Random Pictures with Comments*

 Char made Earl a "hat" which he wore until it was time for his nap.

Which often means quiet time curled up with Ellie.

On a cold and windy Saturday, we warmed up with lunch at Mcgee's Irish Pub & Eatery in Ankeny. Daphne and I split the Traditional Fish & Chips and a Yorkshire Scotch Egg Nest.

On cold and sunny Sunday, I ordered a Roasted Pork sandwich with a side of Poutine at BeerStyles. 

Last Saturday we suprised Char by taking her to Tsing Tsao West in Urbandale. It looked different inside, but to Char's relief, their Egg Drop Soup recipe hasn't changed.

On Saturday night I suprised Char again by picking Batman: Mask of the Phantasm for our family movie. We've been watching a lot of Scooby Doo on Boomerang, and I hoped an antimated mystery that was a little more "grown-up" would go over with her. It did. Char gave this a big thumbs-up. 

    

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm had a limited theatrical release in 1993. The film didn't do well at the box office despite the positive, critical reviews. If Flix Brewhouse re-opens, I'd love to see this movie play there.

I know that his isn't much of a blog post, so why did I even write it? 

"Just Becasue." 

* Might as well be the name of this blog.

The Old Saying Goes...

 If you don't like the weather in Iowa, just wait a minute... 

The view from my classroom at 8:15 am:

10 minutes later...

I think the orginal saying was written by Mark Twain about New England weather, but it applies here, too.

15 minutes later:

Speech Graduation Day

 Charlotte has been going to speech for the last five years. She reached her speech goal last week, and she graduated from the program!

We're very proud of Char, but she wouldn't be balancing that hat on her head if it wasn't for all the hard work put in by her speech teachers. Education is a team effort, and Char has had a lot of great people in her corner. Thank you all so much!

Birria Tacos? Yes, Please!

I don't know. Am I early, on time, or late to the birria taco party? I suppose that doesn't matter. I'm just happy I made it at all.

Charlotte went to her aunt's house to play Minecraft and eat dinner yesterday. That gave Daphnne and I a shot at a quick dinner date. We tried Flame the Taqueria: "A small taqueria that focuses on tacos and Mexican Street eats. Quaint dining room and carry out."

Flame the Taqueria recently opened in the spot where Brickhouse Cafe used to be in Johnston. 

We started off with some guacamole, chips, and salsa. The fresh guacamole was a sign of things to come.

Daphne ordered the El Pastor tacos, and I chose the Birria tacos. I hadn't heard of birria tacos, but the menu had me at "aus jus."

My birria tacos, aus jus, and green salsa are in the foreground. The tacos were meaty, gooey with cheese, and I loved dipping them into the aus jus - delicious and comforting. I heard our waitress use the term "Mexican French Dip" while she was talking to other customers, and I think that's a perfect fit. On our short drive home, I said, "Mexican food is the best. Man, I feel so good!" Daphne simply nodded in agreement.

 

Daph already knows that she is going to order the Mango Shrimp tacos next time, but I won't even have to look at the menu. 

They're Back!

I remember walking down the aisle of a Dahl's grocery store and hearing a man with a southern accent exclaim, "You gotta be kiddin' me! They're handing out beer samples! If you drink liquor in a grocery store back home, you get arrested!"

He was standing next to a rolling cart while an employee handed him a small cup half-filled with a craft brew. He looked ecstatic, and he giggled when he accepted the cup. That made me laugh along with him. 

Shopping for groceries can be a chore, and snacking on free chips or popcorn while you're pushing a cart makes the job easier. It is especially fun to round a corner and be suprised by a sampler of your favorite foods. Steak-on-a-toothpick always makes my day.

Grocery store samples bring joy. It's a simple joy, but a joy nonetheless. 

I wasn't surprised  when Covid-19 had put all of the sample carts into storage. The last thing I wanted to do last spring was take off my mask in public and put something in my mouth that had been sitting out in the open. 

Spring 2021 is different. Last Friday Daphne asked Charlotte and me, "Guess what I saw at Hy-Vee today?" She didn't wait for an answer, "Samples! They brought samples back!"

"Seriously? What did you have?" I asked.

"Ice cream!" Daphne smiled at the memory. She wore the same expression as that guy with the accent.

On Saturday I got to try some samples for myself.

Let's see, what do we have here. Hmmm.... we have a sandwich cookie, guacamole and a chip, and half of a chocolate chip cookie. Those are some of my favorite flavors. I better try all of them!

Later I spotted this guy at the back of the store. What's he doing with that indoor grill?

Let's zoom in:

He's making bratwurst-in-a-cup samples? YES, PLEASE! I hustled over and grabbed a cup. I'm pretty sure I giggled as I picked it up. 

We're inching our way back to normal. 

Re-Foaming Speakers

My mom is moving to a smaller apartment, and she no longer wanted her old living room stereo. Mom offered it to me, and so, out of the blue, here comes another stereo post.

I certainly do not need more audio equipment. Our basement is beginning to look like an electronics store. I was interested in the speakers, though. They were produced by Boston Acoustics. At the time, the A70s were lauded for their value and performance.

I was disappointed when I pulled off the speaker grills. The woofers' foam surrounds were crumbling to dust. You can see where my finger poked through the foam near the 2 o'clock position. I barely touched it.

According to the serial number tag, these speakers were purchased 31 years ago. No wonder the foam was falling apart.

I didn't know a lot about speaker construction, and I assumed that these were ruined. I did a search for replacement woofers, and found foam edge repair kits instead. There were quite a few kits on eBay. Maybe I could try fixing the foam surrounds myself. Why not try? 

I did some research, and I believe the foam surround has two jobs to do. One, the foam acts as a support that allows the cone to move out and back the required amount. When the foam goes bad the speaker can perform like a car with bad shock absorbers. Two, the foam surround holds the cone on "center" so the attached voice coil will move freely and won't rub against the magnet. A speaker can "work" without foam surrounds, but the damage from the rubbing will ruin it.

(diagram from https://www.cuidevices.com)

Simplyspeakers.com has a lot of repair videos on YouTube, and they were also running an eBay sale, so I bought a kit from them for $20.

I watched this video several times to learn the process. ----> link

The first step is to remove the old foam from the speaker's frame and cone. You can see the replacement foam on the right.

The next step, gluing the foam suround to the cone, wasn't too difficult. The kit's glue did set up quicker than expected. There wasn't much wiggle time before the glue took hold. 

I was much more worried about the last step - gluing the foam to the metal frame. If I glued the surround in the wrong spot, the voice coil would be forced to rub against the magnet, and I'd have to start again.

I didn't trust myself to find the "sweet spot" by hand, so I used a little science. 

I needed an amp or a receiver, a speaker wire, a RCA to 3.5mm adapter, and a laptop. The idea is to play a low frequency tone that the human ear can't hear through the speaker. The coil will make a rattling sound until it's in the correct position. At that point the speaker will become silent because is it smoothly playing a tone that can't be heard. (Make sure the receiver's balance is turned all the way to the side you are using, and keep all volumes - tone program, laptop, and receiver - on low.)

This is the video that helped me find the "center" for the the cone. -----> link

I used this online tone generator to play the low frequency. I set it at a 50 Hz sine wave. ------> link

I connected the speaker to the receiver and briefly did a "dry run" without any glue. I used a long speaker wire that would allow me to turn the speaker as needed. I discovered that the speaker went silent when I slid the foam towards one side of the frame, so I marked that side with some tape.

I used rolled up paper towels to lift the cone up. I wanted more room to get the nozzle of the glue tube under the flap of foam.

I placed the paper towel rolls through the lower openings in the frame. I avoided the opening with the wires.

I must have been more nervous than I realized because my hand was shaking the glue tube. The speakers are meant to be played with the grills on, so if I would have made a mess it wouldn't have been too obvious...

When the bead of glue circled the frame, I removed the paper towels, held the cone up from underneath with my hand, turned on the tone, and lowered the foam onto the frame. I then edged the foam towards the tape marks. When the speaker went silent, I pressed the foam down into the glue in spots using fingertip pressure. It didn't take long before I could smooth the foam out with my finger, turn off the tone, and then walk away. The glue needs at least an hour to cure. That was it. Job done.

Before:

After:

Yes, I did the other speaker, too.

I tested the A70s with my retro stereo, and they worked! I'm really happy I didn't put these on the curb. I love thrift store stuff, but it was fun fixing something that has a family history. 

Adaptable

Most of my hobbies fall into two categories:

1) Mechanical - bicycles, tools, pinball machines, and the VW Bug.

2) Entertainment - movies, music, video games, and the equipment used to play them.

I tend to jump from one hobby to another. That isn't a big deal unless there has been a long gap between  interests. I can forget how to do something or what I had done previously to solve a problem. That's when the blog is helpful. For example, if the Full House pinball machine is acting up, I can see what I did in 2018 to get it to function properly. 

Today's post is a reminder for myself about the importance of amps. 

I was excited when spotted this Retro Duo Portable at the thrift store. The ability to play NES and SNES games on a portable system is pretty cool.

Everything inside looked new. Even the plastic screen protector hadn't been peeled off.

I noticed the power supply adaptor was missing when I got home. Shoot. Like most stuff, without power this thing was useless.

The manual didn't have any specifications for the missing power adapter. Google wasn't very helpful, but I did find an eBay auction with a picture of the correct power supply. Usually the lable on the plugin will tell you what the volt output is and if the center of the tip should be positive or negative. 

Using that information, I set my universal power adapter to 9 volts and switched the polaritry to center positive. The yellow connection tip fit inside the Retro Duo. 

The charging light lit, and I was in business. Or so I thought. After a while the adapter got hot and the charging light started blinking. Not good.

Upon further inspection, I discover that the power adapter needs to be 9 volts, center positive, and supply at least 750mA. My universal adapter is rated at 300mA. I had ignored the amps. Not smart.

I was worried that I had damaged the Retro Duo. To test it, I checked all of the electrical equipment in the house for a suitable adaptor. I found this old digital picture frame in our storage closet. I bought it second hand years ago to use in my classroom. I have no idea how old it is. The the resolution is now embarrassingly low.

The case indicates that it is the right voltage and polarity.

The adaptor confirms that. It also states that it can deliver 1.5 amps. 

I thought this wouldn't work because 1.5 A is twice as big as 750mA, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't wrong. 

Yes, I was wrong.

I'll think of amps as pounds that need to be lifted. If I max out at 300 pounds, then I'm going to struggle trying to lift 750 pounds. I can try for a while, but I'll burn out and quit (that's why my universal charger got hot). Now reverse that. If I can lift 750 pounds, then moving 300 pounds is going to be easy.

This adapter could work. It was pure luck that the yellow connector tip fit well. 

I took a deep breath, connected the adaptor to the Retro Duo, and plugged the adaptor into a socket. The charging light lit. I babysat the player for a while, and the charger stayed cool. I later test drove Disney's Aladdin SNES and had no problems. 

I was relieved to see that my carelessness didn't break the Retro Duo. I threw away the digital frame, but its power adapter will charge on. Hopefully I'll remember to check the volts and the amps the next time I have a problem like this.

(Obviously, I'm not an electrician. So, my disclaimer is that you can use a different amped adaptor at your own risk.)

Blink and You'll Miss It - Part 11

 Easter 2011 (nine months old)

Easter 2012

Easter 2013

Easter 2014 (Just a little grumpy about going to church.)

Easter 2015 (Pretty happy about going to church.)

Easter 2016

Easter 2017 (It's irresponsible to take a child with a fever to church, but she can still hunt Easter eggs at home.)

Easter 2018 (Hmmmm. That dress looks familiar.)

Easter 2019

Easter 2020 (You don't have to dress up for online church.)

Easter 2021 (Officially too old for the children's sermon.) 

Insert the "time flies" cliché here.

Actually, it isn't a cliché; it's a law.