Posted by Jerry on June 22nd, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Music
A successful foray into the recording studio – with a number of revisits planned. We accomplished a lot at Tam Lin’s studio in Sydney – some great sounds and a well equipped studio with state of the art mics running through pro gear and a large mixing desk all feeding into a large desktop mac running ProTools – very similar software to Tracktion. With this kind of gear it won’t be long before Full Circle’s debut EP is together and ready for the airwaves.
We played around with some tunes, a couple of songs and a couple of a-capella shantys to show our vocal versatility. At the very least it will be a good demo for festivals and the like. So it was a very productive session. We are booked in again in a couple of weeks time to do some overlays and possibly a couple more songs.
There is of course a great deal of work still to do – recording is just the first step, then there is post-production to get the tonal values right before a final mix down. Then there is the mastering for professional production and the design of album covers etc. But after ten years it is high time we responded to all the calls for a CD. This time it’s actually happening – and it’s a pretty exciting step for us.
More on how this story unfolds later 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on June 21st, 2008 — Posted in Journal, Travel
In Sydney to record some music for an EP I went online and booked a bargain with Wotif.com finding a Waldorf apartment in Woolloomooloo at a good rate – the Woolloomooloo Waters apartments. The room is comfortable and clean and there is secure parking below ground.
It is situated right around the corner from the naval wharf and close to good coffee shops (like the one I’m in with free wifi access for customers). The coffee shop is the Sienna Marina Restaurant and bar at Woolloomooloo. They have good wifi connection (4 bars) just ask the staff for a password. This is one of the undiscovered districts of Sydney and here’s why…
Around the corner is a set of steps with a breathtaking view of the city – which makes it an easy walk to Kings Cross and from there to the main shopping and coffee shop areas.
Some parts like to play down the vibrancy of city living…
I’ll post more on the recording experience soon
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on June 9th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Steam, Technology
The Locomobile steam car at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa is described as “circa 1901”. I have a feeling it might be an early 1902 model. It is chassis number 555 and has the Stanhope type two body with the ogee shaped front, rather than the flat upright dashboard.
The Locomobile was designed and built by the Stanley Brothers from 1899-1904. In 1901 they sold the Locomobile company, and bought it back a year later – making a profit both times. They produced the most successful steam car of its day – around 4000 were built in total, before the Stanley company produced cars under its own name until 1927.
The cars were simple and quite fast for their day, winning several hill-climbs. They could take off with enough acceleration to lift the front wheels and were quite popular as runabouts. But they had quite a short range – 20-30 miles between water stops as they had no condenser to recycle the exhaust steam back into the boiler.
The early ones had a two-cylinder Masson engine, but these were not very reliable, being prone to breakdowns. But this was fixed by late 1901 when FE and FO Stanley designed their own engine.
You can read more about Stanly steam cars at the British Steam Car Club of Great Britain (page two of the locomobile specs gives chassis numbers for the type B and C), as well as at the Stanley Museum in the USA.
The car is currently on display in the the main museum building in Ottawa.
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Posted by Jerry on June 2nd, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Steam, Technology, Travel
Henry Seth Taylor (1833-1887) built Canada’s first self-propelled buggy in Stanstead, Quebec, Canada in 1867. The buggy took seven years to build. The boiler was wood-fired and operated at 60lbs pressure. The four wheeled single seat open carriage had tiller steering and carried the water tank over the front axle.
Here is a view of the engine from the underside
On its second run, inventor and builder Taylor crashed it (he had neglected to install brakes), after which he abandoned automobile production and turned his attention to building a steam yacht. The buggy can be seen today in the Canada Science and Technology museum. Canada’s first car was given recognition in 1993 by being depicted on a Canada Post stamp.
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Posted by Jerry on May 31st, 2008 — Posted in Journal, New media, Writing
I have been part of a writers’ group in the virtual world SecondLife for some time, and last year was asked if I’d like to submit something for the literary journal SLiterary. The deadline was only a few days away, but I had been toying with an idea for a novel for some time and thought I’d try out a sample piece and see what the reaction would be.
That was Part 1 of SLeuth – a kind of detective fiction set partly in SecondLife and partly in the real world. The piece was accepted and I was paid in real money – a bonus in my view – and received very good feedback from the editors – two real-life literary editors.
Later, I was invited to speak in-world as an invited guest at a ‘meet the author’ gathering in SL. There, I got to meet a number of my readers and engaged in really stimulating discussion. But one of the key things that came out was that they wanted to know what happens next. I had kind of thought of this as a one-off to test the waters, but as the deadline fast approached for the second edition, the editors approached me and specifically requested part two, and they would keep the deadline open to give me time to submit it.
In the end they won and I wrote the second part – but it has shown me above all that there is a real appetite for this tale. You can download the journal by clicking on the images below and the pdf will be delivered to your machine. It’s free and gratis as the costs of the journal are met by advertising. So here are the journals with part one and two of SLeuth – let me know what you think… 🙂
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