swestrup | Focus on the Positive.

I'm trying to focus more and more on the positive aspects of my life these days. I haven't posted about it much here. Its just something that I've been working on to keep my spirits up. Anyway, I was just feeling really happy about a trivial thing, and so I thought I'd post about it:

I have music in my office!

Well, I've actually had music in here for years, but its had all sorts of problems. When my brother moved to B.C. 20 years ago, he gave me his stereo speakers, rather than haul them across country. (His stereo he took). When a friend moved to Seattle, he let me have his old stereo radio.

The lash-up I used for many years was to plug my computer's sound card output into the line-in for the stereo, and wire up the speakers to that. The trouble was, the stereo was on its last legs. The knobs didn't work, the left and right sound channels kept coming and going, and it would slowly build up a buzz in the background over a month or so, until you turned it off for a few minutes.

A few months back I was visiting my folks in Cornwall and we decided to go rummage at the local flea market. Mom gave me $20 of 'mad money' in case I saw anything I wanted. Well, I found a surround sound processor for $8 which would work with the old bare-wire-type speakers I have, and that I could just plug into the back of my computer.

I bought it, took it home, and replaced the dying radio with it. Suddenly the music returned, at full volume, with all of the tones I hadn't even known were missing. The radio was immediately trashed, and I have really enjoyed listening to music in my office, ever since. In fact, since both it and my computer support surround sound, I could wire up another 4 speakers if I ever had the speakers and a place to put them.

Sometimes, like today, I will listen to something that really makes the office reverberate, and I will recall how bad it would have sounded just a few months ago, and I'm happy for a while.