East Texas Productions

You can quickly convert a street address to latitude and longitude coordinates on Google maps using the link below. First, lookup the address on Google and when the small map appears, click on the map to get the big map to appear. Next, click on the “Lat-Long on Google” link (save it as a bookmark/favorite in your browser) and the coordinates will appear in a popup prompt.

Lat-Long on Google

I find this is useful for finding a location that is not on my car’s GPS map. Google maps are usually quite up to date, whereas my GPS may have maps several years old. I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of north Texas and many new subdivisions are not on either of my car GPS units, this even though I update maps about once a year. But I can enter the coordinates in the GPS and save it as a “favorite” so I can locate it later.  (NOTE: If your car’s GPS is supported by Google, you can connect your GPS to the computer and send the address directly from Google maps to your GPS - this is useful if you have a lot of addresses to transfer).

You may have heard people say that one type of alcoholic beverage is less alcoholic than another. Well, that’s only partially true.

While the percentage of alcohol will differ from, say beer at around 4 to 5%, to distilled spirits (whiskey, vodka, tequila, etc.) at around 40% or 80 proof, with many like wine in between at about 12%, the amount of actual pure alcohol in most drinks is actually about equal.

That’s because of the way standard bar drinks are served. If you calculate the percentage of alcoholic content times the weight of the booze you will find most drinks have about 0.6 ounces of pure (100%) alcohol.

Most adults can safely and legally metabolize about one serving of alcohol per hour - that’s one drink whether it’s beer, wine or a mixed drink. That means keeping your blood alcohol level at a “legal to drive” level means limiting your intake to one standard drink per hour.

Beware that many bars and restaurants serve oversize drinks these days. Beer is commonly served in 16 oz. or 24 oz. glasses.   Wine servings have grown to 7 oz. or more, with some restaurants pouring jug wine into a 12 oz. water glass. And one southern favorite, the frozen Margarita, is commonly served in beer size containers.

So, if the drink you are served looks “really big” it probably will count as two or three towards your safety level.

You can reduce your water heating costs by simply lowering the thermostat setting on your water heater.  For each 10ºF reduction in water temperature, you can save between 3%–5% in energy costs.

Although some manufacturers set water heater thermostats at 140ºF, most households usually only require them set at 120ºF. Water heated at 140ºF also poses a safety hazard—scalding. However, if you have a dishwasher without a booster heater, it may require a water temperature within a range of 130ºF to 140ºF for optimum cleaning.

Reducing your water temperature to 120ºF also slows mineral buildup and corrosion in your water heater and pipes. This helps your water heater last longer and operate at its maximum efficiency.

Consult your water heater owner’s manual for instructions on how to operate the thermostat. You can find a thermostat dial for a gas storage water heater near the bottom of the tank on the gas valve. Electric water heaters, on the other hand, may have thermostats positioned behind screw-on plates or panels. As a safety precaution, shut off the electricity to the water heater before removing/opening the panels. Keep in mind that an electric water heater may have two thermostats—one each for the upper and lower heating elements.

Mark the beginning temperature and the adjusted temperature on the thermostat dial for future reference. After turning it down, check the water temperature with a thermometer at the tap farthest from the water heater. Thermostat dials are often inaccurate. Several adjustments may be necessary before you get the right temperature.

If you plan to be away from home for at least 3 days, turn the thermostat down to the lowest setting or completely turn off the water heater. To turn off an electric water heater, switch off the circuit breaker to it. For a gas water heater, make sure you know how to safely relight the pilot light before turning it off.

A good way to reduce your overall energy costs is to switch to Ambit Energy (www.AmbitEnergy.Tx-US.net)

Did you know that you probably already have one of the most powerful tools to save energy costs in your home? That’s right. Its your thermostat!

A common misconception associated with thermostats is that a furnace works harder than normal to warm the space back to a comfortable temperature after the thermostat has been set back, resulting in little or no savings. This misconception has been dispelled by years of research and numerous studies. The fuel required to reheat a building to a comfortable temperature is roughly equal to the fuel saved as the building drops to the lower temperature. You save fuel between the time that the temperature stabilizes at the lower level and the next time heat is needed.

So, the longer your house remains at the lower temperature, the more energy you save.

The above is from the U.S. Department of Energy Web site, www.eere.energy.gov.

Another powerful way to save on energy costs is to change your electric provider to Ambit Energy (www.AmbitEnergy.TX-US.net).

Coat of Arms ~ Family Crests

I love to listen to audio books in the car while I commute 30-40 minutes each way to work. They’re also a nice way to pass the time in airports and during flights. I listen to music about 40% of the time and audio books the other 60%.

For music and audiobooks I use an iPod - I have an Alpine car radio which interfaces to the iPod through a digital cable. I use the radio’s buttons to control the IPod which is hidden in the glove box of my car so I can access dozens of audiobooks and thousands of MP3 songs from the car dashboard.

The following method works in Apple’s iTunes and can be played from iTunes directly or on either an iPod or iPhone by using Sync. This method, including software suggestions, is for Windows XP.

The m4b file format for iTunes Audiobooks

This all leads me to this discussion about how to create m4b Audiobooks (one word) from mp3 audio books (two words) files for iTunes. Apple has a special filetype for iTunes Audiobooks called m4b. The m4a (for music) and m4b (for audiobooks) use a compression codec called Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). Audiobooks in m4b format are one large audio file containing the entire book and have the ability to remember where you stopped listening - a bookmark! Even if you listen to other music tracks or even other audiobooks on the IPod/iPhone, when you go back to that book it will resume where you left off. This is much better than the old way I listened to books on CDs where if I stopped the CD I could resume it from the same spot only if I didn’t eject it to listen to something else. If I ejected the CD to listen to something else, I lost my place.

Since I get my audio books as mp3 fragments of the whole book, sometimes over 200 separate mp3 files for one book, I need to convert these to a single m4b file. I could purchase the books from Apple already in the single m4b format, but that is very limiting.

No, I need a way to convert multiple mp3s to one m4b. There are at least two ways to do the conversion.

1. mp3 to m4b Conversion - direct method

There is a free software tool for directly combining many mp3 files and converting the output to a single large m4b file. This tool is called, appropriately enough, MP3 to iPod Audio Book Converter and I have used it successfully - sometimes. The problem is the output file sometimes has the wrong duration encoded in the file which causes various problems, including causing iTunes to crash. I say sometimes, but it is actually more like 75% of the time.

Not good.

2. mp3 to m4b Conversion - indirect mothod

As luck would have it, there is another, almost foolproof, way to make the conversion. Unfortunately, it takes several steps, although just a little longer it actual processing time.

I use another free tool called MergeMP3 to combine all the mp3 fragment files into a single mp3 file of the whole book. I’m careful to include the proper mp3 Tags like title, author, and album (same as title) in this step. Then I drag the finished full-book mp3 file into iTunes and it immediately adds the file to my library - but as music, not an audiobook. Next I locate this file in the iTunes music library under the artist (author) and Right-Click the title and select Create AAC Version.

ITunes now converts the mp3 to an AAC format called m4a. This takes a few minutes and is the longest part of the process. When complete, I locate the m4a file and change the extension to m4b. The file is the same, just a slightly different name. Finally, back to iTunes and under File I select Add a file to Library and locate the new m4b (b for book) file and it will be added to the audiobooks category. I can go back to the music category and delete the original mp3 file and also delete it from the folder on my computer.

Whew!

There are a lot more steps to do this manually, but I haven’t had a single file with errors using this method.

Yamaha WX5 Wind Controller

My kids gave me a great new musical instrument last winter which has opened new musical areas for me to explore. The instrument, a Yamaha WX5 wind controller, is like a keyboard that controls sounds produced by an external sound synthesizer module, but it plays like a saxophone.

This means that I can sound like almost any instrument, real or imaginary, when I play this thing even though it responds like a saxophone. I can use all the normal expressive controls a wind player has - breath, articulation, vibrato, and so on - and choose the actual sound with a few key clicks. For a musician, perhaps one of the biggest advantages is it’s always in tune!

In the band Ebenezer (see post), I can play clarinet on a swing song, then the steel drum on a Jimmy Buffett tune, then accordion or sax or trumpet or fiddle . . . ; and, well you get the idea! Since the WX5 has no sounds of its own, I play it through my old Roland SC-88 sound module which has over 1,100 sounds and variants available in its memory.

Here are some of the instrumental sounds I typically use with Ebenezer:

Roland SC88 Pro Sound Canvas

• Accordion
• Grand Piano
• Electric Piano
• Harmonica
• Marimba
• Xylophone
• Steel Drum
• Cello
• Violin (or fiddle)
• String Section
• Bari Sax
• Tenor Sax
• Flute
• Piccolo
• Pan Flute
• Clarinet
• Bass Clarinet
• Trumpet
• Trombone
• Flugelhorn
• Various “electronic” sounds

Its fun to talk to the audience during breaks because people are fascinated by this thing. “I heard a violin but looked up and didn’t see one! Is that you?” is a typical reaction. One of the favorites of the evening is the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” which has a famous trumpet solo that I manage to reproduce.

Ron plays Yamaha WX5 with Ebenezer

I started playing with the band Ebenezer a few months ago. This group is a five piece band with two guitars, bass, harmonica and me on WX5. Vocals are provided by the guitarists and we play monthly in Granbury, Texas at Hanks on the Square and Grumps Burgers.

Ebenezer is primarily a vocal band performing music from the swing era up to the present.  Much of our “book” consists of 60s and 70s Rock/Folk Rock with an emphasis on music by The Beatles, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, and others of that style.

Although we use amplifiers for vocals and guitars, and of course my WX5 is an electronic wind instrument, we still could be considered an “acoustic band” since that’s the primary sound and style we produce.