We’re ten days into February already. My perception of time gets more and more skewed as I age. We’ve been set into daily routines for most of the past week with a couple of exceptions. I haven’t been on the pickleball courts as much as I would like for a couple of reasons. First is the club’s scheduling – I can’t make much sense of how they are scheduling the courts for different levels of play. Most of the 3.5 play is 8am to 10am – I don’t play my best first thing in the morning. The other issue is wind – we’ve had a stiff breeze most mornings and I find outdoor pickleball in gusty wind to be an exercise in frustration. It becomes a game of chance, not so much skill.

A few weeks ago, we had visitors for happy hour. I had music in playing on the stereo at low volume for background sound. My friend commented that it sounded so clear and detailed. This was before I started upgrading my system and I wondered what he meant – it seemed pretty average to me. I thought about it later and came to the conclusion – it’s the general dumbing-down of sound quality.

My friend is used to streaming online music sources or MP3 files on an iPhone. These sources are so compressed that the music lacks the original detail and dynamics. He probably hadn’t listened to a compact disc in years. I read recently that last year (2021) was the first year to post a year-over-year gain in CD sales in the last 15 years! In fact, during that period, sales of vinyl records exceeded CD sales. Maybe people started to wake up and forgo the convenience of music files versus high-quality recordings. Nah, I doubt it – in the end, convenience wins.

My new Klipsch Reference R-51M bookshelf speakers arrived last Saturday. After about 12 hours of break-in and careful positioning, they sound great! The bass response is a big improvement over the Celestion DL4 speakers I had. To be fair, the Celestions are about 30 years old and the crossover network could probably benefit from fresh capacitors. But there’s no denying the bass reflex design with a rear firing port on the Klipsch speakers allows a much deeper and more powerful bass response. In fact, my Nobsound vacuum tube stereo amplifier sounds better than I ever expected it would. There’s no turning back now.

Like the Celestion speaker, the Klipsch R-51M is a two-way design, meaning it has a tweeter for higher frequencies and a woofer for bass and mid-range controlled with a crossover network. Their designs differ though – Klipsch is famous for horn designs and this bookshelf speaker uses a 90-degree tractix horn tweeter and an injection-molded graphite spun copper woofer. I’m really happy I went for them.

Hopefully I’ll receive a package from TubeDepot tomorrow. I’m going to build another amplifier. I ordered the Japanese Elekit TU8200R kit. I think this will become my main stereo and I’ll set up my old speakers and the Nobsound amp in my ham shack.

I’ve read some alarming reports predicting the demise of CD music players. Here’s the situation and possible outcome. First of all, CD sales have been slow although they picked up a little steam last year. Right now, there’s a worldwide shortage of integrated circuit chipsets. This has impacted most consumer goods – everything from cars to cell phones. With CD players now a small player in consumer electronics, manufacturers aren’t prioritizing CD players for their precious chipsets – they have other goods to manufacture that are in higher demand. This in turn means that manufacturers aren’t buying the disc transport mechanisms that load CDs into the player – which means the companies that usually supply these components are moving on to other goods.

I looked at Amazon and Crutchfield and my findings seem to support this theory. Crutchfield lists 12 different CD players in their catalog, but 10 out of 12 are out of stock with no date for resupply. I have a lot of music on CDs and would hate to lose the ability to play them. Our Pioneer CD player is about 30 years old and sometimes can’t decode a disc that has dropouts. I think I’ll buy a new unit and relegate the Pioneer to the ham shack.

Donna’s golf game is improving quickly. Last week, she played her fifth game ever on the nine-hole course here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Park. She hit a bogie on one hole, made par on another and birdied a hole!

Last Sunday, we had a delightful brunch at OHSO Brewery in Gilbert with our friends Sara and Howard Graff. After brunch, we strolled the streets of old downtown Gilbert. It’s a fun place – I can remember when it was a one-horse town that was little more than a water tower and crossroads. I neglected to take photos.

On Tuesday, my daughter, Alana and her husband Kevin (collectively known as Kevlana) flew down from Washington. We had a cold one on our deck along with my middle daughter, Jamie. Then we piled into Jamie’s Passat and went to dinner at Alessia’s, an Italian restaurant a few miles from here.

The food was excellent and we thoroughly enjoyed the time together. Yesterday, Kevin and Alana came over to golf the nine-hole course with Donna. Kevin and Alana are avid golfers and Kevin is quite good at it. Afterwards, we enjoyed lunch at Fat Willy’s, the restaurant here at Viewpoint.

Last night, we went out to eat with Kevin and Alana again at the Zushi Japanese Bistro and had Japanese beer – Kirin for me, Kevin and Alana, Asahi for Donna – and enjoyed miso soup and a platter of sushi.

Speaking of food, Donna came up with a couple of new dishes for us last week. She’s been meaning to try her hand at pizza for a while and finally got to it using the method her parents use as well as one of their old pizza pans that she brought back from her last visit.

The pizza was good, but she thinks she can improve the crust. We both thought she could use a little less sauce, but that’s just our thoughts – there wasn’t anything wrong with it.

She also made a chalupa dish by slowly cooking a boneless pork shoulder with dry pinto beans, green chiles and spices for about five hours on the stove. It was very tasty but made enough food to feed a football team. She served it over corn tortillas fried in olive oil and with a topping of tomato chunks, red onion, cotija cheese, cilantro and lettuce.

We vacuum packed the leftover and put two packages in the freezer – enough for two more dinners and two more lunches – a total of eight more servings.

Kevin and Alana picked the right time for an Arizona visit. It was cold last week by local standards with highs of only around 60 degrees. But that changed by Tuesday when we had upper 70s and hit 81 degrees yesterday – making an enjoyable, sunny morning on the golf course. The forecast calls for daily highs around 80 degrees for next week.

*Just so you know, if you use this link to shop on Amazon and decide to purchase anything, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!