I had said my next little retirement project would be getting the Sony 300-disc CD changer working again, but doing that is going to be a more complicated job than I feel like tackling right now, as I recuperate. So instead I freshened up the walnut veneer finish on my 45-year-old Dynaco A25 speakers.
The Dynaco’s were made in Denmark, so I felt obliged to use Watco Danish Oil, and I’m very pleased with the results. The speakers still sound great, and now they look pretty good too.
Among other potential uses for the logo picture in the upper left corner, I’m posting the covers to some of the albums I’ve been playing. With all of the buzz about the resurgence in interest for vinyl records as a music medium, I never stopped listening to them.
I bought this high-quality German-made turntable new 35 years ago, and as you can see it’s still in excellent condition. As a small retirement project I have done a bit of work on it, so it is now working perfectly. The RCA plugs were shorting, so I snipped them off and soldered on new connectors, with the most modest of soldering kits.
There is a very active online community for vintage Thorens turntables. The rim of the platter on my record player was looking quite dull and it was slightly pitted in spots. One tip I picked up from the online forums is that the rim can be shined up very nicely by polishing it with a fine grade of steel wool. It took only 15-20 minutes of effort to get the shiny finish seen in the picture.
The rubber belt for the turntable was loose and starting to crack, so I ordered a new one. There are a lot of knock-offs for turntable belts, but mine is from Thorens. Before installing it I cleaned off a lot of rubber residue left behind on the motor pulley by the old belt. I finished my project by installing and aligning a new phono cartridge. An alignment jig came with the turntable, and after using it I checked the stylus by downloading a free protractor and printing it on card stock to ensure accuracy. The alignment checked out as being spot-on. Yay!
Next I need to turn my attention to my 300-disc Sony CD carousel. The CX-335 began fading a few years ago, and eventually became completely non-functional, which is why records have been my primary retirement music medium. There are three rubber belts that are shot and need replacing — one for the door, another for the carousel’s turntable, and the third is for the loading mechanism. As with turntable belts, generic versions are everywhere, but to my surprise Sony makes OEM parts available online, and I now have two sets of belts on hand.
I’m still dealing with my late father’s estate-related matters, but that isn’t fun, and having First World hobbies to indulge is good at keeping me distracted from the stitched-up mess on my scalp. The first follow-up exam with the plastic surgeon is in a couple of days. So far, I feel pretty much the same as it did exactly one week ago upon leaving the hospital. There are a couple of puffy areas, an occasional sharp twinge, and a fairly regular tingling sensation.
This is just about as silly and minor as a blog post can get. I’m playing around with my Bluetooth speaker in the sun room. By switching the wireless link over from speaker mode to headset mode, I can make it sound just like a cheap AM radio.
After spending so much time and money on listening to music from the Sixties in the best possible sound quality, I’m getting a nostalgic kick from making it sound like it did on a transistor radio from 50 years ago. For excellent audio, I can recommend the recent vinyl re-issue, by recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees the Moody Blues, of “Days of Future Passed.”
When I’m in Phoenix to visit my father at the assisted living facility, I stay at his house, rather than at a hotel, so I can leave a lot of things there, including items forbidden in the plane cabin — a can of shaving cream, shampoo bottle, etc. This makes it possible to avoid checking a bag at $25 each way, and instead I spend $35 to upgrade my seats and board flights in a lower-numbered group that assures me space in an overhead bin for a carry-on bag.
The catch is that my old bag is a bit too big to reliably get past scrutiny at the gate. So I went in search of new luggage at a sprawling “outlet village.” Nothing at the Samsonite store was right at all, and even if it had been, almost everything was over $200, even after a 30% discount. Upon leaving, I saw a Brookstone store across the way with a “closing — everything must go” sale in the window. I went inside and immediately my eyes fell on exactly what I was looking for.
It’s shorter than a standard 22-inch carry-on bag, but at 70% off I couldn’t resist getting it for only $36, and it’s working out very well, assuming it holds up. Something else I’m doing to pack as lightly as possible, and with TSA security in mind, is leaving my laptop at home. I found an inexpensive Android tablet with a unique design that does the trick. The 8-inch Lenovo YOGA 3 Tab with 2GB of memory.
I love this thing! Construction quality is superb, and the sturdy built-in stand makes it useable as a laptop alternative. It has only 16GB of storage, but a cheap 32GB microSD card, combined with outstanding battery life, takes care of downloading many hours of Netflix videos to watch during a flight. I used only 8GB to hold more than enough for at least two round trips. Netflix, and the technology to deliver and display content, have come a long way in the ten years since its streaming service was introduced.
I’ve been a Netflix customer for 13 years. Ten years ago I took advantage of the streaming option for Internet Explorer the day it became available to me, and I bought a 1st generation Roku player 8 years ago. Today, another Netflix milestone has been reached, because I have cancelled my DVD/Blu-ray subscription. It’s an online world, fer shore.
