I have had my Bass Clarinet for two days. Its beautiful. I need to photograph it and put on the site. It is WAY smaller than I expected (the case is only 1/3rd the size of my old bass from 22 years ago!). It only weights about 8lbs, and sounds wonderful.
Its a Yamaha, and the case is green. I played on it for about 20 minutes today, and tried to learn Greensleeves again. Funny how that is. I found that starting on "a" middle register produced a most pleasing rendition. I still have a lot to learn on the keys, however! The chromatics still get me after 22 years...
Thomas
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Bought Bass Clarinet today
Well after 10 years of mulling whether or not to buy a bass clarinet, I finally took the plunge. I have been looking for a way to get outside of spending all my time on the computer, and thought that a resurrection of my music skill (from high school days, 20 years ago this year....gads how the time flies!), might be in order.
I finally chose:
The really cool thing is that I got 20% off on the whole deal! So you see that I saved $400.00 on the whole package. The second item bears some discussion. I want to learn jazz playing on this clarinet, and have read that crystal mouthpieces make a very bright, jazzy sound. So I picked up the Pomarico (an italian firm that makes fancy mouthpieces). I also am trying another marvel of technology, the 'synthetic' reed. Supposed to last a long time (I hope so, for $18.00/reed!!!!!). Anyway, my cookbook is coming along nicely as well. I worked on Lesson '2' from Adobe Indesign cs3 one on one (a great book btw).
That clinches it.
Thomas
I finally chose:
| 70696 | YAMAHA YCL-221 BASS CLARINET K | 1 | $1649.00 | $329.80 | $1319.20 |
| 123811 | Pomarico Bass Clari BsCL Mpc J | 1 | $144.95 | $28.99 | $115.96 |
| 78810 | Legere BC275 Bass Clarinet ree | 1 | $18.99 | $3.80 | $15.19 |
|
That clinches it.
Thomas
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Finished My nutritional info for the book
I am happy to report that I have completed 1/3 of my cookbook. I have completed the recipes, and the nutritional information.
It was nice to get this done.
It was nice to get this done.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sticker shock or The real cost of calories
I was doing some nutritional analysis of my various recipes. I didn't know how many calories a Pizza can have. Just 2 servings of my pizza weigh in at 430 calories. A whole pizza = one whopper in calories. I might add that these are 'tiny' pizzas about 6 inches in diameter, not near the same amount that a 'normal' pizza that most American's can eat single handed.....I shudder to think what the meat lovers pizza would have??
I also was amazed at how much salt are in my recipes. Just 1 serving of my lasagna has nearly 60% of your sodium for a day. These are 'healthy' recipes that I have REDUCED the amount of sodium in....
Oh well. BTW: Gourmet rocks, its the program that I use for all my cooking. It does all of the nutritional stuff FOR FREE and runs wonderfully on my OS of choice, Linux.
Thomas
I also was amazed at how much salt are in my recipes. Just 1 serving of my lasagna has nearly 60% of your sodium for a day. These are 'healthy' recipes that I have REDUCED the amount of sodium in....
Oh well. BTW: Gourmet rocks, its the program that I use for all my cooking. It does all of the nutritional stuff FOR FREE and runs wonderfully on my OS of choice, Linux.
Thomas
Thursday, December 18, 2008
An unexpected Meeting
I was looking as some zphone stuff, (a cool encryptor for voip) apps, and sent a message to the distro for the source code for asterix.
Guess who called? Phil Zimmerman himself. We talked for about an hour or two. He's a really pleasant person.
My first celebrity who I actually talked to 'in person' who I really admired. Most 'pop' stars are idiots who have entirely too much money, nice to meet a cool human being.
Guess who called? Phil Zimmerman himself. We talked for about an hour or two. He's a really pleasant person.
My first celebrity who I actually talked to 'in person' who I really admired. Most 'pop' stars are idiots who have entirely too much money, nice to meet a cool human being.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Pandora Update
Well, I received my refund today from the Pandora. I talked to the pandora lady (Debs) who was very nice. I will probably re-order. I did lose about $75.00 due to currency fluctuation. The Pandora looks like it is coming along nicely, and since I have recieved my refund I have some more faith in the product team.
Thomas
Thomas
Disaster or Do Thomas's Dream of Electric Bikes?
Well, my personal project to electrify my recumbent have ended up in flames. I tried unsuccessfully for nearly 6 months to get the local recumbent shop to get me one ordered.
I had him modify my SatRday with a Schlumpf front end (its a set of planetary gears that gives you integrated gearing as part of the crank shaft), since we would be removing the 3 speed integrated rear shifter (taking me from 27 gears to 9). With the schlumpf I would have had 18 speeds.
Well, it turns out that the satrday aliment is very touchy. He had to completely re-tool the bike, which cost me $600.00. The dumb part comes on me. I borrowed a $1600.00 recumbent from him, and through my own stupidity and anger I destroyed the loaner. Add another $1200 after parts.
I called Bike Friday, since I no longer trusted the words of this fine salesmen, and looked at the mechanical laws myself: My satrday has 350 rims. The nearest bionix motor to this is 18 inches. That's 457mm, The satrday people said I MIGHT be able to fit it on the satrday, but that would require disc brakes (about $350.00), and that the satrday itself would have to be further modified to allow for such brakes ($60.00). The labor and parts for just the disc brakes is going to run $550.00, not including shipping ($60.00 w/ insurance), not including the $1600.00 cost of the bionix motor itself. There is still NO guarantee that this will all work together.
So rather than continuing to spend money on a lost cause, I have decided to give up the reality of the electric Bike, and wait till next year (more likely 2010!) to try again. Maybe by then my Scorpion folder w/ full suspension will be working. The cost (in today's dollars) for this: $6,000. Kind of more than I am willing to spend in this climate.
Thomas
I had him modify my SatRday with a Schlumpf front end (its a set of planetary gears that gives you integrated gearing as part of the crank shaft), since we would be removing the 3 speed integrated rear shifter (taking me from 27 gears to 9). With the schlumpf I would have had 18 speeds.
Well, it turns out that the satrday aliment is very touchy. He had to completely re-tool the bike, which cost me $600.00. The dumb part comes on me. I borrowed a $1600.00 recumbent from him, and through my own stupidity and anger I destroyed the loaner. Add another $1200 after parts.
I called Bike Friday, since I no longer trusted the words of this fine salesmen, and looked at the mechanical laws myself: My satrday has 350 rims. The nearest bionix motor to this is 18 inches. That's 457mm, The satrday people said I MIGHT be able to fit it on the satrday, but that would require disc brakes (about $350.00), and that the satrday itself would have to be further modified to allow for such brakes ($60.00). The labor and parts for just the disc brakes is going to run $550.00, not including shipping ($60.00 w/ insurance), not including the $1600.00 cost of the bionix motor itself. There is still NO guarantee that this will all work together.
So rather than continuing to spend money on a lost cause, I have decided to give up the reality of the electric Bike, and wait till next year (more likely 2010!) to try again. Maybe by then my Scorpion folder w/ full suspension will be working. The cost (in today's dollars) for this: $6,000. Kind of more than I am willing to spend in this climate.
Thomas
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