Lending a hand

 

There is much going on but one thing here has been been an attempt to establish a War Memorial as the original for the district is a few miles away and since the  British Legion branch that held events has merged into a completely different area those things haven't happened here.

The idea is we would hold our own and that locals can pay their own respect to the dead which has support from the local scouts.

Part of getting this off the ground is both fundraising and also getting people to write in support of the idea to the local authority so to that end I have been spending time delivering leaflets on foot to people.

Having been asked if I'd be interested I just did my duty and got the task done to the best of my ability despite things like building works making access difficult and letterboxes with insect laden flowers just above your them to dodge the wasps with.

I rose to the challenge.

An authoritive voice

This week we are going to talk about something that's in one sense a bit removed from what this blog usually talks about but elements do connect with it.

You may of noticed I do like music and that does extend to buying vinyl records, some older used copies and others new either new albums or high quality re-issues from companies that specialize in that.

For the last ten days or so there has been a burning controversy on a music forum and on you tube channels devoted to audio issues concerning one labels product which is quite expensive at around $125 which rather than growing a number of new stampers requires laquers to be individually cut and can only used a few times rather than what has been used for decades

The argument runs by missing out this step you get lower noise and and more precise sound as pressing records has a lot of parallels with using moulds to stamp out plastic items.

This issue blew up because a planned release at years end  for the 40th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller album had a stated 40,000 copies which could not be done especially when they claim to cut each laquer directly from the master.

Again traditionally in the days when any title could sell ten to twenty thousand copies per week an intermediate tape copy was used for that and the quality was such you'd struggle to hear any difference.

Doing this or using a digital copy to generate one is what is being alleged and it is also true to say a number of major labels such as Sony regularly refuse to let out the actual master tapes supplying only 1:1 tape copies or high resolution digital files.

The shocking thing all this is firstly the failure to respond at all to being asked exactly what they do use just tossing out a statement to say the endeavour to produce the very best records they can as if customers who spend a lot of money on these things do not matter.

The other is the lack of transparency in all the material they do put out hinting at mastertapes even though some titles were recorded digitally just saying they were sourced from them not addressing the question of how they cut these.

Getting back to top of this peice it's less about the product, many of which do sound great but just the seeming inability to show intrigrity and come clean.

That's all lots of audio fans are asking for.

Finding our tribe

Your 'tribes' can often be described as your people, the group of individuals you connect with. It can be a collection of friends from the past or you may find these groups of people at work or whilst doing hobbies. They are people who you resonate and connect with straight away and didn't expect to.

There are some steps we can take to find our tribe.

Do some self-reflection. The first step to knowing what kind of relationships you want to build is to learn about yourself. ...

Try new things. ...

Attend meetups. ...

Ditch judgement. ...

Know when to commit. ...

Call out to your tribe. ...

Be the first to reach out. ...

Love yourself.

Okay but you may well be asking how do I know when I have as many of us call recall devoting heaps of effort into fitting in with one clique or other at school and that wasn't so satisfying.

The things I feel you would notice when you've found your own tribe are:

They encourage you to be yourself. Good friends don't want you to be just like them; they want you to be just like you. ...

They encourage you to be honest. ...

They give you space to make mistakes. ...

Through thick and thin. ...

Your friends encourage you to grow.

Those were the things typically we got wrong back then or we may of failed to provide for our friends as they grew to be themselves.

My tribes certain included Boys as they were are socially the gender group I resonate with the group only us could have life experiences in common with.

At peace with the world

Just about two weeks to go before Summer Hols when school is out at least in this district, this time of year always has those still in the past pulls with me when we'd consolidate this form years work - and back then it was work or else! - while you'd be looking forward to your next stages learning more  about things as we move along.

Then you might be moving to either a different part of school or even a new school depending on your age.

The thing with me was all my classmates were getting older when it came to their interests and general development as boys leaving me behind because while the odd interest and some academic abilities may of grown, on the whole I hadn't.

I was the "youngest" in the class and as they got older the gap just got bigger and bigger.

Learning to accept you are not except in purely legal terms a functioning adult has taken time, to work on unmasking the real you as just trying to pretend  to be an adult male took so much from me and feel comfortable about being called "young man" by men who however imperfectly do at least sense you don't relate as adult to adult as frankly at no point have I ever seen myself as one has been one of big achievements in the last few years.

I'm just a young boy whose been around the sun more than most while being substancially the same.