Fibermania

Dave has a hobby!

For 27 years I have tried to find something for him to occupy himself with during the winter months indoors. Being an outdoor sort of guy, he was very involved with baseball and motorcycles, but when it came to the cold weather, he was indoors and miserable. Even now with his fancy car, he doesn't want to take it outside if it might get salt or mud on it.

So he sits all day at the computer, which until recently I didn't recognize it to be the Godsend that it is. He is not frittering away the hours just surfing the web....

He's RESEARCHING!

And it is related to shopping, so I am totally getting it now. Of course Ebay is involved, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. He found his car this way, so there are car sites, camera sites, audio sites etc etc etc.

The researching part is what really stimulates his shopping and for this he has endless patience. I love a bargain as you well know but I am a pushover compared to Dave. He will comparison shop and bid on things until they are practically giving them away.

Recently he has been into stereo equipment. Boxes arrive almost daily and he says things like "I got this tape deck (don't even say it) and 150 brand new (really old) tapes for $25 plus shipping". He hooks them up and revels in the sound, blasting me out of the house. Then an hour later he finds some distortion or lack of resonance and announces he needs different speakers.

Or a better amplifier or a sub woofer. And now it is surround sound, the new must have. Whatever makes you happy honey. The other day he found some Sony speakers on Ebay (for $15 the pair) and the seller was here in Cary so he picked them up before 9am and played all day with them. He mentioned that the same seller had two more just the same, and perhaps he might get them too.

Back to me and my needs: You know that I hate cables and cords and my studio surfaces are a jumble of those very things, grrr. I get the idea that maybe those other speakers could be mounted on the wall in my studio and perhaps the cords could be hidden behind a hanging quilt, like this:

I merely mention this idea to Dave and the very next morning he is armed with a drill and screwdriver and an amp from the TV room and zoom I have the stereo installation of my dreams!! I am over the moon!! The sound from these speakers is deep and round and full and just fills the space without echo or distortion. This is aided by the size of the room and the fact that my pin up wall is pinned with sound absorbing fabrics (aka finished work).

Look...NO VISIBLE CORDS!!

(not counting the phone cord)

The amp is positioned on the shelf in the laundry room on the other side of the door from my studio. The shelf has been there for years, never really doing anything functional, since it is above the washer and dryer and one has to stand on a stepstool to reach anything.

It is the perfect spot to set up for my stereo however. It is a multifunctional system that has enough power to draw in perfect FM reception which is really the icing on the cake. More than I had hopes of getting from this deal.

Isn't this so perfect? My MP3 player which now has my entire library of music in its memory is at my fingertips on this (hokey-stolen-from-the-shower) hanger shelf, and should I want to listen to a book on cd, my portable cd player is right at hand too. Both have connections that are fed with only these two cables. No battery rundown, since one of the cables is the power source and the other is the connection to the amp and the speakers.

I am so happy I could squeak!

Of course this means the TV room is short one amplifier, and my current system doesn't have a sub woofer... yet...Don't worry, Dave is right on it!