dining table. One half of the room is piled high with boxes and plastic bins. Several of those are filled with vinyl LP's. Yeah, I'm that guy. I own CD's and have plenty of digital tuneage as well but I like to sit down and spin the wax, as the kids say. This is tounge and cheek here kids, I'm 35. Over the past weekend the wife was out of town with the kids so after I recovered from food poisoning, I finally made it out and picked up some speaker wire and got my stereo hooked up. I dug through the boxes and pulled out GrumpyUnks Robin Trower Live album and tossed that on. At least I think it was his, I liberated many records from Grandmas and most of them were Unks. Right on. It was pretty cool and I'm all set to play the records again. The Sansui 7070 rules

It's somewhat suprising to me that there are quite a few people who think that this technology is completely lost. It's not, and stop throwing your records away! You can buy new turntables, you can buy turntable looking thingys that will rip your vinyl records to MP3 and you can play them on your Ipod. Of course, you may not want to play records at all but there is someone who will take those Herb Alpert, or John Coltrane, or Bread slabs and be very happy listening to them. Quite a few new artists release thier albums on vinyl along with the CD. You just may not realize it. Many old records are being re-pressed on 180gr. vinyl with new mastering and sound kick-ass. You can probably get a belt for that old Thorenz turntable and I know someone makes a cartridge (needle) for your Project One. This means you! After listening to my turntable the other night I was wondering if I could get the new Wilco on vinyl. Yep, from Wilco's website.

Eclectic, to say the least

The new Elvis Costello record was released May 6th of this year on vinyl first and the purchase included a digital download of the record as well. That's what I'm talking about. The coolest thing about this, in my not so humble opinion, is that you can buy ZZ Top's Tres Hombres and Fandango in heavy vinyl with new "old" mastering from the original tapes. In the 80's the bearded ones (seemingly after a giant pile of cocaine) decided to remaster all the albums with huge amounts of....something. I'm not a sound engineer but they sounded like poop. I don't want a disco version of Waitin' For The Bus. Now you can have a recording that is new and sounds like it was intended when it was new. You can't get that if you go to BestBuy and pick up the CD. Now, if this excites you and you do a little internet searching and the first stylus cartridge you find is $5000.00. Keep looking. Yeah, you can drop thirty grand in a heartbeat but you don't have to. I think my Sony turntable was about $100.00. There are less expensive one's out there still. Click through the links I have sprinkled about in this post and you'll find some neat stuff. You can also get vintage records from Tim at World Wide Wax. I've ordered stuff from him in the past with good results. We even have a cool, old school record store not too far from here (sorry, no link). Amazon.com sells music on vinyl. If they have it, it can't be that hard to find.

Get out there and rock people!

Photos, Flickr, et al.

I have a desk job. This means I spend all day staring at a computer screen designing tools and dies and whatnot. Most of my boredom relief comes in the way of looking at blogs and thinking about neat stuff I'm gonna build when I get the time. From this, I noticed the presence of Flickr has vastly increased lately. It seems that everyone that blogs puts all their pics up there in addition to the blog pics. I have a Flikr account but it doesn't get used much. I think I'm going to change that. I will add a link to my Flick page and I have already added a little content. I am also going to try to use more of my own photos here rather than use other people's. Now to clarify, I would never intentionally post a pic and take credit for it. That's a shitty thing to do. We all snag photos from the web that were not neccisarily intended for people to: RMB, save as - if you know what I mean. So from now on I'll give credit or tell you it's my pic or whatever. I digress. I have been very into photography for the last 8 or so years. Hell, the name of this blog refers to a Ralph Eugene Meatyard photo. Not an actual title, a reference. Before I moved I had a darkroom in my basement. I've got tons of cameras and photo epemera. I could build a state of the art darkroom for 1945 if I wanted. You see, I dig the old stuff. I'm not against the new stuff but a black and white print made the old way cannot hold a candle to any digital print made with even pro-sumer gear. I'm not going to argue this with anyone, if you can back it up with a print swing by the house and show me. Don't worry- I'm not here to rant film vs. digital. I bought the wife a nice digital camera a year or so ago and I have really come to like it. Actually, I liked it right out of the box. The pictures of the Ducati Elite from a few posts ago were taken with that. It's really perfect for web-photos. Since the birth of my oldest son, the photo thing has really taken a back seat. This is kind of a bummer for me since I really dig being behind the camera. With the digital I don't have to spend all evening with my hands in chemicals burning through expensive paper. Of course the two mediums are different in many ways. I can make some pretty nice prints the old fashioned way. I cannot make nice prints with my computer. I haven't a clue how to use Photoshop, I haven't cleaned the fingerprints off of my piece of crap CRT let alone calibrate it for correct color rendition. I'm not about to spend a nickel on another printer and archival inks.... You get the picture. I don't have time to do the one I'm good at and I don't have the time to learn the one I know very little about. Ah yes, but what about the "I'm not going to bitch about not having the time to do stuff" comment? I'm getting to that. The point is, with digital, at the very least I can make photographs. Maybe they are just snapshots at this point, but I'm getting back to taking photographs and that's something I love. I'm Surly and I have a camera. Surlycamera. See? Positively positive.

Happy Independence Day

Have a happy and safe Independence Day. No more British tyrants 'round here.

Italian porn

Bike porn that is. Man, is this a pretty motorcycle. Ducati Elite. A friend of mine asked me come by and snap a few pics for him. He will be participating in the U. S. Motogiro in a few weeks. I knew he had this bike but for years it's been a crate of parts. Needles to say I was blown away. Ducatisti purists will do doubt note the non-original parts but this bike was made to be ridden and be reliable. Many of the parts for these are very hard to come by, especially here in the states. This example has a 250cc motor, the original Elites were 200cc bikes.
Look at that tank. These are known as "jelly mould" tanks. The styling is not for everyone but in my opinion the Ducati jelly mould and the Aermacchi race tanks just scream Italian motorcycle. 1098's and Brutale's are all well and good but this is a timeless classic.
I made those motor-mounts. Not as pretty as some I have made but you cant go wrong with engine-turning.

All photos by the author

The "gear gazer" allows you to see the bevel gears that drive the overhead cam while they are spinning. And more importantly, allow you to see the oil splashing. My buddy Bill made this one. The clutch has been upgraded to work a bit smoother and have less pull. That cable mount was added to facilitate this. Either my Dad made that or our friend Nick did, I can't remember. SS carb with velocity stack, no idle circuit.

I killed it

Bultaco Metralla- photo taken by the author

I killed my other blog. I only had a few posts and it seemed pointless to have two. It still exists but just links you back here. I moved all the posts from there to here so if you wanted to read an old post search for them here.

I have many interests and I was going to keep this blog to motorcycles. Well, that just ain't gonna happen. I'll still post bike stuff but there may, nay will, be posts on other stuff I'm into such as would have been on the Cash Tabernacle blog. Look forward to some minor changes in content and perhaps the look of the blog. Design, photography, tinkering, my house. Please, leave comments.

You may have noticed I have not had any "Rode my bike today" posts. I didn't forget, I just have not been riding the bike. I'm having a hard time dragging my lazy ass out of bed in the morning. No excuse, just the facts. This is normally where I would complain about not having enough time due to working on the house and changing diapers and the like. I'm done with talking about that. My intent all along with this was to be focused on content and not excuses. I think I've siad this before but suffice to say if I'm not posting, I'm busy.

I've got some idea's for new posts and I want to stick to my resolution to have more resolve.

Look forward to some minor changes in content and perhaps the look of the blog. Please, leave comments. I like comments.