Setting an Old Record

One thing that my Dad showed me before I headed back for home was an old Victrola machine that he acquired in his younger days: a Victor Victrola Credenza...a 78 RPM phonograph about the size of a chest of drawers. It looks similar to the one on this page, though that one is fully restored and his isn't, and that one has the electric-driven motor and his has the wind-up motor (which, he tells me with a hint of smugness, makes his worth 50-100% more than an electric machine in equivalent condition). Dad's does still work quite well, except that he needs to take apart and clean the motor that drives it as it runs down too soon.

Anyway, we went out to the workshop and Dad wound it up and played bits of a few records...78s by the Dorseys, Rudy Vallee, Dean Martin, and others. Dad has about a zillion of them; they were packed away but now he's got them out of storage. The one bad thing about it is that the needle presses down on the records so hard that to play them just a few dozen times is to wear them out. What I'd really love to do is get ahold of a more modern phonographic setup that can play those old records and record them to WAV audio format for archival, so that they're preserved for future generations. I wonder if archive.org would be interested in doing that?

Sort of makes you think...it wasn't so very long ago at all that a reasonably mechanically competant man could repair things in all areas of life; a clockmaker could fix a Victrola, a Model T, or what-have-you...it all worked on similar principles. But nowadays, our audio entertainment is provided by printed circuits, and even modern cars are nearly more computer than engine.

(Making and) Taking the Cake

Well, just got back from church service. This one happened to be the "yearly guilt trip" service—i.e. the fund drive reminder. But one thing that I did find out that was of interest was that this afternoon is the church's Thanksgiving Dinner. The pastor asked folks who come to bring "Thanksgiving-style" desserts if they can—whatever that means. I foresee about a zillion pumpkin pies and very little else on the dessert table...which is why I'm going to make a recipe that brought my Dad a lot of acclaim when he brought it to church or square-dance potluck dinners back when I was staying with them. It's one of those recipes that seems like it cheats the Law of Cooking that goes "there is a direct proportion between the amount of effort put into a dish and how good it is"—because it's exceedingly delicious and the instructions amount to "just dump a whole lot of stuff into a cake pan and shove it in the oven." It's sort of the dessert equivalent of one of those "stew with biscuit topping" casseroles you can buy at grocery stores.

Anyway, here's the recipe, just as I got it from my Dad, for those of you who might want to try it for yourselves. (If you do, please let me know how well it goes over!)

( DAD'S DUMP CAKE )

Post-Dinner Wrap-Up

Well, I made the dump cake, and it worked out pretty well. Got a little scorched on the top, but it tasted okay. I took it down to the church about 5:00, and the dinner got started about 5:30. It was actually sort of a "semi pot-luck" dinner—the dinner portion of it was actually catered by Boston Market, whereas attendees were encouraged to bring dessert. The dinner was okay—a few notches down from home-made; I disliked the sweet cornbread rolls they served with it, the dressing had crunchy vegetables in it (I have nothing against crunchy vegetables as a matter of principle, but I just don't think they belong in dressing), and there was no cranberry sauce (unless I missed it somehow). There were about a zillion different desserts, including mine.

The dinner kind of reminded me why I don't really like such events—when everyone was talking all at once over dinner, the noise level got to be such that I just couldn't think—I ended up walking into another part of the church for a while just to get away from all the noise. It was driven home to me how little I really like crowds at that point.

After dinner and desserts, the church treasurer said a few words on how much money had been pledged, there were a few praise choruses, and then they had some families come forward to give "testimony" about reasons to be thankful and such. It was at that point that I collected my remaining dump cake and slipped out; I really didn't care to hang around and listen to families I didn't know, and I had stuff to do. Swung by my brother Aaron's place, in the hope that he might be able to fix the el-cheapo digital camera I have, then back home.

Over the last couple of days I've been watching The Mask of Zorro again, now that I'm able to play the DTS digital 5.1 soundtrack. Finished it tonight. It sounds remarkably good, with a lot of directional effects, especially for gunshots and explosions. It's amazing what a difference the sound makes. Now I just wish I had a bigger monitor or TV set...oh well, that'll come eventually.

Sigh...another weekend gone. Tomorrow, back to the work grind. I don't like to think about it, but that's how it goes.