Mike Dell's World number 1 76 for 02/17/2011.
Believe it, I did
Meanwhile, deep down and tall on the ground,
I'm gonna get to train cars, rumbling around
back and forth, turning it to the factory,
taking away the people that I'm bringing them
back to me, damn down, again and again
they, so I'm a naked with it with
the wind, but I don't see how they
remain, but I'm gonna keep it all up
still safe. When every day, there gets
And that's the deadly gentleman,
and it's called Helloapocalypse.
It's an interesting group because, they're an all
acoustic string
instrument group that,
has no guitars.
No guitars and no drums, I don't think.
So kind of a cool thing. It's kind
of a a fusion of,
of almost rap and,
almost bluegrass, but,
not quite either one of those. They're kinda
hard to describe.
Anyway,
I think I've played them on the podcast
before, but never that song.
Hey. How's everything going? Thanks for,
tuning in to this edition of Mike Dell's
World. Been kind of
a busy week in my world.
Of course, it's all pretty mundane stuff.
Since the last time we talked,
Kathy and I
made our trip down to Novi in Detroit
area,
and it was,
interesting trip. It was kinda nice. I got
a little time to to vegetate in the
hotel room while, Kathy worked, which is usually
the opposite. You know, when we go to
Vegas or
or, some other place, usually, I'm the one
that's working, and she's,
she's the one that gets to lay around
the hotel room or, go play or whatever.
So,
but, anyway, it was an uneventful
trip, but, interesting, and I'll tell you about
it.
But first, gotta talk about our sponsor.
Why is why do I say our sponsor?
My sponsor,
Leonard Peacock.
And I'm gonna have to,
open up a web page here so that
I can make sure that I get this,
this right.
And that's peacock.com.
And I believe it's,
no. I got it backwards.
It's peik0ffeik0ff.com,
And it's Leonard Peekoff and his podcast. He
does,
podcasts about
Ayn Rand's
Objectivism,
theory or whatever you call it.
But, anyway,
he, he does,
you know, bunch of little short ones where
he answers questions using
the objectivism
philosophy of Ayn Rand,
and he also does a longer,
more or less weekly podcast. But
said he's, he was a friend of of
Ayn Rand, before she died.
He was given the rights to her books.
You might have heard of,
what is it, Atlas Shrugged is one of
them, and, there's several other ones. And plus
he's also
written a couple books, but it's it's interesting.
He he does,
you know, he answers questions
using the Objectivism,
philosophy.
You know how you would answer the questions
and
and, it's pretty cool.
And he's just Ian Ryan's revolutionary
philosophy to real world problems. So, anyway, give
it a try. He's,
he's been advertising,
you know, on and off with with the
show and and several others on the Blueberry
network.
And,
I said it's worth a listen. I've subscribed
and,
and I listened to them. Whether you agree
or not, you know, that's another question. So
give it a listen, see if you do
agree. Or if you don't,
let me know about it. It'd be a
good topic of discussion.
So anyway, that's, peacoff.com,
www.peikoff.com,
where you can search for
peacoff
in
the iTunes directory or in Google and you'll
find it.
Anyway,
let's see. The trip to Detroit and Novi
area, we took off Friday morning,
which I got off work
08:00, and then we were on the road
at nine.
Drove the new car down there, by the
way. Very nice, nice ride.
Like I said, I I had a
I think I told you about it last
time, but I I did a, a moderate
upgrade to the old Camry. And the old
Camry,
is now at my, niece and nephew.
Niece and her husband. I guess I could
call him nephew. I don't know. Nephew in
law. Is that right?
Anyway,
he's,
using that to get back and forth to
school. He lives in Muskegon or they live
in Muskegon, and he, goes to school in,
Owasso, which is near Lansing.
So that's, you know, like a 100 mile
drive or whatever. That's kind of the commute
and does it two, three times a week
depending on which classes he's taking
that semester. So that car will get a
lot of, I 96 time,
which,
is good for it. And, you know, 215,000
miles,
needed to be replaced. So I had a
moderate upgrade. I got
Cam Camry Celera, couple years newer and with
half the miles on it. So
just over a 100,000
in the Celera. And
said so far, I like it, but we
took that down to
Novi to Detroit. Farmington Hills actually was where
we stayed,
and Kathy's convention was in Novi, the Novi
Convention Center
or Novi Exposition Center or whatever they called
it. I don't know. But, she worked that
for
Saturday and Sunday
on Friday night.
And,
what do we do Friday night?
Not a whole lot. I've actually, I when
we got to the hotel room, I crashed,
went to sleep for a few hours. Well,
Kathy went to the Expo Center and set
up her booth.
Got that all, going, and
and then,
I don't know what we did. I don't
think we did much.
We went out went out someplace to eat.
I know that much. But, other than that,
wasn't I guess it wasn't that memorable. Oh,
no. We went we didn't go anywhere to
eat. We ate right there at the hotel.
There was a little,
pub there called the Red Lion, part of
the Holiday Inn Hotel there in Farmington Hills,
and, I think we're pretty good at deep
fried stuff that you shouldn't eat, but, we
did anyway.
And then,
let's see. Saturday,
you know, Kathy didn't have to be to
the Expo Center till noon.
So,
we we actually ordered in room service and
had breakfast in the room, and then she
went off to
do her thing. And, I drove up to,
Fenton, Michigan, which is,
kinda between Detroit and Flint
or between Novi and Flint
and,
went to a place called Guns Galore.
It's a
fairly large firearms dealer, and
that was interesting. Nothing to write home about.
They had
lots and lots of guns, you know, guns
galore, but they also had lots and lots
of people, so you really couldn't get up
to the counter to to,
look at anything in the
handgun department,
you know, just because it was so busy.
And then they were doing the paperwork, you
know, for people buying stuff right there and,
you know,
so it was a little little too crowded
for,
for casual browsing of of handguns, but
the, rifle and shotgun section was, open enough
to where, you know, you can kinda
check things out. But like I said, it
was just something to do.
Then, headed back to, Farmington Hills, and
Kathy
got back on Saturday,
evening. And
let's see. What do we do Saturday
evening?
Yes. Saturday evening, we went into Downtown Detroit.
First, we headed towards the,
was it MGM Grand? That's right. MGM Grand
Detroit Casino.
Yeah, Detroit has gambling,
and, we checked that out.
All I can say it was it was
way too crowded,
you know, like the MGM Grand in Las
Vegas, unless it's a really busy Friday night
on some special event weekend. You know, the
the place is nearly deserted.
At least that's my impression of the MGM
Grand in Vegas.
Not deserted, but definitely
not crowded
unless you're, you know, around the lion cage
or around the,
rainforest cafe or, you know, some of the
more popular places, you know, around the casino.
But the the gaming floor is not super
busy in Vegas.
But I'll tell you what, every single table
was packed. Every single slot
area was, you know, not quite totally packed,
but damn close.
And then what really sucked was all the
tables were set at $15 minimums.
And, you know, I'm not gonna play blackjack
at $15 a hand. You know, out in
Vegas,
you know, I have some of the bigger
ones, you can't really get less than 10.
But usually, you can find some $5 blackjack
or even some $3 blackjack. You know, if
you go downtown or you go to Mid
Strip, you know, like O'Shea's or
or Imperial Palace or something like that.
But, you know,
$15 a hand and crowded,
no thanks. So we didn't really play any.
Sort of hung around for a little bit,
then we decided, oh, let's go to see
what the Greektown Casino is like.
So Greektown
Casino,
it's another big casino. It's not quite as
big as the MGM Grand, but, it's a
pretty big
place.
But it was even more crowded because we
got sucked into the
parking deck,
went all the way up, but I I
believe it was six or eight floors of
the parking deck and couldn't find a parking
spot. So then we had to go back
down six or eight floors, and by the
time we were done with that, we said,
oh, to hell with it.
And Kathy's friend had
recommended a bar up on
on 8 Mile.
You've heard Eminem talk about 8 Mile and
Kid Rock.
Well, anyway, there was a bar up there
on 8 Mile that,
that was became highly recommended
by Kathy's friend there. So, we thought, oh,
we'll go up there, have something to eat.
They're supposed to be known for their burgers,
but being that Detroit has a pretty big
Greek influence,
we,
you know, anyway, we went to this burger
place, this bur or, this bar, and Kathy
had a burger, and I had a, a
gyro or as I call them gyros because
that's how they're spelled.
That's the pita bread, lamb,
whatever whatever,
and Greek
sandwich, and that was really good. And, that
that,
establishment
become becomes highly recommended except for I can't
remember the name of it.
So, anyway, I'm gonna take a a little
break here and play a a song by
another group that I've played here before.
It's,
oh, geez. Song of the Lakes.
It's kind of that,
I don't know what you call it, maritime
themed
group. They're right here from Traverse City, and,
this one's called Winter Walk. And, it's kind
of appropriate, although, we're we're kinda having a
meltdown right now, but
it's it's been winter and it well, still
is. We got lots of snow on the
ground, but,
you know, supposed to get into
the high forties, low fifties today. So a
lot of that snow is gonna go away,
but, we could still take a winter walk
with the song of the lakes.
Snow is falling, the sky is gray.
Brown leaves cling
to the oaks
today.
I stand
firm and high.
The wind whistles
and rushes by.
Lakes are frozen,
the air is clear.
March is living
and dying
with fear.
Greyhound flies
so proud and free,
reminds me of where I long to be.
Loudest sky
of winter breeze.
Raven's cry is among
the trees.
Children play
when snow drifts white.
The joy and laughter
fill
the night.
Lakes are frozen,
the air
is
of where I long to be.
Clear. Mars is living a life
with deer.
Rayon flies
so proud
and free.
Reminds me of where I love
to be.
This podcast is part of the Blueberry Network.
Find other fine podcasts at www.blubrry.com.
That's blueberry with no e's.
And thanks, Joanne, for
for announcing that. It's my friend Joanne from,
Adelaide,
Australia.
Forget which,
which state in Australia that's in it. I
guess that's that's terrible, isn't it? But, they're
on some sort of funky time down there.
I talked to her and her husband,
I don't know, week and a half ago
or two weeks ago on Skype and,
you know, it was,
I don't know, 11:00
at night here and it was, like, 01:30
in the afternoon
down there. Something like that. I don't I
don't remember the exact,
time conversion, but they're on a half hour
off
time zone and, like, thirteen and a half
hours ahead or twelve and a half hours
ahead,
something like
that. But, anyway,
let's see.
We do Sunday. Sunday, same thing. Kinda hung
out. We actually went out to breakfast Sunday
morning
to a Coney Island place,
not not for hot dogs, but I guess,
you know, these Greek restaurants down there, you
know, do the normal breakfast thing. But
to this little Coney Island place, it was
right, near the hotel and
had a really good breakfast.
And,
came back to the hotel and, Kathy got
ready to go, and I kinda lounge around,
veg, and watched the TV and,
read some stuff on my Kindle and surf
the Internet and didn't, didn't really accomplish much,
but it was very relaxing.
And, then I went and picked Kathy up
at the convention center when she was done.
We loaded all the,
you know, stuff for her booth in the
in the car, and
and on the way back to the hotel,
we stopped off at this, really good Italian
place
that had been re recommended by the same
friend that recommended the bar over on 8
Mile in Detroit.
Or was it Detroit or was that
I don't know. There's so many areas of
Detroit. I I you know, the whole the
whole Southwest corner of the state of Michigan
is Detroit as far as I'm concerned.
But, anyway, I went to this Italian place.
Oh, it was really good. And their salad
was to die for,
the salad dressing, anyway.
And, I forget what I had.
Some sort of
garlicky
spaghetti or linguine dish with,
mussels and
shrimp. Kathy had the veal Parmesan or no.
Chicken Parmesan,
not veal.
And,
yeah. It was really good.
And then, hey.
It's, Monday morning. Yeah. We, you know, spent
one more night in the hotel. And on
Monday morning,
Valentine's Day,
Let me backtrack.
You've heard of, Pawn Stars
on,
on the History Channel. That's at Vegas
pawnshop.
Kathy and I actually went there in in,
October
when we were in Vegas
along with the rest of the Raw Voice
team.
Well, most of the rest of the Raw
Voice team, anyway.
We all
took the rental van and, went to the
Pawn Stars pawn shop, which is actually called
Gold and Silver Pawn. It's right on Las
Vegas Boulevard
between the Stratosphere
and, in downtown.
And,
anyway, I went there, but
on Sunday morning
not Sunday. Monday morning
well, you see, I was gonna backtrack and
tell you about this other show. There's another
show on the true TV network, the old
Court TV, the TRU
network,
and it's called, Hardcore
Pawn. And it's,
you know, very similar to the, Pawn Stars
show on history,
only it's set in Detroit
in a rather bad neighborhood of Detroit.
I guess it'd be on the
I wanna say the North Side Of Detroit,
but I am not actually sure. It's it's
right off at 8 mile
and,
what was it? Greenfield.
Greenfield and 8 Mile
on the corner
is
the the,
it's a shop called,
American Jewelry and Loan,
and it's run by
a guy named Les, the owner, and his
son and daughter. And it's
quite a bigger place than the gold and
silver shop there in Vegas, and they don't
deal in as much high end stuff as,
as you see on the History Channel, but
it's a cool show. If you get if
you get the True TV network or Court
TV,
look them up there. You know, put it
on your DVR. It's definitely an interesting show.
But, anyway, being Valentine's Day and being that
it was a jewelry shop, I thought, well,
jeez, what a better way to
to,
get a Valentine's gift. You know, Kathy and
I are fans of the show.
So we went
over to the
the shop.
And like I said, it's in not the
greatest
part of Detroit. It wasn't bad. You know,
it's not the greatest part of Detroit, and
and definitely this pawnshop,
deals with a a lower end clientele
than
than,
the one in Vegas.
And, you know, it was interesting, but Kathy
found a a little silver ring that that
she wanted and, you know,
sterling silver was on sale and and all
that good stuff, which just makes her happy
as hell.
And
when we went to check out,
the owner of the shop, you know, the
star of the TV show, checked us out.
Cool dude.
I think his name is Les. I am
not positive because I, you know, I watch
the show, but I don't pay that much
attention. But, like I said, if you ever
get a chance, we went there. What's funny
is we've been to
a lot of places that that were based
on
reality shows
or that reality shows are based on,
remember, American Casino,
from
gosh. That that probably five, six years ago,
that was based
I'm not sure if that was the show
that was based at Green Valley Ranch or
if that was the one at the Golden
Nugget.
But there was another you know, there was
one called American Casino,
and I
don't remember what the other one was called.
But, one of them was at the
the Golden Nugget, and one was at
Green Valley Ranch in Henderson, Nevada. It's just
outside of Vegas.
If you,
take a left out of the airport, you
end up in Henderson. If you take a
right, you end up on the strip. But,
anyway,
we've been to
Green Valley Ranch while that show is being
filmed.
We've been to the Golden Nugget
while that show is being filmed. We've been
to the
Pawn Stars
shop,
you know, and that show is being filmed.
Not not
not not that the cameras were there at
the time we were there, but, I mean,
it was in production at the time we
were there.
And then this
hardcore pawn,
we've been there. So
I don't know. I guess we're chasing
reality shows. Hey. Hey. Hey. You can count
the Mackinac Bridge too as one of those
because, Mike Rowe and
Dirty Jobs,
was
on the Mackinac Bridge, and
we go over the Mackinac Bridge every now
and again.
So, anyway, I got one more song just
because I wanna play it.
Not that it's,
not that
it has anything to do with what I'm
talking about, but,
this is,
my friend, Todd Taylor,
and his version of Freebird.
He's the,
banjo man, Todd Taylor.
Should've rewound that, I guess.
And, of course, that was, Todd Taylor, the
Banjo Man. You can find him
at
toddtaylorbanjoman.com,
I believe. Let me make sure. Yeah. It's
toddtaylorbanjoman.com.
Todd's currently the Guinness World
Records fastest banjo player,
And, I guess he now is endorsing Gibson
banjos.
Used to
endorse recording king banjos, but, hey, whatever.
Banjo's a banjo's a banjo.
You know,
that's that's the whole thing about the banjo
is, you know,
tie some strings to a gourd with a
two by four on it, and as long
as you can get the strings tight enough,
it's a banjo.
But, anyway
So, anyway, we we completed our trip from
Detroit to back home on Monday, and, I
went back Monday night and
to my,
a k
a day job, which is actually a night
job. But,
anyway.
And, hey, hopefully, the audio on this sounds
alright. I
found out two things about my audio setup
here that I'm I am, gonna be rapidly,
addressing.
One is the,
USB interface that I've been using,
the old Gryphon iMic,
seems to be prone to extra noise.
And so I'm now recording into
a external digital recorder. I'm not, recording into
the computer. I'm recording into my Sony recorder.
And that'll take care of that,
noise issue, hopefully.
And the other thing is that, my Behringer,
Zenix,
u b eight zero two Eurorack
mixer
has started to die.
I'm still using it right now,
but,
it,
it slowly lost certain things.
The FX bus
died. And, the last, what's up with that
podcast with Jim Farley,
had to be post edited
instead of, live to the hard drive or
live to the
flash memory as
the case may be because
he couldn't,
hear any of the music
that I was playing or any of the
sound effects or anything else and,
you know, through the, mix minus setup. I
know I'm doing some some podcasting naval gazing,
but,
anyway,
so we got a new mixer coming.
This is coming by Farley Express.
Jim actually is gonna gonna be here in
town
next weekend. Hopefully,
maybe on Saturday
or maybe even Friday.
I'll have him here in the studio, and
we'll, record a live,
what's up with that with both of us
in the same studio. That, that would be
different, wouldn't it? But he's bringing me a
16 channel,
mixer board that, he assures me is way
bigger than I need.
Guess it's supposed to be 30 inches wide,
so I'm gonna have to find some desk
space for it. But,
anyway, he's bringing that up with him when
he comes north
in a couple of weeks. I I guess
he's going to New York this weekend and
then, the weekend after,
he'll, he'll be up here.
So
that'll be good, and, hopefully, that'll solve the,
the rest of my audio problem. So so,
hopefully, I I did alright with this, digital
recorder this week, and
and, we'll get it nailed down and, and
I'll quit talking about it as soon as
I do.
So,
anyway, I don't have any more music that
I wanna play right now, and, I don't
have any idea how long I've been talking.
That's that's another disadvantage of recording into this
particular recorder. It doesn't have a good
counter
of time, and I also don't have a
level meter. So
kinda winging it, then looking at the level
meter on the
on the
Behringer
AutoComm
Pro
XL,
compressor limiter gate
wonder machine, but,
you know, it only gets so close, so
I might have to do a little post
edit. Let me know how
you how you think the audio sounds.
And, generally, it sounds better on speakers than
it does. Yeah. I noticed the last few
episodes
sounded better on speakers than they do on
the headphones. For some reason, there's some sort
of crackle,
on the peaks,
you know, when I'm listening on headphones, but
I don't hear it when I'm listening on
speakers. So, yeah, could be alright.
Anyway,
we're gonna call this a podcast,
and
we'll,
catch you later. Hey.
If you wanna do me a favor and
support the show and
you have a need for
a a a web host,
Do me a favor and
go over to mikedell.com.
That's mikedell.com
and look for the Bluehost
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It'll be right below the Leonard Peacock banner
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And, you know, like I said, if it's
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You can have up to 2,500
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But, if you really wanna support the podcast,
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Also
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eFax is the way to do it, and,
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anyway, enough, plugging advertisers, but if you wanna
support the show, that would be a really
cool way to do it. And, of course,
don't forget to visit our paid sponsor,
Leonard Pickoff.
Get the answer to life's most profound questions
over at
p e I k o f f dot
com.
So,
anyway,
I'm out of here.
Get you later.