Joiner's Musings

Last night I thought today, the second Monday of December, would be what we call a "storm day". Storm days occur when the weather is terrible and essentially means that we will get a prodigious amount of the white stuff usually in the area of 20-25 centimeters. The driving is treacherous and some roads are virtually impassable. Yep, there's car under there  To give you an idea here is a storm we had last year. You can see that quite a bit of snow fell. The roads in the area were undriveable. A storm day means a nice relaxing day at home and for many a paid day off. It also means shoveling the stuff. Although he roads are eventually plowed you still have to get your vehicles to the road and that means many hours of lifting and shoveling. that's how deep is was  The first two snow days in the snowy weather are exciting because you have an unexpected days off, but through the winter season they start to wear thin and it means whatever work at the office that ...

Snow shoeing in the back yard As we transition into the winter months in Canada there are a few things I am really not looking forward to; bad driving conditions, snow shoveling, and that housebound feeling when it is too cold to go anywhere. I certainly look forward to the coming together of the family and friends for the Christmas season. I look forward snow shoeing and winter photography and leisurely walks on sunny days though in our winter we don't get a lot of sunny days, unfortunately. I know that come January I will be wishing I were some place else, like the Caribbean or our summer cottage in Quebec. Paradisus Rio de Or To stave off the effects of seasonal affective disorder we have decided to break the winter doldrums with a trip to Cuba. This will be our 7th trip and our third stay at the Paradisus Rio de Oro located in the Holguin province. With the change of government in the United States it looks like America will sadly reverse its normalization process w...

Okay, so I am back. My last post was the celebration of 40,000 page views. Thanks to you, the internet viewer, that number has risen substantially. Well, it was a great summer spent at our family retreat in Quebec. It was our longest stay yet at over twelve plus weeks. The weather was perfect. Not much rain and plenty of hot, sunny summer days punctuated by the odd bit of rain. On our way back we visited the Sagueneay region of Quebec. Talk about a must see area. We first stopped at Saint Ann de Beaupre where we toured the famous religious site. Saint Ann de Beaupre Main altar Next we paid a little visit to Baie St. Paul while on our way the Saguenay region. Baie St Paul is a pretty little town obviously geared towards tourism as there are plenty of shops. On the day we visited there was not much activity since early September is just off the peak season. Main Street Baie St. Paul We stayed at a small B&B in Saint Simeon, Quebec. A quaint little B&B. Though...

It's climbing steadily. I never thought this blog would climb to 40,000 views despite the fact that I have not been posting as much lately. Thank you readers for coming to my site and thank you for those that keep coming back. I intend to post more often once summer is over. Again thanks and 40,000 kisses to you all. Ron

Dynaco SCA-80Q Integrated amplifier Restoring my Dynaco SCA 80Q integrated amplifier to it's original state has been a interesting project though some would argue that the changes might even be beyond the original state and yes, it is a better integrated amp in every way. Capacitors added After replacing the C9 and C11 caps as well as the speaker caps I still experienced distortion in the left channel. What to do? The only boards I did not touch were the pre-amp and amp boards and it turns out that the problem was with the amp board, left channel. Since this was beyond my level of expertise I took it in to a professional shop. The shop found the problem almost immediately. The charge was $100 but worth it. The sound is wonderful. So far I have put about $225 into this amp. Was it worth it? Unequivocally, yes. Why? It restores the amp to better than original condition and guarantees its life for an additional 10-20+ years. There are some other things I can do and that ...

In the next few weeks you will see fewer posts as I am spending some quality time with friends and family at our summer get-away in central Canada. While in that area I intend to make my third visit to the  Canadian Clock Museum in Deep River, Ontario . It is always exciting to see the newly added pieces to the museum collection and to chat with it's knowledgeable curator. See my clock blog for more information about this excellent museum Regular readers have no doubt observed that my usual practice in the past year is to post at least one article per week in an effort to keep readers interested and of course help me, the writer, offer the kind of content that appeals to a broad spectrum of readers.  If you have a comment on any of my posts please feel free to leave one though it may take some additional time for me to respond, so, a little patience would be appreciated. In September I will resume my weekly posting sched...

If you have an interest in collecting and repairing antique and vintage clocks may I suggest you go to my blog that is dedicated exclusively to clocks. Some time ago I decided to concentrate on my clock hobby by writing about them in a separate blog. You will still find clock posts on this blog though they are not as detailed and thorough as they are on my other blog. For more in-depth analysis of the various aspects of horology may I suggest you visit https://ronaldjoiner.wordpress.com/