I Just Got Out of Jail! Friday/Saturday Lunch Report

Jail: I bet the title got your attention!

No, I wasn't arrested or in jail! The county had open house at their new jail. That was the first time I've seen the inside of a jail cell. The new jail is replacing the old sheriff department and county jail that is small, outdated and built in 1906.

Lunch: I skipped lunch today but I had a big breakfast at the American Legion.

Community Involvement, Football & Tractors: I try to stay active in my community. I've been on the county fair board and Evening in the West which benefited the county museum. Currently, I'm involved with FFA (Future Farmers of America) Alumni. Our purpose is to help students that may need assistance in any way. We also have a scholarship program for college bound seniors. When I joined the FFA Alumni we gave out two scholarships for $250.00 each. The last couple of years we've done some very good fund raising and have been able to do four scholarships for $1000.00 each. Last night we tried a new fund raiser at the football game. We had Case IH, John Deere and New Holland tractors brought in by local dealers. People were allowed to vote for their favorite tractor by donating money into a bucket that was mounted on each tractor. This event has worked well at tractor pulls, but was a flop at a high school football game. Next Friday night we'll have our annual silent auction at the ball game. The silent auction always does well! The ball game was a flop last night too. My old school lost their first game this season. My question is: Are you active in your community? If you are what do you do? Bonus question: Do you have a favorite tractor brand?

Non Guitar Projects:

The first project is a late 30's era Maytag engine. The engine I have was used on my grandparents farm in Iowa. I had planned to rebuild it this summer, but the extreme heat changed my mind. When done it will look like this one:



My other project is for this winter. It's a late 60's era Heathkit IT-17 tube tester. I bought it at an auction. It doesn't need a lot of work, just a little TLC. It looks like this one:



I enjoy going to auctions and getting an occasional bargain. Do you attend auctions?

Guitars:

Is there a guitar made by any manufacturer that you like the looks of, but just doesn't work for you? I love the look of a Gibson, Les Paul Custom. I've played a bunch of them and none of them did anything for me.

Amps:

Do you like simple amps or amps with a lot of knobs and options? All of my amps are simple. I think simple amps are easier to dial in.


Race Cars:

I can't go a week without at least one sprint car photo. Here's my buddy at Atchison County Speedway in Atchison, KS.




Thank you, to everyone that participated. It was a fun week and the peanut butter & jelly debate was entertaining!

great shots of old equipment. one of these days i need to catalog my old radio tube collection and post pics of the interesting ones plus the tester. in the meantime here's a pic of an audio generator turned "Firefly" (1 watt amp based on a 12au7 "preamp" tube) guitar amp.

Old stuff - Love the "Bad - ? - Good" gauge on the tube tester, looks like something from a Looney Tunes cartoon! The uni I go to has piles of old electronic and electrical testing and analysis stuff. My favourite piece is this oscilloscope that belongs on the set of 'Clockwork Orange'. I need to get on to them about taking some of it home.

Guitars that don't do it for me but wish they did - Gretsches. Love the look of them, but they feel wrong for me in almost every possible way.

Amps - I'm with you on the simple is best thing. Too many knobs or channels is just too much work. There is, however, no such thing as too many speakers

I donate to the Boys and Girls Club and a few others. My favorite tractor is Minneapolis-Moline. Gretsches look great, but haven't worked for me..so far. Simple amps work so long as they get me there simply...


Cheers,

Will

Guitars: Always like the looks of an LP but I have never found one that I really liked playing. Strangly enough I do not have the same problem with PRS Singlecuts or SC models. So I have to attribute it to the difference in neck shapes (more baseball and beefy for the former, more wide thin or wide fat for the latter).

Amps: Like them both, but the complexity and overwhelming number of tweaks and variations for an amp with lots of controls (+ graphic EQ etc.) frequently leads to paralysis in my case. So I have come to appreciate the simple tone stack more and more over time.

Non guitar stuff: I have been involved for a while in the Dutch community over here but stopped doing that a couple of years ago. It wasn't worth all the effort. Oh well, ...

- Jos

Hi Sprinter.

Never seen the inside of a jail. Maybe some day... ;+)

Community involvement: I'm an active Cub Scout daddy, though some BSA policies (and problems pushed under the rug) bother me plenty. My wife, a CPA, is the Treasurer of our Elem. School's PTA and has been for a couple of years. Turns out to be a rather thankless but time-consuming and important position.

Tractors: I'm a Deere man (or so she tells me) ;+)

Auctions: I "attend" eBay. Does that count? If not for that site, I wouldn't have any of my G&L guitars.

Good-looking but no-go guitars: Rickenbackers. There are songs in my head where a Rick would seem to do the trick. But though I have tried a bunch of them, they all feel wrong to me, though some of them sound very right.

Amps: The simpler the better. If I wanted to tweak all day, I might go the meth route. Ha!

Nice week, Sprinter. Thanks! - ed

Yes sir Steve, you got my attention!

I have to give Ginny the community involvement award in our family. She volunteers for many different organizations and it a CERT trained volunteer here in New Brighton. I know that she could save the cats and myself in an emergency. She also has a couple of children that wear wrist monitors that she is involved with. My recent music scene keeps me busier than I need to be. It has cut into my guitar perusing time. The Runestone is another story in itself. No spare time anymore and it is all self inflicted.

A friend of mine is into tractors and has about 20. I used to tell him that he could only drive one at a time. He asked me how many guitars I could play at once. The Maytag is cool. We had one when I was a kid that ran the washing machine. My mother washed clothes outside in the summer. Keep those Sprint cars rolling Steve and thanks for the week!-- Darwin

Hard Time: I've been locked in an isolation cell at a county jail in Tennessee. I was assisting a public health department, and they wanted me to make sure the cell where TB patients were locked up was suitable for the purpose. The only way to check the ventilation from the inside was to be locked in there. It would have been a very bleak place to spend thirty days.

Community Involvement: I don't have any spare time for community involvement these days, but I try to be as active as possible in my sons' school. When I lived in Maine I was very active on my town's fire department. In Cincinnati I helped to facilitate an "adopt-a-school" program at work, coordinated blood drives a couple of times a year, and found some ways to help support our local Goodwill chapter with materials and jobs. Where I am now I just don't have the time or opportunities. Even volunteering with the town's fire department would not fit with my work schedule. Hopefully I will find something eventually...

Amps: I prefer simple ones. My playing styles don't call for multiple channels, intricate switching, etc. The only features I really like are spring reverb (a must) and tube vibrato (a plus). I am a Jazz Chorus fan, although I haven't been playing mine lately. That's the most complicated one I own right now.

Ken

Incompatible Guitars: I'd really like a Gibson SG with P90's, but every one I've tried has felt completely alien. It's something to do with the light body, heavy neck, and the neck joining the body really high up the fret board.

Amps: I also come from the 'simple is best' school of thought. I once had to use the house Marshall JCM900 at a gig where there wasn't enough time to get my own amp mic'ed up. I remember being mesmerised by the number of knobs on the front panel compared to my low tech Fender, which had 5 max. Every knob I turned made my ASAT Special sound like razor blades (at 110 dB). It was a horrible, unusable, fizzy noise. If I can't dial in a decent clean tone in under 5 min then an amp is no good to me.

Favourite Tractor: Where I grew up Massey-Greene tractors were big, so I'd better vote for them.

Community Involvement: Does this site count? I'm limited to school working bees these days. Any extra time I get I like to spend playing music.

Guitars:

Is there a guitar made by any manufacturer that you like the looks of, but just doesn't work for you?

It's called "Rickenbacker". Deco awesome looks, but the sound and feel aren't there for me. It just never worked out between us.

-Brock