Friday Check In

We survived Savannah a strange walkable port city that we will visit again. The American Prohibition Museum was better as a website than it was as a real life place https://www.americanprohibitionmuseum.com/
Oh well. Maybe it was because we don't drink.
I had forgotten the relationship of moonshine and the creation of NASCAR. Some displays were interesting.

Early birthday present: the DVD set of cult program Coronet Blue that was on CBS in Summer 1967. It was done in 1965 and sat idle until it was finally broadcast, 11 episodes, and 2 unbroadcast ones are in the set. The series was done by Larry Cohen who also did The Invaders. For years I never pulled the trigger on the bootleg sets of CB. I remember watching it as a kid and I think I can understand it a lot more watching now.

More reels to do... on their way...

Suspense posts going well and I got word that Project Audion will be posting their performance of a missing episode The Eavesdropper from 1956 on May 13 on YouTube. The recording session supposedly went great. They perform it on Zoom from around the world and then edit it to deal with latency and other issues. They did a missing Whistler last year https://youtu.be/YNhUoynQTBE  It's probably best to listen to the audio alone first and then watch the video. They do a nice job and they're getting better.

Got some help on a Big Story episode from the Nevada State Museum archives and it included the contract with the featured reporter. The relationship was essentially that the Proctker folks identified a reporter, got newspaper clippings and other items from said reporter, had the scripter interview the reporter, perhaps, and then paid the reporter $500 when it was aired. Sometimes the show seemed nothing like the real events. The reporter was paid $100 if the story ended up on the TV series, and another $100 if the story was used in The Big Story Magazine (which only ran 3 issues... more on that in the series thread will be posted soon). Prockter had bigger plans with the franchise that never happened, since the contract promised $5000 if the story was made into a "Class 'A'" movie or $1000 for a "Class 'B'" movie. Contracts were so simple then -- it was just a page. To update the figures to today's dollars, multiply by 10, and you're close enough.

Baseball is getting into full swing and we do our first minor league game here next week, and two more the next week if the weather looks favorable.

Howdy Folks. We've had a fairly productive week on The Funny Farm. The 3 1/2 acre lawn has had it's first mowing. And the mower has had it's first flat tire of the season. The Hummingbird and other bird feeders are filled and back in place. I managed to gather and burn a mountain of wind blown limbs. The chicken coop has been completed and the chicks are loving the new digs. Various other odds and ends were also completed.

I added a sound bar and rear speakers to the big screen in the man cave. Nothing extravagant. It's a Roku TV and I just went with the basic set from Roku. But I'm really impressed by the depth and quality of sound that such small speakers can produce these days. I ran the volume up to "Yelled at by the wife" levels, and the clarity and richness of the sound was excellent (The speakers, not the wife). No rattle, distortion or white noise to speak of. The best part though, is the sound balancing feature. No more outrageous volume spikes, when commercials run on the free streaming sites.

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space

GB I have never heard of Coronet Blue I am just hoping they are driving Dodge Coronets in that show. I will look for it.

Space I hope that mowing was on a rider mower of most excellent horsepower. I added synths to my already too full music room so I am on headphones only warning after some rather noisy sessions. So, I hear ya with a wife extra volume detector.

I busy of week of work so not much playtime as I would like. I have started to rewatch all three seasons of Stranger Things getting ready for S4 part 1 in May. Quite excited about that. Trying to get back to the huge stack of books that now span three floors and about 50 new items on my Kindle. Plus I got a ton of new vinyl still waiting for a spin. But it's warm and nice so I spend any free time outdoors.

Stay safe my friends....

Boss, two followups.

1) My first car was a 1965 Dodge Coronet with a Chrysler 318 and a four barrel carb. I regret selling it to this day.

2) Yup, I have a Husqvarna 54" cut zero turn mower. And yes, donuts are spun in the driveway with every mowing.

That better have had a jacked up backend and mags. I will picture it as this in my head. Some lovely cars came out of that era. Below is your exact car I will not be persuaded this is not yours.

GB, I've had *Coronet Blue* on disc for some time now. Let me know if you procured the interview with the creator about his intent for the final episode, which was nixed by the network and went unfilmed, leaving the series finale hanging. . . .

It's a fun show, though a couple episodes, to me, suffered from a bad case of the 1960s psychedlia--zoom-in shots of gogo dancers in swirling colored lights. But Frank Converse was always fun to watch in his earnestness. When it was first broadcast I ate it up with a spoon; today, on reflection, not so much, though it's okay nonetheless.

Next up on my viewing are *The Rising*, *Eleventh Hour* (the CBS version), and *Dispatches From Elsewhere*. I just finished *Russian Doll* which I enjoyed, and *Shining Vale* which was okay but too laden by F-bombs; the nods to Stephen King were fun if not pretty obvious. She Who Must Be Obeyed and I finished season two of *Upload* and now must breathlessly await Season 3, whenever that occurs. . . more cliff hanging.

Be blessed, all of Cobaltia. Stay healthy and warm.
Jeff

Jeff, if you have the script of that unfilmed episode let me know. I will mount a large budget recreation of that missing finale. It will be EPIC. I will say no more as it will spoil the surprise.

Teaser ... a battered Dodge Coronet slowly lurches forward in the upside down. 11 lies injured on the passenger seat while a concerned Mike tries to will the decaying car forward.....

Hi all, I hope everyone is doing good.  
I have to say the last two days of this week were pretty stressful at work.  After changing out a large network switch on Monday, I checked with everyone to make sure their connectivity was good, and that they weren't having any issues.  "Everything's fine" they said.  

Our VP, who is prone to a toxic management style, tells me that customers are calling left and right because they can't access their accounts online and didn't I do something to the network earlier this week?  She's been resetting user ID's all day.  I tell her to hold off on that until I check the server.  She of course doesn't follow that advice.  I checked it...connectivity isn't the issue, it appears all user ID's are wiped out.  What the..?  I pull the admin logs.  I find where she, for some reason, disabled the user ID logins in favor of customer number.  That broke every single customer's ability to log in.  I put it back the way it was, check some logins, and tell her it's fixed.  She asked what had happened, I tell her she disabled the user ID's and then she gets upset at me because I'm saying it's her fault and that's a no no.  I'm in her cross-hairs now and it won't be pleasant.

Then thirty minutes to closing time (usually the busiest time of day) on Friday, one tells me that her computer isn't sending reports to the main server...and it hasn't been all week!  I now have to basically spit and duct-tape a solution, and I don't have much time.  (I could have been working on this all week!)  I find a quick work-around, and I get to fix it for real on Monday.

Anyway...just needed to vent.  Have a good weekend everyone.

Happy Friday! Believe it or not, I have absolutely nothing to report. My week was half way between boring and humdrum. But next week I get to pick up another new toy I've been considering. It went on sale and I pulled the trigger on the deal (Pun intended). More on that once I pick it up and get to play with it in a few days.

Chad, I can absolutely sympathize. But having left the exciting and frustrating corporate world 18 months ago, I can highly recommend retirement. I no longer find myself subject to toxicity and ego. A few months after I retired, my wife pointed out that I now laugh out loud frequently. That's probably the best summary of my life since retirement. And I hope you can soon find a happy place of your own.

Oops, I almost forgot. I have finally received the green light on purchasing that miniature donkey. It will happen at some point in the near future. It'll be named Happy and that sign mentioned some time back will go up on our front gate.

Be well, be safe and be a donkey,
Space

Birthday time - 66 - feels the same as 65 did just yesterday.
A day of gratuitous carbs including pizza and carrot cake and karate to burn it all off and make room for more.
Thankfully so much fun stuff to do with the time and health to enjoy it all.
Just got word another big box of reels is on its way.
This coming week we hope to get to two minor league games, one in independent league and another in class A ball, where Mrs GB will be shocked and say "OMG they look like babies!" when the team runs onto the field. Interested in hearing what she says for the independent league game when the players run onto the field -- will she say "didn't that guy play in the majors 6 years ago?" It will be two games of great contrast, for sure. The A ball pitchers learning how to throw 95+mph (yeah, throw, not pitch) and the independent league pitchers trying to find a different pitch that may get them back into the bigs for the good hotel rooms and the good meals and the good locker rooms and no more team buses.

Theater Five is still chugging along, and part of the fun is the renewal of old hobby contacts and stories of collectors of years gone by. This one actually went to ABC with another collector of high research esteem back in the 1970s and found that they had no trace of the series in their publicity archives. Swept under the rug, it seems. Quite a shame. Well, that's just more for us to find...

The big news for me is that the recreation of a missing Suspense has been officially announced for May 13 release.
https://cobaltclubannex.forumotion.com/t456p400-suspense-upgrades#21177
Maybe we should have a big listening party at the Cobaltian Conference Center and Plumbing Annex that evening.

Chad, nothing worse than boss with admin rights on servers. Always cause more harm than good.

Space can't wait for that Donkey to arrive. Donkey reports will be a must. Two is best for company and some goats they love donkeys.

GB happy birthday carrot cake sounds great.

Long weekend here so of course I am off to pick up another guitar which is traditional long weekend tasks. Once I add a bass and drums I should be good for a while. Got my new Mac studio coming so soon have my studio setup for recording.  It's all harmless fun.

Stay safe friends....

Seamus,
What kinda guitar are you gonna pick up? Show us pictures please! (drooling)

I just got through gawking at some used Les Pauls online. I still regret the one I sold years ago. It was a 1981 Les Paul custom in "silverburst." I traded even for an '86 Strat (worth about $400), now they're going for $4k to $6k.

Hey Chad I picked up a Sire S7 the Strat style. So well made great low action. Fat fuzzy pickups with humbucker at the bridge. I have a Fender Jeff Beck custom shop Strat which is amazing but the Sire plays fantastic and I would throw it in the case and travel my Jeff Beck stays home. Next guitar is the Sire T7 Telecaster style. Love Sire guitars these are all first gen hopefully the build quality stays this good.

Where did the week go? It's May -- and we've already failed to go to any ball games because of annoying weather or at least annoying weather forecasts. It will still happen... I hope... but the idea of going to all the minor league parks here in NC this season is off to a terrible start.

Making big progress on The Big Story -- and am booked for the August Zoom meeting of the MWOTRC to talk about the series. We found some of Dorthy Kilgallen's original reports about the story that they dramatized.

The Theater Five made the latest issue of OTRR's Old Radio Times but I took the article and made a web page out of it. Enjoy it! https://sites.google.com/view/t5-project/home/six-t5-myths  Still some tweaks needed. Nick Palmer now has only 47 more plotline summaries to go -- heroic dedication!

Have almost 60 Suspense upgrades to post.

GB, I'm right there with you. Retirement is kinda like an endless series of Fridays. The wife usually has to remind me of anything scheduled. Here lately, your posts seem full of exciting finds and accomplishments.

The only excitement in my world this week, was an unexpected windfall purchase. We've been trying for a while to decide if we need a tractor for this property. The answer has always been "maybe". There are quite a few tasks which would be much easier with a small tractor. But does that justify the price? And that's where the situation became iffy. Then one of my neighbors decided to upgrade to a larger tractor and offered us his current small tractor for a really low price. He also gave us written 12 month guarantee on the tractor. Additionally, he owns a diesel mechanic shop and will do any maintenance or repairs for the price of parts. Yup, we jumped on it. I've gone full on "Green Acres" and have been spending about an hour each day, just driving our new tractor around the property.

Boss, that's a spiffy lookin' axe you have there. An ES335 is my end of the rainbow guitar. But my next purchase will probably be a used Mexican made Fender Strat. I'm looking for an HSH configuration with coil split on the humbuckers. I may replace the single coil with a Seymour Duncan Little 59, with a toggle switch to coil split that pickup. Option B, would have me install this https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/everything-axe in my current G&L Legacy. But any of that is in the future. I've got a lot to learn before I think about any upgrades.

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space

GB reports from the BB games are always welcome.

Space I need pics of that tractor. Have a play of a Sire before you get that Strat they are better made than the Mexican Strat and have lovely tone.
Last Friday I got a new guitar and this Friday I got another one. A Sire Auditorium acoustic just rounding out my Sire collection. Also got a ton of new vinyl. So music is keeping me happy.

Stay safe my friends.

I'm wanting to get me an acoustic guitar. I'm more interested in play-ability than tone. I've got an 80's Yamaha acoustic which is pretty decent, but the action is just a bit too high and has no room for lowering it. (the bane of so many acoustics).

So I'm looking at some EKO Ranger reissues or some earlly 70's Epiphone T-series. They are cheap guitars, but the sweet thing about them (in my opinion) is that they have bolt on necks which can be shimmed to accommodate lower action. I'd love to get a late 60's or early 70's Fender Redondo or similar, but those have climbed out of my price range.

Friday once more and this one has the 9pm ET premiere of the recreation of the missing Suspense episode The Eavesdropper.

There's another one planned for June by a different group, the 1942 script Rope. I have yet to hear that for certain.

Between the two, it's more likely that The Eavesdropper will be found as an AFRS recording. Those early Suspense may not have been recorded  -- yikes!! After all, it was just a little summer replacement series that was unlikely to be renewed.

Reels, reels, reels.... a box arrived and I should have been careful what I asked for... I'm backlogged and behind!!  

GB the Younger is now engaged and the big event will be this time next year. The credit card companies have been getting a workout. All those mileage points and travel points and discount points don't make up for it all, but it's all for a good and happy cause.

If you have not seen the big Theater Five article in OTRR's Old Radio Times I made a web page of it https://sites.google.com/view/t5-project/home/six-t5-myths  Enjoy!!

Next Saturday is my test for 3rd degree black belt. Third degree... does that mean I'm in a chair in an empty echo-y room and they're shining a light in my eyes and screaming intimidating questions at me?

Midweek make-up. We've been busy here on The Funny Farm, so here are a few pics of our new toys, since things have finally slowed down a bit.

First is the new/used tractor. A Kubota L2050. I have about 4 hours of drive time on this so far. Mostly spent mowing pasture and just riding around with the theme from Green Acres running through my head.


Another addition this week was a Polaris Ranger. We had planned this purchase for later. But this one came up for a great price. So we stressed the budget in the short term and jumped on it. Given my usual (Let's See What It'll Do) personality, I expect a lot of repairs will be needed on this down the road.


We've added our first barnyard critters to The Funny Farm. A half dozen chicks which are rapidly growing into big un's. The wife wanted a chicken coop and didn't trust my construction skills (I can't imagine why), so she ordered a chicken coop kit online. It only took me about three times as long as it would take the average ten year old, to put it together. And the profanity involved in the construction of this coop was both colorful and profuse.


Finally, I did manage to get out and explore a bit. Any other modern music fans may feel free to envy me now. *Note* This is not the building where Aretha Franklin recorded her first album. That happened at the original location, above a drug store across the river in Florence. But Lynrd Skynrd, The Rolling Stones and many others made a lot of music history here.


I'll try to make it back on time Friday.

Be safe, be well, be happy and Rock On,
Space

Space, your update pleases me. Your tractor and Polaris Ranger are fab. Nothing better than tinkering on tractor then driving said tractor in anger to get something done. So many possibilities. Now you have the Ranger the Indian Scout is natural addition seeing as its made by same company so warranty and maintenance work are together(take his down this is BS info for wife to justify the bike. You say it's basically farm machinery)

I am also way late with update. Brother is coming to visit in two weeks so very excited. We will go down country and enjoy the beach. Yeah I have a beach two mins away but another set of beaches from childhood. So good times.

Been playing my fingers off on all the new guitars. I have guitars on every level of the house now for emergencies don't you know.

Summer is here so enjoy my friends.

Stay safe

Here we are, karate third degree test eve, and my knee and my shoulder are not doing well. As I remind the young students, old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill. We'll see.

I never thought I'd be able to handle sai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_(weapon) with the occasional neuropathy that runs from my shoulder to my ring and pinky fingers (residue of last century surgery). But like all things, I've found ways to adapt and most people around me are safe when I'm using them. Feels like quite an achievement since I was so afraid of ever picking them up. They are heavy, so it is quite a workout. I've wondered if karate weapons are good for preventing carpal tunnel syndrome with the variety of movements and the resultant hand strength and flexibility that develops. If some biomedical researcher is looking for tenure, you may have just found your dissertation topic. Thank me later.

Buried under more processing and analyzing stuff. One of the things that came up this week was a 1944 aircheck of Suspense that is amazingly curious a lot of different ways. We're still sorting it all out. It will get posted someday in this longer queue that's developing. And there seems to be a new Whistler in our midst. Sometimes this stuff gets so discouraging and frustrating and but we plow ahead because the surprises are so delightful. There actually is a pony in there somewhere.

Headed away for some family things to do and looking so forward to this break. It's easier to catch up when you take that pause that refreshes and re-energize those batteries.

GB, I will be welcoming a new Sandan next week on the Friday night check in. Great job you earned it. I know the blood sweat and tears that go into training and ranking.

Always interested in your OTR pursuits. Loads of great work there.

Space I want pics of you wrecking stuff with your tractor LOL.

Chad, hope your work week went better and you got in some shredding time on your guitars.

So far kept to my 7 day a week practicing so happy with that. It's been a sunny week here great weather been out as much as work will allow.

Have a great weekend folks and stay safe out there....

Howdy!

Boss, pictures of me on the tractor will be rare. Because I'm the one who takes most of the pictures in the family. But I'll see what I can do.

GB, I can absolutely relate. I'm constantly making plans for things I wanna do. But my body tells me I'm an idiot, who needs to sit down and shut up. Then I usually do it anyway and regret it later.

Not much news from here since the last post. Just hotter weather and more spring chores. This coming week we'll be building some large planter boxes. The greenhouse is still in the future, but we want to start growing some food and herbs. The clay soil locally limits what choices we can make, so we're building four 4 by 12 raised planter boxes. These will be filled with loamy gardening soil, compost and a bit of manure. We'll extend that by growing strawberries and a few other things in a stacked potting system. We had two truck loads of "top soil" delivered last week to fill in a depression in the back yard. The top soil delivered was more clay. I suppose I have an unrealistic viewpoint of what "top soil" is.

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space

Here we are Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend in the US and already I'm sick of hearing "the unofficial beginning of Summer." It's almost like that's the name of the holiday. Stores should hang signs in their windows that say "Closed on Memorial Day, the unofficial beginning of Summer." Calendar makers should be mandated to put "Memorial Day, the unofficial beginning of Summer" on their calendars and not just "Memorial Day." I don't know exactly when it happened, but I suspect that when Memorial Day was a fixed date on the calendar and not shifted around to make a long weekend (remember -- it was done to save energy), no one even knew that Summer had an unoffical beginning. People started Summers when they wanted to, but everyone knew it was sometime around June 21, the Summer Solstice, and not before. You could pretend it was Summer beforehand, but you could not say it was Summer. Then all this unoffical stuff started and now it's official: Memorial Day is officially the unofficial beginning of Summer. Now it's starting to make sense.

I do know something official: June 17th is the 80th birthday of Suspense. I am trying to figure out what to do. We may go live on the OTRR Facebook page or something like that.

The trip to New York was good. We enjoy living in this area of North Carolina. The population is growing and so many things are new or almost new. In New York, only the patches in the roads, when you can find them, are new. It was like playing land mine on Long Island, the Bronx, and Westchester. Luckily the plan to avoid LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark airports worked well with us using Long Island MacArthur and Westchester County airports. We also learned that Avis has a totally different concept of "clean rental car" than we do. Ugh!!! The best part -- I got a real pastrami sandwich from a real deli... I could have gone home straight from that and paid all the airline change penalties and been happy. And real Carvel. Yum. But despite those luxuries, we're so glad we've been ex-residents for 32 years now... and it's gone from "a nice place to visit" to "a place." We did see some family which gives rise to my favorite definition of Thanksgiving: "the holiday that makes you thankful you see some people only once a year."

Catch-up weekend for all kinds of things. Looking forward to a quiet one. I actually learned that there will be a double-header between the Twins and the Tigers on Memorial Day (the unofficial beginning of Summer). But as usual, there is a twist -- two separate admissions. It's really a day game and a night game. You'd think the gap between games would be so they could have a big barbecue on the field so everyone could have hot dogs together. Nope, get out of here, and don't come back unless you have a ticket.

There was a time you could count on doubleheaders on Memorial Day (before it became the unofficial beginning of Summer), July 4 (before it could occur on a day other than July 4) and Labor Day (which could be on any first September Monday because that's what Jerry Lewis wanted). And also most Sundays. Life was different then. Baseball was about selling beer. Now baseball is about selling streaming rights and ad space on uniforms.

Whatever the case... much OTR this weekend... to get away from the evasive driving of the days earlier this week...

Enjoy the long weekend! And let's all pause for the real and somber reasons for Memorial Day. Which reminds me... one of the stops we made was to Long Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery, where my grandmother is buried with my grandfather, whom I never knew. He died a couple of weeks before Pearl Harbor and was an Army private in WW1. One time, someone asked Grandma why she wanted to be buried there beyond it was a benefit for veterans. She said "finally I can be on top." I was too young to understand at the time it was said and the laughter it provoked around the family gathering. For an Italian grandmother who had no cooking skills at all... she was very funny... to get our minds off the meatballs with the burnt side opposite the raw side, and the lasagne with the hard edges and the watery middle. A brief trip back to those days would be so much fun...

Did you know that Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial beginning of Summer? It's unofficiality makes it practically official.

Happy Friday and Happy Unofficial Beginning of Summer! I think we should copyright the term "Unofficial Beginning of Summer" and use the proceeds to fund OTR research, restoration and free distribution.

Hey GB, have Ya ever caught a Savannah Bananas game? If not, here Ya go. Ya might wanna jump ahead to the 50:00 minute mark. That's where the fun really starts.


An unusually weird week here at The Funny Farm. We're in a battle with Army Worms. They aren't dangerous. They just eat all of your grass, then die in droves in your garage, shop and basement. So today I'll be mowing, then spraying a ton of pet friendly pesticide over about 3 1/2 acres of lawn. Then we'll have to remove everything from the garage, shop and basement to sweep out the crunchy little carcasses.

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space