Some More Skiing & Yohanans 25Feb21-27Feb21

I got some more ski days while in Summit. I skied at Keysone a couple of days and I stopped at Breck a couple of times since my last outing there didn't have the best terrain open. Despite it being a bit thin still, I lapped Wonderland off of Pk 6 and dropped into Horseshoe and Imperial Bowls - I hit those same spots with Jim and Mitchell Yohanan too on Saturday. Kala & Mary skied cross country at Gold Run. Jim and Mary came up for Saturday & night to visit. We had a fine meal from Jim who used his sous vide bath for great steak and scallops. Oddly I got no pics during the visit. We reviewed some tunes on the NestT and Jim & I tried some new hazies from Station 26 and Cerebral - both were very good but I'm impressed with Cerebral IPAs; they are becoming one of my favored Colorado breweries. Plus what can be bad with a brew named Destruct Sequence.

 

 

Building The Rodfather All Blacks [SB2021 Is drc #7] 18Feb21

Holy guacamole, this thing is awesome. Casts great in the snow.

I already have two single handed "5 weights" in the Sage Z-Axis (awesome all around & dry fly rod) and Sage X (ultra fast nymphing canon), and I used to own a Sage One too, yet I am compelled to build a SageBuster 5 weight. My SageBuster 2020, aka Rodfather Cutty, is spectacular but it is "just" a very fast 9' ERN 4.5 - it crushes on the Ark, Blue and So Platte. Even bigger water and bigger fish should be attacked however. Enter the Rodfather All Blacks, my SageBuster for 2021, a single handed 10' 4pc ERN 5.5  & AA 71° based on the awesome New Zealand CTS Affinity X blank in gloss jet black... the name is deferential to the champion New Zealand rugby team of the same name as well as the keen all black buildout I rendered. The custom Rodfather YAGGI handle (previously profiled) was made from spare parts, but is a stunner diamond mix of predominantly burnt cork - beauty is especially noticed when paired to it's mated 3" custom fighting butt. I chose all black components including a REC anodized black up-locking reel seat with a dark died, turned & stabilized wooden insert. For guide hardware I am trialing the new REC nickel-titanium guides in black pearl - this is a flexible, durable, and lightweight guide in a new alloy which needn't be plated to obtain it's black color and incredible weather resistance. The hand chosen guide set, tiptop and stripping guides were not cheap @ over ~$4 each or more, but the effect, and hopefully performance, will yield many happy returns. I wrapped the rod more simply than all most recent builds - just black thread throughout. Remind me next time that black on black is a visibility challenge. This thing disappears like a ghost, despite my 80 ft casts ~ I'm just hawlin' in hogs on the sides of rivers and no one is aware I'm even there.

 

The Rodfather All Blacks is labeled as others but with some shorthand... RF AB SB21 means Rodfather All Blacks SageBuster 2021 and E 5.8 A 71° means Effective Rod # is 5.8 wt measured and its action is very fast as its Action Angle is measure as 71°. I also simplified fish measurement marks on the AB by marking  every 2" (from 18") on top of the rod with a small dot. The guides are wrapped in black thread and the stripper is black. I added a new, unique Ni-Ti 2nd stripping guide given the 10' length. The rod wrapped out well in black thread on the jet black blank.

The evidence is that not only is the RF AB ghostly cool in all black hardware and buildout, but its performance is stunning & flexible and certainly worthy of SageBuster labeling. It casts very well over distance (at least in the snow), roll casts like a dream, is light and balanced to the hand with a non-fatiguing swing weight. I'm mating the All Blacks with a 5oz black Hardy CADD 4000 reel, which I really like and use with the Sage X as well - it's always loaded with SA Amplitude Infinity 5 weight. This line is ~1/2 weight heavy at 150 grains (1st 30 ft) and therefore mates perfectly (Intrinsic Power = 10*(1st 30ft in grains) + 60*AFTMA# = 10*150 +60*5 = 1800 grains) to the All Blacks with an ERN of 1780 grains. Actually the Sage One should be firing a 7 weight given it's stiffness (ERN of 7.3) so the line matches the All Blacks better. The SB21 has taken its due spot in the rod rack as my go to 5 weight... no one will notice me, and I like it that way.

I've updated the rod physics chart for the latest additions to the quiver. The "go to" Rodfather custom rods are not very inflated as to Intrinsic Power - I like that. Commercial rods like the Orvis Helios and Sage X are much stiffer than their marketed weights suggest; my recent TFO BVK derived build is this way too - all could handle lines 1 or 1.5 weights higher than marked (in order to optimize performance).

Building Rodfather Rainbow [drc #6 - TFO BVK 4pc ERN 7.3 AA 66°] 14Feb21

This cool rod features a custom "Diamond Mind" full wells grip with a fixed mixed cork burl & rubber 1" fighting butt and a down-locking REC pewter finished reel seat with a keen California buckeye burl wooden insert on a TFO BVK 9' 6wt blank. The premium emerald green gloss BVK rod is outfitted with Snake brand black nickel guides throughout, wrapped with electric green thread for some pop. Sure it's a stunner, but how's performance? This "six" weight throws more like a 7 with tip flex action; balance is maintained well with the down mounted reel seat. Starting with the totally custom Diamond Mind full wells 7" grip: a complex assembly of diamonds and partial ring cuts make this handle totally unique in the world. The matched guides and accenting wraps jump off the dark emerald blank like dark sea foam. When it comes to catching big rainbows and cutbows, be it Czech nymphing, long line nymping, streamers, or with dry flies, this multi-purpose weapon is the ticket to catch, and land, big prey.

 

The Rodfather Rainbow casts much better than I expected loaded with SA 6.5wt line. I got some monster practice casts laid out (but messed up a couple of times too with 40 ft in the air). I mated it to an Orvis Mirage Big Game III (5-7) in gold to match the gold markings on the TFO BVK blank - it looks awesome and balances out perfectly with the down-locking seat. I need to find time in the field when I'd choose this weapon over the other Rodfather builds... I now have custom builds in 2 wt thru 6 wt and two specialty rods: a two handed micro-spey and a Euro-nymphing rig. They all store perfectly in the Crusher Too rig though 3-4-5 are those standing ready in the rod vault. I'm looking forward to the new season.

Kala & I Are Modernafied 11Feb21

Barely human ~ we now have modified cell structures. Today we both received the first shot of Moderna's Covid 19 vaccine! Peggy & Kala collaborated to find a pharmacy opening for 65+ year olds and we went to Fountain and tested King Sooper's systems as patient 2 & 3. Not a bad experience and we have a "reservation" for the 2nd shot in mid-March.

Update 11Mar21-18Mar21 ~ back into the hood for shot #2 from Scott Mess. We felt shitty for 26hrs but then fine - now at mid-Mar we are immune!

Update 28Oct21 ~ Kala & I got our Moderna booster shot for the elderly. Not a great day afterward on the head and injection site, but we are back online now.

In With The New & Out With The Old ~ Spa Cover That Is 09Feb21

We've been having to buy a new spa cover every 2-3 years and at $700 each that seems ridiculous. Our spa in Summit is in direct south facing sun so perhaps not surprising. I'd repaired the vinyl already a number of times but still one of the foam containers became swollen and heavy with water... it could freeze solid and break off like my original one did. So, I went on the hunt for alternatives and there are very few actually - designs are mostly foam wrapped by vinyl. But, a young award-winning Denver company did have a radical alternative. A cover who's covering is Sunbrella marine fabric and who's core is a hollow air-frame like construction with heating LEDs and fans installed. The LEDs are for melting snow (auto-sensed) and the fans are for drawing solar from the cover top and heating the spa! Plus the whole thing is solar powered. Modern Spa Covers took quite some time completing my fabrication during the pandemic but it just arrived via freight and I just installed it (though the solar is still pending). I got the job done fairly quickly and now it's time to see if if truly works. My math at 2.5X the cost of a regular cover is that I'm hoping the Sunbrella fabric lasts a lot longer and that the heating and snow-melting are efficiency boosters for me. Images go from new to old basically with the controller and thermocouple shown in the middle pics. I can walk on the cover as it employs two 1/4" layers of plexiglass as a top. Pretty cool if it all works.

UPDATE 02May21 - Solar Is Up

With decent weather in Summit I installed a new thermo sensor on the spa and installed a solar drive for the "Sun Catcher" features on our new cover. We get snowmelt in cold and heating assist in sunshine. We'll see... I need to set the internal heater to ~100° and then see if solar can heat it the last 4°. The photovoltaic drives the fans onborad the spa cover so no power is used.

DRC's Audiophile Systems 02Feb21

I am a mid-range audiophile. I don't like to pay a ton - but I really like to have my music sound better and more realistic than anyone I know personally. I've been this way since college. Come show me; invite me. I depend on digital sources and long ago sold (somewhat ignorantly) my vinyl and turntables and I don't want to lose the incredible convenience that digital sources offer. Some appreciate what I have done, very few would even go as far as I have. I've assembled, sometimes even designed and built, five strong stereo, 2.1 or 5.1 audio systems. Here they are from sweetest to oldest, with as many "design" choices as I think are relevant.

Nest Theater - The sweetest, most recent, and most customized system is the Nest Theater, or NestT. This is a high efficiency 2.1 audio system featuring custom designed and built back loaded horns somewhat derived from the D37 cabinet design and employing  the fine Japanese Fostex 168es 6.5" full range drivers. The high efficiency full range horns are complimented by a musical 600 watt HSU ULS 15-Mk II subwoofer and a pair of high efficiency Russian Viawave SRT-7 ribbon super tweeters to hit the lowest lows and the highest highs. I'm driving the DRC horns with a custom hand-built 8 watt 300B single-ended-triode integrated amp (all tubes - power/rectifier/pre-amp); I'm delivering stereo line level to the sub and driving the super-tweeters from a "European" NAD D3045 hybrid amp. Behind that is a sweet liquid sounding Chinese Denafrips Pontus discrete ladder (R2R) D/A connected via AES. After sourcing bit-perfect from a PC modded for timing and media via a Topping 10S,  I have a mini-DSP DDRC 22D signal processor which uses DIRAC measurement and correction to yield a keen and balanced stream to the DAC. I source mostly FLAC or DSD files from a Win 10 PC running JRiver Media Center - this is a great library and bit-perfect source but alternatively I can use YouTube on the Roku as a source - again corrected via DIRAC. I've dampened the room reflections acoustically with rugs and augmented the audio with a keen 77" Sony XBR-A9G monitor - excellent virtual concerts this past year. This system is the best I've done and is my reference... though it's location directly below our master bedroom sometimes keeps Kala awake.

Blodgett Schiit - The 2nd best system in the quiver is my headphone gear in Colo Spgs. This setup, most often featuring closed headphones, does not suffer the incursions into folks' personal space that the NestT does. My preferred drivers are the awesome Mr Speakers EtherC Flow planar magnetic over ear headphones with balanced cabling. Alternatively, when dynamic driver sounds are warranted, I am stocked with Sennheiser 600HD dynamic open back headphones for this system, also with balanced cabling to the amp. Driving the cans is a hybrid Schiit Mjolinar 2 tube amp. I've evaluated many driver tubes and my favorites are all early 1960s: the Amperex "Holland D Getter" E88CC (fun) and the Telefunken E88CC (clean). The good news is that I can blow my mind either way - Apple would adjust my cum dB consumed down to protect me I assume. Again I selected a multi-bit design (vs delta-sigma) DAC... to me they sound more organic (at least when the resistance ladder is very accurate). Matching the amp in the Schitt line is the Gungnir MB version. Notable is that I've balanced the system all the way from digital stereo sources to my ears - meaning each channel is driven directly from source to ears via separate  circuits (except for any initial signal processing). We come to the cans from 4 wire XLR connectors and cabling and prior through the amp, via XLR interconnects between amp & DAC, and then back from that, fiber or USB digital stereo sources inbound to the DAC from the mac or PC. The source, mostly flac, material is again from JRiver MC25 as bit-perfect streams. For my headphone system corrections for abnormalities (non-flat frequency response curves) are applied by Sonarworks directly in the mac/PC via digital signal processing. I used this because I can't do the measurements on headphones myself - I send my headphones to Lithuania for measurement and they send me correction curves! This is definitely my reference headset and Kala sleeps soundly.

Mobile Nirvana - I futzed with identifying portable audiophile quality for many years as a frequent business flyer. There are much more expensive systems than mine. There are much more esoteric earbuds than mine; I've owned & sold some. There are wireless setups even I use, but never to achieve desired, or say required, frequency range and dynamics - they are for convenience - biking or skiing or auto. You can't get them anymore but my earbud transducers are Japanese Sony ex1000 dynamic buds - ok, call 'em IEMs if you want. Yeah, as mentioned, I've owned Shure and other tech, including multiple drivers per ear but one keen 16mm driver driven balanced from a good amp is the best for listening to music on the go IMO. It took a while to score some PureSound balanced cabling for the Sonys, but I did, and my player has a balanced out port via a 2.5mm 4 pole jack. I need a great integrated player for mobile hifi, not "just" an iPhone ~ though I sure have tried that source and it is excellent when backed by a keen amp. I prefer a high def, high rez player which pumps out WAV, PCM, FLAC, DSD and really anything I chose, and which organizes material in a keen library as quickly as I load my tracks; I have 2 x.5TB cards onboard, so plenty. It's nice they give me a good UI & nav and some appropriate artist images as I use it. I chose the universally cool Onkyo DP-X1 Android-based hifi player with Onkyo music player app. This integrated 150mw <1%THD watt headamp, 24-bit/192KHz DAC, and music player is awesome. I don't use any measurements or DSP on the IEMs beyond the "tone controls.

Nest Woo7y - My 2nd tube headphone setup purchased was based on 2nd gen Audeze open planar magnetics and a Woo Audio Fireflies hybrid tube amp/dac. So good... I found a 2nd home for this headphone setup in Summit Co when my main rig went to Schiit. Sure I've sold a number of uber-sounding can systems prior but I chose to move and upgrade this one... initially I used a brick transformer but replaced it with a matching tube power amp; it's smoother now. I also sent the main unit to Woo Audio and updated the DAC and USB to a better circuit. So my Audeze LCD-2 open planar magnetic headphones are wired to the amps that support balanced cables using a set from Amplifier Surgery - the WA7 is unbalanced only though so I most often used the stock cable. I do have a keen dynamic alternative as well in Summit in the AKG 702s. Source material is from JRiver MC25 from local or streamed remote FLAC files, or YouTube from the mac.

Blodgett Theater - Finally, in the audiophile realm (as I do have other systems in other rooms, but they can't compare sonically), we enjoy the Paradigm Reference setup when listening & watching in Colo Spgs. The entire 5.1 setup employs Paradigm Reference speakers, including a bass reflex center channel with 3 drivers, LFE via a 18" sub with its own 1200 watt amp, 2 bass reflex mains with 4 drivers each (same driver compliment as center) and 2 surrounds with 2 drivers each (I didn't get the sides in the picture below). The system throws a great soundfield, perhaps a smidge light on the highest end, and stellar low frequency effects from movies. I'm driving the system from an awesome electronics kit from Integra Research (highest end Onkyo) with the spectacular RDA 7.1 (7x150w transistor power amp) and the clever RDC 7.1 pre-amp/controller. I bi-amped the main towers, using 4 rather than 2 channels of the amp - why waste some amps. Music and movies comes from a tiny Lenovo nettop running JRiver MC25, or Roku, or the BluRay player, an Ingegra BDS 50.3. The theater monitor is a 65" Pioneer plasma.

These are my HiFi systems. Wherever I go I can be surrounded with gr8 music or movies. Of course selection in tunes has something to do with enjoyment and appreciation of the gear - but that's part a matter of taste, and mine is impeccable, and part discern for the original production quality as well as the stored format & quality. I've tried most innovations as to format and processing and always come back to flac and dsf files and modest processing.

Bro Brown's Guys' Ski Week 29Jan21-07Feb21

Brother Brown is hosting his annual "Guts Ski Trip" this week - "always" precedes the superbowl. I made some new friends and reacquainted with some old ones. At his Lodge this week are Richard Hubbs, of course, and his 4th kid, Conor, Steve's brother Brad, and Conor's oldest brother Kyle, as well as Steve & Richard's old classmate from HS, Scott. All great guys willing to debate, ski hard, and enjoy some brews at our mountain town breweries. Scott is an exhibit fabricator (working now at Denver Center for Arts) and an absolute demon on the boards. I chased him on multiple days and could never keep up, despite his throwing daffies and helicopters down the steep bump runs. Conor is an "old" friend in that he was responsible for getting Steve & me home on Golden Ticket day at ORB; yeah, he racked my head but whatev. He recently graduated with 4 national championships from defensive line play for NDSU; yeah, big dude. Richard is a old friend too, who recently scored my old Thunderbird Formula runabout from Phoenix; we should be able to water ski on Little Bear Lk in Minneapolis now! I've skied with Brad in years past and knowing he has to put up with our older big bro, I sympathize. Joining too for some runs is my good friend Yoho, a wise adventure partner. We began the preliminaries at Keystone with little new snow but a great day - this was before Jim, Brad and Scott arrived.

Da Boyz skied Breck without the best terrain open on Saturday. I bagged out awaiting a kid sighting. No sighting and no pic. After some overnight accumulation and Yoho's arrival we ventured to Beaver Creek. We were clearly the scruffiest of all patrons that day but enjoyed some better snow on the edges - unfortunately Grouse Mtn was still closed.

Of course we stopped at ORB for a round of IPAs (Hubbs had stout of course). We scammed a smidge and served a couple from the can - Sendy is taaasty. Here too are Scott & Steve - yes there is a size difference, and a bit of skiing skill delta but they both use the same moose hair gel.

On Sunday we really found some stashes at Vail and had a gr8 day. Unfortunately Yoho bunged his leg a bit and felt the pain on occasion. I skied quite a few runs with the A team and got my ass kicked. Spectacular views of the Gore Range, Mt Of The Holy Cross, and Scott's and Dennis's (Scott's prosthetics specialist friend who joined from Denver for the day) asses. We hit the venerable Vail Brewing Company on the return; sure, Jim got the cool shirt.

I tested the range of Crusher Too and limped around the Frisco exit on the way back. It goes 355 mi on a tank - I was surely thinking: 1) it's downhill all the way from Vail Pass and 2) 20 years of engine tech will surely get me more mileage than the Crusher (with same 24 gal tank). Nope - EPA & Toyota conspired to strand me. Scott and the boys saved me though with an antifreeze bottle and a ride to gas. Sheesh. Jim and I "trained" for much of the evening, after a nice steak dinner, by previewing many of the songs up for Grammy awards on the Nest Theater... good times with some new finds and a divided house as to winners.

Tuesday Kala and I headed back to COS for the day as we needed to complete some tasks & errands. Some of the boys skinned up & skied down Loveland area for some backcountry fun - I'm unsure Brad was completely impressed. Looks like a road boys. Tomorrow they are headed to Cooper for an alt outing. We'll be back soon.

We regrouped all the "guts" on Thu @ Keystone after a nice 11" snowfall. I met Kyle and his friend Steve. We had gr8 snow and skied all over the Outback in pretty deep snow and among pretty fun trees - we all made new lines on occasion. It was cold and snowy much of the day but the beard-ski guys were always warm.

We switched reservations from Breck to Keystone and while Bro Steve kept it from me I ultimately discovered their attempt to duck me. We changed due to the forecast for high winds. Good thing, they materialized - it was cold and began to get windy as I left. The Lost Boys became that, as I'm always Discovered, so no group pic. The snow was refreshed and good again especially in the Outback where we skied Badger, Bushwhacker, and the trees off Oh Bob and the main drag hard (see how I am trying to use names, but lost it at the end). Another fine day with the "guts."

I was fortunate to host the "guts" for some appetizers, Manhattans, and tunes on the NestT. Scott, Brad, Steve and Richard stopped in for happy hour, and to continue their "training." While I ignorantly didn't capture the team we do have a subset. That night we took in a good SNL featuring Phoebe Bridgers, a fav of mine, as the musical guest. She sang Kyoto and I Know The End and wildly smashed, channeling Pete Townsend I guess, her Danelectro over a monitor (yeah, the monitor was fake)... I liked that baritone tuned open G but she must have had issues with it or it's genesis or something, or just wanted to emblem "The End."

UPDATE - Phoebe's work on SNL was reposted on her own feed - it must've been negotiated in advance. Here are the two songs: Kyoto and I Know The End.

As Steve & I helped each other tote some heavy stuff from deliveries (spa cover and new doors), before we depart Summit, new-neck Richard hung back. Yet I noticed and commented on his new facial look with a Fu and goat patch - he didn't get the whole Coffin Van Dyke look.