Wes’s Ramblings

Currently siiting in stellar seats enjoying a fantastic concert.

Flanders is hammered

Test

Well, last night we stayed in Van Damme State Park.  You think with a name like that it’d kick some round house ass.  Well, it turned out to be the poorest excuse for a shithole I’ve ever stayed at. But, because of this fact we didnt spend the night around the fire filling my belly with hangover which was a nice change.

The morning started out like most California coast mornings do, foggy and dreary. Fortunately we were riding one of the best sections of the Pacific Coast Hiway today. Shortly after getting going we managed to find a bit of sun and the road was mostly free of traffic. What little traffic there was was quickly dispatched of with 2nd gear and a bunch of right wrist. Caught up to a 1200GS with street tires along a section of road and was very impressed with how fast he was going. Held me up quite a bit but I was happy to slow down for a while.

The day was very short and we ended up in San Francisco by 11:30 at the hotel. Had a pint on the patio and generally took it easy and enjoyed life on Fisherman’s wharf. Very good Day

Here’s a boring video:

Get the Flash Player to see this player. Wesley J

Day 4 way undescribable. By far the best day of riding I’ve had so far. We rode from Oregon to northern ish California. We took the 101 along the coast and a detour that took us out onto the coast. The road wasnt too far from being single lane and it was rough as hell. GG seemed a bit overwhelmed initially but picked it up and rode like a champ. By far the best motorcycle road I’ve been on except for the roughness.

The temps went from the high 50’s to the mid 90’s. Wow.

I filled an entire video tape on that road. Awesome!

Wesley J

Well, day 3 was northern Oregon to southern Oregon. It was a pretty short day (400 kms) which was really nice as we were in the campground by 3 pm. As you can see below, it was beautiful. We got set up and proceeded to drink beer and wine and then had a campfire on the beach. The road wasnt great but the company was stellar!

Wesley J

Day 2 was travelling from you ‘da ho over to the Oregon coast. The weather again was perfect.

We rode was one of the most fantastic roads I’ve ever, well, rode. I plan to put a link to it but its just outside of Lewisville or Clarkston (real fucking original names guys)… Anyway, it was rediculous and there’s one photo below of a few curves.

Oh ya, GG and I got pulled over by the county mounty for speeding. Just a bit though. We were clocked doing 93 miles per hour in a 60 zone…. Yes Mom, I know… Anyway, we were passing 3 cars in a row and he clocked us at close to our max speed. Anyway, GG and I managed to talk ourselves out of a ticket and proceeded to take it easy for a few miles afterwards.

Here are a few pics:

Wesley J

Short and sweet. Day 1 was Calgary to Heyburn State Park in Idaho. Great spot. GG got lost as hell. I rode a bunch of 4×4 road. Good thing I’m riding a triple sport bike (sport/touring/off road)….

Here are the pics, more details later, maybe…

For the past few years I’ve really been jonesing for an acoustically transparent screen.  The idea is that its gives much more of a theatre feel when the speakers are hidden from view and the sound comes from directly behind the screen, just like in a real theatre.  There are other benefits such as using 3 identical speakers so that as sounds move across the screen they do so seamlessly as all the speakers are identical and at the same level.  Also, the location of the sound is much more natural.  The drawbacks are potentially dim image because light is lost as it passes through the screen just as the sound does.  Another potential drawback is sound that is “muffled” as it passes through the screen material.

Well, I have to say that the screen fabric I’m using provides outstanding picture quality as well as audio quality.  The source of the screen material is SeymourAV, here’s the linkage:  SeymourAV.com

As you can see from the photos below, I tore out my existing screen and rebuilt the screen wall to house my 3 Mackie HR824 active studio monitors as well as my Mirage BPS400 subwoofer.  I can’t rave enough about the HR824’s.  They provide a level of dynamics and accuracy I’ve never heard in a passive speaker.  Yes, they can be a bit analytical but at the end of the day I’m trying to reproduce the source material accurately.  Tubes and passive speakers need not apply (listen up Gary and Alun ).   Anyway, I successfully set up the Audyssey MultiEQ (8 position RTA) on my Onkyo 705 as well as getting it applied to the DTS MA and Dolby TrueHD output from my Sony 350 BD player.  All I can say is that I’ve never experienced this level of audio reproduction in a theatre.  Truly spectacular.

Also, during the start of my construction I had to move my Electrohome 8500 CRT projector back about a foot for the new screen.  Well, lets just say I let the magic smoke out of the PJ and there’s no putting it back.  So, I ended buying myself a flashlight.  A BenQ W5000 DLP projector to be exact.  More on that later but I’m very pleasantly surprised at the quality.  Big upgrade from my non-LC CRT projector and one of the first flashlights I’ve seen that are significantly brighter than an 8 or 9″ CRT.

 Anyway, enough rambling, here are a few pics:

Wesley J

A couple of weeks ago Kris and I rode up to Jasper and back to Calgary. We also tried our damnedest to drink the town dry… I think.

Here are the pics:

Wesley J