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.

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That's mikedell.com and look for the Bluehost banner.

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If you ever needed a, fax machine and don't really want the machine, eFax is the way to do it, and, there's a banner there.

So, 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.