JANUARY ENDS
Saturday, January 31st, 2026 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio25F and sunny out there today!
This is the first time we've broken 20 in what? Two weeks? This past week was miserable, with highs in the low teens and lows in the single digits all week.
But now we're getting back to 20s and 30s by day, and teens by night which is far more tolerable!.. and it'll hit 40 on Friday, which will feel glorious!
So on Tuesday, the photo for this building's pokestop changed, from the ugly plaque, to my photo of the tower's west face on the skyline!
Proof of concept!
In the near future I'm gonna take new photos for all the other "ugly plaque" pokestops near me, and with Colleen & Justin's help, get them into the game.
Over the work week I gain staged, Clue Phone, Other Friends, and Spell I'm Under, so now Miss Fortune's the only one left, and it'll get done today!
This means the 2nd pass will begin tonight. We'll see how far I get by tomorrow night, but I expect to be taking a tutorial on the spectral analyzer sometime this coming week!
Maintenance guys here in Allerton Tower were emptying out a vacant apartment on my floor earlier this week, and in the former resident's closet had found a bunch of old electronics... dusty, but looking to be in good shape.
Before they could even take the stuff down to the trash room I spotted a tape deck and claimed it! A TEAC V-285CHX, single transport deck with dolby noise reduction and a switch for metal and chrome tapes.
It likely rolled off the line around 1992, at the peak of tape deck tech, right before CDs would take over, and this model was known as a workhorse!
So my idea is to get it refurbished.
I'm gonna open it up and give it the once over this weekend, before plugging it in, but a refurb on this machine may cost a lot less than the 600.00 i've been trying to save up for a modern (and inferior) Tascam deck.
I can likely do the belts and pinch roller myself, but then I'd take it to a technician to have it recalibrated, and perhaps re-capped (new capacitors), if needs be.
There's a place called Deltronics that'll do the work, over in Warrenville, about 30 minutes away, so I could drive it there, and pick it up, saving a ton on shipping costs.
We'll have to see! This won't be a priority until after the album is done, so I'll continue saving my pennies until then, but I could have a, like-new, 90s era tape deck this spring to use for digitizing my tape archive!
And it'd also be good for creating a cassette tape version of the album!.. for what that's worth.
That's the update! I'm up at a decent time today and there's no building checks for me this weekend. Today I'll stay home. Tomorrow I'll pay the February bills, then go run the Sunday errands. Then Monday is Groundhog Day.
Talk to you later.
°¦}
