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Talk about a different way to end a day at work. I walk out of the building at 2:45 - and find an empty parking space where I left my car! Seems that some slimeball snatched my car! (a 2000 Honda Civic SI).
Called the police, called Emma for a ride home, called my Insurance company ... went home and made some more calls - then Emma took me to get a rental car until this settles down a bit. Its a bit early but - Merry Christmas ... ?
Last year Emma gave me an iPod for Christmas - its been great for trips and such, but I have a collection of 300+ albums that I don't listen to much anymore. I recently saw an ad for a gadget that I hoped would make my older music more accessible. Last Tuesday it arrived. After all the turkey and family time, I took a little time for myself and cleared my desktop - and hooked up my new Griffin iMic. Its a small adapter about the size of a York Peppermint with a short USB cable on one end, and a 1/8 headphone jack at the other (they even provide the stereo Y cable for a turntable)
Once I had the turntable setup (adjust tracking and antiskating), I started the Final Vinyl application that was provided with the iMic. Flip the switch from Mic to Line, in the software turn on the EQ and set the Gain to 20db. It was actually pretty easy (tho I could have used more lighting on my desk). I ran through a song or two to get the onscreen gain control slider set right., then record the song. I saved the files as AIFF - a 5 min rock song is about 50 megs - drag into iTunes, then "convert to AAC" and the resulting file is around 4-5 megs. Then delete the aiff from iTunes. I usually put "from LP" into the notes section of iTunes, and lookup the cover art (Amazon).
Its not perfect and I'm not going to load all of my old albums into my iTunes library, - there are a few pops and crackles, although I could open up a visual editor window and clean them up & trim the songs a bit tighter, if Ireally wanted to take the time and hand edit the songfiles further, but for a very quick dump from vinyl to MP3/AAC, it really worked well.
One of the results of Emma's ordination last year is that she is asked to come preach at various MCC churches around the area. She had been invited to preach at the MCC in Roanoke, so we drove out Route 66, got on I-81 and headed south. Its 240m miles one-way, but our 2000 Civic Si does great on the highway, so a bit over 3 hours later, we pulled into town.
MCC of the Blue Ridge (MCCBR) was holding church in a store front facility until a local Methodist church went on the market and though a bold plan and a lot of "god's blessings", they found themselves the owner of this glorious old church building.
The pastor and her partner were very welcoming to us - in fact the whole congregation was wonderful! After the service we were invited to a huge pot-luck supper of scrumptious foods and wonderful conversation. We had a great time and really enjoyed the weekend in one of the more awesome churches in MCC Region 3. I couldn't resist sharing a few pictures showing the old wood and gorgeous stained glass windows of this church.
Link to website: MCC of the Blue Ridge
More images MCC of the Blue Ridge, Roanoke VA (click them to enlarge)
