Michiganders, Music and Snow

In addition to all of her usual activities, Donna had a busy week as we had visitors. On Monday, Martha and John Bergquist came by at noon. I had just returned from a couple of hours of pickleball when they arrived. Donna knew Martha from our time in Michigan and they were visiting Arizona, staying down in Tucson. Their home is in Wisconsin now.

Martha and Donna in front of our orange tree

Martha really wanted to see wild horses, so Donna invited them to come up and hike at Coon Bluff to see if they could locate some horses. They lucked out and found a herd of about 30 horses along the Salt River. I was beat from pickleball and wasn’t up for the hike. They went for a late lunch at Saguaro Lake. It was after 5pm before Donna made it back home.

Yesterday we met up with more friends from Michigan. Gary and Cheryl Bida were out here visiting their son in Scottsdale. It was a rainy day yesterday when we met up with them for lunch at Fat Willy’s. Lunch on the patio was out of the question with the cold, windy and rainy weather, so we dined indoors. We had a good time talking and visiting for a couple of hours. It’s been at least 10 years since we last saw them. I neglected to take any photos.

My last post rambled on about my stereo system. I have to say, we’re really enjoying it and have music on for hours every day now. It has rekindled my interest and love of music. I’ve always had an eclectic mix of recordings – everything from Mozart to Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix. Lately, I’ve been expanding my CD collection with new material that I’ve largely ignored over the years.

I’ve added three discs by Diana Krall. Diana is a Canadian jazz singer and pianist and I love her voice, even when she’s singing some sappy song. Her piano playing is exquisite – she started studying piano at the age of four! He parents were musically inclined too. Her husband is none other than British recording artist Elvis Costello.

I recently “discovered” Tom Waits. I don’t know how he flew under my radar all of these years. Tom is from southern California and was a regular in the San Diego folk music scene in the 1960s. I wasn’t into folk music at all back then, so maybe that’s how I missed him. He moved to Los Angeles in 1972 and was already established as a singer/songwriter by then. I didn’t know it until recently, but he penned the Eagles hit Ol’ 55. You might remember their version of this song:

Well, my time went so quickly
I went lickety-splitly
Out to my ol’ 55
As I pulled away slowly
Feeling so holy
God knows I was feeling alive

Now, the sun’s coming up
I’m riding with Lady Luck
Freeway, cars and trucks
Stars beginning to fade
And I lead the parade
Just a-wishin’ I’d stayed a little longer
Oh Lord, let me tell ya that the feeling getting stronger…

Tom Waits is quite a character. He spent a lot of time in San DIego and LA hanging out in diners and dive bars with his notebook, picking up snippets of conversations around him to inspire his song writing. His early recordings in the late 60s and early 70s reveal a soft voice. By 1980, years of cigarettes and whiskey changed his voice to a gravelly rasp.

I’ve also added a couple of discs recorded by John Mayer. I knew of John, but didn’t have any of his recordings until now. He attended the Berklee College of Music and is probably the most famous student of guitar great Tomo Fujita. I like his songwriting and singing as well as his excellent guitar playing.

I also found a CD called On Every Street. Recorded in 1999, it’s the last album Mark Knopfler recorded as Dire Straits – by then, only he and the bass player remained from the original band. All of his work since then is under his name as a solo artist – he is an absolute guitar god.

I mentioned in my last post that Donna is back to following the Bright Line Eating plan. This doesn’t mean we have to curtail fine dining. She just has to be selective in the mix of protein, carbs and fats she eats and she weighs everything she cooks.

Last week, she made a lentil soup with duck sausage and it was delicious.

Saturday she grilled a wild caught Alaskan salmon and served it with a citrus-chile topping. Another hit.

Grilled salmon with citrus-chile sauce and grilled bok choy

The citrus-chile sauce was so tasty, she used again on Monday over grilled chicken thighs and wings. It works as well on chicken as it does on salmon.

Chicken with citrus-chile sauce served with asparagus and cauliflower rice medley

We’ve had a strange weather pattern over the last couple of weeks. Last week, it was cold and wet on Wednesday but warmed back up to the upper 70s by the weekend. This week, the temperature only reached 66 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday was rainy and only 52 degrees! Average highs at this time of year are 72 degrees. The overnight low last night was down to 33 degrees and we had overnight showers. This left snow on the Superstition Mountains east of us here at Viewpoint – we can see them out our front window.

We can expect another cold night with the low in the mid-30s, but we should warm up to the 70s for highs this weekend. The forecast calls for highs in the 80s by next Tuesday.

*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!

Analog Man

FedEx was on schedule and delivered the Elekit TU-8200R stereo integrated amplifier kit I ordered from Tube Depot. Elekit is a Japanese company that’s been in business for about 40 years. They are well-known in Japan for the science project kits they sell to high schools. High schoolers in Japan build projects like robotics and other electronic devices with the Elekit supplied parts and manuals. They are also well-regarded for their audio gear.

Mr. Yoshitsugu Fujita is the Chief Engineer and designer for Elekit. His audio circuits are brilliant. Unlike most boutique stereo amplifiers, which rely on circuit designs originally developed in the 1950s and 1960s, Fujita-san designs outside of the box everyone else is stuck in. His audio gear is vacuum tube driven, but he has no qualms about using solid state devices in the power supply stage. If a DB107 solid state bridge rectifier creates a cleaner power supply, that’s what he uses. He also incorporates transistors in circuit protection schemes, but the signal path is all analog tube driven.

I got to work right away after the delivery came at 1pm. Everything was well packaged and sorted into plastic bags.

One of the key elements of this kit is the R-core power transformer on the left in the photo above. The two output transformers – also very key components – are in the left center of the photo. Once I inventoried all of the parts to ensure nothing was missing, it was time to populate the main board. Over the next five hours or so, I soldered over 200 points on the main circuit board. There are seven boards total to make up the amplifier. These are high-quality printed circuit boards (PCB) with thick fiberglass plates and copper traces on both sides that are well proportioned and 70um thick. The through holes are copper plated.

Bottom of the main board with components in place

I finished the main board around 7pm and knocked off for the day – I was getting tired and I didn’t want to make an error in the build. Building a stereo amplfier is like building two amps at once. Each channel (left and right) has it’s own, separate signal path. Only the main power supply is shared in this amp.

Main PCB finished – all capacitors and resistors are high-quality parts sourced from Japan

Saturday morning after breakfast and coffee, I got back to work around 9am. Assembling the rest of the boards was straight forward. I had to knock off at 1pm to have lunch before going to Donna’s concert. The Viewpoint Concert Band had their first performance of the season. They have fewer musicians than in years past due to covid and other reasons – they’re down by about 30 performers. They sounded great though and put on a good show.

PCB 2 with volume control, switches and headphone jack

Before I started building this amp, I went Michael’s craft store and bought a pack of craft sticks. These look like a popsicle stick but they’re larger – about 3/4″ wide. I glued two of them stacked together to make it 1/8″ thick, then I cut down the width on one end to make it 3/8″ wide. This was my jig for bending the leads on resistors and setting them precisely 1/8″ clear of the board. I did this because resistors get hot and keeping them up from the board would allow air to circulate around them. I wanted a uniform height for aesthetic reasons. This would be an issue later.

There were a couple of places where PCBs are joined perpendicular to each other and tricky soldering was required. The PCBs had copper pads on each board that aligned with each other but didn’t make contact. I had to solder a triangular fillit that joined the copper pads. This was tricky because both pads needed be simultaneously heated to allow the solder to flow and adhere properly.

Twelve triangular solder fillits joining the copper pads of these PCBs

After the concert, I got started on the hardware mounting and had everything put together a couple of hours later. Total time spent on the project was around 12 hours at this point – eight hours or so with a solder iron in my hand.

I put tubes in the sockets and it was time to fire it up. I plugged in through my my bulb limiter connected to the APC Line R voltage regulator. It was a disaster. I had a loud hum. I switched it off and looked everything over. I tried switching tubes but the loud hum persisted. I tried a few tests and found the noise was unrelated to the volume control – no matter where the volume control was set, the hum level was the same. I also found that touching the volume control or the input jacks changed the hum – it was lower volume when I touched them.

This made me believe the hum was from a ground loop. I put a jumper from one input jack to a ground point on the chassis and it killed the hum. I hooked up the CD player for a test – no sound output. Bummer. Up to this point, I thought this was the easiest amp I’d ever built. The kit was high-quality and everything fit well. The instructions were good. Somewhere along the line, I must have been a little over-confident and made a mistake.

I pulled the boards out and reflowed the component solder points. I couldn’t see anything wrong. I put it back together and had the same result. I was getting frustrated and tired. It was past 7pm by then and Donna had dinner waiting. I decided to give it a break and think about it for a while.

I thought about it while sipping a Scotch on the rocks and finally gave up for the night. I woke up at 4:30am Sunday morning and thought about it some more. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up as quietly as I could and went back to the amp at 5am. I reconfirmed all of the component locations and values. I can’t tell you how many times I took things apart and checked them – I wasn’t getting anywhere.

I had to take a break at 9am to meet Mike Hall at our coach – he was going to look at the damaged body panel that I temporarily repaired while we were traveling through Utah last summer. He came up with a plan for a permanent fix.

Then Donna and I drove to Scottsdale to meet Alana and Kevin at Merci French Cafe and Patisserie for brunch. Kevin and Alana had left the Painted Mountain Golf Resort in Mesa on Saturday and went to Alana’s mother’s place in Wickenburg – over an hour away. They made the trip back to Scottsdale to spend a little more time with us before flying back to Washington on Tuesday. We had an excellent brunch on the patio at Merci – eating out again for the fifth time in eight days. I was a little distracted, thinking about the amp problem.

When we got back home, I finally wised up and quit looking for a visual clue. Instead I measured voltages throughout the circuit. The schematic identifies 29 points to take voltage readings. All looked perfect until got to number 29. The reading was impossible. I should have had around 6 volts for the heater filaments, but I found -30 volts. What? How could I have negative voltage there?

Looking at the schematic led me to the solid state bridge rectifier. It was installed properly, so I scratched my head again. I was using a headset that resembles the one used by dentists to magnify things in front of their eyes. The one I bought had five different lenses with magnifying powers of 1x – for eye protection only, 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x and 3x. I used the 2x lens because it allows greater depth of field than the stronger magnification – above 2x, you have view from a precise distance or things get out of focus. It also has an LED lamp to make me look like a cyclops while lighting up the working area.

With this headset on, I was searching the board around the DB107 rectifier chip when I saw something reflect a tiny bit of light. There was a fine line of solder – no thicker than a strand of spider web – across two terminals of the rectifier chip. Bingo – this was enough to short the rectifier. I used a braided copper solder wick to clean it up the solder joint. That should take care of the lack of sound and the voltage issue, but it didn’t explain the hum or ground issue.

I traced the ground circuits and resoldered the triangular fillits where the grounds went from one PCB to another. Then I put it all togther without the top plate on the chassis. I plugged everything in and it was silent – no hum. I turned the CD player on and I had sound. Hooray, I fixed it. All along, Donna kept reassuring me by saying, “You’ll find the problem, I have no doubt.”

I took the amp back to the bench and put the top and front cover plates on. I plugged everything back in and put on some music. Oh, no! Now I had nothing coming from the left channel. I took it apart again and traced back from the left channel input jack. Fujita-san cleverly marked all of the left channel components with odd numbers and all of the right channel components with even numbers. So I went to the resistor R1 to start checking and I found it bent with the lead touching the lead of R3 mounted perpendicular to it. This shorted the signal path to ground. Remember how I set the resistors all 1/8″ high? When I put the chassis back together after I fixed the original problems I must have accidently pushed R1 over onto R3. Problem solved.

This stereo sounds fantastic. It’s unbelievably good. Donna doesn’t exactly share my passion for chasing tone and good sound. When I say something like, “Listen to that bass and how clear the highs sound,” she usually says she just wants to enjoy the music, not dissect the sound. But when she heard this amp for the first time, right away she said, “That really sounds good!” The amp looks good to me in a simple, somewhat industrial way.

Elekit TU-8200R vacuum tube stereo integrated amplifier

Tube amps do sound good. I know, I’m a retrograde analog man in a digital world. But vacuum tubes naturally create an emphasis of second order harmonics – that is, they accentuate the octave above the fundamental frequency. Acoustic instruments naturally do the same thing. It’s a euphonic response and people find the tone pleasing. Solid state amplification creates higher odd order harmonics – the 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc, of the fundamental which most humans perceive as harsh or even unpleasant. Solid state designs require complex circuitry to try to work around this.

In my last post, I mentioned my concerns about the future availability of CD players. I decided to buy the Cambridge Audio AXC35 player after thinking about it for a day. I went online to Crutchfield and found out they had sold out since I last saw it the day before! Luckily, I found it on Amazon for the same price and placed the order. I went with the Cambridge Audio unit which is made by a company based in London, England because of the Wolfson Digital to Analog Convertor (DAC) in it. The Wolfson DAC is made by a company in Ireland and is a very good DAC. The DAC is a key component of a CD player.

Information stored on a compact disc can’t be amplified directly into music. The information is a series of microscopic pits in the disc separated by lands. These become a series of zeros and ones. The DAC takes this information and converts it to a waveform that represents the frequencies of sound. This waveform can now be amplified and sent to a speaker. Magic!

The Cambridge Audio CD player arrived on Monday. Now my stereo system is complete – new CD player, new amplifier and new speakers. It sounds so good, I can’t put it into words.

Enough stereo talk – let’s get to the food. Thursday night, Donna made garlic butter chicken with riced cauliflower, mushrooms and asparagus. She seared the chicken thighs on the stove top, then baked them in the oven

Donna is back on the Bright Line Eating plan, which means I’m sort of on the plan. But I get to cheat some. Monday she grilled wild caught Alaskan salmon and served it with Brussels sprouts in bacon horseradish sauce.

Last night ,she made lemony shrimp and bean stew – this was a new dish for us and really tasty.

Alana and Kevin picked a great week for their visit. The temperature was around 80 degrees everyday. Early this morning, that changed as rain moved in and we’ll be lucky to see 60 degrees today. The forecast looks good though, as we should be in the 70s by Friday.

Compact Discs, Family and Food

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.

Klipsch R-51M with Tractix horn tweeter and spun copper woofer

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.

Poorly focused photo – Alana and Kevin on the left, Donna and Jamie on the right

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.

Chasing Sound

I’ve been known to chase a certain sound or tone with my guitar set-up, but I wouldn’t say I’m an audiophile by any stretch of imagination. There was a time, around 20 years ago when I got into home theater that I started down the audio rabbit hole.

I was living in Arlington, Washington at the time. I spent some time at a local hifi shop nearby in Marysville and ended up buying a 5.1 Surround System featuring Onkyo components. It wasn’t long before I wanted to upgrade. I started hanging around a higher-end shop in Seattle near the University District and started spending some money on a higher-end system – things like Rotel separates and better floor standing speakers. I had some reliability issues with this temperamental set up.

After a while, I settled on Pioneer Elite series components that served as a hifi stereo rig as well as a 5.1 Surround Sound system. I bought higher end Infinity speakers. This equipment served me well for about 10 years before it started to need repairs. I finally sold everything when we hit the road in 2013 and lowered my expectations to lo-fi iPod MP3 music storage and barely adequate speakers.

Last year, when we bought the park model home at Viewpoint, Donna found a vintage stereo system for sale here in the park. It featured a Pioneer CD player, Kenwood receiver and Celestion DL4 bookshelf speakers. The stuff was all at least 30 years old and dated, but it was better than what we had in the coach and only cost about $200 for the whole set up. We’ve had it in our Arizona Room since we moved in and enjoy listening to our CD collection again.

A few weeks ago, I got the idea that I wanted to check out vacuum tube stereo amplification. Analog circuits utilizing vacuum tubes appeal to me. They have a natural warmth to the sound due to the second order harmonics they produce as opposed to higher odd-order harmonics in solid state amplification. There are pros and cons to either approach, but old school tube amps appeal to me.

I dipped a toe in the water so to speak by buying a cheap, Chinese integrated tube amp. In my last post, it might sound like I was really beating the Chinese produced stuff down – and in a sense I guess I was. But that doesn’t mean everything from China is junk. Having said that, I take a close look at any Chinese products – it’s buyer beware.

The Chinese amplifier I bought was branded Nobsound, it comes from Douk Audio. I knew these things had some issues, but they are easily dealt with and not expensive. I did the minimum needed to improve the reliability and used the amp for a while. Then I went back in and replaced all of the capacitors. What I found was that many of the capacitors were Sam Young brand – a Korean Company that also produces electronic parts in China. They are not considered good quality and have a reputation for poor reliability. They were made to look like Japanese Nichicon products. Four of the capacitors I removed had Vishay BC branding, but I’m pretty sure these are counterfeits – not genuine parts from Austria. I bought genuine Nichicon (Japan) capacitors from Digi-Key and installed them in place of the cheap Chinese stuff.

The clarity of the music through this amp improved. I think I’ve taken it as far as I can go with it though. It sounds good, but I wish it had better frequency response on the bass – it rolls off somewhere around 70-100 Hz. I have about $500 in this amp at this point and I’m done trying to make it better – it would require better output transformers for any real improvement at this point and that’s too expensive for what I have here. I should mention that some Chinese audio products are quite good, like some of the Shuaguang vacuum tubes and the tubes from the unpronounceable Chinese brand Psvane.

I’m finding myself venturing down the audio rabbit hole again. In an effort to improve the bass response of my system, I ordered a pair of Klipsch Reference R -51M speakers. These are a bass reflex design speaker with a rear-firing port and horn tweeter versus the Celestion sealed cabinet speakers I now use. We have background music playing most of the day now, playing a wide variety of music from classical to jazz and rock.

I have a feeling that even with an improvement with the new speakers – I expect them to arrive on Friday – I won’t be completely satisfied. I’m contemplating building an Elekit TU8200R integrated amplifier. These come from Japan and the kits are designed by Mr. Fujita of Elekit, Japan and contain high-quality components. They are well-regarded by hifi audio enthusiasts and reviewers all agree they perform well above their price point. I can get the kit for under $1,000 and I have the skillset to build it. I’ve seen used examples selling for $1,800 on Ebay. I’ll think about it for a week or so before making the plunge.

Other than that diversion, we’ve been enjoying our usual routines here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. Donna is like an Energizer bunny, always in motion for one activity or another. I’m a little more laid back but I still get my exercise on the pickleball courts and offer a 90-minute clinic every Tuesday – that’s been stretching to two hours lately as the participants don’t want to stop after an hour and a half.

Last Thursday, I went back to Dr. Kessler to address the spot of basal cell carcinoma on my back. The worst part was the injection of local anesthetic. The actual cutting and scaping with a dermatologist’s curette wasn’t felt at all. I was in and out of the office in less than half an hour. Now I just have to keep a dressing on it for about a week and it should heal.

As usual, Donna has been feeding me well – I always have to include a few dinner examples in my posts. She had a new take on chicken thighs called sheet pan roasted chicken and pears. It had a hint of spiciness from fresh ginger and a few red pepper flakes among other spices.

A couple of days later, she made a dish that was a more elegant take on the pizza chicken she makes. This had thin chicken breast filets with roasted tomatoes and mozzarella, red onion and sliced pepperoncini. She served it with spinach gnocci sauteed with fresh spinach.

Sunday’s dinner was an old favorite – maple chipotle pork tenderloin with garlic smashed new potatoes and fresh asparagus. And it was perfectly timed and ready to eat during halftime of the NFL playoff game.

We started off February with Donna manning the grill for fennel-crusted rack of lamb. She grilled it perfectly along with grilled zucchini, peppers and onions topped with feta cheese.

The weather has been fabulous with daily highs in the low to mid 70s. Yesterday it clouded up in the morning and early afternoon – it almost looked like it was going to rain – but we still had a high of 68 degrees. Today and tomorrow are forecasted to be what Arizonans call “wintry weather.” The forecast high today is 60 degrees and only 58 tomorrow. We should be near 70 on Friday and back in the 70s for the weekend and week ahead. Just right for a visit from my daughter Alana and her husband, Kevin next week.

Saguaro Lake Ranch

In my previous post, I said I would add some photos from Donna and Sini’s horseback trip and the Pass Mountain hike. A couple of the photos were transferred from Sini”s phone and the files were compressed and the images downsized. I couldn’t restore these very well, but I included them anyway.

They rode horses from Saguaro Lake Ranch Stables, located on the Salt River a short distance downstream from the Saguaro Lake dam. Sini is an experienced rider, but Donna hadn’t been on a horse in 30 years.

After their ride, they had a picnic lunch on the river.

They also made a side trip to Coon Bluff and saw wild horses.

The next day, last Tuesday, they hiked the Pass Mountain Loop Trail at Usery Regional Park. A light rain shower passed through the area in the afternoon – it was light enough not to be bothersome on their hike and it presented a nice rainbow!

They had a good time and it was a nice visit with Sini.

It’s been a fairly quiet week since then, I don’t have much to report. We had another repair/maintenance item here on our park model home. It seems like I’m spending more on repairs and maintenance here than I do on the motorhome!

When we had the new heat pump and ducting installed, they told me there was a water leak under the house. I took a look. It was a pipe leaking under the refrigerator about three or four feet from the crawl space entry. Monday morning, I called Jimmy Joe’s Plumbing and they said they could have a guy out that afternoon. Later, they called me and said he could be there by noon and he showed up a few minutes after 12:00.

I showed him where the leak was and he crawled under the house. He came out a minute later and said it was an elbow fitting that cracked. The pipe was capped off – it wasn’t attached to anything. He said he could cut the fitting off and re-cap the pipe. Sounded pretty straight forward and simple. Then he floored me when he said it would cost $265!

I asked him why so much? What’s the hourly rate? He said it wasn’t an hourly thing, the price was set because he had to crawl in the dirt under the house and work on his back. He said it’s something you don’t want to do, so you’ll have to pay me to do it. I wasn’t too happy, but he was right about me not wanting to crawl under the house. I couldn’t let the leak continue, so I told him to do it.

About 20 minutes later, I heard him closing off the crawl space entry. I went outside and found him standing out of sight behind his van, talking on his cell phone. He ended his call and said he would give me a break and “only” charge $205 for the work. Some break! He wasn’t even here for half an hour. I left a review for Jimmy Joe’s on Google and Yelp – maybe it’ll save someone else some coin.

On a happier note, I ordered a Yamaha soundbar for the TV in our Arizona room from Crutchfield on Sunday. It was listed at $199 with free 2-day shipping. It shipped Monday. Last night I noticed they had a price drop on this item – $20 off. I called their customer service this morning and asked about the discounted price. Kyle was the rep I spoke to and he said, “No problem, we have a 60-day price match guarantee – I’ll process a $20 refund.” Now that’s good customer service! Kudos to Crutchfield.

Donna bought a new slow cooker – it has all of the bells and whistles. She can program heat settings and timers. She used it on Thursday to make a new-to-us chicken dish – slow cooker brown sugar garlic chicken. She served it with crispy salt and pepper potatoes and fresh green beans. It was delicious!

Chicken with baby potatoes and green beans

Friday night she changed things up with a baked shrimp with fennel and feta dish. Another tasty treat.

It was the NFL Divisional playoff weekend, so we kept dinner simple so I could watch the games. It was still good food with carnitas (pulled pork) tacos Sunday night.

Carnitas tacos with baked jalapeno poppers

I bought a USDA Prime 2.3-pound tri tip roast – or is it a steak? – at Costco. I took a picture of it before I seasoned it as it’s important to know the grain orientation when you slice it. The tri tip cut has a change in grain direction from one end to the other and you always want to cut across the grain.

I seasoned it Sunday afternoon and put it on the Traeger Monday afternoon. I made a change in the way I smoked it. I dropped the temperature of the Traeger to 180 degrees instead of 225 and smoked it for 90 minutes. Then I increased the temperature to 225 degrees for another 30 minutes. At that point, I took it out of the Traeger and put it on a hot gas grill – 450 degrees. I seared each side for three minutes.

Donna served it with Brussel sprouts in a horseradish bacon cream sauce and baked potato with butter and chives. I love the tri tip flavor when it’s simply seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic.

The weather has been near perfect with daily highs around 70 degrees, clear skies and overnight lows in the 40s. The forecast calls for more of the same in the week ahead.

Making It a Keeper

I got busy last Friday. As I mentioned in my last post, Gleeson Mechanical was scheduled to replace our air conditioner/electric heater with a Day and Night heat pump. Things started off slowly as they didn’t show until nearly 10am, then they had to return to the shop because they forgot some necessary item. They didn’t really get started until nearly 11am.

The two guys they sent out were efficient and the installation was completed by 2:30pm. They did a good job and hauled the old unit, including all of the underfloor ducting away. We have a new heat pump, new ducting, new return box and a new thermostat. It works really well. The only gripe I have is this – I told them to be aware of the property line. Our lot is narrow – all of the Viewpoint lots are narrow. They placed the unit carefully, but they ran the evaporator drain line over the property line, creating a trip hazard for my neighbor when they walk the path to their back deck.

New A/C and condensation drain line on our neighbor’s walkway

Our neighbors, Steve and Deena said they weren’t concerned about the drain line.

Meanwhile I received a delivery. A few weeks ago, I ordered a set of hand wound pickups for my Stratocaster guitar from Adam Asmus (Tone Hatch Pickups). His site showed a two-week wait for the pickups to be wound and he shipped them exactly two weeks later from Norfolk, Nebraska. However, it took the USPS a week to get them past Omaha, Nebraska.

I went to work on it right away. I removed the pickguard and old pickups, then installed the new ones and soldered it all together.

Pickguard with original machine wound pickups

Tone Hatch pickups hand wound by Adam Asmus

I’m still tweaking the pickup heights, but these are very smooth sounding pickups with what I can only describe as a richer tone. I thought I would lose some output with these, but I don’t really notice a change in volume.

If you know me or have followed this blog, you know I like to build and play vacuum tube guitar amplifiers. The warm tone of vintage-type guitar amplifiers and the feel when you drive them hard can’t be duplicated in my opinion. Recently I started looking at vacuum tube stereo amplification.

Stereo amplification is much different than instrument amplification. In a guitar amplifier, a certain amount of distortion is desirable – you want the ability to increase the sound level of the guitar and create everything from a clean sound to an over-driven distorted, fat tone.

In stereo hifi amplification, you’re aiming for a transparent gain in sound levels while faithfully reproducing the original tones. I became intrigued by the idea of low-power, single-ended, class A amplification. I learned a lot from Steve Deckert’s website for his Decware amplifiers. I would love to have one of his Decware Zen Triode amps, but the cost of an entry-level Decware is about $1,000 and there’s a long waiting list to buy one – it could take eight months or more before I could have one built. He hand builds everything. This is only a 2.3 watt amplifier. If you wonder how 2.3 watts could drive a speaker, check out his website.

I did some looking around and found affordable alternatives made in China. These obviously don’t have the same build quality, but there are people who have documented the shortcomings and how to fix them and come up with a reasonably good sounding amplifier. After researching a bit, I decided to try an amp made in China by Douk Audio and sold in the US under the brand name, Nobsound.

There are two reasons I decided to try this amp – first, it’s affordable at $315 on Amazon. Then, most of the issues on this amp are documented and fixes are easy. It’s a hand-wired, point-to-point (PTP) chassis that’s easy to modify. I figured this would get me in the door of stereo hifi amplification without breaking the bank.

Nobsound 6P1 integrated stereo amp – photo from Amazon listing

They list this amp as a 6.8 watt amplifier, but I think that’s wishful thinking. It may be able to generate 6.8 watts of power, but the distortion level would be unbearable way before you got there. It’s really a 2 or 3 watt usable power amp.

Amazon delivered the amp on Friday and also delivered another product I needed for this amp. Douk Audio made a few questionable choices in components for this amp. Many of the early adopters of this amplifier complained of tubes burning out and if the rectifier tube burned out, they didn’t know how to diagnose and replace it – they just wrote it off as a cheap Chinese throwaway amplifier.

There are a couple of reasons this happened. First of all, Douk Audio sends these amps to North America for Nobsound with the same power transformer used in China. The thing is, China household voltage is nominally 110 volts. In North America 120 volts is the norm and it’s not unusual to see 122 or 124 volts at the wall outlet. The power transformer at 120 to 124 volts was supplying higher than specified voltages throughout the amplifier, killing vacuum tubes.

To counter this, I ordered an APC Line-R 1200-watt regulated power supply. It has three settings for the output voltages and can handle up to four devices connected to the output totaling 1200 watts. One of the settings is 110 volts. I measured an actual 108 volts with the 110 preset on mine. This should be fine. This unit costs about $60, so now I’m $375 into the project.

I connected the amplifier through the APC unit and connected my Celestion Bookshelf 8-ohm speakers. These aren’t the highest efficiency speakers and I hoped I would get enough volume out of them. Speaker efficiency is rated with a specification called sensitivity. A one watt, 1kHz signal is applied and the sound pressure level (SPL) is measured one meter from the center of the speaker. My speakers are rated at 89db – the minimum sensitivity recommended by Steve Deckert for low-watt use.

I was surprised! The amp sounded decent and had no problem driving the speakers. But, there was more to do. The vacuum tubes supplied with the amp were mostly good quality Russian military grade surplus tubes. This included the rectifier tube – I think Douk Audio figured they could address the rectifier failures by upgrading to the Russian tube instead of the cheap Chinese tube originally used and I hear is still in use in the China market. This would get them past the warranty period.

The power tubes are very cheap Chinese tubes. The Chinese tube is designated 6P1 and is a copy of the Russian 6P1P (6П1П in cyrillic). The tubes supplied with the amp are poorly made with a dirt-like contaminate visible inside the glass tube envelope. It’s like looking through a very dirty window. I tried scrubbing the glass with steel wool to see if it was on the outside – it’s the inside of the tube! I ordered two matched pairs of 6P1P – EV (6П1П-EB in cyrillic). Although this is a single-ended tetrode amp, it’s unusual in that two tubes are wired in parallel for the output of each channel – thus the need for matched pairs. This cost $60, so now I’m $435 into it.

I bought these tubes from an outfit called Riverstone in California. They are new old stock Russian military surplus made in 1985 and 1987 at the Svetlana factory in Saint Petersburg, Russia. This plant was built by RCA in 1937. The EV or EB suffix indicates an extended-life, ruggedized tube and these have the OTK quality control codes.

Cheap, contaminated Chinese tube on the left, NOS Svetlana tube on the right

No major tube manufacturer makes these tubes anymore, just a couple of small Chinese companies do. Luckily, there are large stockpiles of the NOS Russian high quality tubes still available. The change in output tubes made a huge difference in sound quality. The frequency range was extended, reproducing higher highs and lower lows, the difference was dramatic.

But wait, there’s more. Douk Audio has another design flaw. In the power supply, they used two 150uF electrolytic capacitors – one after the rectifier tube and one following the choke. For the rectifier tube, this is bad news. I’m guessing they did this to simplify inventory and cut costs by stocking a boatload of capacitors of the same value. The thing is that larger, higher capacitance filter capacitors to smooth ripple in DC current can be a good thing. But, there is a limit and too much isn’t necessarily better. The rectifier tube is a Russian 5U4C tube which is equivalent to the RCA 5Z4. RCA’s datasheet specifies no more than 40uF – the Brimar datasheet for this tube is more conservative and specifies 33uF maximum. Well, 150uF is too much and places undue stress on the rectifier tube.

So, I ordered a Vishay Beyschlag 22uF 450 volt electrolytic capacitor made in Austria from Digi-key to replace the 150uF Chinese one. I also ordered four high-quality Solen 0.22uF (220nF) 650 volt capacitors made in France to replace the no-name brand Chinese coupling capacitors. With tax and shipping, it was another $30 – making this project cost a total of $465.

Weird colorshift in this photo – this is the original circuit and the power transformer is clearly marked 110V

Correct color temperature – new capacitors installed – 22uF filter cap is the blue one on the center/right – coupling caps are the black ones

The wiring and solder connections inside the amp are tidy and impressive. I expected to reflow bad solder joints, but I didn’t find any bad ones. The cap replacements took me a lot longer than I anticipated. I told Donna this was because, in my usual fashion, I spend extra time looking for a part or tool I had in my hand a few minutes before. This can add 10-15 minutes to the job. Then I spend time looking for a small fastener or item I dropped and spend another five or 10 minutes on my hands and knees looking for it.

At the end of the day, I have a very delightful little single-ended class A vaccum tube amp for under $500. Can’t beat that! Last night I was listening to an acoustic guitar piece by Ronnie Earl and the sound reproduction was so clear, I realized I could hear his fingers sliding along the strings on chord changes! It was like he was sitting in front of me playing his guitar. Now that I know this amp is a keeper, I’ve ordered back-up vacuum tubes to have on hand, although these Russian military grade tubes should be long-life items.

Tubes and VU meters on the Nobsound glowing in the dark

On Sunday, our friend Sini flew in from San Diego. Donna picked her up at the airport and they had fun plans for the next few days. They made it into a girls retreat by renting a room at the Westgate Painted Mountain Resort and planned hiking and horseback riding activities. Last night, we all went to Baja Joe’s for a Mexican seafood dinner – Sini’s treat. Thanks, Sini!

Donna took Sini back to the airport this morning. I’ll add some photos of the hike and horseback ride in my next post as this is getting too long already.

Speaking of seafood – as I stated above, Friday was a busy day, but Donna topped it off with a dinner of walnut crusted tilapia with broccoli on the side.

The weather has remained pleasant with daily highs around 70 degrees and overnight lows in the upper 40s to 50 degrees. The mornings have had some high clouds that burn off before noon, but yesterday, we had some sprinkles of rain. It wasn’t much – I was on the pickleball court giving my coaching clinic and we managed to play through the short, light shower. The week ahead doesn’t show any significant changes.

Three Quotes and a Decision

In my last post, I described problems we were having with the heating, ventilation, air conditioning of our park model home. I had the air conditioner/forced air heater repaired and also needed to have a 50-amp breaker installed in the power pedestal.

Park model homes in Arizona are considered “mobile” units although you cannot just hook up to a truck and drive them away. This designation changes some aspects compared to a regular sticks-and-bricks home. For one thing, we obtained the title for our unit from the motor vehicle department. Another aspect is the electrical supply to the home.

Our park model is fed electricity from SRP – the local power utility – through Viewpoint and is distributed to each site through a power pedestal just like an RV site. When we had the breaker replaced in the pedestal, I saw one of the 50-amp receptacles feeding power to our unit had a broken housing. There are two 50-amp receptacles in our pedestal – remember, each 50-amp receptacle has two legs of 50-amp current available for a total of 100 amps. With two receptacles, we have a total of 200 amps of electrical service.

The housing of the receptacle is formed from bakelite – a synthetic resin – the first form of plastic invented in 1909 and still used for its insulating properties. Bakelite is easy to form and cheap, that’s why it’s still used. However, it can be brittle. Anyway, the bakelite housing had a section broken off right where the round ground lug is located.

We had another issue with the pedestal. It’s about 34 years old and was placed in a hole in the ground – no concrete surround, just dirt. This results in corrosion and ours is badly corroded around the base. I’m a little concerned about it breaking off at the base and falling over. We placed a work order with VIewpoint – the management of Viewpoint is responsible for upkeep of the pedestal and main power supply to our park model.

They had a maintenance guy come out to look it over. He seemed to think we had nothing to be concerned about. I pointed out the broken receptacle and he said, “That’s common – it’s no big deal, that’s just the ground.” I thought “no big deal…just a ground?”

I pointed out to him that it was potentially a very big deal. With no support of the sleeve for the ground lug, the sleeve could very well have loosened and end up corroded with poor contact to the ground lug. That would mean part of our household circuit was ungrounded. The purpose of the ground is to have an low-resistance path for unwanted electricity to the negatively charged earth.

If the ground lug didn’t have good contact, we may not have that path to earth. Let’s consider a defective appliance like a toaster. If the toaster developed a short to the chassis and/or metal cover, the electricity should be delivered through the ground. This shorted circuit would draw a very large current and trip the breaker, thus telling us we had a problem.

Now, let’s suppose that the ground lug had poor conductivity. There’s no path to ground, so the chassis is charged with electricity with place no to go. Excess current isn’t developed, so the breaker doesn’t trip. The toaster sits there on the counter charged with electricity and if you happen to be unlucky enough to touch it, you become the path to ground. The current would flow through your hand and body and exit from your feet. Bad news.

He said he would get an electrician out to fix the receptacle. I wonder how many people here bought into his thought of the ground being no big deal – he said the broken bakelite was common, right? A guy from Flatiron Electric came out on Tuesday while I was giving pickleball lessons. He talked to Donna and went back to the pedestal. He came out a short time later and told Donna he would have to return the next day. He admitted being a new guy and I think he got a scare – the pedestal is daisy-chained with several others and the input lines remain hot when you work on it. You can only break the connection between the pedestal and the house – to break the feed line would mean disrupting power to a whole row or more of houses.

I confirmed Donna’s suspicion – she said the guy looked a little shook up when he left. I found half of the outlets in our Arizona room weren’t working. I found a tripped ground fault circuit interupter (GFCI). He must have shorted a hot lead and tripped the GFCI. I bet it made a big spark before the GFCI tripped!

He came back yesterday morning and got the job done. He must have had a lesson or two the afternoon before, because he replaced the receptacle fairly quickly, without incident.

New receptacle in power pedestal – note the corrosion

I neglected to take a photo of the old, broken receptacle before it was replaced.

On Tuesday, we also had Brandon from Gleeson Mechanical come out to give us a quote on a new air conditioner/heating unit. He spent more time looking everything over than the previous two contractors we got quotes from. In the time between the quote from Liberty last Friday and Gleeson on Tuesday, I did more research.

I was initially inclined to go with an electric heat strip for winter heat. I was a little skeptical about a heat pump. This was because the heat pumps we have on our motorhome don’t work very well when the temperature is below the mid-30s. This only happens occasionally here in Mesa, but we do have the odd frosty morning here and there.

What I found was my assumption based on the motorhome wasn’t a good one. The units on our coach are 20 years old and are much smaller than a residential unit. The technology has improved over time and current heat pumps remain efficient until the temperature drops below 25 degrees for an extended time. This doesn’t happen here. A heat pump costs a few hundred more initially, but it’s more energy-efficient and will save on utility bills.

Gleeson Mechanical gave us a quote for a 2.5 ton Day and Night brand heat pump with new ducting. The price was $4,800 – this is $900 more than the quote from Liberty, but it’s an apples-and-oranges comparison. Day and Night is a brand from Carrier Corporation – a well-respected brand of heat pumps with a track record for quality and reliability. Liberty quoted a Broan 2.5 ton air conditioner with an 8kW heat strip. Broan is a brand name under Nutek. I can’t find much in the way of favorable reviews for their products.

The first quote we received was for a Day and Night 3.0 ton air conditioner with an 8kW heat strip and it was $5,500. My research indicated this unit was too large for the air space in our park model home and inefficient. Also, the labor charge was high, so we wrote that guy off.

At the end of the day, I figured paying the extra $900 up front for the Day and Night 2.5 ton heat pump over the Broan will pay off in lower utility costs and peace of mind for a quality product. Gleeson will come out tomorrow and do the installation.

The weather has been very pleasant this week with daily highs in the low to mid 70s and overnight lows around 50 degrees. It looks like more of the same in the coming week with overnight lows dipping to the mid 40s. The new heat pump should cope well with that.

New Year Surprises

Well, we’re a week into 2022 already and I can hardly bring myself to write the year as 2022. The last two years have been a little tough on everyone with the covid restrictions. I’m hoping for a better 2022, but we’re off to a rough start.

Last weekend – New Year’s Day – had the coldest nights of the season. Saturday and Sunday nights were clear with lows in the 30s. Wouldn’t you know it, our heating unit went out on Saturday afternoon. We made do for the weekend with space heaters, but it was far from ideal.

Our central heat is integrated with the air conditioner unit. It’s not a heat pump, it has what’s called an electric heat strip. The hot air is forced through the same fan and ducting that the cooling unit uses. Donna had a referral to an HVAC guy, but it turned out he had retired. He referred us to another guy that was able to come out before noon on Monday.

He quickly found the problem. I was guessing the blower motor had fried as I smelled an electrical burnt odor much like what I would expect if the motor winding had shorted. Luckily it wasn’t that – it was a corroded connector that created excessive resistance and burned the feed wire to the blower motor. That was an easy fix, but the bad news was, it didn’t solve the problem.

When the wiring burned it also took out the double pole 50-amp breaker in the pedestal. The good news was, he had a replacement part on hand and fixed the power pedestal. More bad news was his bill – he charged a total of $450 for the repair, which I felt was excessive, but I didn’t complain, I just paid him.

He also gave us a quote for a replacement air conditioner with a heat strip – a Day and Night 3 ton unit for $5,500 installed. I told him I would have to think about it. Our current air conditioner unit is over 30 years old and it’s not a matter of if it goes out, it’s when. Looking inside the unit, I believe that will be sooner rather than later.

I set appointments for two more replacement estimates. In the meantime, I did some research to help me understand my options. The first estimator came yesterday from a Phoenix outfit called Liberty Heating and Cooling. He looked everything over and recommended a 2.5 ton unit with an 8kW heat strip. This was more in line with what I thought we needed. He included a prefabricated concrete pad – our current unit has a 6kW heat strip and is mounted directly on the ground. His quote came to a total of $3,900 – much better than $5,500.

I’m a little concerned about the quality of the unit they use though. The brand they install is called Broan. These are made by Nortek, the parent company of several brand names. Most of the reviews I’ve read aren’t positive, but it’s a small sample size.

We’ll have another local company, Gleeson Mechanical, come out on Tuesday to give us a quote. They use several brands and all are top notch. I’m curious to see how the price stacks up – I expect it to be somewhat higher than the Broan unit, but it may be worth a little extra for higher quality and reliability.

I had another issue that doesn’t make for a good start to 2022. On Wednesday, I had an appointment with a dermatologist. I had a couple of skin issues I wanted to get an opinion on. I ended up getting a full body scan. I had some pre-cancerous lesions on my face which he froze. But the bigger deal was a spot on my back that appeared to be basal cell carcinoma. He took a biopsy and yesterday, the pathologist confirmed it’s cancerous. I’m not overly concerned about it. Basal cell carcinoma usually isn’t very aggressive – it’s a slow growing tumor and can usually be found and treated before it spreads.

Unlike my previous bout with cancer (I wrote about it in a series of posts here), this was detected early. The lesion is only about the size of my pinky fingernail. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to have it removed. Dr. Kessler will cut or scrape a small divot in my back and cauterize it. Hopefully that’s the end of the story. Basal cell carcinoma does have a high rate of recurrence, but it moves so slowly that it can be detected.

As always, Donna has been feeding me well. Our New Year’s Eve meal was special. We had an outstanding lobster mac and cheese on a half shell from Hancock Lobster in Maine. And that was just the starter! We also enjoyed some lightly fried squid and veggies with tzatziki. A great way to end 2021.

On New Year’s Day Donna fixed a pasta dish called Quick Ragu with Ricotta and Lemon. It was on the spicy side – she’ll adjust the recipe.

On Mondays during the football season, Donna knows I’ll be watching the Monday Night Football game, so she keeps it simple. Fish street tacos are a quick and easy dish and I can easily eat them while watching the game. We love fish tacos and Donna makes a great sauce for them.

Another tasty dish was a beef ragu over spaghetti squash.

Beef ragu over spaghetti squash with fresh grated parmesan cheese

The weather here took a turn for the better over the last few days. The week leading up to the end of 2021 was relatively cold and wet. I mentioned the cold, clear nights last weekend but by mid-week we had highs in the upper 60s and hit 72 degrees yesterday. Overnight lows were in the 40s. The forecast calls for more pleasant weather and relatively warm nights of 50+ degree lows until the middle of next week when we might see some rain showers.

Christmas Treats

Christmas has come and gone here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort, just like it has everywhere else. Most of the residents here spread the Christmas spirit by decorating their homes. Some of the streets go as far as adopting a theme which everyone more or less follows. The management provides a tram – a small train with open cars pulled by a small tractor. People get on the train at the lot in front of the office and it takes them on a tour of the facility to look at all of the lights and decorations in the evening.

Christmas decorations viewed from our front steps

We had a fairly quiet Christmas Day. Our Christmas dinner included a honey-glazed spiral-cut ham. I sliced russet potatoes which Donna made into a very tasty side of au gratin potatoes and I cubed a butternut squash that she sauteed with fresh ginger and spices. Cubing a butternut squash was harder than I expected! She also made green beans tossed with shallots cooked in butter. And for dessert, she made Nanaimo Bars, a Canadian Christmas treat (recipe here). Donna fixed three plates that she delivered to three different homes where she assists the elderly residents. They live alone and were very appreciative to have a home-cooked Christmas dinner. She also delivered Nanaimo Bars to some of our neighbors.

Christmas Eve was about as wintery as it gets around here. The temperature only reached 59 degrees and an inch and a half of rain fell! We exchanged gifts on Christmas morning – I gave Donna a pair of diamond stud earrings that I bought online from Blue Nile. She gifted me with a nice set of Sony noise-cancelling headphones. I spend a fair amount of time on YouTube lately and these headphones are a treat.

We’ve had several wet days with heavy overcast since Christmas and I’ve only been out once for pickleball. Donna managed to get out for tennis a couple of times and also played a round of golf on the nine-hole Executive course. My days have revolved around reading and practicing guitar – I’m working on learning some new material. I ordered a Christmas gift for myself – a set of custom hand-wound pickups for my Strat-type guitar. They’re being made by Adam Asmus (dba Tone Hatch Pickups) in Norfolk, Nebraska and I’m looking forward to getting them in a week or so.

Last week, we watched the Beatles documentary, Get Back, on Disney Plus. It a three -part film with about 6 hours of running time culled from over 150 hours of film recorded in 1969. It was interesting to watch their creative process as well as the tensions that developed in the group at that time. It was well worth paying for a month of streaming Disney Plus.

Before Christmas, I made a batch of my signature Japanese fried rice. Donna grilled shrimp for a simple, delicious and savory dinner.

On Christmas Eve she kept it simple – we were gifted a delicious clam chowder from Hancock’s in Maine. And the day after Christmas, she made green chile pollo street tacos. She tried something new with the chicken filling, it was a different seasoning on the chicken and it was topped with a green chile sauce she made. They were outstanding.

After Christmas, we had our fill of leftover ham including ham sandwiches and slow cooker beans with the ham shank. Donna gave us a break from the ham with another new chicken recipe. She split chicken breasts into thin fillets, pan fried them and made a sun-dried tomato and cream sauce topping. It was very good!

Chicken with sun-dried tomato and cream sauce, zucchini spirals on the side

It’s hard to believe today is the last day of 2021. Tomorrow a new calendar year begins. It looks like we’ll be off to a relatively cold start – the forecast calls for clear skies with temperatures in the mid to upper 50s over the weekend before we begin warming up next week. After taking a holiday break, I’ll resume the Tuesday afternoon pickleball coaching clinics next week.

Short Days, Cold Nights

Today is the winter solstice – December 21, 2021. This is when the south pole of the earth is tilted closest to the sun and the north pole is farthest away due to the inclination of the axis the earth rotates around. Thus, in the northern hemisphere we have the shortest amount of daylight today while in the southern hemisphere, it’s the summer solstice and they have the longest amount of daylight hours. For the next six months, our daylight hours will increase daily – yay!

I haven’t posted lately as things have been fairly low-key around here. We attended a Christmas celebration at Kelly and Frank Burk’s house. We had good food, drink and great company for a fun-filled afternoon. They had a white elephant gift exchange and also a game played with dollar bills and Donna won the jackpot which she has used to make Christmas donations.

About a week ago, I found something on Amazon that seemed like a good idea. I’ve been kicking around the idea of adding a looper pedal to my guitar rig. A looper pedal is a foot-operated switchbox containing a digital recorder. You step on the switch to start recording as you play and hit the switch a second time to stop recording. With this, you can record some chords for a song’s rhythm, play it back through the amplifier and add a lead to it or any fills you want to layer over it as it plays back in a continuous loop..

I found a tiny pedal that was more than just a looper – it also had drum tracks. With this I could set up a drum beat, play rhythm over the drum beat and record it all to have a backing track for lead work. And this pedal from Flamma was inexpensive on Amazon. I ordered it and had it two days later.

Flamma drum-loop pedal – quarter is there for scale, this pedal is tiny

It didn’t take me long to figure out why Amazon had these for such a low price. It was a low-quality unit – it was noisy, introducing static, hiss and hum to the signal and the drums were hard to program and set tempo on it. That’s what I get for basing a buying decision on price and a few reviews. I was able to return the pedal for a full refund just by dropping it off in the original manufacturer’s packaging at a UPS store. Amazon issued the refund within a day of me dropping it off!

I learned something else from this purchase. Although a looper is still something I want, the drum backing was something that’s really helpful when you’re playing music alone. I did some research and bought a much better drum pedal. I ordered a Beat Buddy Mini 2 from Sweetwater Music and had it two days later. This cost more than twice what the Flamma from Amazon cost and it doesn’t have a looper, but it’s a quality unit.

This drum machine is much more versatile and easy to set up. The drums aren’t just synthesized sounds – they recorded actual professional drummers playing various patterns and rhythms. It doesn’t crackle, hum or hiss either.

Last Saturday, Donna played in a tennis tournament here at Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort. I went to watch and tried to take photographs, but it wasn’t working out too well. From the spectator area, the players on the courts were backlit by the sun and I couldn’t get to any other vantage point.

Donna and her partner won their match in two straight sets. Later, Donna went to a tennis club social hour dressed in her Santa suit and beard – I forgot to take a photo. But, she had this one on her phone with one of her tennis friends in Santa’s lap.

Donna has our place decorated for Christmas, so we’re lit up at night.

Donna’s Christmas decor – angel with a flute and reindeer.

Donna is really spreading Christmas cheer by playing traditional Christmas songs on her clarinet with backing tracks on our patio between the entry and car port. The other day, a woman stopped by saying she had to find the source of the music she heard from two blocks away.

We’re remaining healthy and eating well. Here are a few dishes from the past couple of weeks. First up, Donna tried a new grilled chicken recipe for Asian-style chicken breasts with grilled bok choy.

A couple of days later, she tried a different take on chicken thighs, slow cooked in a crock pot with loads of garlic, carrots and white wine.

Crock pot chicken, garlic and carrots with white wine

On Friday, I put a six-and-a-half-pound pork shoulder – a cut called pork butt – on the Traeger wood-pellet fired smoker/grill for about eight hours at 225 degrees. I wrapped it in foil for the last two hours, otherwise it would’ve taken about 12 hours to reach an internal temperature of 198 degrees and risk drying out at that point. Wrapped in foil, it retained moisture and reached 198 degrees relatively quickly.

The pork was cooked perfectly – the shoulder blade bone slid out of the meat easily and I pulled it apart with Bear Paw shredding utensils. Donna made cole slaw and corn bread muffins from a recipe she got from our friend Georgia Eaton in Maine.

The last plate is another chicken thigh variation – garlic butter chicken served over spaghetti squash.

As I said, it’s the winter solstice meaning we have officially reached the winter of 2021-2022. It was definitely winter weather last week and the overnight temperature here in the desert dropped into the 30s. The rest of the month looks like we should have overnight lows in the 40s and highs ranging from the low 70s today and tomorrow before dropping back into the 60s for the next couple of weeks. We may have rain for Christmas. I’ll close by wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Michiganders, Music and Snow

Analog Man

Compact Discs, Family and Food

Chasing Sound

Saguaro Lake Ranch

Making It a Keeper

Three Quotes and a Decision

New Year Surprises

Christmas Treats

Short Days, Cold Nights

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