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Old 01-05-2014, 03:27 PM
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prepress prepress is offline
Semi-audiophile
 
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Brooklyn, by way of Nashville
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It was an interesting time while away on vacation from 12/19 to 12/30. I watched the Weather Channel and saw the crazy weather all over the country with winter storm Gemini. I watched with some concern that the southern part of it would spin up strong, even dangerous storms over the weekend before Christmas. I would be flying into the path of this by flying into Nashville 12/19. Sure enough, the nasty weather was to hit Nashville Saturday the 21st.

I was at an extended stay hotel, on the first floor, watching weather updates during the day on the 21st. I finally turned off the TV after the New Mexico Bowl, won by Colorado State in a real interesting game, especially at the end. At about 8:45pm I hear what sounded like a tornado siren. I went out to the front lobby but saw no one behind the counter. The siren stopped. I went back to my room.

A couple of minutes later, the sirens start again. I go out to the front desk; the clerk is there. Yes, he hears the siren and is monitoring the storm's progress on radar. He has it up on the display at the front desk, in fact. The storm is currently in downtown Nashville; the hotel is northeast of there. It should get to us in about 15 minues, he said. If need be he will take necessary action. Not being reassured much by that, I went back to my room and gathered some essentials should I need to bolt quickly. I turned on the TV for another update. A brief image of what looked like high wind reports, then the screen went black. The sirens start again as a stark message appears:

EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM
TORNADO WARNING
SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY

I go into the hallway and sit down on the floor, waiting. I try calling a friend, whom I first had to convince this was a potentially serious circumstance. After a short talk, I wait for . . . whatever. Others are in the hallway, not seeming to take things as seriously as I. The rain starts, the wind picks up. It rains REALLY hard for a bit along with gusts. A bit of lightning and thunder. That's over in about 15 minutes or so. The rain slacks off some but is still steady. The tornado warning is cancelled at 9:15pm, but a tornado watch continued until midnight. I decide to stay up until then just in case. Other than an occasional flash of lightning not much more happened. Ultimately, there was an inch of rain, 40 mph gusts, about 9400 people who lost power, and perhaps some minor flooding in parts of the city (A local reporter was reporting from a partially flooded parking lot).

In Texas to visit my sister 12/22–12/28, it got progressively warmer each day, and by the end of Christmas week it approached normal temps for the area (low/mid 60s; it was 47 when I arrived Monday). I couldn't get her to agree to a record cleaning machine for Christmas, so I got her a Pro-Ject record cleaning brush and some Nitty Gritty sleeves to replace the paper ones. A minor victory, as she's not a gadget person at all. I wanted to go by a store selling Shunyata and Kimber power cords hoping to make some comparison, but the store's appointment only; not for a power cord, I thought. Plus, I was leaving town the next day and didn't want to wait for the guy to call back. Oh well.
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SOTA, Grado, SME, Van den Hul, Gingko turntable setup; Pioneer Elite LD, BDP; Sony OLED TV; Magnum Dynalab tuner, antenna; MIT S-video cable; Pangea HDMI cables; DVDO video processor; McIntosh SACD, preamp, power amps; Telefunken Black Diamond preamp tubes; Kimber IC; Transparent IC, PC, SC; Mirage speakers; PS Audio, Shunyata PC; Audio Additives RCA caps; Furman power conditioning; Sanus: racks
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