Books Read - 2015

It was a good year for reading, many of my favorite authors published books and I discovered some new friends thanks to GoodReads suggestions. I'm pretty sure no one reads my blog but if you are interested in my favorite books, they are in green.

1. The Ares Decision - Robert Ludlum
2. The Janus Reprisal - Robert Ludlum
3. Without You, There is no Us - Suki Kimm
4. My Promised Land:The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel - Ari Shavit
5. Ghost Ship - Clive Cussler
6. The Thief - Clive Cussler
7. A Disruptive Invention - Peter Shackle
8. Insatiable Appetites - Stuart Woods
9. Jacob's Oath - Martin Fletcher
10. The Girl on The Train - Paula Hawkins
11. White Jade - Alex Lukeman
12. The Good Girl - Mary Kubica
13. The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
14. Twelve Days - Alex Berenson
15. Leaving Berlin - Joseph Kanon
16. Red Moth - Sam Eastland
17. Bridge of Sighs - Olen     Steinhauer
18. The Farm - Tom Rob Smith
19. Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
20. The Breach - Patrick Lee
21. Hot Pursuit - Stuart Woods
22. The Atlantis Gene (The Origin Mystery, #1) - A.G. Riddle
23. Red Tide - Larry Niven
24. Gathering Prey - John Sandford
25. The Last Flight of Poxl West - Daniel Torday
26. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour - Joshua Ferris
27. All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
28. The Beast in the Red Forest - Sam Eastland
29. Red Icon - Sam Eastland
30. Havana Storm - Clive Cussler
31. Radiant Angel - Nelson DeMille
32. The Secret Speech - Tom Rob Smith
33. The Fourth Man - Kjel Ola Dahl
34. The English Spy - Daniel Silva
35. Naked Greed - Stuart Woods
36. Uncaged - John Sandford
37. Outrage - John Sandford
38. Pretty Baby -Mary Kubica
39. The Family Tree - Sheri S. Tepper
40. Make Me - Lee Child
41. The Ways of the World - Robert Goddard
42. The Corners of the Globe - Robert Goddard
43. The Ends of the Earth - Robert Goddard
44. Foreign Affairs - Stuart Woods
45. Lights Out:A Cyber Attack, a Nation Unprepared - Ted Kopple
46. Zoo Station (John Russell #1) - David Downing
47. Silesian Station (John Russell #2) - David Downing
48. Stettin Station (John Russell #3) - David Downing
49. Potsdam Station (John Russell #3) - David Downing
50. Lehrter Station (John Russell, #5) - David Downing
51. Masaryk Station (John Russell #6) - David Downing
52. The Einstein Prophecy - Robert Masello

A Custom Made Guitar

I've always wanted a guitar with my name at the top. I've also been partial to guitars that are spruce top and rosewood sides and back. Ebony is my favorite fingerboard material because its dark and has a very solid feel when you play. I

The headstock design I supplied
knew that it would be very expensive to have this kind of guitar made but... There are several Chinese guitar makers will make you one, to your specifications for very little money. I took a chance and ordered one from a Chinese guitar maker. I used Ali-express to place the order because they guarantee delivery or your money back. They escrow the money until you receive the guitar. Only when you agree that it has been delivered to your satisfaction do they release the money to the seller. 

Mid August I designed a head stock and asked the owner, Kevin Shi, if he could do

The actual headstock on my guitar

i

The design I sent Kevin Shi

t. He said yes and I proceeded to order the guitar. On October 3rd it arrived in a big styrofoam box covered in packing tape and with stickers in Chinese and English attesting to its tour of American customs. Opening the box was simple enough and out came a beautiful guitar. Shiny and well finished with my name on the top. No labels, numbers or anything else on the guitar. Abalone rosette around the soundhole, beautiful fingerboard markings and even a pretty scallop at the bottom of the ebony fingerboard. The machine heads are gold Grovers and the neck is nice and slim with nice grain and figuring. It is straight and true with perfect intonation. The neck has a visible scarf joint but that is common on Chinese guitars. The frets needed a little dressing and the guitar needed a strap button but other than that is ready to play. I love it.

This is the Guitar. I had to put new strings on it and add a strap button but all in all its pretty nice!

The obvious question is how does it sound? Pretty much like a new, inexpensive guitar. As good as most, not spectacular. I believe it needs about twenty years of age to be really great. I'll not be quite 90 by then. (I plan to be here!) All in all this was a fun experience. Finally a guitar I actually can't sell, who would want a guitar with my name on the head stock? Oops, I guess my son might have an interest in this guitar.

Is it a Les Paul?

This guitar is called an ES=Les Paul. That usually would stand for electric spanish but in this case it refers to a a guitar that is semi-hollow. The guitar weighs about two and a half pounds less than a solid Les Paul. That is because the solid part is a block that runs down the middle of the guitar. Both the top and bottom sections are actually hollow. Hence the name semi-hollow.

Les Paul's have a great sound but are often too heavy for me. In 2014 Gibson released a semi-hollow Les Paul made in its Memphis USA plant. In 2015 they upgraded some of the features and I could not resist.

This guitar is in the lemon burst finish but the darkness at the edges is very muted. Its almost a lemon colored guitar. The finish is beautiful even down to the soft F hole design in the truss rod cover. The guitar is fully bound and has a very smooth and thin neck with low wide frets. Its fun to play and even has a bit of "woody-ness" that would be expected from a semi-hollow body guitar.

What's a Stratocaster?

The Strat is probably the most iconic electric guitar. If you see a rock band, there is likely to be a Strat or a Strat clone. They sell from $50 or sixty dollars up to tens of thousands for a custom made or classic model.

Basically the Fender Stratocaster features three pickups and a floating spring tension tremelo system. It was the first guitar in this configuration. It was the first Fender with a contoured body. The  "Comfort Contour Body" is less slab like than the tele.

Starting in 1954, the Stratocaster was offered with a solid, deeply contoured ash body, a 21-fret one-piece maple neck with black dot inlays and Kluson tuning heads.
Strats come in a variety of finishes and colors. I bought mine because I fell in love with the color, agave blue. It has a great neck and I've replaced the pickguard from plain white to a pearlized white like my thinline tele. Mine has a maple neck and maple fingerboard. I love these fender maple fingerboards. They are hard and smooth to the touch.

The Stratocaster features three single coil pickups, with the output originally selected by a 3-way switch. Guitarists soon discovered that by jamming the switch in between the 1st and 2nd position, both the bridge and middle pickups could be selected, and similarly, the middle and neck pickups could be selected between the 2nd and 3rd position. Mine has a more modern 5 position switch.
I love the sound and the feel but I've made three "mods" I added a spring to the floating tremolo so that it is not a floating tremolo anymore. Its what is often called a "hardtail" I don't use wammy's and this stabilized the tuning an feel. I added a new pickguard as mentioned above and finally, I replaced the stamped metal bridge pieces with solid chrome. This was to improve sustain but I noticed little difference.

What's a Thinline?

I have a Fender Thinline guitar. Its one of my favorites. It is actually a regular Telecaster that has been hollowed out at the top bout and has an "F" hole signifying that it is partially acoustic. 

The guitar has a wonderfully thin neck with a hard maple fingerboard and very wide low frets. It is a joy to play and has a very woody tone. It also has a tele "twang" when using the bridge pickup and that balances well with the sweet sounds of the neck pickup. Alone the neck pickup is very mellow and downright jazzy.

Designed by luthier Roger Rossmeisl in 1968 and  introduced in 1969 with humbucking pickups.My 1969 version has two standard Telecaster pickups and a mahogany body. Mike was made in Mexico while a more expensive USA made model is still available. I like the color of my Mexican model. 

I originally bought a Squire version of this guitar. Squire is Fender's lower priced line. I liked it so much that I traded up to the Mexican Fender. I like the color too. 

The guitar is remarkably light and easy to play.

(Paraphrased below from Wikipedia)

The Fender Telecaster was developed by Leo Fender in California in 1950. Solid body guitars had been around for about two decades but did not make much of an impact on the industry.
Fender had an electronics repair shop called Fender's Radio Service where he first repaired, then designed, amps and pickups for musicians. 
Leo built a prototype, a white guitar that had most of the features of what would become the Telecaster. It was a wooden guitar with a bolt-on neck.
The initial single-pickup production model appeared in 1950, and was called the Esquire. Fewer than fifty guitars were originally produced under that name, and most were replaced under warranty because of early manufacturing problems.  Later in 1950 a two-pickup model was renamed the Broadcaster. From this point onwards all Fender necks incorporated truss rods.
The so-called Nocaster was a short-lived variant of Telecaster. Produced in early to mid-1951, it was the result of legal action from the Gretsch company over the guitar's previous name, the Broadcaster (Gretsch already had the "Broadkaster" name registered for a line of drums). In the interim, before Fender had come up with an alternate name and printed appropriately revised headstock decals, factory workers simply snipped the "Broadcaster" name from its existing stock of decals, so guitars with these decals are identified simply as "Fender", without any model name.
In 1951 the guitar was officially renamed as the Telecaster and has been known as such ever since.

Counting the Omer Again....

As a child, holidays came and went. Each had its own rituals and foods. Some I didn't even notice, others were pretty much good for a day off from school. Now that I am older, and have time to think about these things, I spend a little more time wondering what it is all about.

When my dear daughter asked me to write her an Omer counter I had to look it up to find out what it was. I find the idea interesting for many reasons. Most of which it makes the counter, if you choose to be one, congnizant of the passage of time and the season more than ever. It gives us a chance to prepare for the holiday that celebrates G-d giving us the Torah.

The Torah, everything you need to know about life in one easy to handle scroll, is an amazing gift and however you believe it came to be, it certainly has had a profound impact on Jews and non-Jews alike.


I found a couple of interesting articles on Counting the Omer. The first is from the blog PunkTorah regarding the counting:

So, what does this all mean to us now? Well, it can mean many things. Counting the Omer can be used as a tool of self reflection. We can take this time to recognize the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt, from the gift of our freedom. The Sages tell us that G-d freed us from slavery in order to give us the Torah on Shavu’ot, so this should be a time of preparation. Counting the Omer gives us the time to learn from the gift of freedom G-d has given us and incorporate it into our lives, to grow one day at a time, taking a spiritual accounting, to make sure that we are heading in the right direction, to look at what we are doing that is right or wrong and to try to make ourselves ready to receive the honor of the Torah.
Counting the days is another way of directing our mindfulness to the passage of time. Be aware of the days as they pass, count them, give them meaning. We have been freed from slavery, rejecting the confusion and idolatry (philosophically, literally, and spiritually) of our own Egypt’s and are being made ready to re-focus our lives.

I guess a good take-away from all of this is that one must make each day count. Make each day worth living for you and the people you love. 

(This is a repeat of a post from a few years ago)

Why is it Called An ES- 175?

The ES-175 debuted in 1949, as an alternative to the expensive carved top models. The name came from its original price of $175. It was the Electric Spanish - 175. Early models came with p-90 pickups, either one or two but in the late 50's humbuckers became standard. Most ES-175's have two humbuckers mounted in the bodies. Some single pickup models were made

I love the color!

but they were less popular.
The combination of the laminated, not carved, top and the humbuckers makes for a rich tone. It is a sound that can not be emulated with a solid or thin guitar.

Nice Inlays

I first got the 175 bug by buying a cheap knock-off. I wanted to be sure I liked the body shape and size. It is a bit too expensive to just buy to try the real thing. After a few months with the knock-off I started to

A Pleck

scout our used ones but they were more used than vintage so I set my sights on a new one - and I looked for a custom shop model because of the great setup. I played several new ones that just didn't do much for me. I guess there is a lot of hand work, making each guitar different. Finally found one in Highland Park Illinois.
Mine is a custom shop model, with two pickups and the trapeze style bridge. It has parallelogram inlays on a rosewood fingerboard. The neck is a bit chunky and mahogany of a one piece design. This guitar has a tune-o-matic bridge that is set in rosewood. As you can see mine is a little more antique
finish than the stock photo above.  It is very easy to play with great action. This may be due the pleck machine that Gibson uses when setting these guitars up after manufacture. 
The model has gone through several body and pickup configurations but the two pickup model that I have is still in production. This makes it one of the longest production runs in the industry.

More Lytro Shots

 As promised here are a couple more Lytro examples. These show how the focus can shift on an image. As you can see the focus can be on any object or place in the picture... Means thinking about images in a new way. The window shot is so much like we actually see that it is amazing.

More about Lytro from their website:

Lytro was founded in 2006 by Executive Chairman Ren Ng, whose Ph.D. research on light field photography won Stanford University’s prize for best thesis in computer science in 2006 as well as the internationally recognized ACM Dissertation award.

In 2012, Lytro released the world’s first consumer Light Field Camera which offers photographic capabilities never before possible, such as focusing a picture after it’s taken, changing the perspective in the picture and creating interactive living pictures that can be endlessly refocused and enjoyed by friends and family online. Lytro was named one of Time Magazine's 50 Best Inventions of 2011, was Popular Science's Innovation of the Year, 2011 and took home the Last Gadget Standing Award and Best of Innovations Award for Digital Imaging at CES in 2012.

More?

So What is A Lytro Camera...

I own one and I'm still not actually sure... It takes a picture like the one below. How is this a big deal? Well, click on the kid's nose... then on the flowers in the left corner, give it a second and you will see the focus change. The picture is an image that can be refocused on demand because it is generated from a different kind of picture engine.  It is quite amazing, easy to use and hare do explain. I hope I'll do a better job after I learn how to use it.


The camera looks like this: About 4 inches long with a big f2 lens on one side and a viewfinder on the other. It has an 8x zoom and is wifi capable. Dumps the pictures to my phone and then stores them for me online if I want. the picture above is a link to their photo sharing website. Because they need software for display it may be a while before you can have them on the wall.

Lytro Light Field Camera

Want to know more? Click on the image above to go to https://store.lytro.com/

John D'Angelico's Guitar

When I was in high school I had a Gibson Johnny Smith model guitar, it was about the top of their line and in 1963 when I got it there were only a few guitars that cost more. Don't ask how I got it, its too long a story, suffice it to say my father respected my taste in instruments. The Johnny Smith Guitar sold for about one-third of what a Chevy Impala cost at the time. 

When I started looking to buy a jazz guitar about 10 years ago, I learned that the Johnny Smith guitar was actually a copy, or knockoff, of a guitar built by John D'angelico in the 1940's. He and his apprentices built about 1200 guitars of various designs. Often the guitars were custom made for specific guitar players. Johnny Smith actually had one of these.

In the 90's, I think, the D'Angelico brand and design was bought by a company and the manufacture of the guitars was moved to Japan. A company called Vestax was commissioned to build them. 

I bought this one used about ten years ago on ebay. It is the pride of my guitars, one of the best playing and sounding guitars I have. The metal is thick gold and the fingerboard is ebony with large split block inlays. They still make guitars guitars of this quality but not many and not cheap. 

This one is an NYS-2 in vintage sunburst. It is a small guitar, a 14" body. This is actually inspired by John D'Angelico because he never made a 14" guitar.  It has a single "Johnny Smith" style humbucker attached to the neck, not the body. 

The pegboard inlays are intricate and beautiful. There is even an inlay of pearl on the back of the pegboard. The classic stairstep design is featured in the tailpiece, truss rod cover and pickguard.

The guitar has worn particularly well, it has a beautiful finish, slim neck and a great sound.

More about John D'Angelico on Wikipedia

A New Guitar With A Fine Pedigree

Ok, so my dear wife is driving down the road and sees a sign that says Guitar Outlet. She tells me and we take a little field trip. I've been stuck in the house for a couple of weeks because of my back surgery and this was one of my first days out.

The storefront is Dean Zelinsky’s Guitar Factory Outlet at 3080 Skokie Valley Road in Highland Park, IL. First, if you have not heard of Dean then you don't play guitar. He is a guitar innovator and has a long history of designing and making great, interesting instruments. Dean guitars was born with his name. DBZ guitars was also his product line. These guitars a beautifully made and have extraordinary playability and sound.

DBZ Imperial

So how did I pick a guitar. It was a snap. Dean designed a guitar that is incredibly thin and has an amazing sound. This solid body guitar is 5/8" at the edges and no more than an inch at its thickest. Its a set neck guitar with a stop tailpiece that is set farther down the body giving the guitar a great feel and lots of sustain and I think a very mellow tone. All the components are top notch and the finish is incredible. Metal is gold and the fingerboard and fret work is as good as any guitar I've played. It reminds me of my custom shop Gibson that was Pleked at the factory. This guitar is so beautiful its really a work of art. Oh, almost forgot. Its light as a feather, well, maybe half the weight of a Les Paul.

Click above to learn more about Dean's Private Label guitars.

Or read about Dean at Wikipedia

A New Fender..........

Fender keeps coming up with these reissue guitars from the 60's and 70's and I am such a sucker for them. As the Fender website says:

The Starcaster® guitar is back. Virtually fabled since its original mid-to-late ’70s tenure, the seldom-seen Starcaster occupies a special place in our history as Fender’s one and only offset-waist semi-hollow electric guitar. Prized decades later by a new generation of adventurous guitarists with a flair for appealingly unconventional Fender style, the Starcaster now returns in fabulous new Modern Player form with greater sound, build and beauty that’ll have you seeing stars.

The Fender Starcaster guitar’s thin semi-hollow offset body has a bound maple top and back, with stylish bound f holes. Its “C”-shaped maple neck has a 9.5”-radius maple fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets, black-dot inlays and the distinctively curvaceous Starcaster headstock. Other premium features include full-voiced dual Fender Wide Range humbucking pickups with three-way toggle switching, three-ply black pickguard, four skirted “amp”-style control knobs (volume and tone for each pickup) and an Adjusto-Matic™ bridge with anchored tailpiece. In Aged Cherry Burst gloss finishes.

Pictures? I thought you'd never ask: