Dad finally made it to Alaska, on a cruise but at least he's been there. His 80th birthday was day 5 of the cruise.

That amp class was earlier this weekend, two days of heads down fiddling, soldering and debugging a 1950s Tweed Deluxe amp. The cabinet was built but otherwise we started with a bare chassis and added in the physical connectors, knobs, etc...

Then built this primitive double sided trace-free circuit board.

After that passed inspection it got time to get serious about wiring everything together. The instructions were just 'follow the schematic' but really we used this pictogram thing that was even to scale so you could use it to estimate wire lengths.

Long story short, even after having my board looked at at least five times before testing, it failed.

Turned out I used 100K OHM resistors in two places I should have used 100 OHM and then stuck the 100Ks where the 100s went. It's odd since I was verifying all the color codes, and another student did something similar, which makes me think they were mixed up in the box. The first of three was right and that's probably the one I checked and then for the other two I just assumed they were the same thing in the same spot in the box. Guess not.

Trying to de-solder the mess from between those caps was hard enough and there was no way I could get the new ones in since the board was now made of a 'sandwich' of two pieces keeping the back insulated. Instead I had to use the official method of just hacking the crap out of it and soldering the recycled resistors to the 'leg' that was cut off from before. I'm surprised it works and expect it to be the first thing to fail:

The final assembly after hacking those two resistor setups.

And it's done, I now have a hand built by me tube amp.

The woman isn't wrong saying it's ugly, but that's how they looked in 1955 and that's how they're recreated today. They make dozens of different materials to cover the box in but we weren't given a choice for the class. I could get it recovered and may at some point, probably when those hacks fail and I have to take it apart anyway.

At the in-laws place here putting the patio furniture together and I cleaned up the cable box in the laundry room. Now that stupid wifi AP won't fall out every time you open it and the mini PC I'm using to store my backups and stream their TV service from is nicely tucked up out of the way. They won't even know it's there.

The truck got all moldy inside yet again so I pulled everything out, shampooed the carpets and sterilized the seats/dash/etc. There was a lot of moisture in the carpets, must have been from when we were driving it in the rain and it never got a chance to dry out because even if the doors leak it's parked in the carport.

While cleaning the truck I finally got around to ordering the random bits to fix a few small issues. One of the license plate lights was broken (the housing) and it was cheaper to get these LED replacements vs. buying an OEM bulb holder. The LEDs are way too bright, but as you can see they work. I swapped them both since it came in the kit.

Also broken was one of the door lights. Again, the LED units were cheaper than an OEM style filament bulb holder so I went that way again. These are super bright as well, but in this case it's OK.

Came as a two pack again so both sides got upgraded for less than the price of one old school part.

After class on Thursday I stayed behind (and skipped small sword) and did some free sparing with the German guy. We didn't have the shelter and it was trying to rain so we were using foams for class and sparing as to not rust the swords. I mentioned the extra sparing and asked on the discord if anyone else did that. The head of the program scolded me (privately) saying we're not allowed to do that yet and to not ask about it publicly. Others in our class have done the same, wonder if he scolded them as well?

The instructor for my class said that the guild has "Friday Night Fights" where anyone who wants to can just show up and fight. It's supposed to be for the different disciplines to get together and try things against people fighting in different styles.

I did it and while there were no other broadsword guys there it still turned out OK. Some random chick was there (out with an injury but hanging out to be social) and recorded some of the action. Here are three vids, the first two are me against someone more skilled than me (but he's a sword & buckler fighter primarily so the single sword was not his jam) and then the third is his instructor. You can see the instructor is clearly toying with me, but that's better than just crushing me outright.

There was also a German chick who I fought with these funky leather wrapped saber like things that looked like some sort of Star Trek weapon. Different footwork, different attacks and defense... I did not do well and got burnt out quick because I forgot to breathe. Doh.

Noodle died; a very very old chicken. She stopped being able to walk a few days ago but was still alert and eating/drinking if you put the food right next to her. Then one morning, just gone.

On my TO DO list for the last six months was to install this soap dispenser in the laundry room sink. It came with the new kitchen faucet but the woman didn't want it in the kitchen and I didn't want to just toss it so I put it here. Now it will probably sit empty for another six months but whatever, that's not my job.

Odd stove pipe malfunction at the range the other day. Can't say I've seen one like that since the Grendel days.

Dad went in for surgery on Monday, having the arteries in his legs opened up. They were 90losed with plaque which was making it painful when he did anything since the muscles were starved for blood and oxygen. Only minor complications from the surgery and everything should be good to go after a few weeks recovery.

Since H2O didn't have a normal match this month I found the indoor one at On Point and got signed up. It was a pretty simple match, they can't do much with two tiny and one mid sized bays but it was high stress. New location, new rules, new people, etc. Watching the cool kids on the squad run the first stage I was pretty sure I was going to be in the top 1/3 of the field. I felt I could beat everyone on the squad but maybe the really good shooters were on one of the others. Turns out...

Nope, I was the best shooter. The guy in second wasn't in our squad, nor the third, fourth or fifth. Who knew that practice and rounds down range would beat out fancy battle belts and race guns? Oh right, everyone knows that.

Practicing with the amp every day, learning that I like the 'bright' inputs over the 'normal' by a wide margin. Wanted to see what the actual electrical difference is and since I have the schematic...

It's one capacitor change. That's surprisingly simple.

Wow, check out the new image on the Mogotone web site. That's me!

Rotated the tires on the van today, they're way overdue.