o_bunny: (Default)
THIS is amazing customer service.

You probably already know about Heidi's and my problems with scented products. I discovered on my last trip to Lee Valley tools here in Ottawa that there had been scented products installed in the store.

I emailed Robin Lee about this, and well, the story is below...

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: David O'Heare 
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:33 PM
>> To: Lee, Robin
>> Subject: A gripe
>>
>> Hi Rob.
>>
>> I was in your Ottawa store a couple of days ago, and noticed a new
>> addition to the order desks, an addition that causes me physical pain.
>>
>> I'm talking about the Purell dispensers.
>>
>> It doesn't matter whether the stuff works or not; that's not the issue.
>> The heavy fragrance that they add to the sanitizer causes me blinding
>> headaches. 
>> My wife's reaction is different -- she gets stupid, and clumsy, and
>> then has diarrhea. A large percentage of our friends (more than half) report
>> similar problems.
>>
>> There are unscented hand sanitizers out there, Rob. If there's a need
>> for a hand sanitizer in your store, please use an unscented variety. (Though
>> I personally don't think that little pencils and public keyboards are
>> dangerous disease vectors :-)
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Dave O'Heare
>>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Lee, Robin" 
> To: "David O'Heare" 
> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:44 PM
> Subject: RE: A gripe
> 
> 
>> Hi Dave -
>>
>> I'll pass that one on - I can't stand scented stuff either... I hadn't
>> seen that change yet!
>>
>> Cheers -
>>
>> Rob
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
> From: David O'Heare  
> Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 5:38 PM
> To: Lee, Robin
> Subject: Re: A gripe
> 
> Rob:
> 
> Thanks very much.  We really appreciate it.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Dave O'Heare
> 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lee, Robin" 
To: "David O'Heare" 
Sent: Friday, February 23, 2007 10:07 AM
Subject: RE: A gripe

 Hi David - 
 
 Purell is toast.... :)
 
 Cheers - 
 
 Rob

So, polite but definite complaints can have the desired effect.

If you were wondering, I have corresponded with Robin in the past. He's a very smart guy, and he's driven.

o_bunny: (Default)
David Battison, who was Iain Phillips' housemate, helpmate, and mate in general, died in his sleep on Sunday night (December 10, 2006). More information as it becomes available.

David was a good friend, and a terrific human being.

o_bunny: (Default)
Okay, I *know* that I can't win. My chances are small, and getting smaller very quickly. However, I will try.

This OhGizmo! post should explain it all. And, being the gadget freak that I am, I have to go for it.
o_bunny: (Default)
This started as a Usenet posting in alt.guitar.amps. After the first three on the list had been mentioned, I started to type names as they came to me. This is an expansion on the names I came up with in that I'm adding more information, not more names.

These are folks who are known as guitar players, as opposed to people who happen to play guitar. My opinions only, o'course, but that's why, for example, Stompin' Tom Connors isn't on this list. I'm also not including bass guitar or steel guitar, as these are whole other kettles of fish.

Sheesh, lookit all them names. I'm sure I'm missing some folks that should be on there, and I'm sure that some folks will disagree with my choices of people as guitarists. Cool! That's what the comments are for. And that's why I called this Part the First; there are TONS more terrific guitarists out there that I either didn't think of off the bat, or that aren't likely to be known by other than a pretty small group of well-educated people.

More on this soon, I expect.

o_bunny: (Default)
Yesterday's occupation was the memorial service for Rohahes Iain Phillips. I had surprisingly little to do with this event, in comparison with other events and with other people at this one.

Mostly I carried things, and made sure that some folks got fed and that other folks got where they were supposed to, and didn't panic. I did play one piece with Heidi. In comparison, she dealt with a lot of the music, played a number of different instruments, sang, made biscuits, made lists, and didn't swear at the people who were being difficult. Well, person. Hardly at all.

In all it went well. I was pleasantly surprised to see some folks that I hadn't expected (one of my cousins (who was there mostly to support me (which I hugely appreciate), for example), and many other folks that I hadn't known knew Iain). I've given up on being surprised at the people that knew him.

I want to thank all the folks that had anything to do with the service. I know that you might not feel like you did very much, but just knowing that you were there and that we could count on you made a whole bunch of folks calmer. Yes, this is directed at the folk who phoned to offer help, those who showed up, those who did things, those who offered to do things and I never got back to, those who did things that I didn't notice, and those who couldn't make it.

Thank you.


I just reread the stuff above, and realized that some of it doesn't make sense. I don't care.

o_bunny: (Default)
Whee!

As of Tuesday, I start a contract as a technical writer with a company called Data Kinetics. A fairly small company, they've been around for around 25 years.

I'll be doing documentation for a new version of their software, and possibly some other things. Interestingly, the software is quite specific, running on mainframe computers.

So, I'm madly reading about JCL, and Sysplex, and MVS. And wondering what I'm needing to know.

Ah well, we'll see. At least I'm getting a feel for the flavour of the systems.

o_bunny: (Default)
A game.
o_bunny: (Default)
After I dropped my sweetie off at work this morning, I stopped today at the local corner store/laundromat to buy milk. It's five blocks from home.

Somebody there was using something awful as a detergent or fabric softener or something, and triggered a dandy migraine.

By the time I got into the house, I was shaking and crying, my vision had gone funny, my coordination was shot, and it felt like someone was trying to drill through my skull with a corrosive chemical. From the inside. And dumping the partially used excess corrosive chemical into my stomach.

I took my standard cocktail of medication (antihistamine/decongestant, vitamin C, Excedrin Migraine) and went to bed. 9 hours later, I regained consciousness.

Geez, I hate this.

o_bunny: (Default)
...involved an interview for a contract position. Went well, I think, but no details yet; I don't want to jinx it.

Got back to the car afterward to find a voice message on the cell phone from one of the headhunters that have been trying to find me a contract (let's be honest, they're trying to find themselves a commission, but anyway...). Called him back, told him sure, go ahead and submit my name, and by the way, what happened on that earlier contract you were trying for?

The earlier contract was apparently on hold. The company wasn't going to do anything with it until sometime later in the year.

The day progressed, as days do. I taught my Monday morning guitar student in the afternoon, seeing as how I had that interview in the morning. (She's doing well, too; of course, she practices, which is a big part of getting better, but I digress.)

I arrived home afterward to find that the most wonderful woman in the world had:

  1. made tea
  2. taken a phone message for me
The phone message was from the above-mentioned headhunter, stating that I had been set up with an interview on Thursday morning. And yes, it's with the company that had put their contract on hold.

I don't understand. I really don't...

By the way, what's the HTML code for an ellipsis?

o_bunny: (Default)
A good friend of mine, a fellow I've known for (umm...) something over twenty-five years, is in a spot of trouble. He's going through what he refers to as The Year From Hell, and there's good reason for him to say that. I've talked about him before .

To help alleviate the side effects of the antidepressant he was on, he ended up with another medication. Not that uncommon. However, he did not cut out alcohol.

Apparently on Thursday he was arrested for Impaired Driving. He said "Did you know they take your shoes when they put you into the cell?" Reminded me a little of "Alice's Restaurant".

I don't know the details. I don't know if he was breathalyzed (yes, it's a good word, I just made it up), damaged, in a collision, or what. I do know that alcohol and antidepressant meds interact in bizarre ways; I tried to tell him that, don't know if he listened.

And I'm torn. On the one hand, he's a very good friend, going through very hard times; I can't not support him. On the other hand, I've said more than once that I figure drunk drivers ought to be suspended from rusty barbed wire by their genitals and spun; I've told *him* that, in those words.

Thoughts?

o_bunny: (Default)
I did sound at the Ottawa Folk Festival on the weekend.

I just got word that one of the performers that I worked with on Saturday, Kirk McGeachy of Orealis, died Sunday of a heart attack.

I'm quite thoroughly weirded out.
o_bunny: (Default)
This has somehow gotten to be a fairly long posting. Ah well, perhaps someone will find it useful; maybe some famous music blog or magazine will offer me a job after reading it.

Maybe they'll offer me a pony, too...

Brightness

Today, The Armstrong and I went out in search of enlightenment. We achieved that.

Breakfast

Obviously, a celebration was in order, so off we sped (well, lumbered) to Studebaker's, a local diner, in a positive sense of the word diner. Bacon and two scrambled for me, jumbo hot dog and fries for him, and fine conversation. There's something about vinyl and chrome that begets discussions of all sorts of things.

Battery-Powered Guitar Amps

The food led to our ongoing discussion of battery-powered guitar amplifiers. The Armstrong has an interest in these for a few reasons:

  • they're portable
  • they're fairly low cost
  • they're not very loud
all of which are valid points for his uses, mostly as mild sound reinforcement at small gigs or to hear himself over the sound of a couple of dozen fiddles and accordions at Irish music sessions.

I'm interested because I'm an unabashed guitar gear geek. As well, it would be useful to have something that might amplify my baritone guitar at acoustic music practices without having to haul my large amp along.

So we paused at my place to pick up the baritone, and at his soon-to not-be place to pick up his guitar (an older Taylor guitar, named, of course, Liz.

We tried out four amps:

My thoughts on them:

Fender Amp-Can

This one sounded the best to me, except that it rattled really badly. The rattle seemed to come from the control panel mounting, and I wasn't about to start rebuilding a brand-new amp in a possibly vain attempt to fix what appears to be a manufacturing problem. It was the most expensive of the lot, selling for about $230 Cdn.

It has two inputs, labeled Guitar and Mic/Line, each with a separate volume and tone control; the Guitar input also has a distortion on/off switch. It has an internal rechargeable battery that the manual says will last 4 to 6 hours.

Roland Micro-Cube

This was the smallest and lightest of them all. It was also lowest volume, which really put it out of the running for our purposes. It sounded good, had a large variety of effects built in (reverb, chorus, various amplifier type simulations).

The manufacturer says it can run for up to 20 hours on 6 AA alkaline batteries, not included; it does come with a wall-wart adapter. It sells for about $160 Cdn.

Traynor TVM-10

Kind of industrial chic with its textured black finish and black metal grille, it was the biggest and heaviest of the bunch. This was my favorite for the baritone guitar, it reproduced the low frequencies best. I found it a little noisy, with a constant low-level hiss, but the sound quality was very clear.

It has no built-in effects, but does have a 4-band EQ. Its built-in battery is supposed to be good for up to 8 hours playing time. It's also the least expensive, at $130 Cdn.

Vox DA5

This wee beastie was definitely coolest looking, with a green vinyl covering and black speaker grille. For regular guitar, it was my favorite of the bunch as well. Good sounding effects, and very quiet operation.

It uses an included adapter, or it can run on 6 C-cell batteries, not included. The manufacturer doesn't suggest how long the batteries last, but at a stated consumption of 390 mA, I think you should be able to get around 12 or so hours from a set of alkalines (not included). It sells for $155 Cdn.

The Conclusions

Neither of us bought anything today. My opinion is that the Vox might be best for the sorts of things that The Armstrong does, while the Traynor would suit my needs best. The Fender was a nice sounding amp plagued by a mechanical problem, and the Roland would sound great as a bedroom practice amp (you can get absolutely screaming rock sounds out of it, just not very loud).

There are other amps in the general arena that we didn't investigate. Alesis, Crate, and Pignose all have contenders, while AER makes a battery-powered amp that is apparently stunning, but sells for around $1350 US.

o_bunny: (Default)
This past weekend, my sweetie and I worked the Ottawa Folk Festival. Officially, I worked, she hung out. In fact, though, she worked as hard as any of the crew.

I hauled myself out of bed WAY early to get my stuff together for the day. The company that supplies the sound equipment, Wall Sound, is very good, so I wasn't too worried about the gear; what I needed were the other essentials of a sound guy's life.

  • Sharpies, in a couple of different colours (black for writing on most things, and silver for writing on black things)
  • chocolate chip granola bars
  • a large thermal mug of caffeinated hot beverage tea
  • Leatherman tool
  • cheap duct tape, black, for taping electrical connections together to make them more nearly waterproof, and for handing to people who ask for tape
  • gaffer tape: 2-inch black for sticking things together that shouldn't be damaged by the sticking process, and 3/4-inch white for labeling things
  • outlet tester
  • cable tester
  • flashlight
  • CDs to play while doing changeovers between shows; curiously The Bothy Band's CD generated the most "Who is this?" questions
  • drinks and food to keep us going through the day (yes, the festival organizers are supposed to supply food for the various folks that work there; we both have allergies* that make this difficult to rely on, and we were far enough away from the main area that I think we got forgotten about)
*me - citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, grapefruit, etc., etc.), tomatoes, strawberries, cranberries; Heidi - sugar, soy
We managed to assemble our stuff and get to the festival site before the appointed meeting hour (did you know that there are two 8:30s on Saturdays?). We hung out, I ate a doughnut, met the rest of the staff (I had two stagehands (Jill McGrath and Dylan Lidbetter) and a stage manager (Sonny Ochs, sister of the late songwriter Phil Ochs) as well as Heidi's help.

We headed out to our stage to set up. The mixing board, speakers, microphones, etc., were brought over in a van. We unloaded them, set up speakers on stands, ran cables, begged for chairs and a table to set up on, and were ready to go by the time the performers were arriving for the first show at 11:00.

Things went quite well. The weather was warm and sunny, the performers were having a good time, heck, everybody was having a good time. The only major glitch was an unfortunate electrical unplugging in the midst of things; we lost sound completely for about 20 seconds or so.

And people were great. There were no divas among the performers, everybody on the crew worked hard and worked well together, the shows started and ended on time, couldn't ask for better. There were a few moments of confusion, mostly from getting the same information at the small side stage as was needed for the main stage. One performer didn't need the electric keyboard that was brought out, another didn't need the guitar amplifier that was on the list. Minor details, not problems.

One performer, Mike Evin, brought "Beatrice" with him. Beatrice is a 64-key small upright piano. Uh, okay.... That went fine, too.

Sunday, it rained. We got a tent to protect the sound gear (electricity and water mix far too well), taped up the electrical connections, and the show went on. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who came out anyway; rain jackets and umbrellas, and away we went. The speakers were under the stage tent to keep them from getting soaked; unfortunately this meant that the sound wasn't quite as good as Saturday. Because the speakers were so much closer to the microphones, there was more possibility of feedback. To avoid that, I had to turn some frequencies down. The sound wasn't bad, just not quite as clear and high fidelity as it had been the day before.

There was everything from fiddle players and guitar players to a tabla player to a dub mixer. The tabla player and the dub mixer were with different acts on the same show, that was neat.

So, why am I sore? Tromping over uneven ground in steel-toed work boots, lifting and carrying gear, laying out and coiling up hundreds of feet of cable, and I suspect general tenseness from having to pay attention to so much stuff all at once.

But dang, it was worth it.

o_bunny: (Default)
This coming weekend, at least for Saturday and Sunday, I'll be at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

I'm the sound guy at the Rogers stage, which is only running daytime on Saturday and Sunday. Come on by if you're there. I'm not likely to be much company, honestly (I get so focused on the sound and the music that everything else kinda fades away), but a friendly face is always a good thing.

o_bunny: (Default)
A variety of things today.

The friend who was having the problems with the meds is substantially better. He's not shaking nearly as badly, he's not puking, and he's able to get up and move around. We went and picked up his mother's car from the shop (his mother is in BC visiting a friend), then off to the grocery store with him for crackers and cranberry juice. Seems like he's going to survive.

The friend with the marital difficulties is looking for a place to stay/live. So, if anybody knows of a spot for a musical scholastic type, please let me know.

And the friend with the clutch problems has them sorted out, but ran into computer problems. I'm somehow not terribly surprised...

o_bunny: (Default)
One friend of mine is having the Year From Hell. He's lost his contract job because of political maneuvering (he didn't get along well with one co-worker, who was also his boss's girlfriend), spent some time unemployed, his wife of some twenty years left him, he got another contract and wasn't renewed because they needed his desk space for somebody else, and his older brother died. (Not necessarily in that order.)

Not surprisingly, he's gone into a major depression. He knows it, he's been diagnosed as depressed by two different psychiatrists, and he's having a great deal of trouble getting help for it. The psychiatrists are unable to fit him into their schedule for therapy (but they are willing to prescribe meds for him). He was resisting meds, because the one that he was tried on a while back had nasty side effects (hallucinations, electric shock feeling, uncontrolled movements of his arms and legs).

As of a couple of hours ago, he was lying in bed twitching, in between bouts of vomiting and dry heaves, apparently side effects of the (different) anti-depressant that he's been prescribed by his GP. He started this medication yesterday.

He's been self-medicating with alcohol for a while, and I suspect that he's accepted the meds in an attempt to get rid of the drinking problem. I've explained that these side effects are usually short-term, and they go away about the time that the effect of the drug really becomes noticeable. I've also made myself available for calls/visits/whatever, whenever.


Now, on top of this, a different friend's life is being changed because his wife (of about fifteen years) has decided that she no longer wishes to be married; at least, that's the way I see it. I'm doing the armchair quarterback therapist thing here too, 'cause the way I'm wired up, it's something I have to do if I can.

And another friend of mine is doing a complicated multimedia sound and light thing at a local tavern tomorrow night. Fairly well-known band, lots of publicity because it's a benefit for something or other. And he blew the clutch in his truck on his way to my place to pick up some microphones and stuff that he was going to use as backup for his gear.


It sorta makes being merely depressed and unemployed seem like a good thing.

o_bunny: (Default)
For those who are interested, I got an email this evening from one of the editors at the Globe and Mail, telling me that the obit for Iain would be running in tomorrow's paper.
o_bunny: (Default)
I'm doing this to get connected to Technorati. I'm not sure quite why I want to do this, but I'm doing it...

Technorati Profile

o_bunny: (Default)
As the title says (like we don't already have lots and lots of instruments already).

Heidi and I today spent some time at the Ottawa Folklore Center setting up an order for a new Moeck Great Bass recorder.


This is significant because the order is in my name. Heidi is plagued by a Bad Special Order Fairy; when she tries to order in something to a store, the order goes wrong through no fault of hers.


F'rinstance, she ordered a Yamaha tenor recorder a while back. Well, the shipping place took a while to get the order together. Then they shipped it to the wrong place. Then, after they figured out the right place to ship it to, the order was *stolen* from the courier company. *THEN* the shop tried to get another one, and Yamaha didn't have any more in North America.


And don't even ask about trying to get sheet music...


Anyhow, the order has been started, and we shall see what happens.

Thanks!

Aug. 1st, 2006 05:35 pm
o_bunny: (Default)
So I now know that my words are not simply being scattered unfettered to the breezes...

And for the politically-minded US residents who use the Internet, go watch this
Page generated Jul. 11th, 2025 11:16 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios