h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

RIP Dame Vera Lynn.

103 years old.

What a lady.

Dear lady.

"Gate" there is a word that packs a lot of baggage and mystery.

I have a picture I bought 40 years ago called the "Krell Gate". It's a misshapen white brick building with a gate in the middle that's sort of double-exposed with something that doesn't quite make sense to the eye. It's hanging in the laundry room because Mrs. Phred finds it too disturbing.

Then there is "Stallion Gate" on a lonely New Mexico road. They open it the first Saturday in April and October to let a limited number of tourists look at the Trinity nuclear test site where they created all the melted green glass in the desert. The Caravan leaves Alamagordo at 5 AM...

"The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun."-Brig. Gen. Thomas Farrell

What a word...stranger at the gate,,,

How very poetic are these Gate writings!

The Krell Gate picture is now immortalised, and printed forever on my brain.

Ah, The Stallion Gate, a classic Firecloud writing.

Gate. Gateway. It is very evocative.

I could think about this for a long time.

Hah! I wonder if it would be a good theme for Create. FWR asked me recently if I could think of a theme for Create, it could be something involving gateways, but I've gone a bit shy to submit an actual phrase. Any chance of us coming up with it together? Or I could just over to Daydream thread and say Gate! Yes!

gate is good...I'm ready teddy for the Stallion Gate, Krell gate, Watergate, Stargate, Heaven's gate...whatever...It might make Dmitri happy to get the suggestion...

Scary transition word....

Yes! Gates!

Scary transition word .. that's interesting. Through the Pearly Gates.

I always wondered about that phrase, The Pearly Gates. I always got confused with the gates of Heaven, and the Pearlies, who are the Pearly Kings and Queens of London. I always imagined them at the Gates, when I die, come in darlin' they'd say. heheh. That would be rather fine, in fact.

Gates. Yes! There's a synthesiser term, Gate. Gate signal. CV/Gate. Controlled Voltage/Gate. Does it show that I don't really know what Gate is in this context? . Even though my synths have a Gate knob.

We could get into this. Gates.

Gate (sometimes called "trigger") indicates when a note should start, a pulse that is used to trigger an event, typically an ADSR envelope. In the case of triggering a drum machine, a clock signal or LFO square wave could be employed to signal the next beat.

I don't know wot that means cause I just copied it...does your gate knob do anything?

Here is a guy explaining synthesizer gate knobs on youtubw

https://youtu.be/7TcHzHhjzs8

Ah right. Interesting definition!

Well, the gate knob on my Microkorg synth stretches out the note. Makes it last for longer.

On my Roland JU 06A, I can't hear the difference.

Gate could also be something to do with midi. I've never understood midi. The guys in the synth shop always chuckle at me, because I don't understand midi. It is central to the life of a synth performer.

I tell them I'm a genius anyway, and they believe me, if I bribe them with biscuits.

I must send you more synth family photos. . I'll get to it.

You use it to extend a note for as long as you twist the knob?

Yes, but the adjusted note stays in the setting, once you've turned the gate knob. Its great, I love playing with the length of the note.

That's on the microkorg. On the JU its not the same. I'm going to ask it questions. Take me through your gate, I will say.

Do you ever record your creations? Maybe just the audio on a smartphone unless you have more elaborate gadgets? I am imagining it's more like being a programmer than a guitarist...

MIDI...Musical Instrument Digital Interface...can you connect your gadgets to a computer?

I can, but I don't. Too much screentime. I prefer the old fashioned ways.

I record on a Tascam 8 track, or onto a sampler which also has an SD memory card.

I can, in fact, transfer wav files into my phone by inserting the SD card into a card reader, which is plugged into an android on the go USB adaptor, which is plugged into my phone.

Which sounds really quite interestingly peculiar when I write it down.

If I wanted to be really organised, and transfer studio polished tracks onto a CD I'd ask my nephew to do all the hard work. hahah.

Carol and I went to Fort Desoto Park yesterday. It's a V-shaped island about 2 miles on each side of white sand beaches. You get there over a causeway from the mainland near St. Petersburg about 20 miles from where we live.

You can rent kayaks, wander through the old gun batteries with big mortars, long guns, ammunition bunkers. There are boat launch facilities, campgrounds, and miles of bike trails. They have snack bars and fishing piers.

We never got within 25 feet of other people.

Once I took my telescope to the top of the earthworks. I saw a nuclear submarine go by with the captain standing alone in the conning tower. The captain looked to be in his early 30s with a full beard. When I saw him, I thought I could have been a submarine captain with a full beard.

When I was in Navigator school, the best student automatically went to the Strategic Air Command (SAC)...One night (realizing my danger) I sought out the colonel in charge of training at the Officer's Club. After some conversation, I asked him if he could get me assigned to SAC because I have ofter thought and dreamed of dropping a 24 megaton load on Moscow....He assigned me to cargo aircraft with no weapons for some reason.

Sometimes I would gather clams there. You can feel around with your bare feet for clams. This is hard work in cold weather, so a bottle of Southern Comfort can be kept in the clam collection tub (to prevent frostbite).

It is a lovely park. in some ways very uniquely positioned as a great getaway

Great descriptions here! A classic piece of Firecloud writing. This park sounds amazing!

I am visualising it with an aerial view, for some reason, the V shaped island, the white sand beaches

I'm flying over Fort Desoto Park, whilst drinking morning coffee at 6.30am on a summer morning in England. heheh.

I love this kind of travelling.

(considers Phreddy as a submarine captain with a full beard) (considers a second coffee, to help with this thought) (decides to go for it, with extra biscuits).

Southern Comfort! I just purchased a new bottle yesterday. It makes a fine nightcap, I find. One shot, in a glass of iced water. So the drink is more like a glass of water that tastes a bit funny.

Eeeerugh! say those who know. You cannot do this!

I think my friends who know just left me.

Every now and then, I'll drink a shot, neat, and the moment goes all lit up and crackly, like sparklers on bonfire night.



I was never that good with sparklers on bonfire night, probably because bonfire night was scary. I'm not good with burning effigies of Mr Fawkes, or anyone.

I was OK if someone else was holding the sparkler. People would swirl them around and make orange fire writings in the atmosphere. Funny how the line lingered. I didn't like holding them myself, though, because sparks would land on my glove.



All part of Sir Darrell's Roadtrip. heheh. From now on, whenever I have a flight of fancy, or write anything down, I'm always going to say 'all part of Sir Darrell's roadtrip'. People will wonder about this mysterious reference.

In fact, my entire expression is now called Sir Darrell's Roadtrip.

Royalties? You want royalties? Uh oh ... I never thought about that. Here, have a nice glass of funny tasting iced water.

speaking of gates, comets, and road trips...

Neowise was visible this morning just before dawn in the northeast about 10 degrees above the horizon...it's bright...first magnitude and fading.

The last time we had a comet this bright was Hale/Bopp in 1997. A group of 39 in California called "Heaven's Gate" gathered rolled of quarters for bus fare and commented ritual suicide.

They thought the comet had a companion extraterrestrial spacecraft and they wanted to get aboard.

Humans in the United State (especially California and Florida) are capable of coming to believe very peculiar propositions.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

It an hour drive to Boca Grande (Big Mouth)...everyone should live this way. I've come in here by boat a few times...it's not exactly "old Florida" anymore but there are a few remnants like the abandoned railroad bridge into a long abandoned pier...A ramshackle wooden building built on pilings still sells gas, bait, and beer to passing boaters.

The Bush family and Nixon family have winter enclaves here. There are miles of pristine white sand beaches and only a few thousand residents.

Homes hehe probably start around $500,000 and go way up from there. You don't work for a living if you live here. The bridge toll is six dollars going in and free leaving. The toll is credit cars only.

The beach we pick is lightly attended. We are maybe 30 feet from the nearest person at all times.

The water is clear. blue, and warm...we play a little in the water. The sun at noon is pretty intense...when we got back home we ask Amazon to send us a beach umbrella and anchor ASAP.

The other beach at Fort Desoto is probably also about an hour drive. Florida beaches around here show good social distancing practices, at least during the week.

Boca Grande sounds amazing! I love your descriptions of your much loved places in Florida. Your words kind of take me there, kind of like a painting, I can see the abandoned raildroad bridge, the ramshackle wooden building.

Its interesting to see pictures made from words, not using the addition of photos or illustrations, because obviously I am seeing my own version of the scene. Then its fun to find a photo and see how close I am.

I'm using a bit way out with the actual image, but the atmosphere is usually accurate.

Atmosphere. Words to paint an atmosphere. Oooh yes. I like a bit of atmosphere.



Its been a strange couple of days, what with the brother in law dying so suddenly, but we're OK, just such a shock.

The Spirit Guides have all moved here...muttering about turds in the punchbowl...meanwhile the travelogue by the REAL Phed Firecloud
will continue with more warm blue water, white sand, and playful frolicking...

Spirit Guides come in all shapes and sizes...her is a story about a 10-year old who temporarily shut down the 1964 New York World's Fair in the interest of having a "fair world"...a handy force to have on hand...

http://thefirecloudreport.blogspot.com/2012/05/lorraine-motel.html

I think what you need is to drive to Indiatlantic on the East Coast and frolic in the big Atlantic waves instead the placid Gulf of Mexico surf...

I can arrange a room on the beach for tomorrow night...maybe eat takeout?