March 20, 2015

Rockford Files: The Case of the Homebrew Answering Machine

I always loved the funny intro to the Rockford Files. I decided that I wanted to recreate that answering machine that caused Jim Rockford so much frustration. It seems he never got the big pay day he was always searching for. That was something we had in common. So I cobbled together an Arduino Uno, a Seeed Lab relay shield, an Adafruit FX Sound Board, a ring generator, an old Western Electric touch tone phone from the early 80's, and an old radio from a second hand store that cost a whopping 50 cents. The .wav files can be found on the internet.

Posted by roadapples at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

October 31, 2010

UW Whitewater Homecoming 2010

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Posted by roadapples at 03:23 PM

February 05, 2009

Summer Wind

It was 6 am on a Sunday morning in 1966 and I had been out all night wasting what little money I had in many of the fine strip clubs of Norfolk. It was the height of the Viet Nam war and sailors in uniform were never carded.

I was in no hurry to return to my ship in Little Creek so I walked in to a greasy spoon near the Y and ordered a cup of joe. I had two quarters left in my pocket. I paid the tab with one. The other one went in the jukebox.

Sinatra was 51 in the fall of of '66 when he recorded this song. To a punk kid of 18, he was ancient but I became a fan that day.

Funny how the smell of wine can bring back memories of an old black dog and a boyish prank. It is the same with an old tune.

Posted by roadapples at 07:04 AM | Comments (2)