Cassettes to CD

Earlier this year, my Uncle Ron passed away. Ron was a great sax and clarinet player. Growing up I can remember hearing tapes of Ron play. I have a clear memory of driving with my Uncle Gus to fish for bass with Ron’s music playing as we drove in the pre-dawn darkness to a Kansas pond.
My dad gave me three tapes of Ron playing to convert to CDs. One of the recordings was quite old. One tape from 1970 that was probably a few generations old.
I realized that I didn’t have a cassette player and even if I got one, I’d still have the problem of jury rigging the recording into a computer and converting it to a CD. After dodging my dad’s emails and questions about the conversion for a while, I was beginning to get desperate. I pondered the problem for a while and finally stumbled on cassettes2cds.
Just like it sounds, cassettes2cds converts cassette tapes to CDs. It’s mainly meant for converting old prerecorded cassettes into CDs for current use. You know that old Police, Led Zepplin, or Duran Duran cassette you have sitting around, it can be made into a CD. (Don’t even pretend that you didn’t buy one of these albums. I know you did and you probably also bought a Michael Jackson album as well in your younger days! Next you’ll try to tell me you don’t know the words to ABBA songs and hated Grease. Friggin’ liars…)
Where was I? Oh yes, the base cost of the job is $7 per CD, less if you convert a large quantity.
I emailed the guy who runs the site and asked a few questions and he seemed to know his stuff. Throwing caution to the wind, I sent the tapes off.
When the tapes arrived I got an email telling me so and daily updates on the status of the conversion. In about a week, a box arrived.


I popped a CD in and sure enough the tape had been transferred. The CD was good quality, considering the source.

The CD is printed with a label that you write the text for online.
For $7 a CD, it’s a terrific service. Sure you could do this stuff at home if you had the right gear, the time, and patience, but for those that don’t cassettes2cd is a godsend.
You can also get MP3s made if you want. (No, you whiny ass iPod lovers can’t get cheesy AAC files, you need to settle for manly MP3 files to listen to on your crappy white earphones.)
So, cassette2cds gets the Cruftastic seal of approval.

Bendy

Yoshi lent me a comic book. I was flipping through the pages and saw this.


This is how I feel every day. Why can’t things just be simpler. Why do I find it so hard to let go?

Snippets

Catching snippets of the GOP convention brings to mind a quote from Apocalypse now:
“Oh man, the shit piled up so fast in [the GOP] you needed wings to stay above it.”
Rationalizing hatred and greed has been translated into “family values” and “freedom”.
Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave.

Back on

Last week I was in Orlando for some company meetings. Hot, muggy weather, long meetings, backstage tours of Disneyworld, lots of drinking at business dinners. I think it wore me out a bit.


No time to blog, except a few camphone photos I moblogged over there ->
Last week was my parents 41st wedding anniversary. 41 years. Wow.

We made a cake for my parents and headed down to their house. My dad had been in Ghana doing some charity work earlier this month and they had been in Hawaii after that. This was the first time we’d seen them since then.
They gave us several gifts that were wonderful. Here’s what I recieved.

Yes, the next time I get a chance I will be burning Castro’s crops.
Back to the regular geek blogging when I get some time.
Until then here’s a little MLP:
Election Protection 2004 (a site my brother Matt built with MovableType)
Cake’s New Album
Star Wars Gangsta Rap Special Edition

La Brea Tar Pits

Today I took the kids to the Page Museum bka The La Brea Tar Pits.
To those not from Los Angeles, the Tar Pits are an area where oil and asphalt have risen to the surface in the middle of the city for the last 40,000 years at least. Water would collect on top of the asphalt and thousands of animals got caught in the tar trap, their bones preserved for centuries.


The tar is still there, waiting for it’s next victim.

There is a working museum where they excavate the remains and put them on display. Mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, sloths, American lions, condors, and other extinct animals have all been preserved for us to see.

Zoe & Mira in front of a horse skeleton.

The Tar Pits are a common destination for LA schoolchildren and the museum is well suited for kids. There is a wall with hundreds of skulls of dire wolves caught in the tar. It’s as impressive today as it was when I was 10 and saw it for the first time.
If you haven’t visited, do yourself a favor and go. You’ll have a good time.

Leftover beers

Yesterday was the party for LA Bloggers and we had a good time.
Jim bought his whole family and the four girls (his 2 and my 2) were awfully busy playing the whole time. Being the daughters of geek bloggers, the girls spent time outdoors in a tent watching a portable DVD player, emerging to get more food and more My Little Pony dolls.
Grant and Jill showed up. Mack from LAVoice came along with his son Cooper as well. Britta stopped by with here dad. I know her more from #joiito than blogging. Cousin James stopped by as well.
There weren’t enough people for the planned Mac vs. PC tug-of-war, but it was fun for all. I made them all drink shots, as usual at a Pusateri party and they were good sports to try.


L-R: Mack & Jim


L-R: Britta, James, Grant, Jill


Here I am bringing the smoked turkey & brisket into the house to be cut.

Not as many people showed up as I had hoped and we had plenty of extra beer and sodas. Grant, Jill and James were all heading out that night to hand with friends so I sent off with six packs of leftover beer.
It was a good start in getting LA bloggers together. Hopefully the numbers just grow from here on out.

Out and about

I started Sunday early with a little yardwork. I beat down the tree stump a little more with the maul and finally filled the large hole up with dirt.
Nothing like swinging a maul first thing in the morning to get the blood pumping.
Around lunch time I headed off to meet Sean, Shawn, Michael, and Jason to do a little Sunday Shooting. This time I brought the rifle and saw what it could do at close range. That barrel makes things within 20 yards all easy targets. I rented a shotgun to add a little variety.


The smaller two holes are from the rifle rounds and the large hole is from a shotgun slug. If the ‘bad guys’ invade America, I’m ready to join the militia…
Sean wrote about his experience here and Jason wrote it up here. Good times. You know, https://bloggerswithguns.com/ isn’t registered yet…
After a cup of coffee with the boys where we discussed whether or not Red Bull was made of bull semen or not, I headed to Hollywood.
Wil Wheaton was doing a book signing, and couple of LA bloggers had asked if I was coming. I arrived in the middle of Wil’s talk and was suprised the that place was filled with people. He’s still got the draw.
I spent some time chatting with sbmusiclover, lomara, Wendy and John about things. It was nice to put a face to the names. After talking for a while I got to thinking about the chores that awaited me and finally headed home.
I Hope you had a good weekend as well.

Out of touch

President Bush said yesterday:
“I think there may be handfuls of people that are very emotional, but I think by far the vast majority of Americans are wanting to know whether they’re going to be able to work and whether or not the government’s doing its job of protecting the country, I don’t have a sense there’s a lot of anger.”
It is a sad day for the US when it’s leader can’t see what is obvious to every citizen…