Remote Post from the Porch
Thursday, August 25th, 2022 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioI'm writing tonight from the side porch downstairs, using my phone. I'm down here keeping my dad's dog company, as Dad is still in the hospital. He's doing better, and it's nothing life threatening, but it could take a while before they let him go.
I'm sitting in a rocker out here and monitoring the sounscape as the S8 is out there recording up in the canopy.
The wing tappers seem to finally be out there in decent numbers, so hopefully they are even louder from up there.
The field crickets... at least here near the porch sound great!
I started the canopy take at 8:15PM, so I plan to do another take over here by the porch around 10PM.
Takes I recorded a few nights ago were not great.
--<>--
But I did a bit of experimenting in Audacity this afternoon to see what front yard field crickets sound like layered over the back yard canopy stuff, but with that volume lowered... and it sounded pretty great!
If I can get enough long, clean tracks from both locations, I'm in business. But fucking dogs and AC condensers really shorten the length of usable footage.
Still, it does sound better out there now, at the very end of August, than at any time this month so far... and that gives me hope for September.
School's back in session this week, and it's back to being hot out there, with no wind at night.
Summer is back!.. which makes sense, because mother nature needs to torture school students with blazing heat and no breezes as they walk back and forth between school and home, hating that summer is over!.. when it's not!
--<>--
I'm also hearing some cop sirens out there, as I write tonight... rallying to hit their August ticket quotas before months end.
Oddly, there have been almost no late night speeders out there at all this month. Maybe Legend of Speeder was true, and my 2021 track celebrating him, set his soul free...
Finally... he'd been heard and recognized, and could rest.
I seriously don't know what the real explanation is for the total absence of speeders, because they've been a year round feature of the night sounscape around here for decades!
I'm guessing it's the high gas prices, and maybe the supply chain crisis that's made car repairs take longer and be more expensive.
It's as big a departure from normal, as in 2020, when there wasn't a single plane to be heard on any track... thanks to the global quarantines.
What I AM hearing, though, are little scooters! Not so much at night, but there are way more in daylight hours than ever before.
Little tiny scooters. I've never seen any like them before.
They must be pretty fuel efficient.
--<>--
If Speeder the vampire is simply having to lay low this year... so as not to stand out and blow his cover... I suggest he take a little trip to Russia, and end Mr. Putin, so that gas prices can go back to normal.
Maybe that should be the plot of the Legend of Speeder movie!..
Outlaw vampire speeder teen ends war in Ukrain so he can get back to speeding in his hometown... then falls in love with an MI5 vampire and together they fight the forces of tyranny around the globe!
Okay, well... I've killed about as much time down here banging this out, as I can tonight.
I'll pretty up the entry later with the divider bars and links.
------------{=0=}------------
It's 11:40PM now, and I'm back upstairs at the desktop.
I recorded from the canopy for damn near three hours, from 8:15PM to 11:15PM. Listening out on the porch has it's advantages! I was able to hear that dogs, cars, and AC condensers all fell away in the middle of hour two, and the wing tappers started going really good for another hour.
When I got the S8 back down from the Mulberry tree, I set it up in the tripod basket, low to the ground out by the front of the porch to get some good field crickets... which is where it is now, as I write.
I can still kinda monitor things out my window up here, and I'm not hearing any dogs or cars to ruin that take.
And it's cooled down to 72F, so nobody's AC condensers are kicking on.
With any luck, tonight's conditions will hold a while, or even improve. But we'll just have to see.
°¦}
0--------------------0
Legend of Speeder
Nobody knows the identity of Speeder. And nobody's ever gotten a good look at his car... because he's just going too fast... and it's always too dark. The only thing the cops know is, he only speeds at night... and he's been doing it for over SIXTY YEARS!
Legend has it that Speeder is a vampire... turned at the age of 18... at some point in the late 1950s. He was a gear head, and a drag racer... a kid with a need for speed! Was he turned against his will?.. perhaps after a crash? Or did he want it, and win the right to be turned, after beating a vampire in a race?
Whatever was the case, he gained immortality. And now, every night, he rises from his coffin after sunset, and gets into one of his many souped-up dragsters... to speed through the city streets by night, squeeling his tires and revving his engine. He speeds out to the highways. He speeds out into the blacktops of the distant boondocks. And then he speeds back in to the neighborhoods and the downtown all over again.
The cops can't catch him. His vampire senses are too keen. He knows where they are, and where they aren't. And he doesn't need headlights to see! He only lets them get close, to taunt them... to lead them on the chase. But his skills are too good... and his cars are too quick and too agile... for them to stand a chance.
Whether you see him as a menace, or a hero... Speeder, like a force of nature, is a fact of life.
Forever young... forever lawless... and forever fast as F!
I'm sitting in a rocker out here and monitoring the sounscape as the S8 is out there recording up in the canopy.
The wing tappers seem to finally be out there in decent numbers, so hopefully they are even louder from up there.
The field crickets... at least here near the porch sound great!
I started the canopy take at 8:15PM, so I plan to do another take over here by the porch around 10PM.
Takes I recorded a few nights ago were not great.
But I did a bit of experimenting in Audacity this afternoon to see what front yard field crickets sound like layered over the back yard canopy stuff, but with that volume lowered... and it sounded pretty great!
If I can get enough long, clean tracks from both locations, I'm in business. But fucking dogs and AC condensers really shorten the length of usable footage.
Still, it does sound better out there now, at the very end of August, than at any time this month so far... and that gives me hope for September.
School's back in session this week, and it's back to being hot out there, with no wind at night.
Summer is back!.. which makes sense, because mother nature needs to torture school students with blazing heat and no breezes as they walk back and forth between school and home, hating that summer is over!.. when it's not!
I'm also hearing some cop sirens out there, as I write tonight... rallying to hit their August ticket quotas before months end.
Oddly, there have been almost no late night speeders out there at all this month. Maybe Legend of Speeder was true, and my 2021 track celebrating him, set his soul free...
Finally... he'd been heard and recognized, and could rest.
I seriously don't know what the real explanation is for the total absence of speeders, because they've been a year round feature of the night sounscape around here for decades!
I'm guessing it's the high gas prices, and maybe the supply chain crisis that's made car repairs take longer and be more expensive.
It's as big a departure from normal, as in 2020, when there wasn't a single plane to be heard on any track... thanks to the global quarantines.
What I AM hearing, though, are little scooters! Not so much at night, but there are way more in daylight hours than ever before.
Little tiny scooters. I've never seen any like them before.
They must be pretty fuel efficient.
If Speeder the vampire is simply having to lay low this year... so as not to stand out and blow his cover... I suggest he take a little trip to Russia, and end Mr. Putin, so that gas prices can go back to normal.
Maybe that should be the plot of the Legend of Speeder movie!..
Outlaw vampire speeder teen ends war in Ukrain so he can get back to speeding in his hometown... then falls in love with an MI5 vampire and together they fight the forces of tyranny around the globe!
Okay, well... I've killed about as much time down here banging this out, as I can tonight.
I'll pretty up the entry later with the divider bars and links.
It's 11:40PM now, and I'm back upstairs at the desktop.
I recorded from the canopy for damn near three hours, from 8:15PM to 11:15PM. Listening out on the porch has it's advantages! I was able to hear that dogs, cars, and AC condensers all fell away in the middle of hour two, and the wing tappers started going really good for another hour.
When I got the S8 back down from the Mulberry tree, I set it up in the tripod basket, low to the ground out by the front of the porch to get some good field crickets... which is where it is now, as I write.
I can still kinda monitor things out my window up here, and I'm not hearing any dogs or cars to ruin that take.
And it's cooled down to 72F, so nobody's AC condensers are kicking on.
With any luck, tonight's conditions will hold a while, or even improve. But we'll just have to see.
°¦}
Nobody knows the identity of Speeder. And nobody's ever gotten a good look at his car... because he's just going too fast... and it's always too dark. The only thing the cops know is, he only speeds at night... and he's been doing it for over SIXTY YEARS!
Legend has it that Speeder is a vampire... turned at the age of 18... at some point in the late 1950s. He was a gear head, and a drag racer... a kid with a need for speed! Was he turned against his will?.. perhaps after a crash? Or did he want it, and win the right to be turned, after beating a vampire in a race?
Whatever was the case, he gained immortality. And now, every night, he rises from his coffin after sunset, and gets into one of his many souped-up dragsters... to speed through the city streets by night, squeeling his tires and revving his engine. He speeds out to the highways. He speeds out into the blacktops of the distant boondocks. And then he speeds back in to the neighborhoods and the downtown all over again.
The cops can't catch him. His vampire senses are too keen. He knows where they are, and where they aren't. And he doesn't need headlights to see! He only lets them get close, to taunt them... to lead them on the chase. But his skills are too good... and his cars are too quick and too agile... for them to stand a chance.
Whether you see him as a menace, or a hero... Speeder, like a force of nature, is a fact of life.
Forever young... forever lawless... and forever fast as F!
