Friday Check In

Ah Jeff warms my heart to get one of your brilliant posts. Here's hoping you will be back to regular posting here now we are in 22 and ah the roaring twenties that burnt us like a roaring fire. Now onto the flappers and dancing the Lindy while we wreck the CC Ballroom like we did in 33. When Mars landed the autogyro in the rooftop pool staggered out of it and said he meant to give the old girl a cleaning for ages. To Capt down in the cave fighting off robots and mole men come to steal the Romulan ale. Of heroes and brave dames who knew how to throw a punch.

Come on 22 what have you got for us?

Sail on my friends ....

HEY JEFF!!! Welcome to the party Pal. (Sorry, I'm still decompressing from the Die Hard Christmas marathon).

Friday again. That seems to happen every week around here. Caught up on lots and lots of stuff to get ready for what I hope is a flood of reels by the end of the month.

The Theater Five project has been moving along marvelously from a research perspective, and even more to happen this next week when Karl Schadow dives into the papers of Fielden Farrington, there's a name for you, who authored many scripts for the series. The papers are at U of Maryland and have scripts, proposed scripts, contracts, and such, that will lead to a better understanding of the series. Farrington also wrote for CBSRMT when he wasn't writing for TV soaps like General Hospital. But his career goes back even further to the golden age heyday of WXYZ as an announcer for Green Hornet and as an actor. One of those low-profile people who made the golden age golden, and lasted through the 1970s revival series.
A remembrance is at https://nb9m.com/index.cfm?key=view_resource&TransKey=7B790A83-758E-43B0-89EC-10851028426B&CategoryID=AFEE2B01-7D3F-4B88-B52F-BC91D72A47DE&Small=1
His novel, Strangers in 7A was made into a 1972 TV movie that starred Ida Lupino and Andy Griffith https://youtu.be/URLYBqCNC8s
Cobaltian nickp57 has been making an heroic contribution to the T5 log by writing plot summaries. We can find some brief summaries in newspaper clippings, but nothing beats listening to the programs. He's about 1/3 of the way through.

One last episode of Stroke of Fate is eluding us. We have a marginal mp3 copy of its final episode that I cleaned up -- but it is funny that an 1800' reel held 12 half hour programs. So episode 13 is a wandering orphan on some mixed reel somewhere and was rarely traded. Episode 13 of series would always become the Rodney Dangerfield of recordings, "I don't get no respect." Someone must have a workable copy.

That's it from here for now...

GB great update on the OTR projects.

Today has been crazy stormy with high winds and torrential rain. Plain nuts.

Work has been busy but my new house mate Larry is making things fun.



Meet Larry. This is my Sire H8 Larry Carlton model amazing guitar for the price. So well made and sounds amazing. I will be setting up Larry a little more to my liking. So bridge adjustments on the action and Larry will make his name sake proud. A ton of books arrived. Man, I forgot I ordered so many.

Stay safe friends....

A searing cold snap with an arctic gust blew out the old coal-converted furnace in Ma Findley's So Good It's Edible Down Home Restaurant and Tire Repair last night, so Fred Stuckey couldn't fire up a batch of his patented Ken Stucky Fraud Chicken, as everybody knows, a staple at the Restaurant. But in true Melville fashion people kept flooding in just the same.

Now I bring this up because while Saag Bascombe was down tinkering with the repair, he swore he heard a jazzy riff echoing in the ducts--at first he thought it was Larry Carlton and the Jazz Crusaders, but the rolling piano didn't sound enough like Joe Sample to be sure. By the time he enlisted the help of acoustic technician Beany "Short Wave" Gilbert, the basement was filled with inquiring minds who had heard the sounds upstairs.

Through some remarkable triangulation schematics, six wire coat hangers, a handful of pipe cleaners, a tuning fork and an empty Bab-O cannister, "Short Wave" deduced its source as emanating from a windswept stretch of Ireland, though he later admitted it could also have come from Fondue Larkin's Cheese Emporium if the winds were off.

Anyway, they were some sweet sounds until the sugar beet factory charged up, belching sounds akin to the *Orphans* album by Tom Waits, which drowned out the licks from the guitar which Saag called Larry for no more reason than it popped into his head.

Otherwise everybody's been hunkering down with temps frozen in the air at three degrees and lower. Personally I have gone off my nut watching *Money Heist* (an egregious English-translated title from the original Spanish *LaCasa De Papel* or House of Paper, which is a much more lyrical title if you ask me, but you didn't, so I withdraw the statement, your honor). Whatever you may be doing right now, stop it and watch this show! I place it way up there with *Breaking Bad* as one of the best shows I've seen, bar none. We're into the fifth season and cannot wait to see more; a caveat though--I've been prone to swearing at some of the characters for their actions. Hey, it's contagious, since the language in the show is pretty peppery. . . .

So play on, Cobaltia. We're all awaiting the thaw and munching on Moon Pies in the interim.
Be well, be blessed, my friends.
Jeff

"Ma Findley's So Good It's Edible Down Home Restaurant and Tire Repair"
we lived in a small town in northern RI for 22 years
the big place to congregate in the early 90s was
Lawrence Brothers Plumbing, Heating, AND VIDEO

Jeff, that was me in sub-basement three. I found Seamus's record collection and was spinnin' Hot Stacks of Ill Gotten Wax. Yup, I still prowl around down there, when I happen to have both spare time and fire arms on my hands. I'm lookin' for the entrance to sub-basement four, which was sealed by Mars many years and a couple of spacetime continua displacements ago. If anyone else decides to go treasure huntin' down there, use extreme caution. It seems that The Thing on the Fourble Board has picked the lock on the Banth enclosure. Now they're all loose, playin' Seamus's records and lookin' for snacks.

Our weather isn't quite as extreme as some others, but it's still a bit much for a transplanted Floridian. We have managed to get above freezing for a bit in the afternoons. But not by much.

I'm spending my time mostly reading, watching 80 year old movies and abusing my guitar. But I do get in about half an hour or so walking in the afternoons.

Boss, that's a very pretty guitar. I'm not familiar with the maker but I know of quite a few lesser known brands which are excellent instrument makers. I find myself fascinated by the Epiphone Nighthawk Custom. They're no longer produced but are very sought after on the used market. And then there's this one by Michael Kelly. I may need to pick one of these up. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to check out the controls. https://www.michaelkellyguitars.com/en/products/view/Custom-Collection-60-Burl-Burst


Be well, be safe and be happy,
Space

Oh wow, Seamus, I've always wanted a 335 style guitar. That one looks sweet!

Thanks Lads, Larry is a sweet playing guitar. I basically steer clear of Gibson now unless its a pre-1980 Guitar. Since they got into that huge scandal over how they sourced wood. They basically use young wood in their guitars the sound is off. I played the latest ES335 it just did not sound good. Same with a new Les Paul they sound basically like a very expensive cheap guitar. I started looking to other brands. Larry feels like old growth wood. Has a stable bottom end that breaks up into that Bluesy fuzz when you push it. Just like it should. The action the quality of the build is outstanding. I accidently ordered their strat like guitar as well cos I can have Larry, and Moe will be my StratLike for less than one Gibson and they will sound every bit as good or better. The neck is roasted maple and its based on Larry Carltons personal guitars. I have older Gibsons but I still play them my 62 ES335 sounds beautiful. But Larry has his own sound and its good.

And Chad I love the hollowbody sound i have 5 now and boy I love them I have a Les Paul from 72 and its fat and beefy to play. But my main guitar is Arthur my Ibanez hollowbody that has been modded that guitar is dialed in perfectly. I will get Larry there to that side of perfection. Of course my Jeff Beck custom shop Strat is perfect what a guitar. Worth double what I payed for it now as they are low number and it gets better with age.

Space those guitars look awesome I would getting one of those as quick as you can. Finishes are exceptional.

Guitars they ALL sound diff you can never have enough they are a good investment and don't harm anyone but your ears and your neighbours that's why you move out to the country :-)

Jeff hilarious post so great to have you back pontificating.

It's that day again...

A blur of a week, bit finding curious things here and there. Theater Five is coming along and CObalt's own nickp57 has completed about 100 of the 260 plot summaries. So great to have a collaborator whose curiosity has piqued beyond one's own. Karl S had to delay his trip to U of Maryland because of weather but once he gets into the Farrington papers we'll have yet more details of the behind the scenes of T5.

ABC had even started a children's workshop to develop radio acting talents. Three children were identified in Broadcasting magazine. One had won a beautiful child photo contest, another had a bit part in a Broadway show and did not move on to anything of note, and another became a famous Hollywood animal trainer who is still in the business! (And in her youthful training credits is Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, which makes her number one in my book!)

Whenever a production of a Harlan Coben story comes to a streaming service, we watch. He's a NJ writer but all of the serialized productions have been done in Europe. Makes us wonder if any of the US proposals are lacking or won't treat his work the way he'd like. The latest is Stay Close on Netflix, and it did not disappoint. We also hunt for British productions of Jed Mercurio (like Line of Duty) and scripts by Ed Whitmore (there's no better scripter for Silent Witness). And we've been getting a kick out of the Brit comedy Miranda and loved Chef White's. The shows have not been on for years, but they're new to us. Last night we realized the PBS.org had a new season of Vienna Blood which originally sounded like there would be only one season, so this was a delightful discovery. It's been poorly promoted, and is worth seeking.

Had a marvelous correspondence this week with someone looking for advice on transferring their father's OTR reel collection. He's a retired audio engineer and he now has more information than he ever wanted. What made it special is that as he was growing up he would listen to many of the programs with his father. I never had such experience but you could tell that the transfer process would be a special and meaningful project for him because of it. What a blessing.

After last week's arctic snap, locals here in Melville swore it couldn't get any more frigid. And once again, they were wrong. The latest casualty, if we can use the word liberally (and of course we can because while Melville is a pretty conservative little burg, we have a powerful strain of middle-of-the-road sensibilities here), has been awarded to Gimbel Trachtenfelder.

Oh now, don't get me wrong--he's not dead. He's at home recovering with Ma Findley's Famous Chicken Liver & Sugar Beet soup, served piping hot in her famous copper bowl with a cinnamon stick swirly. If that doesn't get him back on his feet in three days' time, Ma has promised she'll personally drag his carcass over to the Melville RediMed & Ped Clinic, where you can get a full check-up AND your toes clipped and licked by Nurse Nanny Puckett and her long-haired chihuahua Sergio.

'Course, Gimbel still feels awfully self-conscious after that fracas with Emmatrude Bokus and that terrible scene she created at the Curl Up & Dye Beauty Salon. But any good Melvillian will tell you it was an honest misunderstanding--especially because of the arctic gusts and the below-zilch wind chill. You might even say Gimbel should have been commended for going to work despite the bone-freezing temps. After all, most felt the local radio station WPQD ("Snazzy Stylings From The Pequod") should have just broadcast automated hit lists instead of asking Gimbel to carry on with his show.

WPQD has had a history of boiler and HVAC problems anyway. Starting back in 1927 when Heck Frombly got the cold and hot valves mixed up on the furnace, WPQD is an indoor barbecue in the summer and a Frigiderrierre in the winter. So last Tuesday when a bundled up Gimbel showed up for the five o'clock farm futures to kick off his seven-hour shift, the generator was creaking at top speed, barely eking out a toasty forty-two degrees in the studio.

The first couple hours went pretty well for Gimbel, until he knocked back a hot-plated cider he found in the backroom to soothe his ragged throat. We estimate now that the canned potable probably dated back to October, 1952; Gim should have known something was not right with it when he saw how the dang can looked like an eight-month pregnant midwife. But danged if he wasn't parched.

Well, the cider knocked him hoarse, so bad that he had to lean into the microphone just to register a decibel. And with the flash of a mean breeze whistling through the booth, ole Gimbel got his whole mouth cemented to the mic.

Now I didn't hear the broadcast, but according to Jasper Cooley, the volunteer paramedic who was dispatched to the station, Gimbel's show sounded like a cross between an obscene phone call and an asthmatic convention. Lots of heavy breathing and not a little garbled cussing. Emmatrude Bokus heard it all the way under her Evinrude High Performance Beehive Hair Dryer, while the other ladies at the Curl Up & Dye listened with a mixture of awe and unrestrained laughter.

Not aware of Gimbel's predicament, Emmatrude, who still harbored some hurt feelings after her break-up with Gimbel last summer, made an awful ruckus, claiming it was purposeful, his outcry, aimed at her in retribution and vindictiveness over the squabble they had had over how The Stupids was technically and directorially superior to The Godfather Trilogy. (Their disagreement powered their split, Emmatrude standing by her assertion that Brando was better than Tom Arnold.)

Outside of scheduling a small skin graft on his lips, Gimbel has been resting ever since. And what with Valentine's Day poking its head around the corner of the WPQD studios, there's some speculation that Emmatrude and Gim might mend fences, since Emma has stocked up on Chapstick at the pharmacy where she's the floor manager. 'Guess she feels a mite guilty for jumping to conclusions about Gimbel's misfortune, or maybe she's reconsidering her criticism of The Stupids since Wink Blakely saw her getting a copy of it from Amazon.

Least ways, that's what been jumpin' in Melville. Here's hoping all you good Cobaltians are staying warm and secure and blessed wherever those blasting winds take you.
Be well and be blessed.
Jeff

HAPPY FRIDAY!!! Nuthin' much to report here. But that can be a good thing too. Mostly, I just play with my toys and search for a few new ones. Along with various readin', watchin' whatever strikes my fancy, playin' video games and tryin' to keep the wife entertained.

Jeff, your post got me started lookin' for a local source of fried chicken livers. Yup, that's one of my very occasional weakness's and I have yet to find a local source. But that shouldn't be to hard to find in this area. If you're curious about that particular indelicate delicacy, try at your own risk. You also got me wondering if WPDQ "wherever it is" plays everything on fast forward?

GB, I love that last paragraph in your post. I've had a few chances in my life, to help people rediscover things they grew up enjoying with their own loved ones. It always brought joy to them and to me in seeing them make that rediscovery. At some point I'll add the story of a group of letters to home, from a soldier serving with Patton during WWII.

Be well, be safe and be happy,
Space

Folks

great updates from all. I really enjoy this section GB always has something new and interesting to tell us. Jeff seems to be in close proximity to lake Wobegon and Space is always tinkering with something.

Same as Space nothing much to report its a busy week at work and I have been reading and banging around on my guitar. Works with family and doggo and I guess really that's the best of life.

stay safe my friends

Happy Friday folks,

had to get onto the post office today as more guitar pedals came this week and I have no idea where they are coming from. Yes I kept them as I don't want to make waves with the Post Office. But this has to stop.

Long hours at work but did some tinkering in my workshop with cool gadgets and building nonsense that pleases me. Books and vinyl and guitar playing and shenanigans.

Stay safe and curious my friends....

It's another week of frigidity here in Melville, with temps coasting up to a toasty three degrees with a wind chill approaching minus forty-two. Thank God the sugar beet factory acts as a windbreak from those gusts bustling in from Monkey Butt Cove.

A quiet few days here, though Herb Mumford has been working non-stop on his horticulture hobby. He's still vainly trying to cultivate a hybrid orchid which responds favorably to acoustic music. Employing discarded and uncoated high carbon steel core Gitbox strings with nickel-plated phosphor bronze winding for better acoustic resonance, and a bondo fertilizing agent, the Ether Orchid, as he calls it, is reputed (by Herb) to be the first bred solely under the aegis of grape Kool-Aid added to the sprinkling system of his greenhouse, giving it its lavender coloring.

It's fragrant as all holy heck, though it tends to put people into a somewhere between a blue funk and a techno throb. It appears to be a cross between baby's breath lace, which is really appealing, and what Raymond Chandler called "the feel of dead man's fingers." Anyways, Herb claims it'll be ready for the Annual Melville Spring and Mattress Exposition & Flower Show in April, provided his drainage system doesn't back up again.

He's already working up posters advertising "The Most Delicate Guitar Petals Nourished By Purple Rain This Side Of Squatters' Harbor." Mighty big claims, but it does give us something to look forward to while we fight this icebox winter we're living in.

Closer to home, I binged on the Netflix series *Love, Death & Robots* this week and was once again amazed at how animation has progressed beyond the flat, frozen looped backgrounds of Hanna-Barbera. It's an anthology series of roughly 12-minute dystopian stories that swing between brutal and poetical. A real mixed bag.

So be well, Cobaltia. Stay safe, warm and be blessed.
Jeff

It's that day again...

Theater Five is rolling along. I created this research page https://sites.google.com/view/t5-project/home that I hope will bring more attention to the series and start to dispel some of the negative opinions about it.

It's been a curious week especially with the weather fearmongering of this model says this and that model says that but Mom says this and Dad says that. Why don't they just ask Grandma and it will all be fine and Mom and Dad and the models will be stuck and have to follow her dictates.

A busy February ahead -- lots of reels headed my way and I'm really looking forward to it.

And we start getting closer to Spring Training... but the way the baseball negotiations are going, ST could be any time. We could be four weeks from spring training for months. Like they say, the horizon is a line in the sky that you are always the same distance from. Will there be a 2022 season? Only if they remember 1994.

Lots of writing this week, except none of it for my books that are still lagging behind. They will come...

And just so no one takes anything out of context, or makes odd or nefarious assumptions, my name is not on the candidates list for the SPERDVAC Board of Directors. I told the group from the outset that I would just do two years, and that's it. And those two years are up. Happy to be of service and to add financial accountability and a strategic plan to the process. I have so much non-SPERDVACkian things to do, and the hobby will get the best out of me if I do them.

That's it from here....

Ah Spring... OK, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. But when the high temperature is still freezing, Ya gotta try to be optimistic. Once again, nuthin' much to report. Still tryin' to pull the ultra light scam on the wife. Sadly she's pretty bright. And apparently she's figured out my scam pattern.

The insurance company has finally come through on the video game reparations, after the basement flood. They gave up and paid full price on my assessment. WOO HOO!!! The wife has decided, that since it was repayment for my vintage toys, I can spend it all however I want. Which brings me full circle to the ultra light and the aforementioned roadblock. I wonder, if I started shoppin' a Marshall JCM800 2203 Vintage Series 100W Tube Head and 4X12 Cabinet, would she let me slide on the Bird Man scheme? That's WAAAAY too much amp for a noob. But let's face it, over the top is pretty much my life goal. Which brings me right back to the Harley plan. I really need to focus on something.

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space

Space, I don't think that amp setup is enough. You need a full stage rig two heads two cabinets an effects rack and wireless connectivity to said rig. And from then on always describe it as your rig. My wife has given up on trying to stop stuff. As long as I don't burn down the house we are all good. Cos really it's your life enjoy it get that rig, get more guitars ....

I accidentally discovered that the Cobalt Club records the order that people joined. I was #16. Active members that joined before me are Space Cadet #1; greybelt #3; Harlow Wilcox #4

If you are bored you can use this format and change the number
https://cobaltclubannex.forumotion.com/u16

Those numbers have to be the forumotion numbers. This particular Club incarnation was because there was a big server crash (8 yrs ago?) that was down for a while, and then everyone went back when it was fixed. And then it crashed for good, and we started using this again.

I'm no number 3 in Cobalt history, for sure. CC was running well and was really busy well before I got here.

So who were the founders? I know it was "Nick" who was working in the computer department at Rochester Institute of Technology and found a way to get the group some server space. But who else was doing it all?

I know there is history here
https://cobaltclubannex.forumotion.com/t438-the-cobalt-club-hall-of-fame
But does anyone know who the first posters were and what they posted about?

GB, the member numbers here show the order I approved them in, once members registered here. I still approve each new member who registers. As for the original foundation of The Cobalt Club, that's a story for Seamus to tell. I believe I registered there in the two hundreds. There are some members from that time, that I'd love to hear from again. We've even had some celebrities from various forms of entertainment. Seamus and I used to have some seriously fun and wacky interactions with a couple of well known fantasy/sci-fi authors and a couple of comic artists, in the "good old" days. Mike Stackpole and one of the Hildebrandt brothers were very active on the board for a long time.

As usual, not much going on here right now. My daughter in law who's here now, leaves for Alaska in a couple of days. Five days there, then three weeks in Hawaii, then back to Alaska for another week and finally back here. I don't envy her for the climate changes over the next month. But that three weeks in Hawaii would make it all worth while. I'm still narrowing down my next "toy" purchase. I've put the new guitar on the back burner. A new hot diggity guitar for me, would be like a teenager learning to drive in a Lamborghini Diablo. I will probably pick up a Boss Katana II 50 watt amp in the not too distant future.

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space

I'd have to consult the Melville Historian & Seed Catalogue for the actual data, but I remember the first incarnation of CC when it was still sticking with Doc Savage and The Shadow. That was WAAAY BACK in [unintelligible gibberish]; I remember because my mother had passed away and I found refuge in the Club.

As for this Annex, Space gets the honors for most of the architectural trademarks, taking his cue from Seamus, who is The Grand Master of It All. (Years ago I officially inducted him into the Ghemrats Society And Cake Exposition as the second official by edict Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler Of All Time And Space; I've held that title since the early '70s, actually, employing GHEMRATS for short. NOTE: Seldom is that name explained, so this post is special.)

One day one of us or all of us should conspire to write the Sanctioned History of The Cobalt Club. What a document that would be indeed.
Be blessed, stay warm and keep safe.
Jeff

...and I couldn't begin to describe how or how often Jeff and I have run amock in these hallowed halls...

Lads,

The early days of CC, takes me back. When I joined there were maybe 35 members I know Woody was there and some other long gone regulars. I joined to find Shadow shows. I had got a boxed set of Shadow cassettes. I think it was 97 or 98. The site had very few posters saying anything. Back then it was Nick and some regulars asking for shows. Most posts were "anyone have shadow show number ?" I would download shows and I began talking to Nick and another user who I cannot remember his name he was 16 I was 20 something. We began talking and open posting and we began a back and forth comedic banter about shows and any nonsense we could think of. Then Omaharadio appeared one day and his wit was hilarious. Back then I had not found chandu yet so I think I was a fighter pilot head of something like that. Omaha was banter city soon we were ribbing each other and his private messages were roll on the floor hilarious. One stormy day we heard a rumbling sound in the sky and Mars crashed into the roof of the CC. He rolled out of the wreckage martini glass in hand never spilled a drop. And he was a treasure trove of all things Orson Welles. He became a good friend and we did work together outside of the club. I miss him every single day. Chokes me up to think about him, his number is still in my phone.  At that time the server was so SLOW and often crashed. It got so I was on so much Nick made me a moderator because we were cleaning up posts of copywritten shows. I know Capt. appeared in the mix and Strobesml. And then Space rolled in by then we were growing and the internet connection was fast so show downloads were quick. We had a no being rude or annoying rules. People would get on and say I asked for this show and no one has posted it I am going to leave like we were a store dealing shows and needed to provide customer service. We removed a lot of those users. Nick and I were behind the scenes welding pipes, rolling duc-tape over everything just to keep her running. Nick was busy I was in Uni so I had time to get under the hood and rebuild her everytime she blew a flux capacitor. Anyone from that time remembers the up and down. We could only host about 100 shows and then we had to delete them and choose what to post next. It was chaos but a lot of fun. A culture began to grow. Stewart Wright appeared and along with some others began posting histories and logs and scripts and the CC turned into this daily place to have a laugh and catch up. Nurse appeared Shadows Mom, Writers, Film makers. With all the up and down and deleting shows we developed this strong core of members.  Mixed in there the old server died and we had a club call for money and I can tell you now that Woody and Stewart gave about 60% of the money but dear me a LOT of people contributed. We bought a state of the art Dell Rack mounted server with all the bells and whistles. At one time we had about 2600 members and about 600 active members downloading and about 70 active posters. It was brilliant. I think GB arrived in the middle of all of this. I built a completely new site that had all these sections for different things and we exploded. We were moving over a thousand shows a week. People would sit on the site and download EVERYTHING. Then we got called into the dean's office at Rochester Institute of Tech and told that the CC server was using over 50% of the schools bandwidth this was before large fibre connections. LOL what nonsense this all was. I was fighting hackers every day. We got hacked so much I was plugging exploits all the time. The Best one was a Chinese hacker was running a site off the server selling watches. I would lock out IP addresses I would report addresses I would shut them down they would hack back in I would trace them back to their origin accounts and report them to government agencies. It was nuts. I cannot remember how many times I would have to rebuild and all the while getting worried emails from Capt. and Woody. The last great blowup was Nick retired from the school so we had to move the server we moved it to a friend of his and his data centre was hacked and our server was toast we never gained access to it again. Around the last bad hack, Space had built this place and we moved over here. I could not access the old place to salvage anything. I do have an old backup of the old server in its heyday with all the posts from that era. One day I will build that. If you go into the wayback machine you can see us in the old days.

I think I grew up quickly when we lost Omaharadio. I could not believe he was gone. On the old server I had all his pm's with the humor, the way he could cut you to pieces and you thought he was complimenting you. He would pounce on newbies. When I found out he died I was crying in front of my computer my wife (newly married) was what's wrong I said omaha he is gone, she was who is Omaha? You get to have amazing friends you have never met. Then I realised you can lose friends and it's going to hurt. So many people made this place great and they loved being here. Ghemrats appeared one bright day and his wit and banter rivaled Omaha, and Space was always up for fun the core torch carriers were formed. Secret handshakes, a building filled with wonders, a club of genteel banter. Maybe some of us will last long enough to move the club into the Metaverse or maybe that's not a good idea.

I did meet some of you I had dinner in Toronto one night with Greg (Red Badger) and his girlfriend later to be wife. We also worked on a project with Mars. These were good days.

Time marches on and we lost so many CC members to the big radio show in the sky. I miss them all. No more supportive messages from Capt. No more hilarious phone calls from Mars. I cannot remember a call with Mars shorter than 3 hours.  No more emails from Stewart with earnest drafts of new work. I had no idea Stewart was living all alone and this place was a haven in a lonely world.

I appreciate you all and I am happy I got to be part of your lives and a member of this amazing club.

Apologies if this post is non-linear and jumps all over the place.

Stay safe my friends

Boss, it still amazes me that The Cobalt Club managed to avoid most of the inter-group flame wars back in the day. Probably because most of the more "professional" groups never took us seriously. That was back in the days when MP3 was pretty much the only game in town. I do remember a few friendly intergroup rivalries. I'm still very grateful to OTR-Plus for giving many of us a place to keep in touch, until I got this place up and running.

I and others used  to scour every source available for undiscovered/undocumented shows. My favorite method, was to buy up every OTR set I could find on Ebay, compare them to the then available episode lists and then listen to the shows to make sure they weren't just mislabeled shows already documented. And that was the easy part. Next, I had to listen to every other show in the set, to see if some of those were mislabeled shows. I think I spent more time scouring Handaeges List Site than I spent in the club in those days. I also (now that I think about it) believe the Jerry Handaeges deserves a spot in our Hall of Fame. But I digress.

The Cobalt Club was never just an OTR BB site. It's always been the members. And best off all, it's always been about friends enjoying and sharing something we all enjoyed together. And enjoying the conversations and just plain silliness that we shared with those friends. It breaks my heart to think about the friends I've lost over the years. But I treasure the memories of the time spent with those friends. And I'm very grateful, that I found The Cobalt Club and had the opportunity to meet those friends.

Space