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Well, I will have 2 available tickets to see Rush in Boston on 23 June. Once they actually arrive here I'll ask again here before throwing them on StubHub. Please wait until I have them in hand before inquiring.

Now to start the passport process for daughter.

I know Bostonians can be a little different, but since when is it a foreign country?

just brew it! wrote:

I know Bostonians can be a little different, but since when is it a foreign country?

Was able to grab tickets for Montreal on 21 June. Much shorter drive (90 miles) and no need for hotel. However, one does need passport/passport card/enhanced drivers license to not spend hours trying to get back into the US.

Captain Ned wrote:

Was able to grab tickets for Montreal on 21 June. Much shorter drive (90 miles) and no need for hotel. However, one does need passport/passport card/enhanced drivers license to not spend hours trying to get back into the US.

I must have looked at it on the map thousands of times, yet it never occurred to me how close Montreal is to the border. That was kindof an awkward moment.

The Egg wrote:

I must have looked at it on the map thousands of times, yet it never occurred to me how close Montreal is to the border. That was kindof an awkward moment.

Vermonters, especially those in the Greater Burlington area, have long looked at Montreal as a nice & close party destination. Border crossings were so much easier back in the 1980s, though.

696 Rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest was a very popular destination back then.

Argh. About to start the build, but discover that new mobo has no eSATA ports and I have no USB 3.0 drive dock, nor do I have an eSATA backplate dongle. The amount of data needed to be moved around is inconceivable under USB 2.0. So, we wait again until the eSATA/SATA cable arrives and I can route it out through an empty slot cover.

Or just lay the drive(s) in the bottom of the case temporarily...

just brew it! wrote:

Or just lay the drive(s) in the bottom of the case temporarily...

Thought about that, but since ongoing backup will be through an existing eSATA dock, this seemed the better path. Besides, there's already 4 HDD in the bottom cage in the P182. When I'm done it'll be one 3.5 and an SSD velcroed somewhere. It's the 4-into-1 data reduction that's the squishy bit calling for the dock.

Captain Ned wrote:

Argh. About to start the build, but discover that new mobo has no eSATA ports and I have no USB 3.0 drive dock, nor do I have an eSATA backplate dongle. The amount of data needed to be moved around is inconceivable under USB 2.0. So, we wait again until the eSATA/SATA cable arrives and I can route it out through an empty slot cover.

You can still do the build, update the BIOS, and run Memtest though.

The Egg wrote:

You can still do the build, update the BIOS, and run Memtest though.

But the data I need to meet certain expectations in certain arenas needs to move to the new HGST 4TB drive in the new build soonest (yes, OS/proggys on a 512GB SSD). Besides, this build is going in my current case, using my current HSF and PSU, so it's something that sorta needs to go smoothly and quickly and with all potentially fiddly bits on hand at the start. Yes, I've got a lappy to pull drivers should it be necessary, but I was hoping for a quick build and dropping the old XP drive in a dock to grab Firefox/Thunderbird profiles/data and the like.

Am I finding reasons to stall? That would be a big 10-4, Bandit.

As marketing e-mails go, this has to be one of the odder ones I've received from a legit business. I just got an e-mail from my credit card company that says "Some things just go together. Thanks for sticking with us for 6 great years." Accompanied by a picture of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. No promos or offers, just the e-mail.

WTF.

I guess some marketing exec got bored and/or was trying to justify their existence...

Outside of PBJ being inherently sticky, I am as befuddled as you.

They probably have some research that suggests that contacting customers to remind them that you know they exist helps you retain X % more of them.

Furthermore, this effect can be completely undermined by even the slightest whiff of "creepiness" or "selling" and therefore harmless & absurd humor is the best method.

---

And if this research doesn't exist, it does now, and you can contact me for consulting work via pm. I'm starting started a business.

Glorious wrote:

Furthermore, this effect can be completely undermined by even the slightest whiff of "creepiness" or "selling" and therefore harmless & absurd humor is the best method.

It can also be undermined by the "oh, great... another piece of junk e-mail" effect.

Buildings & Grounds is moving desks around. From the language alone it's clearly a union job.

Captain Ned wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

If you have the serial number may be we can all toast a cold one in memory of it?

Part No: 1391401
ID No: 5249625
Date: 24AUG89

I'd thought this keyboard to be dead back in April of 2007 (page 230). Last week I spilled into its replacement, which then went wonky. I had kept the old 2007 casualty and for S&G I shut down and plugged it in (NEVER hot-swap PS/2). Lo and behold the near 8 years of chillin' on the spares rack fixed whatever was wrong with it, as I'm typing on it now. Keys have a slightly lighter action than the 05DEC91 board that is now in the spares rack. Seems like the way to fix a Model M is to ignore it for a few years.

I probably tossed a good 3-4 working model M's back in the 90's. They were loud and clicky, which seemed uncouth to me at the time.

The Egg wrote:

I probably tossed a good 3-4 working model M's back in the 90's. They were loud and clicky, which seemed uncouth to me at the time.

Blasphemy!

(Though these days I do tend to prefer Cherry blues with o-rings...)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... t-i5rbx9wy

Sad to see it but it's been coming for decades. Looks like Rat Shack is done and fiddly bit purchases now go to Digi-Key.

No Fry's near you, I assume?

Other burning questions/issues/trivia:

Will my Radio Shack soldering irons become collectors' items now? I've recapped numerous motherboards and video cards with them, so they continue to be useful in the new millenium! Also used one of them to repair the power plug on a tire inflator pump just a couple of weeks ago.

In a similar vein, it is possible (though rather unlikely) that I still have a '70s era Radio Shack "battery club" card in a box of crap somewhere in the crawlspace. Wonder if that's worth anything as a collectible?

Will Sprint taking over their retail spaces to turn them into cell phone stores help or hurt Sprint? (I tend to think hurt...)

I really don't get the rumor that Amazon may be acquiring the stores that Sprint doesn't grab. That makes absolutely zero sense to me.

I remember going to Radio Shack with my dad when I was little, to get replacement vacuum tubes for our TV.

The last couple of things I bought at Radio Shack (within the past 2-3 years) were line-out to cassette adapters to allow use of portable music players in the car. Replacements for old adapters that died. All of the vehicles we own are old enough that they don't have aux in jacks, and the cassette adapters that Radio Shack sells actually have very good audio fidelity compared to all of the alternatives I've tried (cassette adapters from other vendors, and FM transmitters).

just brew it! wrote:

No Fry's near you, I assume?

Only if Downers Grove, IL or Fishers, IN are "near" Vermont. I'll take my luck with the MicroCenter in suburban Cleveland on my way to/fro BBQ. It's not even a full mile out of my way.

Downers Grove. There's something that sticks in my head about them and is a full-on R&P topic about some Amendment II based ordinance they passed/tried to pass once. Bueller??

just brew it! wrote:

I remember going to Radio Shack with my dad when I was little, to get replacement vacuum tubes for our TV.

Oh, the days when coming across a tube tester machine in store X (could be clothing, could be hardware, could have been anything back then) was not an uncommon experience.

While I won't soon give power amp duties over to the fire bottles (remind me to check tonight's PowerBall numbers in case I might like to revisit that statement) I can see the small-signal side of things heading to the tube world, especially given my musical tastes.

Captain Ned wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

No Fry's near you, I assume?

Only if Downers Grove, IL or Fishers, IN are "near" Vermont. I'll take my luck with the MicroCenter in suburban Cleveland on my way to/fro BBQ. It's not even a full mile out of my way.

Downers Grove. There's something that sticks in my head about them and is a full-on R&P topic about some Amendment II based ordinance they passed/tried to pass once. Bueller??

MicroCenter doesn't have any of the low-level DIY stuff. They're decent if you're looking for a B&M Newegg-type place, but you can't get soldering/test equipment or discrete capacitors/LEDs/resistors (the stuff Radio Shack used to specialize in back in the day) there. The first couple of aisles at the Downers Grove Fry's are kind of like being in a Radio Shack store back before they lost their way. The rest of it could be best described as a mash-up of MicroCenter and Best Buy.

Don't remember anything about the DG Amendment II thing. All I know is we moved to get out of their school district before our son hit middle school!

My first college roommate was from Downers Grove. He was like a lot of college freshmen (myself included) in that he thought he already knew everything about his major. Only difference is, I'm pretty sure he actually did.

just brew it! wrote:

MicroCenter doesn't have any of the low-level DIY stuff. They're decent if you're looking for a B&M Newegg-type place, but you can't get soldering/test equipment or discrete capacitors/LEDs/resistors (the stuff Radio Shack used to specialize in back in the day) there. The first couple of aisles at the Downers Grove Fry's are kind of like being in a Radio Shack store back before they lost their way. The rest of it could be best described as a mash-up of MicroCenter and Best Buy.

Actually, next time you're in MicroCenter, head over to the west wall near all the game console stuff. They converted one of the corners to a bunch of old-looking DIY electronic boards and chips. I didn't look close enough to see if they had single standalone components like switches and capacitors (I'll do that next time), but it's possible they had a few. I doubt it's enough of a selection to be meaningful, but I thought it was interesting that they're beginning to make a small attempt.

Though Radio Shack has been gone in Canada for some time (replaced by "The Source By CIrcuit City" - a name that actually outlived Circuit City itself, though now it's just The Source) sad to see them go - my grandfather owned one (with kind of an extra focus on computer hardware) in a small community in eastern Ontario and that's where I built my first rig with his help, so got a lot of memories attached to the brand.

As one who remembers going to Rat Shack to replace the resistor/capacitor/transistor that up and disappeared during the Heathkit build (some alternate universe is well-stocked with fundamental fiddly bits) I will miss them.

I love the smell of solder in the morning. Might explain my obvious brain damage.

Captain Ned wrote:

I love the smell of solder in the morning. Might explain my obvious brain damage.

Ahh, yes... the fine aroma of molten lead and rosin flux!

Oh, never mind me. I'll just be in the shed out back with the chickens and ducks building a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO from scratch.

http://vimeo.com/118564546

Captain Ned wrote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-04/radioshack-said-to-be-filing-for-bankruptcy-as-soon-as-tonight-i5rbx9wy

Sad to see it but it's been coming for decades. Looks like Rat Shack is done and fiddly bit purchases now go to Digi-Key.

CNN money had one too. Sad story. My dad loved buying parts and building circuits from Radio Shack.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/05/news/co ... ck-stores/