Category: Interests

Guild 2015 Newark Street S-100 Guitar

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I used to have a reputation on the Lets Talk Guild forum as the guy who hated Guild S-100 guitars. I just never saw the lure, probably because I loved other models so much. When the opportunity arose to score one of the newer Newark Street models for a song, I jumped on it, figuring I could flip it and make a couple bucks profit. Sadly, I wasn’t prepared to be impressed by this guitar.

I bought this guitar used on LTG along with a Newark Street (NS) X-175B, which I will review in another post. I’ve discovered that these import Guilds absolutely crush the competition in the same price range. Let’s see why. (more…)

Guild HB1 Pickups: New vs. Old

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NewHB1
As you may know, I am a huge fan of Guild guitars and especially their vintage HB1 pickups. Guild recently released a new version of the coveted HB1s, so I bought one and decided to see how it compared with a vintage model. As of right now, this comparison is only regarding appearance and size. I’ll report on sound differences later.

Short story: they are almost exactly the same size! Let’s look at the details.  (more…)

Cozy Tales: 39. The Smuggler’s Blues

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In order to further my career as a networking consultant, I was attempting to pursue a certification called the Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE). This advanced test was given in only three locations in North America at the time, one of which was Halifax, Nova Scotia. After months of intense studying, I booked my travel plans and set off to take the eight-hour test in Canada.

I flew into Halifax and after departing the plane went to wait for my bags at the luggage carousel. I always kept my laptop backpack with me, and I had put it on the floor next to me while I stood and waited for the flashing lights and klaxons to announce that our baggage was soon to be delivered.

Bored, I watched the people around me and noticed a dog being trained by someone in a police-type uniform. This happy puppy was running through the baggage claim area with abandon, chasing something being thrown by the uniformed man with a gun. The dog, a golden retriever that looked to be about a year old and full of life, was chasing a small red Kong just like Cozy’s. (more…)

Cozy Tales: 37. 2001

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MeghanSand2-1200
With two small children in the house, our priorities had shifted and the dogs seemed to become part of the backdrop. They were still a major part of our family, but they were no longer the primary focus in our lives. It was almost as if they had previously been the stars of the show but had lost their parts to the pretty new girls.

Looking back at my archive of photos and videos, before Meghan and Colleen most of the pictures were of the dogs. Starting in 2001, when we had two children to care for, very few of the memories recorded focused on the dogs. To anthropomorphize a bit, I’m tempted to think that this made the dogs sad, though I think they embraced their new roles in our growing family with typical Newfy aplomb.  (more…)

Cozy Tales: 36. Colleen

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Colleen-Celtic
March 16, 2001 was a beautiful clear March morning in northern New Jersey, or at least it was once the sun came up. March 16th was a special day, and this is how the events of that special day unfolded to the best of my recollection.

3:00 a.m. Lauren woke up to go to the bathroom. Being very pregnant, this was not unusual, but this time she told me that she thought her water had broken, but she wasn’t really sure. When Meghan was born there was no question when the water broke as it was an event unto itself. Being tired and unsure Lauren went back to bed while thinking that she was having mild contractions. I went back to sleep thankful that nothing was expected of me except more sleep.

5:00 a.m. I got a nudge from Lauren asking, “Where is the stopwatch?” (more…)

Cozy Tales: 35. Meghan Learns to Stand

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MeghanCozyFloor
Babies have no preconceived notions of what they should or shouldn’t use for leverage while learning to stand. Coffee tables, legs, couches, tripods with expensive cameras attached or even the nice furry coats of big dogs are fair game. Meghan learned to stand with help from all of the aforementioned items, but she also pulled herself up with something better: Cozy’s face.

Since Cozy was always around me, she often ended up in the same room as Meghan. On hot days, when Cozy’s tongue would be hanging out of the side of her mouth, Meghan would grab for it, but Cozy would usually slurp it back into her mouth to get it away from those grippy little fingers. Meghan was persistent though, and she really wanted to stand. If the tongue was out of reach, Meghan would try and grab a lip, or perhaps some loose skin around Cozy’s face. Whiskers were also in danger, but grabbing was one thing; it was the pulling that was a problem. (more…)

Cozy Tales: 32. Graviditas Redux

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I remember Lauren calling me at work and inviting me home for some fine lunchtime lovin’. I can vividly remember sitting at my desk at the ISP and getting the call, and I can vividly remember the surprise and wonderment at finally getting said call. You see, Lauren was fond of telling people that pregnancy was a nine month up and nine month down affair, meaning that while it took nine months to grow and deliver a baby, it also took nine months for a woman’s body to return to normal. Here it was eight months post-partum and I felt like I had won the lottery.

I also remember sitting on the couch with Lauren some time later reading an alphabet book to Meghan. We were the picture of family togetherness. Meghan would stare lovingly as I’d turn the page and read the words with happy Daddy abandon. (more…)

Cozy Tales: 30. The Spoon

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MeghanGrandmaSpoon
Lauren was sitting outside on the deck enjoying the summer breeze while Meghan played with the latest high-tech toy: a pot and some wooden spoons. As Meghan happily sat on the deck banging the pot with her spoons, the dogs lay lazily about, content to be with their family on such a fine day. Meghan didn’t seem to care that her drum set wasn’t being advertised non-stop on the TV, nor did she mind that these were last year’s spoons. She was as happy as a kid could be, making noise and having fun.

Young children are naturally very good at some things. Banging pots with a wooden spoon is one of them. Making poopy diapers is another, and let me tell you, when it came to this particular skill, the kid was a pro. Noticing that the pro had scored again, Lauren scooped Meghan up and headed inside to clean her up. The dogs evidently decided that they’d sniffed enough diapers for one day and remained contentedly in the sun. If a loaded diaper wasn’t reason enough to disrupt a snooze of this caliber, nothing was. Or so we thought. (more…)

Cozy Tales: 29. Newf Net

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When we first decided to get a Newfoundland dog, we scoured the bookstores and quickly discovered that there were precious few quality books on the breed. The Internet was just starting to take off and the dot com boom was in full swing so we focused our energies trying to find quality information on-line.  Our Internet searches uncovered an email list called Newf-L which was short for the Newfoundland Mailing List.

An Internet mailing list allowed one person to send email to “the list” by sending to a single email address. The email address was a server which then resent the email to everyone that had subscribed to the list. Forums were still in their infancy, and blogs did not yet exist because this was the still the dark ages of the late 90’s when people used dial-up modems.  Back then, email lists were still a pretty common means of information sharing for on-line communities. (more…)

Cozy Tales: 28. Meghan

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MeghanLookingUp
As the pregnancy developed, Lauren took the idea of eating for two to heart, all the while telling everyone that the idea was a myth. Lauren had naturally researched pregnancy to the extreme, so she knew what she was doing, and we just figured that nature would take its course as it had for millions of years before we got involved.

In Lauren’s ninth month of pregnancy we went in for one of the many ultrasounds to check the baby’s health. Lauren’s OBGyn was very smart, very type-A, and very young. We had long ago nick-named him Doogie after Doogie Howser from the TV show of the same name. Doogie took one look at Lauren and told her that he wanted to induce her. Lauren flat-out refused, insisting that nature should take its course and that nothing should impede the beauty of the process or some damn thing. (more…)