Waves: heat, sound, and other

Frequency of my blogging is inversely proportional to the productivity in my life.
Ah, if only that were one hundred percent true.

It’s been a hot summer. That has slowed me down, somewhat. I’m guessing that a lot of people in the country have been operating at speeds rated less than normal.

It’s a hot one.

Before the heat hit, we went ‘environment cooling’ shopping. Having seen An Inconvenient Truth, and being from the ‘man is screwing things up’ school of thought, we looked for an alternative to air conditioning. Swamp coolers held promise for areas that are dry. Hey, Southern California is dry!

The premise behind one is that a fan blows through (or sucks) a very fine mist of water. Much finer than the misters used outside in Las Vegas (or the Universal theme park lines), the Swamp Cooler blows slightly damp air. The water pulls the heat out of the air, and Voila!, cooler air. In dry areas, it can cool the air ten degrees.

We got it, I filled it up and turned it on.

We waited; we put our hands in front of it to feel if the air was getting cooler…

We tried this for three days before coming to the realization that, maybe these things work in Tuscan, but in Los Angeles, they aren’t happening.

First, it essentially felt no different than a fan.
Second, you’re supposed to leave the doors and windows open. It’s simply no match for that.
Third, at the end of the day – you have room that is more humid. Humidity, while perhaps decreasing the overall temp by a degree or so, increases the relative ‘feel’ of the temp. So, actually – the swamp cooler just pissed me off.
Fourth, the Swamp Cooler also released what I call, “the smell of impending death”. It’s that damp, musty, ‘plastic’y odor of old folks homes that anyone who has spent time in a senior center will be familiar with.

So, with great disappointment, we returned the Swamp Cooler, and exchanged it for a portable Air Conditioner. We’d heard less then stellar reviews of those also, but with an intent of using it sparingly, one room at a time only, and only when it was really needed, we were hopeful.

Maybe I’ll write about my day of hell in the exchange sometime.

Anyway, the heat hit, and it’s a damned good thing I had AC instead of that Swamp Cooler, cause the humidity went up also (which isn't supposed to happen in Northeastern Los Angeles. It’s the first time in L.A. that I felt like I was back east. The heavy, hot, humid air at night. UGH! Just like Pennsylvania in July. Thankfully, the portable Swamp Cooler was able to pull that out of the bedroom at night.

The 100 plus degrees during the day were also made slightly more bearable. I was able to bring the temps in the office down to a comfortable 85 degrees, and survive.
Final verdict on the Portable AC: It's does the job. It won't win awards, but is very energy efficient and portability factor is good. It's esthetically as pleasing as any prop in Brazil and with its form factor and footprint should be given a name - like R2D2. All in all though, because we don't use AC more than absolutely necessary, it will do.

You know it’s hot when the cat looks forward to being soaked with water.

Dog Days Of Summer

Weather wise, a strange summer indeed. I guess I don’t need to tell U.S. readers that.

The business of making movies has been interspersed with going to the U.S Open of Surfing, Hollywood Bowl concerts, and the occasional summer block-not-so-buster. Also, my present “summer build project” is nearing completion. I wrote earlier about how I was building high-end microphones, and was accumulating parts for a high end mic Preamplifier – well, that project is about 98 percent complete. It’s been fun, interesting and occasionally frustrating. Though quite a bit more complex than any electronic project I’ve tackled in the past, I've only, shocked myself a couple times, burned myself only once and let the smoke out of only one component. Though that part was only a buck, I spent about twenty to locate it. Turning it on, and finally hearing it was very well worthwhile. The sound from this thing is frighteningly good. Besides being a clean, quiet, highly accurate machine, I can also turn up the gain (kinda like volume) to a point that if I aim a microphone out the office window, I can hear what’s going on across the neighborhood.

I feel like Gene Hackman in “The Conversation”; a classic thriller to watch, if you haven’t already.