Attack of the killer STEREO SPEAKER!!!
...or, sometimes it's really, really hard to be me...

A few days ago, I blew out one of my stereo speakers. I guess I got what I deserved though, hooking up a little car stereo speaker to a big home unit. ***POP***FIZZ***, and instead of musical notes, it sounded like a loud playback of termites chewing up your front porch. So, I went to St. Vinnie's and got an old pair of STEREO SPEAKERS. You know, the old-fashioned kind, back from the age when "bigger was better" when it came to stereo units. When I got 'em home, one of 'em wouldn't work. So I tore it apart, and inside was a whole bunch of wires which I didn't understand. So, I had a bright idea. I tore apart the WORKING speaker, and compared the wiring. Someone had wired the non-working speaker totally differently. Knowing absolutely nothing about electronics, I re-wired the speaker, matching the wiring from the working speaker. And, VOILA!!! Will wonders never cease; it WORKED!

These are fairly big speakers, standing about 2 and a half feet tall. I placed each speaker on shelves above my record collection, and proceeded to pump out the volume. I was really getting into this one record (The Starcastle album, "Citadel", that I've written about below)...and I don't know what happened; maybe the speaker was vibrating on the shelf and moving around; all of a sudden, I heard a "klunk", and turned around in my swivel chair just in time to see one of the speakers FALLING ON ME! I tried to catch it, "Klunk", it hit the floor, and the impact caused the tone-arm to skate across the record...thunk-bump-bump, and the speaker hit the floor. The front grill of the speaker came OFF, but it was still working! So I took out a hammer and nails, and nailed the grill back to its wooden foundation, and set the speaker in a safer part of the shelf. I consider myself lucky. Somehow, I miraculously averted "death by STEREO". Sometimes it is just HARD to be ME.

Someone had a really bright idea dept.: Last night, I saw a commercial that featured, of all things, a "roll-out piano keyboard". A keyboard without the console! It consists of a long "pad" in the shape of a keyboard, and at one end is attached a little amplifier, complete with rhythm machine and various programmable keyboard sounds. So, basically, you run your fingers up and down the roll-out keyboard, which has roughly the texture of a computer mouse pad. I guess there are lots of little sensors installed into the pad. And when you finish playing, you just roll it up and put it in a drawer! That just blew me away! Although, I'll never be able to take advantage of it. I took piano lessons when I was a kid, and each hand playing different notes simultaneously, overloaded my brain; I couldn't do it. I think that's why I like guitar. One hand fingers, one hand strums. If you can tap your foot and hold a fork, basically, you can play guitar. At least the way I play it...

So you're looking for job security? Don't "bank" on it dept.: I read in the paper today where a 51-year-old woman, who obviously paid her dues and worked many long years in order to become a branch manager at a Spokane office of U.S. Bank, was unceremoniously laid off, and she's suing for "age discrimination". The bank said it had the right to terminate at will, but evidently she has a case here. If a professional woman who has it together enough to be a bank branch manager isn't safe, tell me, who is? Welcome to cutthroat capitalism!

Burlington Northern is an award-winning organization dept.: It's always nice to win an award, isn't it? That means you've achieved recognition and honor from the segment of society that you have been serving. Well, that's the case most of the time, but not THIS time...it seems the Sierra Club recently gave Burlington Northern (BNSF) the "DEAD SWAN" award, for it's ultra-leaky refueling depot that's located right on top of the Rathdrum Aquifer, which provides drinking water to a whole lotta folks. I don't know about "swans", but any more leaks, and that depot'll be a "dead DUCK". Quack!

A Birds' Eye view before airplanes were invented dept.: Way back when, if you wanted a birds-eye view of Coeur d'Alene, well, you had to climb up a hillside if you wanted any kind of panoramic effect whatsoever. The photo below is one such "pre-aircraft" birds-eye view of CDA:
This is a "colorized" version of an old black and white photo, taken somewhere around 1910, looking northward from Tubbs Hill. At upper right, you can see Best Hill, and behind that, Canfield Mountain. At left, you can see plumes of smoke rising from lumber mills. It's getting so that you wouldn't know it anymore, but Coeur d'Alene used to be a lumber town. The question is repeatedly asked, "if no one's there to hear it, does a falling tree make a sound?" I don't know about that, but there is definitely less lumber noise around here than there used to be.

Another BOZO behind the wheel dept.: Sitting in the java place today, I was able to look up Sherman Avenue a little ways; sometimes it's just interesting sitting there, watching traffic. Somewhere around 2pm, a white sedan was westbound on Sherman, and I was flabbergasted to see that car "take a left", and head SOUTH on 4th Street (it's a one-way north!), toward Front Avenue. People can do that and get away with it; yet I get pulled over for not using turn signals! I'd get paranoid, but if I did that, it would just interfere with my driving, right?
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Well, winter continues. It was a cold, gray, drizzly day. The kind of day that looks better when the sun goes down. But, wait! Things could be worse! A little piece of practical poetry...

Another winter afternoon
Gray skies and lots of rain
But I'm okay with drizzle
'Cos snow is such a PAIN!

Before I go, let me point out a couple o'new things on this blog, off to the left: Daily updated world news stories, and a daily cartoon (you have to hit the little cartoon button for that). In closing, I think I've come across with the perfect blog motto: "Will blog for attention!"