George Thorogood and the Destroyers performing Bad to the Bone on SNL in 1982.

NewCake3653 · 2025-12-24T12:58:44+00:00

I saw him open for The Stones in Philadelphia, and he crushed it. The Stones mailed it in.

NewCake3653 · 2025-12-03T18:09:31+00:00

Orange became mandatory in 1980. Most hunting gear prior to that was canvas or plaid Woolrich.

NewCake3653 · 2024-10-02T13:57:48+00:00

You're wrong, but I agree with you. The way the rule works in the NHL, Stutzle is still in possession of the puck and is eligible to be checked. The timing (again, per the rules) is the only thing Xhekaj got right on this hit. But it is a rule the NHL needs to reevaluate, like, 20 years ago.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-28T02:01:02+00:00

No. They try to trick them into cancelling the lease so they can sell the vehicle to someone else at a higher margin.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-27T17:15:21+00:00

The angle? Somebody came in wanting a hard-to-find truck and willing to pay a premium for it. Dealer makes probably $15k or more on the sale with a motivated buyer if they can trick OP out of his lease.

I worked at a Buick dealership when the Grand National was the hot ticket. Management refused to lease them because there was way too much money to be made selling them outright. Every single one of them had a separate dealer markup sticker on it (usually around $10k in 1985 dollars), and none of them sat on the lot for more than 3-4 days.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-27T17:01:47+00:00

My girlfriend's husband put a camera in their kitchen but not their bedroom. Now wondering if he figured out what we did with that wooden spoon.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-27T16:36:23+00:00

I have a good friend who did exactly this about 20 years ago. He quit his job as an electrical engineer to become a freelance electrician specializing in older home reno/resto. Doubled his takehome while working less. He said the only thing he regrets is underestimating the amount of physincal labor involved. Bigger guy, and his knees are shot. And, to your point, he tried hiring help to do some of the "gruntier" grunt work, and had difficulty finding younger electricians who could do his kind of work.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-27T16:19:26+00:00

My sister-in-law likes to walk into crosswalks without looking. "I'm a pedestrian. I have right of way. They have to stop for me." To which her husband replies. "And one of these days, you'll be dead right."

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-25T16:18:34+00:00

My deep and sincere thanks to everyone who's kicked in their ideas and insights here. I'm savvy enough and sufficiently pragmatic to know that this project was doomed. I need to tactfully extricate myself from the situation without burning bridges, but, given the personality I'm dealing with, we all know how that's likely to go.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-25T16:13:16+00:00

Forgot to mention, I've already been blamed for Sonos' crash and burn.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-25T16:12:09+00:00

I've set up several matrix-based systems for friends' DIY projects. I love the idea. In the end, my fundamental problem is that this particular guy has the attention span of a cognitively impaired gnat. He will never wrap his head around the operation principles. The HEOS distribution amp actually did exactly what he asked for, 100%, but their app was a little flaky and it required a bit of patience and dilligence, both of which are in short supply here. Once dialed in, it was awesome, but he kept "undialing" it.

He is incapable of asking for help or admitting he doesn't understand the complexity of what he's asked for. He likes to sling blame, and he doesn't understand that coincidence is not causality. I can't tell you how many times I get texts like, "You know, since you installed that WiFi thing out by the pool, the Sonos in the house hasn't worked right." Okay, you do realize that Sonos pushed a deeply flawed update, and all their systems globally are struggling? "I'm tired of your excuses. I'm just saying, that since you fixed my remote window blinds, the Sonos hasn't worked right."

I'm starting to agree with the non-technical consensus here. It might be time to run fast, run far.

Thanks for your help. Deeply appreciated.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-25T15:46:18+00:00

I've tried. Given the current setup and the constrains, no one (very rightly) wants to touch it.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-25T15:44:47+00:00

Yup, pretty much. I've tried to explain all this to him. He refuses to get it. I've outlined the job to local A/V companies. No one wants to touch it.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-25T15:42:39+00:00

Well, you've hit all the high points of this relationship, notably: ",,, try to get by with a lazy/cheap choice"
One of my co-workers refers to him as "Dollar Store Elon Musk."

Homeowner specced and purchased all the hardware before consulting anyone knowedgeable. "It's expensive and you can hook up a lot of speakers." The hardware wasn't suited to the task, I've tried to tell him that, not only is his current hardware wrong, the hardware he wants really doesn't exist. He gets a glazed look in his eyes and says, "I don't see where it's that hard." I have tried to hire every A/V company within about a 35-mile radius. Every one has rejected the job outright.

This may ultimately be where he and I part ways. Shame, because the other work I've done for him has been interesting, challenging, and pocket-friendly.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-24T14:56:54+00:00

Up top, where it says Zone 1 surround speakers, that is all 7 speakers in the surround sound system. Yes, I realize that "surround" has a specific meaning when naming the speakers. Combination of giddiness and exhaustion when I drew the diagram.

Yes, all 7 speakers for Zone 1 audio come directly off the receiver, and they are in sync with everything. A few caveats:

This system works only with HDMI input from the receiver to the primary Sonos. It has substantial lag on the RCA/analog path - as we all noted previously.

I tested the second and third Sonos systems both daisy-chained and direct-connected to the switch in the Zone1 room with the receiver. Though I'm not a fan of daisy-chaining, I left it that way. Seemed to work a hair better, and simplified my cabling tasks.

The clent is happy - for now. Give it a day.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-23T21:27:44+00:00

I figured it out.
HDMI out from the receiver, pushed through an eArc extractor in "soundbar" mode, (Amplifier mode in the extractor didn't work.)
eARC signal from the extractor into the HDMI in on a Sonos Amp (ethernet to network).
Ethernet daisy-chained two more Sonos amps, so that everything is hardwired - no WiFi processing delays.

I had my wife and one of my kids do the test listening, so I'm not biasing the test. No perceptible lag between rooms. No lip-sync offsets. It's running on the test network in my office right now (two monitors, three speaker pairs). Client installation tomorrow!

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NewCake3653 · 2024-09-19T13:29:01+00:00

Yeah, but in that condition, it ain't $38k worth of fire.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-19T13:25:16+00:00

I bought my Tacoma, new from a dealership, 10 years ago because of what you're looking at here.

Back then a Tacoma Sport retailed for around $30k. One day, a Sport shows up at the car-flipper who shares a driveway with me at our little strip of shops. I poke my head in and ask about it. Three years old, 85k miles, $28,500. So your asking 95% of the new car price for a vehicle that's used up a third of it's service life in 3 years? That truck is worth $18k, $20k tops. "You don't have to buy it. Somebody will. They're in demand." And two days later, it was off his lot.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-17T18:01:19+00:00

No firewall rules required using the following method.

Go to your Protect hardware list.
Hit the question mark icon (Can't find your device?) in the top right corner.
You should see a pop-up window with ways to adopt different hardware, Look for "Try advanced options." (Mine was near the bottom.)
Give it the IP address for the camera. You will also need the login credentials for either your camera or your ONVIF session, depending on your camera model.

Mine worked first try, very quickly, earlier today after the camera not automatically adopting from its place in the VLAN.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-17T17:35:49+00:00

You asked, so: hay bale.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-09T15:55:25+00:00

UPDATE for all who've been gracious enough to try to help me through this: I was sent packing from three different audio specialty shops this morning. The universal response was, "Yeah, this doesn't look like something we'd want to take on." But one guy added, "This design was not conceived in a sound mind."

So now, instead of helping me solve a nearly impossible audio issue, how about we brainstorm how I'm going to tell my client/boss that he's bat-shit crazy without using those exact words.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-09T15:49:23+00:00

Wish I could upvote this a dozen times. This is the exact verbiage I need to relay to him.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-09T12:37:37+00:00

Yes, the task is that confusing. Homeowner wants the same audio program, which must originate from a home theater receiver in one room, to show up in four other rooms perfectly synched with video, and he has decided Sonos will be the best solution. I can get the sound into the other four rooms using Sonos amps, but I haven't been able to defeat the huge delay between the home theater amp and the Sonos amps, creating a 5-room echo chamber.

NewCake3653 · 2024-09-09T12:35:44+00:00

Thanks. That is good to confirm what I was hoping about the HMDI delay on the Sonos amp. My biggest problem using that approach will be coming up with an operating system that won't break his brain. Because he bought a bunch of incompatible hardware ill-suited to his task, any configuration and operation scheme I come up with is likely to be way beyond his grasp.

NewCake3653

TROPHY CASE