Technology

I am a Very Unhappy Girl

It has been pouring rain for several days now, and I admit it’s starting to get to me. I sat around all day waiting for a guy to install my satellite Internet connection. He was supposed to arrive between 10 AM and 2 PM, but called at 1 PM to say he was in Hayfork and probably wouldn’t be to my place until 5 PM. I was annoyed, but I gave him a break because at least he called. Then he showed up around 3:30 PM, and I just happened to be at my parents’ cabin at the other end of town. When he discovered no one was there, apparently he just split. It would have been better if he hadn’t called at all. So, I am still Internet-less, and yes, a few tears have been shed. So sad....

Tomorrow I’m headed to town to pick up the infiltrator system for my leach lines. Hopefully, the Diesel Mechanic and I can finish up the septic system early next week.

Posted by Kristin on 05/03/07 at 11:17 PM
Permalink • House • Technology •

Outlaws, Dynamite, and Really Nice People

Sometimes people do really, really nice things! Take my friend Taki Telonidis at the Western Folklife Center for example. When I asked him for advice about how to clean up a 1970s cassette recording of my great grandfather explaining how he and his brother moved a herd of horses from Montana to Washington in 1903, Taki said, “Oh, just send me the file. I’d be more than happy to do it for you.” He made it sound like it was just a lil’ ol’ thing, but after receiving his new and improved version in the mail a few days ago, I’m pretty sure he spent a fair amount of time on it. I was so excited (and grateful) that I converted it to streaming Quicktime over the weekend so I could share it here with you. There are still a few parts where it is difficult to understand (particularly right at the beginning), but there are some things technology still can’t fix.

Great Grandpa Jack was just a teenager when most of this story takes place, and it is not short on thrills and excitement. There is even some gunplay as they try to cross the Flathead Reservation without paying the required toll. They had very little money at the time and simply couldn’t afford it (at one point they even have to trade horses for food). One of the things that interested me most about his tale, though, is the political and sociological picture he paints of life in the Northwest around the time of the trip.

His brief mention of the dynamite-induced destruction at the Bunker Hill Mine in Idaho was something I’d never heard about before, and I immediately had to find out more. What I learned is there were large and violent labor strikes in 1892 and 1899 at the mine because Bunker Hill had managed to remain non-unionized. When Governor Frank Steunenberg--who entered office as both a Democrat and a Populist--asked the federal government to send troops to quell the unrest in 1899, the miners felt betrayed. The troops rounded up and held hundreds of men in “bullpens” without hearings or formal charges, and a few even died. Steunenberg was later killed by a bomb at his home in 1905. Big Bill Haywood, a prominent figure in the labor movement at the time (and a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World), was one of three people charged but later acquitted due to lack of evidence. I recently picked up the very thick and detail-packed Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America by J. Anthony Lukas, which is about these events. I’ve only read a few chapters so far, but I feel comfortable recommending it if this sort of stuff interests you.

Additionally, Grandpa talks about the outlaw Harry Tracy, who escaped from an Oregon prison in 1902 and (according to Grandpa) shot up Cle Elum, Washington, as well as some other places before finally being tracked and killed by a posse. Hollywood made a movie about it in the 1980s starring Bruce Dern and, it turns out, Gordon Lightfoot (Sundown, you better take care...)? Anyway, Grandpa claimed to have owned one of Tracy’s guns.

Posted by Kristin on 10/08/06 at 09:17 PM
Permalink • Books • History • My Movies • Technology • (1) Comments

They Call Me DJ Old-Timey

Just a few days after my last post I was able to get the PhonOcord to play those records, although for the most part pretty faintly. It is tempting to leave you thinking that this accomplishment might have involved some tools or arcane knowledge of vintage electronic components, but the truth is I figured it out while talking to my mom on my cellphone one night while coming home from San Francisco. It turns out that these are special records that play from the inside out! Problem solved!

Well, not really because they still need to be digitized. I decided that since there are so many of them, it would be unfair to burden Mattmarg with this task. So I ordered a USB turntable (you heard me right) that I thought was special because it would allow me to capture sound at 78 RPMs. I felt kind of dumb when I realized that you actually just digitize the sound at 33 or 45 RPMs and adjust the speed of the file with a pulldown menu in the accompanying software. Nevertheless, I’m extremely happy with it and excited about getting this project started. After a couple of test runs yesterday, though, it’s become apparent that I have a lot to learn about cleaning up audio files. Since a lot of the records are made from cardboard, they sound pretty dirty. I sure hope there is something that can be done for them.

Posted by Kristin on 10/06/06 at 05:34 AM
Permalink • History • Media • Technology • (0) Comments

Putting It on the Record

Forget podcasting! Witness home audio recording technology circa 1946 in all its glory! I give you the Packard Bell PhonOcord 1052! Record live sound or from the radio (or both!) and right onto 78 LPs! It also has a public address mode, which I think may have been used for square dances (at least by my grandparents).

I drove up to my aunt’s last week to retrieve the mysterious machine my grandpa used to record that file I shared here last month. It turns out that there are oodles of little records made from everything from cardboard to shellac to metal, which Grandpa not only used to document family events (such as my mom’s first day of school) but also holidays at the neighbors’ and other community parties.

Once we got it opened and plugged in, I immediately turned on the radio and dialed in a station, half expecting to hear Nat King Cole crooning I Love You for Sentimental Reasons or maybe Harry Truman delivering a speech. Instead, through the AM crackling and whistling, we got some Internet pundit blathering on about Web 2.0. It would be inaccurate to say this experience was disappointing since we were both astonished the thing even worked, but I guess I was subconsciously hoping the magic box might unlock a time portal or some other life-altering vortex (should I be embarrassed that I’ve probably seen The Purple Rose of Cairo 20 times?).

We weren’t so lucky with the phonograph. It will spin records, but there is a problem getting the sound from the needle to the speaker. I’m not sure if it will still cut records either, but I’m hoping to get it all fixed up so I can capture some sound of my own. Among Grandpa’s recordings were a ton of blanks, and my wee little brain has been working overtime evaluating all the completely unuseful things I could make with the PhonOCord. Capturing sound with my minidisc and iPod is so boring! In the meantime, Mattmarg is going to help me digitize the rest of the recordings using his turntable and an iMic.

Also, I’m wondering if anyone out there can tell me more about home audio recording in the 1940s and ‘50s. I’ve only met one other person whose family had something like our PhonOcord. I did a little research online and there is surprisingly very little about these machines, although it does appear several companies marketed them as home entertainment. Based on Google results for a site called Shellac.org (which is maddeningly down at the moment), it even looks like Packard Bell offered a script subscription service for people to record their own little radio dramas.

Posted by Kristin on 09/16/06 at 09:09 AM
Permalink • History • Media • Technology • (4) Comments

Grandpa Would Have Loved the Web

My granddad was an early adopter way before that term ever entered the lexicon. As soon as a new tech product landed on the shelves, he had to have it. We’ve got all sorts of 8mm and Super8 films as well as audio recordings dating back more than sixty years. My mom recently gave me a cassette tape with an audio recording from a family reunion in Washington that Grandpa made back in the summer of 1946 using a phonograph that could record sound on blank discs. It’s so fascinating to hear the voices of long-departed relatives like my great grandparents and also how young my grandparents sound--not to mention my mom reciting Little Bo Peep at four years old. It is such a treasure. I tear up every time I listen to it, and it makes me wonder now that capturing memories like this is so easy if we’ll treasure them as much in another sixty years.

Posted by Kristin on 08/08/06 at 06:48 AM
Permalink • History • My Movies • Technology • (0) Comments

Still Half the Country to Go

I just saw this via Luke. It’s a cool little site that will generate a map of all the states (or countries) you’ve visited. With all the traveling I’ve been doing lately, I thought I’d have more states in red, but it turns out I still have half the country left. Yay!