Month: July 2018

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A Bigger Difference Than I Thought

I posted last week about ordering 3 meters of copper tape to upgrade a Epiphone Les Paul Special II. The company that I made the previous order with has refunded my money after several back and forth emails of me sending photos and writing “This isn’t 3 meters!” and them responded that I only bought 1 piece of tape. Finally after sending a screen capture of the wording of their auction they agreed and refunded my money.

Today the 10′ of copper tape I order from another company arrived. You wouldn’t think it but as you can tell there is a big difference between 3m and 10′. 🙂

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Not What I Ordered

I decided to fix up an old Epiphone Les Paul Special II (Adam’s first guitar).  Nothing super special or difficult. I am just going to replace the wiring, sound and tone pots (Potentiometers)1, and pickups2. I am also going to cover all the cavities where the electronics sit with copper tape to protect against interference. So I bought some copper tape off of eBay with which to cover the cavities.

As you can see from a screenshot of my order above I ordered 3m of 50mm wide tape. I thought it was a great deal for $0.99. It was going to take a little while to get here but that was fine because I’m not in a hurry to finish this thing.

The photos below are what I actually received.

Ahem, mooncake815 this isn’t 3 meters worth of tape. This isn’t really going to prevent much interference. 🙂

Yes I have asked for a refund of my $0.99 from eBay.

  1. I ordered the Premium Wiring Kit from StewMac which will be an upgrade for the Special II [↩]
  2. I plan on replacing the cheap Special II pickups with Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz Set Electric Guitar Electronics [↩]
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Quotes from the Image – Blurred Edges of Reality

Thanks to Lindsey I started reading The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by historian Daniel J. Boorstin. It has been excellent and I have saved a few quotes from it to randomly post on the blog. It is amazing how predictive Boorstin was (the book was first published in 1962) and how much it has to say about the time we are currently living within.

Here’s one portion that struck me.

UNTIL RECENTLY we have been justified in believing Abraham Lincoln’s familiar maxim: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.” This has been the foundation‑belief of American democracy. Lincoln’s appealing slogan rests on two elementary assumptions. First, that there is a clear and visible distinction between sham and reality, between the lies a demagogue would have us believe and the truths which are there all the time. Second, that the people tend to prefer reality to sham, that if offered a choice between a simple truth and a contrived image, they will prefer the truth.

Neither of these any longer fits the facts. Not because people are less intelligent or more dishonest. Rather because great unforeseen changes — the great forward strides of American civilization — have blurred the edges of reality. The pseudo‑events which flood our consciousness are neither true nor false in the old familiar senses. The very same advances which have made them possible have also made the images — ‑however planned, contrived, or distorted — more vivid, more attractive, more, impressive, and more persuasive than reality itself.

Boorstin’s thought here reminds me of some of Jean Baudrillard‘s thought in his work Simulacra and Simulation. So much of what we consider “real” events and news aren’t real at all but merely simulations of real events and news, and the saddest thing of all is that we prefer the simulation to reality.

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“This Will Never Make the Press” or Whatever

Every now and then I write a post and then pick a random date in the future for the post to publish. This is because the post is usually inspired by something that I have recently seen, heard, or experienced with someone I care about and I don’t want them to be worried that I am writing about them. This is one of those posts.

<RANT>

I am tired of seeing people post something on their social media that begins with some form of the phrase “this will never make the press“. The reason I am tired of this is because invariably I have already read about whatever subject or event they are griping about on some of the media that they are saying would never post anything about that subject of event.

My friend: The mass media will never write about ….

My friend: The left will never talk about …

My friend: The right will never mention …

Me: Hmmm, that’s weird, I just listened to an NPR podcast on that.

The phrase “this will never make the …” seems to me to be an easy way to try and lend gravitas to whatever you are writing, or more likely reposting from someone else. Instead of it being a condemnation of whatever sources the person is saying will never mentioned whatever subject he or she is writing about, I have begun to believe that it is a condemnation of my friend. You see I am fairly sure that “this will never make the …” usually means that “I never read the genre or group that I am condemning and I take that as silence on the subject.” Since you don’t read any of the ones you are saying will never talk or write about a subject it is very easy to mistake your lack of hearing or reading for that group’s lack of addressing the subject.

I will use myself as an example. I posted the following Facebook status after the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013.

I realized later on that the problem was that I didn’t read any majority Islamic focused media, and thus I really had no idea if they were condemning the attacks or not – by the way when I actually took a moment to read some mainly Islamuc sources I realized that they were condemning the attacks. It made sense that I didn’t read any Islamic focused media sources. I’m a Christian. I believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I have very strong theological disagreements with Islam. I believe they are wrong on many core issues (and they usually believe I am wrong too).1 BUT if I am going to say that someone needs to talk more about a subject I should at least first look into their media to see if they are or aren’t addressing the subject. I shouldn’t mistake my lacking of knowledge concerning their media for silence on their part.

So please, at least if you are a friend of mine, stop posting things like “the ________ media will never write about this …” because all it shows me is that you probably have no idea what is being discussed outside of your bubble.

</RANT>

<RANT BEGUN AGAIN>

SIDE NOTE – I’ve had this post set to publish on a random date for a while but today I saw a social media acquaintance (If we are actual friends then this isn’t you) post the wonderful graphic below concerning the rescue of the 12 Thai kid footballers and their coach (I pray for their continued safe rescue) while commenting that the news didn’t seem to want to cover this story. Really?!?!?!? I’m not sure what news sources you pay attention to Mr. Acquaintance, because all the sources I pay attention to have been covering it (as well they should). Even Wingo & Goilic, the sports podcast I listen to, discuss them.

</RANT ACTUALLY ENDED>

  1. I once had a discussion with one of my friends who is Muslim in which she asked why I couldn’t admit that Mohammed was a true prophet, since Muslims would admit that Jesus was a true prophet. I responded by saying that was because I didn’t believe that Jesus was just a prophet but also God, and that would make Mohammed a false prophet. She agreed that we couldn’t agree on this and we finished our coffee and talked about other things. [↩]
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Project Flying Squirrel – Night #1

Since writing about flying squirrels last night I have decided that I want to get a decent photo of one of our flying squirrels by our squirrel feeder. Not a great photo, just a decent one. I’m not even going to attempt to get a decent photo of them flying. These little buggers are super fast so I figure realistically catching a good photo of one flying is beyond my scope at this point. So I will be happy with just a decent photo of one on my tree. Really just an okay snapshot will do.

I was shooting from pretty far away tonight. Tomorrow I will hopefully be able to have my camera closer.

Since my telephoto lens is presently with one of the kiddos, at this point I am left with my 18-55mm and my 50mm prime lens, and my flashgun. I thought about using my prime lens with the flash gun placed very close to the tree and then using my remote to set it off. Unfortunately, the battery on my remote died after a couple of test fires. I will get a new battery for tomorrow.

So the photos that I was able to get tonight were taken from 25′ away and cropped substantially because my 18-55mm lens wasn’t meant for shooting such small creatures from this distance (I should have gone with the 50mm prime lens – the nikkor 50mm prime lens is a wonderful lens). Tomorrow I’ll try using the remote with the camera very close to the tree. At least for tonight you can see the squirrels that I said were not visible in last night’s photo.

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Sitting Watching Flying Squirrels

You can’t see them in this photo and I can’t get close enough with my phone camera for you to clearly see them but there are 3 (at least) southern flying squirrels in this photo.

I’ve been sitting on our back patio for some time watching these little guys go after the corn on our squirrel feeder and then fly off with one of them gets to close to another one of them. They are a lot of fun. Unfortunately for this photo they are quick, small, and nocturnal. This doesn’t make for a good photo combination with the camera app of my phone. Therefore, you will just have to take my word for how cool they are.

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Grilling Today

First, Happy Independence Day. I hope that we are able to celebrate our freedom in such a manner that we are encouraged to help others be free also.

While I’m preaching the value of the original (i.e the Weber) let me also encourage everyone to repair instead of replace. Replaced the vent blades on one of my Webers today and the handles on another one. Like that, for $15 each are as good as new.

Second, I want to share a trick that I just learned that has changed the way I light charcoal. You see I am a firm believer in Weber charcoal grills.

Weber Grills are classic. They are intimately connected to the formation of backyard grilling (read this article by Food Network for some history). The Weber Grill is the Ford Model T of grills if the Model T was still able to hang with modern cars in functionality.  Weber grills are the original and they still function better than most modern grills. So I love grilling on Weber charcoal grills (which explains why I have 3 of my own, have been known to chew friends out who where getting rid of theirs, and have picked up and found new homes for Webers that I have seen put on the curb).

Since I use charcoal grills I use a charcoal chimney starter for lighting my charcoal. I’ve been using a chimney starter since my dad and I first saw one on a Boy Scout camp out more years ago than I care to remember. You throw a little newspaper in the bottom of the starter, charcoal on on top of that, light the paper, and wait 10 minutes. BAM! You have hot coals for grilling. Every now and then you have to put paper in the bottom twice.

My chimney technique changed this week when I was looking for a cover for my Weber Smokey Joe Portable Grill. While reading the reviews on a cover one reviewer wrote that she lite her chimney but using two paper towels with a tablespoon of olive oil or vegetable oil on it. I tried it today and it was wonderful. Seriously, I don’t think I will ever use another method again. It was perfect.

SIDE NOTE – My kiddos take everything I do well and then do it better. While cooking the pork chops for our meal today Adam asked if it was OK if he threw a few chive stalks on the grill. After they were finished grilling he chopped them up and mixed them with a little olive oil and pepper to put on top of our grilled chops. This tasted so good.

Yes I know I didn’t char this side of my pork chop. I realized it after the fact and decided I was ready to eat so there was no need to go back to the grill.