Fact: I work in construction and drive a lot - more than 50,000km per year. Fact: I live in Canada.
Canada is a nice place to live but...
We endure a temperate climate here with sometimes huge swings in temperature and precipitation. We get heat, we get cold, we get rain, we get snow, we get it all, sometimes (in some places) in one day!
Character building it's said to be, makes one rugged, tough...
Good stuff for a romance novel but I (of course) have a different view on it: the extremes of climate here don't make us hard wearing, but wear us out!
We are beaten down by the weather, submissive to it's eventuality. We talk about it in whinny, complainy tone - "it's too hot!", "It's too cold", "snow deep enough for ya?" It has made us meek.
Why? Because it owns us, we are it's bitch, as surely as most of you fellows would be if thrust into a prison situation...


Me, I used to love winter....

Ahhhhh, been a while.
I have fun here in this forum, it's the only one that I'm a part of and it consumes a fair portion of my free time. With that said, I can't see how people can be involved in more than one forum; do they ever get anything done? Were to find the time?
Anyway, to the point - from the start I have been rubbing people the wrong way with some of the things I've "said" here. They are imagining a "tone" of voice that they associate with certain words or phrases. A terse quip is not amusing but an attack, a brief and succinct assessment of the facts is not eye opening but a criticism. Too often I find myself re-reading my posts before I submit them to filter this "tone".

A couple of recent incidents bring this to mind, the first was in a thread where the author was looking for advice on driver choices. He asked a question regarding the sensitivity increase of 2 drivers, in parallel or series. I answered the question...

Saturday, yesterday, a beautiful fall day here in my corner of the globe has me thinking about my Stratocaster and how it would be a nice day to spritz on some more finish. Last time was supposed to be the final coats but on close inspection I see that the coverage was still not perfect. I decided to wet sand again and give a few extra "smoothing" coats.
Wet sanding is time consuming and tedious, dirty, finger-wrinkling messy work but I persevere and it's ready for spraying. One of the things I see while sanding is a small fly embedded in the clearcoat:



Unlucky fool! Character for the piece, I think. Fossilized remains add to the value.

To spray, I use an old speaker box sitting behind my workshop as a stand and the guitar body is projecting out past this and counterbalanced with a bucket that has a brick in it. The bucket hangs by it's handle from the stick that is in place of the neck that...

Over the past 3 years going to the dentist has not been nearly as dreadful as it used to be. I'm fortunate enough to be a patient of the hottest dental clinic in Ontario (if not the whole country...heck, the world!). The staff are (apparently) all female - I haven't seen a man there yet.
The receptionists are hot, the assistants are HOT, the hygienist is smoking hot but my dentist, my own dentist is drop dead gorgeous!
Shoot, I almost look forward to a visit.

Around this time last year I had a tooth crowned, the last molar on the bottom, way at the back (of my big mouth). It takes ~3 hours for my heavenly goddess to grind down the old tooth (and filling - tooth was chipped developed a cavity - she fixed it rather than doing a root canal; she said it would be fine...) and make and fit a temporary crown. Three hours with your mouth stretched open is less than pleasant but like I explained, the view made the time fly.
A week later I skip...

Sitting on the highway in stop and go traffic this evening, I notice a funny logo on the GMC Yukon directly in front of me:


???
One of the biggest, most offensive, waste of sheet metal, plastic and steel SUV's on the road - a hybrid? What a joke!

The whole hybrid idea is IMO a total load of bunk, a stop gasp measure at best; really, just another example of the big guys cashing in on a trend, a buzz word..."Hybrid".

Here (on planet Earth) we have an enormous infrastructure built around the car - in particular, the internal combustion engine.
Now, as the supply of fossil fuels start to dwindle, "they" want to abandon the internal combustion engine in favour of electric motors and batteries...BATTERIES! Specifically, lately, lithium ion batteries. I know about rechargeable batteries - I've used them every day for the last 20 years. The technology has improved for sure but they still...

You guessed it - another Friday off!
If anyone deserves it, I do

It seems the older I get, the more I notice the "small" things. This can be good, as in I see the details in things and appreciate a job well done when I see it. It can also be a not-so-good thing.
For instance, being in construction, I often see poorly done work. Often the reason for this is not due to lack of the necessary workmanship skills but rather the "let the next guy worry about it" and "give less but charge more" type attitudes that has pervaded almost every aspect of our lives (not just construction). It's where the manufacturer of a good product uses cheaper parts, providing an inferior product but charges the same price.
It's where the candy bar you buy today is smaller than it was years ago and uses cheaper ingredients.

In my line of work, I install things, mainly things that are made by large companies and supplied...

...In more ways than one. Day three of my three day weekend and I must confess - I slept in this morning...till 8:30. Being a single, grumpy, impossible to get along with and living alone type of guy, I occasionally run out of household things. Namely groceries. Namely milk for my morning coffee. That was my first challenge: drink the coffee black (I can but I prefer it with milk) or quickly run out and buy milk OR quickly run out and buy a coffee at the coffee shop. I chose option #3.

Tim Hortons is close by so I jump in my truck and scoot on over. The drive thru is blocked with morons who don't know how to make coffee (or don't have any milk... ) so I go inside. A deep lineup but that's normal.
After a few minutes I'm at the counter and make my order. In this particular store, you can see the drive thru window and the morons out there getting served. I see a big ole dirty lookin' dude in a dirty lookin' car hand in his dirty lookin' travel mug to get...

In an effort to maintain my sweet disposition and tenuous grasp on sanity, I took today off - giving me a 3 day weekend. Normally at this time of the year I'm not as busy with work and I have more time to play but this year has been a killer and even though I shouldn't, I need some time off.

What do I do with a day off? Do I sleep in? Sorta - I got up at 6:30 am this morning - an hour and a half later than I would have to be up to go to work. Do I relax and take it easy? - I actually work harder when I'm at home (well, sometimes )

Today I did some work on my new guitar amp - the box. I decided on a design and after doing some rough sketches/plans last night, I started building it this morning. I will probably make it the subject of a new thread as there are still some details to work out.
After several hours on the amp, I turned my attention to the neglected guitar body. It hadn't been touched for a few days so I figured I would finish...

As I embark on my first ever electric guitar build, my attention invariably wanders to thoughts of what I will play it through...as I haven't ever owned an electric guitar I come to the inescapable conclusion: I need an amp!

In keeping with the replica theme I want to build a (cosmetic) reproduction of a well revered amp, preferably Fender but not limited by this. Any suggestions?
What I would like is something reasonably serious - maybe 2 x 10" or 2 x 12" - you know, to annoy the neighbours... Looking through the Eminence driver lineup, the Legend 1258 catches my eye and at <$80 each here, they are in the price range. Once again, suggestions?

The SS amp (no glass for me ) I can manage, 100 watts or so but the pre I would need some help with or suggestions for. I want reverb so I can (eventually, hopefully) pretend I'm Dick Dale.

As the summer winds down...
We have had wonderful weather here for the past 3 weeks and after a summer that wasn't, I think we well deserve it.
This time of year is without a doubt my favourite. The air is changing - a hint of the coming winter is in the air and it feels fresh and tastes delicious. Brisk mornings turn into warm days and there is something about how the air smells that is intoxicating. Late afternoon BBQ with a few cold beers, cool evening drives with the windows down and the radio playing; the scent of campfire smoke conjures memories of late summer get-togethers and the giddy feeling of new love...later the leaves will change in a blaze of colour and the world is in transition.
Ah, I'm getting to be a sentimental old(ish) fool! I can't help it though - at this time of the year.

So, my Strat project moves along. Slow but steady. Getting home this evening, I found time to finish routing out the recesses in the blank and cut it roughly...