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Not being rude but wy u all still here? Men and women, date each other! As to me am not into the blogging thing but love to read them!

Now that I'm getting back to music as a profession, my tone and volume is more important as a trio performing in small venues than as a five piece rock band playing at outdoor concerts. My cousin did a gig at a patio bar of a local restaurant the other night and the first thing the manager said was "Keep the volume down."

I get that. I walked around the venue to listen to the loudness and levels of the piano, drum machine, guitar and vocals then came back to make suggestions. For now, all the music came through 2 speakers on stands near the band. Louder near the front and not loud enough in the back.

The manager said the volume near the band was okay. I suggested moving the speakers further apart so the coverage near the back would better without having to make things louder. My cousin mentioned he has 2 satellite speakers not being used. That's perfect and all we need to do is make some extension cords for power and sound and we can place them on opposite sides of the venue for better coverage.

To keep levels under control, I'm thinking about some audio compression. It's something that gets used in nearly all processed media we listen to. I've been researching audio compression recently for where and how it gets used, also what benefits it will give in a live performance. Basically... it makes the sound more uniform where the peaks don't exceed a preset level and the lower sounds are raised making the music program sound fuller. The music is literally compressed into a volume range.

For me, it will even out my volume so finger picking style is the same volume as slap style. I bought an inexpensive compressor and will experiment with that.

Some videos on compression are 20 to 50 minutes long... too much for an example. I found a good example that takes less than 3 minutes to make the point.



A good explanation is a singer getting very close to the microphone and then backing away a foot or two. The compressor will compensate for both conditions so he/she will have the same level.

According to recent research, UPF products are responsible for 32 harmful effects to health.
Cancer, heart disease, adverse mental health, early death.
Examples of these foods are, sugary cereals, protein bars, fizzy drinks, ready meals, fast food, packaged baked goods.
UPF products tend to contain, colours, emulsifiers, flavours, high amounts of sugar, saturated fats, salt and preservatives.
Some of us, no doubt, already realise this and try to avoid such products, but many people never look at ingredients and just stick their purchases in a shopping trolley.
Perhaps governments should get involved and issue guidelines to food manufacturers to improve the quality of their products, particularly when young children are exposed to poor quality food content.
Parents have a responsibility for the health of their kids.

Most Trump voters were firmly opposed to the decision.

For the uninformed, the Colorado’s highest court ruled and barred former President Donald Trump from the GOP primary ballot.

The Newfie got pulled over by the police and when the cop approached his car, he could smell booze coming from the Newfie. The cop asked "are you drinking tonight sir?" The Newfie replied "yes I am, I had 6 shots of whiskey, 4 rum and cokes, and 3 beers. The cop said "sir, can you step out of your vehicle for me and do a breathalyzer test for me please".
The Newfie said "WHY? DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME?"

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The Newfie was in court on the charge of public intoxication causing a disturbance.

The judge looked down at the Newfie and said "alcohol and alcohol alone is the reason for your sorry state today."

The Newfie replied "oh thank god for that, everyone else says its my fault."

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The Newfie met up with his buddy at the bar. His buddy asked "Where were ya to by?" Newfie replied "I been in the lockup the last few weeks". His friend says "Really? What was the charges?"
Newfie replies "No charges, it was all free"

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This happened in a little town in Newfoundland, and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it's absolutely true!
This guy was on the side of the road hitch-hiking on a very dark night in the middle of a terrible rain storm. The night was rolling and no cars were on the road. The storm was so strong the guy could hardly see a few feet ahead of him. Suddenly, he saw a car come toward him and stop.
The guy, without thinking about it, got in the car and closed the door and only then did he realize that there was nobody behind the wheel!
The car started to move very slowly. The guy looked at the road and saw a curve coming his way. Petrified, he started to pray, begging for his life.
He had not come out of shock when, just before the car hit the curve, a hand suddenly appeared through the window and moved the wheel.
The guy, now paralyzed in terror, watched how the hand appeared every time the car was approaching a curve. Finally, although terrified, the guy managed to open the door and jump out of the spooky car.
Without looking back, the guy ran through the storm all the way to the nearest town. Soaking wet, exhausted and in a state of utter shock the pale, visibly shaken guy, walked into a nearby bar and asked for two shots of Screech.
Then, still trembling with fright, he started telling everybody in the Bar about the horrible experience he just went through with the spooky car with no driver and the mysterious hand that kept appearing.
Everyone in the bar listened in silence and became frightened, listening to this eerie story; hairs stood on end when they realized the guy was telling the truth because he was crying and he definitely was not drunk.
About half an hour later two guys walked into the same bar and one said to the other, "Lard Tunderin' Jaysus, me boy, there's the jerk who got into the car while we was pushing it!"

I received a letter this week from a law firm suing a car manufacturer about a vehicle I no longer own. It had to do with some defective safety equipment. If I recall, the last class action suit I signed and returned the form got me a check somewhere around $6.
Yeah... take that to the bank!
It's my opinion, but I could be wrong. I believe the people making money off of class action suits are the lawyers.

Daniel Gwynn found himself on death row at 25 after Philadelphia prosecutors said in court that two witnesses had picked him out of a photo array in a fatal arson case.


The photo spread had by then gone missing, and his trial lawyer in 1995 may not have asked for other proof of the supposed match. But appellate lawyers who spent decades pursuing his innocence claims finally unearthed the police photo — with a federal judge's help — in 2016 and Gwynn was noticeably absent.


“He was nowhere to be found," said lawyer Karl Schwartz, who joined Gwynn as he left prison this week after 30 years, most of it spent on death row in western Pennsylvania. “It shocks the conscience.

According to the media and idiots in DC, everything is rosy. The inflation is up only a smidgen. Which means..its up! Jobs are up. Wages are up. So are rents, insurances, food, and most everything.
Fast food workers got $15-20 wage increase. McD and Coke just took losses. American Doll just shut down the Wisconsin office building..work from home or re-locate to Cali. Cutting costs. Car plants laying off after workers strike just ended for higher wages. Goggle lay-offs, Amazon lay-offs.
the economy is doing just fine. Yeah? Try surveying the homeless evicted lately. The laid off workers. The fixed income ( like aren't we all?) people trying to decide whether to buy groceries at inflated prices or pay for heat.
The true picture is not rosy. People splurged for the holidays. Ran stuff up on credit with no intention of paying for it. Cards are maxed out. Returns are up. People are employed..yep. Working 3 minimum wage jobs. Now they are hit with heating costs, rent increases, tax time and seeing how much they spent in December.
This country and others are set on a buy, buy, buy mode. But, half of the younger gens are living with parents like the old days. No new car..or used. No apartment. No house. No marriage. No kids.
And the Gen Z are rebelling. The new cool is second hand. Hitting resales for all their clothes. There goes the sales of new.
Bit, Obiden looks out his basement window at the snow and says, isn't summer pretty.

A designer I worked with a few years ago took an assignment in a foreign country. I didn't ask, but the pay must have been enough for her to pack up and relocate. She contacted me with a request to do the design for her younger sister's bathroom renovation. I said yes and to my surprise, the sister already started some of the demolition, ordered custom glass doors and was getting bids from a few contractors.

The goal was to enlarge the bathroom by taking the wall out to the adjacent closet. Okay, I get it... where do you plan to relocate the closet? They had no idea.
Since it wasn't a bearing wall, she was okay with taking a few feet from the living room in order to enlarge the bedroom in compensation for enlarging the bathroom.
I took measurements, asked 30 questions and came up with a design... It was totally different than what was in her or her sisters heads.

She said she was 'blown away' I was able to make everything fit. She loved it.

My statement was "Thanks, but it's only the first round concept. We need to confirm if what I'm suggesting is doable. Plumbing, electrical and air conditioning duct work will need to be moved."

One of the requests was to locate the main wall more toward the living room from where I showed. The problem there was the custom glass door was in production and no changes could be accepted. That means the opening for the door has to be shifted a few feet. It's an exterior wall and expensive to relocate.

I resubmitted drawings showing the enlargement/revisions while she got a price from the contractor and was going in the direction of "Let's do it" but her older sister said, wait... this needs more thought. I agreed, since my dimensions were only concept and they knew I had to return to remeasure and get exact sizes.

On Tuesday, the younger sister said she made a decision and wanted to get started right-away. I couldn't go yesterday, but made it a point to go there today.

Thinking they would start in a week or two, I was surprised to find all the demolition was done. The contractor tore up the place. The floor tile was gone, all the interior partitions removed, gutted electrical and a/c duct work hanging from the ceiling.

The "Oh shit" exception: He already built and drywalled the wall between the bedroom and living room according to the OLD SET OF DRAWINGS. The sister wasn't working with the revised set I emailed 2 weeks ago. I spotted this mistake immediately as the revision had the wall about 4 inches from the door casing and I could see it was more than a foot.

I had a set of revised drawings with me as I was going to put my new dimensions on them. Too late for that. I gave that set to the contractor who will move the wall he installed today and will work through the changes to fit the conditions.

Hopefully they won't charge her too much to move the wall, probably a few hundred in labor.

It's a good thing I caught that mistake before all the electrical, a/c and plumbing was done. Otherwise, she would have to accept it the way it was, or pay a few thousand to have the changes made.