The Uncertainty Principle: Let's say this twinkie represents----

Things are good----

The days really do fly by.

There is just something about massive Soviet equipment

and the overkill method of how the Soviets just do things...

These are the overland support vehicles involved in a Soyuz capsule recovery:

The ZIL-409061s

Along with the standard issued giant Russian Helicopters

these bad boys help in transporting returning cosmonauts from their

landings in Kazakhstan.

A 6 wheel, amphibious go anywhere, unstoppable

sort of thing only the Soviets can design...

You've gotta admit tho, the Soviet's have a

way about them and how they go about things?

The local weather has finally turned nice.
Allowing me to drive on with my
projects.

I'm refinishing our bedroom door.
This is the main project of the moment....
This door opens directly into our living room, a pretty
standard layout for 1900 era bungalows.
The condition of this door is important in the overall
ambiance of two rooms in the house.
The door had been painted the color of the rooms prior
to my repainting them.

I pulled the door and set up a stripping area on the back porch--
I'm lucky in that the door,
has only two coats of different colored paint to strip--
white and salmon.
On the other side, white and maroon.
My estimate is about 5 full days of labor in stripping and
staining the door to match the living room woodwork on one side and
then painting the bedroom door side, white, to match the bedroom.

My insomnia returned for several evenings this week.
At least now i do not lie in bed staring at the ceiling in the dark all night.
This was a requirement when I was working.
Pretending to try to sleep so as to not feel
so terribly bad about myself at work the next day.
Fucking Protestant work ethic!

My outbursts of insomnia make me feel as if I am an even stranger
being than i really am.

My recently acquired
Sony WM-D6c recorder and Magnavox D8300 boombox
arrived via the USPS.
I spent an evening checking functions, cleaning,
making minor repairs if necessary.
I actually had to repair the Sony which was described as
in excellent working condition.
It was dead when it showed up.
Turned out to be a minor repair after some
investigation.

There is much pleasure in
saving something cool to be of service again if possible,
and using the item as it was intended to be used.

So in Summary:Me---old guy, listening to old school analog tapes, which i create on old tape recorders,
played on my old boomboxes, while stripping paint off our 1903 bedroom door.
Lot's of old stuff is in motion...sometimes something actually happens.

How cool i think i am---

How uncool i probably really am---

It's not just about finding tape player/recorders that work.
Or ones that if they don't work you can repair?
It also about finding sealed new old stock, cassette tape...
What used to be so incredibly common it was sold
at the checkout stand of every supermarket and 7-11...
is gone..
Amazing when you think of it isn't it...?

For all intents and purposes, good audiophile cassette tape has disappeared...
Audiophile
I am always prowling for sealed, New Old Stock (NOS) cassette tape.
Which by itself is now being collected by people without
players or recorders just the cassettes, as an art object...WTF eh?
In Europe--they are big on cassette tape collecting.
No playing music involved--
just hording and displaying the immense variety of physical tape types.

This has of course blown the price of NOS audiophile blank cassette tape
out of reasonable limits for some types and brands.
Manufacturers ceased production of high end audio tape
years ago and are now only selling off remaining stockpiles, if they have any or
if they have not fled the business.
When i actually do find new old stock cassettes i attempt to purchase
at least 2 of the variety i found.
One to put to use and the other to put away and keep for the future...
when sadly----there just will not be any more.

I did just located and receive two Fuji DR-1 tapes at a reasonable price.

Fuji is long gone out of the tape business and

theirs was one of the best of the type 1 standard recording tapes made.

One to use--One to put away...

Weather Report

1978

All on DVD--
The great, the ok, and the miserable-
Starting with the Great.....

St. Vincent--
Excellent!
Totally disregarding the appearance of a Walkman cassette player
in the movie which will automatically get 5 stars from me.
This is the best film i have viewed in a long long time.
Bill Murrary is remarkable in this film...

I love the credits rolling while they show Murray mumbling and singing along
to Bob Dylan while playing Shelter from the Storm, on his walkman
sitting, smoking in a lawn chair in his shitty back yard....

Then

On Amazon streaming-excellent L.A. detective noir--
with an outstanding classic jazz soundtrack
which i am planning on recording off the internet..

Dracula Untold I considered to actually be a fair film.
At least they showed the why/how he got the name Vlad the Impaler!
They overly romanticized why he became a vampire --but still not a
bad attempt at showing the war against the turks, defending Europe
against the horde etc....
Not bad--worth a watch on DVD.