Good Morning!!!! 53F @ 5:15AM. Showers this morning becoming less numerous during the afternoon hours. High 61F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Town run today to dump off recycling, pick up some parts, get a physical and an x-ray, see the Snap-On man, buy some batteries, and the rest of the stuff on the list, which I've checked more than twice. Probably be gone most of the day.
Took the touring bike headlight apart again yesterday, and carefully compared the old H4 halogen bulb to the new LED, paying particular attention the geometry of the filaments vs. the LED locations. And they pretty much line up one for one. But as I was fiddling with the bulb, I learned that I'd been mounting it on the reflector housing incorrectly, which explains why I'd never been impressed with the lighting on the bike to begin with. And I'm pretty sure the problem was inherited from the previous owner, and I just copied it thinking it was the thing to do. I also played around a bit by leaving the bail that holds the lamp in place off, and moved the lamp in and out of the reflector, and learned that even a small amount of travel makes a big difference in the beam pattern. The garage was too small to give much of a clue as to how the light will show when riding, but I think I'm at least headed in the right direction now, and will have something working much better than it's ever been. But with rain in the forecast through Saturday, I'll have to be patient to find out.
Most of the TV I watch is captured on a DVR, but last night I was flipping through channels and landed on one featuring families of musicians who were competing against each other for a quarter million dollar prize and a recording contract. And the music was amazing! So many talented people out there you've never heard about, it's amazing! When that was over, they ran one of Dan Rather's "Amazing Interview" episodes, this one featuring Jon Anderson of the progressive rock group Yes.You can bet I was glued to my chair for that one, listening to Anderson delve into the roots of the band, and all the twists and turns along the way. And when that was over, the next show on the same channel was a documentary on the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds album, covering more or less the same material as the Love and Mercy movie from earlier in the week. During that show, they mentioned tapes from '66 and '67 that were supposed to be the next album after Pet Sounds, but Brian Wilson's issues had prevented coming to light. Until the mid 2000s, when he pulled them out, restored them, and then created two new releases. One of the original recordings, with out takes and studio chatter, a sort of audio documentary, but not an album because the songs were never really finished. So a little later, Wilson went back into the studio with all new musicians and picked up where he left off in '67, but with a voice forty years older. So there might be a new CD or two under the tree this year. It turns out that channel was repeating the two shows for the rest of the evening, so I called up an old college buddy to let him know (he's an even bigger Yes fan than I am), and spent the next two hours catching up. Kind of a long, windy, ending to the evening, but a very nice one.
Hang in there, gang, Friday's comin'!
