i'm happy for you guys 

A large WOOOHOOO

Best news I've heard all day, and it has been a doozy so far

Great news, Kurtster!

 kurtster wrote: 
.

 kurtster wrote: 





You deh man. 

Here's hoping that the good news keeps rolling your way...and maybe that the radiation changes your mind about Trump.    

Thanks for keeping us posted, kurtster. 

 kurtster wrote: 
Wishing you strength and calmness, resilience and acceptance.

 kurtster wrote: 

 kurtster wrote: 
A true reason for celebration!

via GIPHY

 kurtster wrote: 
Let's kick it in the ass.

 kurtster wrote: 

Top-o-de morning !!
Just got back from downtown and got to hear the words I was looking to hear.  Local, indolent, very, very early (again), could do nothing more if I so desired.  Could do a light weight chemo, Rituxan again or as everyone else has suggested, some very low dose radiation as my type of NHL responds extremely well to it.

It was really good to see my transplant doc again in the new digs at the Mothership.  He put everything into proper perspective and I feel good about where I am in all of this.  Its not gloom and doom, time to get my affairs in order stuff.  Its like I got a zit and we lanced it and we move on.  Do pay close attention to your body cuz it can tell you things if you are in tune with it.  Its pretty amazing all of the advances that have been made in the treatments and options.

So I have decided to give the radiation a shot, even though its one thing I said I would never do.  So with a little nap time, it'll be off to the other hospital to check out the radiation stuff and meet the team this afternoon.

I think that I can now start unwinding all the angst and thoughts that come with your first relapse.  Being in the best of hands, its more like I need to worry about getting hit by a bus more than my cancer.

Its been a scary and interesting past few months and it has helped me to redefine and refocus my priorities.  That will be the gift of this latest experience.  I have been drifting aimlessly wondering about what would happen when it came back.  Now I have been there and done that and can move on and even try and put Chemosabe back up on the shelf.

Thanks ever so much for the thoughts, concerns and prayers.  It has helped me get through this by giving me a place to vent and reflect.

Love you all and this place.

Kurtster, my positive thoughts have been released into the universe. May they find you.

 kurtster wrote: 
Good luck, Kurt! May the gods be with you! 

Big day tomorrow.  4.30 wake up.  7 AM down at the Mothership to hear what my transplant onc has to say about my future.  Then at 1.30 PM to another system hospital cross town to meet with the new radiation onc and see what he wants to do.  Its also trash day, maybe, cuz of the holiday and big laundry day.  We have both been sicker than we have been in a long time battling an upper respiratory thing.  The TV was off from Saturday until yesterday evening to watch the Tribe get beat 1-0 by SD.  Hopefully, we'll both have enough energy to get it all done.
 
P had to stop taking her anti depressant cuz of an interaction with the antibiotic so its been real fun, not.  
We're both thoroughly whupped already just thinking about tomorrow.

And so it goes ...

thanks       

 kurtster wrote:
 nice one Kurt.

4 July, 2017

The End Game

Over 17 years ago I found this place.  The music brought me here.  The people keep me here.  Long, long ago I wrote about this place like being a virtual Atlantis.  One of the most diverse group of people imaginable with one common interest.  Music.  The talents, knowledge and skills you all have have proved to be what I needed to end up doing what I always wanted to do.  That is getting the most out of my music since making mixtapes has been a hobby for over 45 years.  I’ve never been satisfied with the quality of my rips over the years, falling victim to the there must be a better way with better stuff. 

Being a young and dumb and pretty broke 20 something y/o budding audiophile, I got lucky and figured out the better the source the less it matter what played it.  I have since then put all my hard earned dough into the TT / cartridge end first.  I took as good of care of my records as I could basically using them for tape masters so they were basically once or twice played.  At least I’ve done one thing right in my life and its finally making all the effort the reward.

10 years ago in February I took a leap of faith and traveled to Portland to meet my first RPeep, hippie, who I found was doing what I wanted to do and based upon a remark about what I noticed about what he did to a song got him to say how would you like to learn how to do this ?  He got me started and headed in the right direction and with a follow up visit a year or so later, got straightened out on what I was doing wrong and what I was doing right.  He kept challenging me and pushing to get the best out of me.  Since that time I’ve had the immense pleasure of meeting many more of y’all.

Ripping vinyl has always been the goal, but I had to work with CD’s and crappy mp3’s from …  You all have been most kind in enduring my growing pains and I finally did manage to come up with a sound that was pretty good.  I’ve learned that less is more because I pushed things to the limits.  I have redone about a dozen or so key songs over and over again each time I figured out something new.

Then I got this shit called cancer.  We all know the back story.  So with the clock ticking, it was time to define how I would spend my time and energy in my remaining years.  Two years ago I decided to finally go all in to ripping.  I have known that the one thing holding me back was a record cleaning machine.  I’ve wanted one since I first learned about them reading Audiophile back in the 90’s.  It was the only way to get rid of as many pops and ticks without having a very sophisticated music studio.  But with 10 years of practicing with several studios, I can do that, too.  Long story short, I’ll put the long story over in my quiet vinyl thread, I put it all together, including finally deciding on a new preamp since my original one was dying.  We had nirvana for a short couple of months.  Over at discogs, I started a ripping vinyl forum group and have been comparing notes with people who are hobbyists.  So we got into the tonearm damping thing and how much of an affect it has on things.  It was only $15 and for another $34 they had a half pound record weight.  It has turned out to be the final tweak.  Its so impressive that I have figured out that I have to re rip all my stuff all over again.

But I don’t want to keep it to myself.  I don’t want to work so hard and be the only one that gets the smiles.  I don’t want this stuff to disappear into a dumpster when I’m gone.  We know where this headed, so no need to discuss the obvious.  If you like what you hear, there is a way to subscribe so I don’t have to draw attention to this by posting every time there is something new.  No more songs, just sides.  This will be my only reference to any of this in this thread and it will have a shelf life.

So I’ve put up some sides that I have done before many times and many of you have been patiently indulging them despite their lacking.  Grab these and delete the others.  DSOTM, BF, DG, JG and a mystery album I don’t dare identify.  You’ll have to figure it out yourself.  I have done nothing to these other than take out noise, clicks, pops and crackle and level volumes manually, by pencil tool and mouse.  No remastering, no adding.  There are some clicks in the mystery album I just left there because they don’t really bother me much since I’m used to listening to vinyl again.  What I am hearing is what I have been trying to accomplish when I tried to remaster CD’s to sound like vinyl.  When vinyl is good, its sofa king good.  Its all about who did the mastering of the source, not the medium, so much.

This is what I plan to do with the remaining time I have on this planet and leave something behind that lasts longer than I do.  Its how I want to say thank you for everything this place and people are.  For DSOTM, I strongly recommend pouring a brandy and or rolling a doob and sitting with your eyes closed in a dark room.  It sounded brand new again to me after all these years.  A candle is ok if you're afraid of the dark.  The JG side you can actually understand most of the words Joe sings.  I swear Cobain had Joe as a model for his singing style ...  Or you may find what this stuff sounds like is not to your liking and that's ok too.  Music is one of the most subjective things there is in life.  I'm still gonna keep doing it regardless, cuz it works for me and keeps me busy.

 

CLICKY

 My playground of upcoming attractions.  List keeps growing.  Not everything will be good enough to make the cut.  I will consider requests ...  You can play around with the list by clicking on the column headers.

 y'all

 

 

 

I don't come to RP often, but when I do, I check out this thread.  Glad your marrow test was clean.