Putting the "Ek" in "Geek"
Dave
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Homepage: http://www.eksfiles.net/
Posts by Dave
Amazing Grace Raises the Bar(re)
Mar 2nd
Two lessons ago, Charlie gave me an arrangement of Amazing Grace to practice. To be more precise, I only needed to work on the first half of the arrangement. It wasn’t terribly challenging to get the mechanics down, and by the time I returned for my most recent lesson, I could play Amazing Grace like, well, a mechanic. Charlie gently pointed out that I could stand to work on making the melody stand out over the harmony, which was a good point. I needed to work on playing it like a musician.
Along with some other stuff, Charlie assigned the remainder of Amazing Grace for me to work on for my next lesson. The second half of the arrangement uses a barre chord (F played as a barred E) in a couple of places.
I hate barre chords.
I Got Dem Deep River Blues
Feb 28th
Charlie’s had me working on Deep River Blues for a few lessons now. It’s a fun song to play–definitely more challenging for me than a straight Travis pattern or arpeggio picking pattern with standard chords like what I’ve been playing up to this point. (If you want to hear me play it, there’s a link to an mp3 at the end of this post.)
The Delmore Brothers wrote and recorded this song as Big River Blues, and Doc Watson played this version (from YouTube):
I Didn’t Know C. F. Martin Made Valentines
Feb 26th
Apparently, guitar players are a lot like golfers.
First, there’s the whole equipment thing. Golfers need golf clubs, balls, tees, shoes, ball markers, towels–the list of things you can buy for your golfing habit is nearly endless.
Guitar players need guitars, straps, picks, music, humidifiers, tuners, metronomes–the list of things you can buy for your guitar-playing habit is also nearly endless.
Second, guitar players and golfers are both quick to believe that better equipment will make them better players. As a budding guitar player and occasional golfer, I know this to be true. Despite the fact that I golf only once or twice a year, I will admit to buying an oversized driver in hopes that it’d help my game. And, to a degree, it did.
You know where this is going, don’t you?
Adapting to USB…
Dec 21st
A comment that I receive frequently about my Digital Setting Circles project concerns the fact that it uses a serial port rather than a USB port. I guess manufacturers don’t typically include serial ports on notebook computers or PDAs anymore. In my own defense, USB was just coming into common use when I designed this circuit about ten years ago, and USB is more complicated and expensive to implement.
BatteryRefill.com
Nov 25th
The vast majority of my business transactions, over the web or otherwise, are carried out with no major problems. I’ve found that almost everyone I deal with is honest and up-front about their goods or services.
I recently came across an exception, though, when I decided to pay BatteryRefill.com to re-cell my two notebook computer batteries. It seemed like a decent deal–I could get both batteries re-celled with brand-new Li ion batteries for about a hundred bucks. That’s much less than a couple of replacement batteries would have cost. And they promised a turnaround of seven to ten business days, not including shipping times.
A Final Lucid Moment
Nov 21st
We recently purchased a ’97 Pontiac Sunfire for one of the boys to drive, since their previous car (a ’91 Camry) met with its demise. This was definitely an upgrade–the Sunfire was in immaculate condition, while the Camry was a rolling bucket o’ bolts.
This was a good thing, since I’m the one who ended up driving it. The boy has yet to master the stick shift, so he’s driving my car (a newer, nicer car) while I’m driving the stick around town. Something’s wrong with this picture, but that’s a post for another day.
The Sunfire came with an aftermarket CD player installed–a Sony CDX-M630. I thought this was going to be a good thing, too–until I actually tried to use it.
A Weekend Mechanic Once Again
Nov 15th
I have finally seen the day when my oldest child has left the nest and gone out in the world in search of his fortune.
Okay, he’s a high school teacher, so fortune might be a bit of a stretch. Nevertheless, he’s earning his own paycheck, paying his own bills, and putting his own food on the table. One of his parting gifts from me was the title to my 1994 Ford Escort. He’d been driving it around at college for the past four years anyway, so I certainly wasn’t going to miss it, and it had been a good car.
Of course, one of the first things to eat out of his initial paychecks was–you guessed it–car repairs. His front brakes needed to be done, and he needed new tires.
Follow-up: Linksys Wireless Adapters in Ubuntu Intrepid
Nov 2nd
My previous post triumphantly announced that my Linksys WUSB54G (v4) wireless USB adapter worked out-of-the-box with Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex and WPA encryption. Since then, I’ve been able to test my other Linksys adapters (WUSB54G v1 and WPC54G v2) to see if they, too, will work without any effort. The short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is that they both continue to work using ndiswrapper (see my previous posts for making the WUSB54G and WPC54G work using ndiswrapper).
Linksys WUSB54G and Ubuntu Intrepid: Yesssss!!!!
Nov 2nd
Finally.
You may have noticed that my posts on how to make Linksys wireless adapters work in Ubuntu are by far the most popular in my blog. That’s probably because (1) Linksys wireless adapters are pretty popular, and (2) it’s non-intuitive (at least for non-linux geeks) to get them working.
QRP Afield 2008
Sep 23rd
Just got back Saturday afternoon from QRP Afield 2008. Steve NØTU and I, along with Steve’s pack goats Rooster and Peanut, hoofed it up Mt. Herman (just west of Monument, CO) on Friday afternoon in time to make camp right behind an east-facing rock cliff on the southern end of the Mt. Herman ridgeline. What a spectacular place to spend the evening!
