I Forgot...

I'll write about turning things on or really the more important part, turning them off and it brings to mind a story from a friend which I will try to relate as true as I remember it. Trying to remember figures as a part of this also.   

A local church, they knew a friend of mine was a musician and they gifted him a non working Marshall guitar amplifier. You might think that's an unusual gear choice for church but it was not the big old Marshall stack associated with hairy young men scaring the adults with a raging distorted Highway to Hell/Smells Like Teen Spirit type thing. Instead it was a small combo amp (there was probably also some crunch that could be dialed up) like I had once seen master of the Stratocaster Lil Buck Sinegal use at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to produce those clowns have all gone to bed and The Wind Cries Mary clean round clear tones that worked so well for Lil Buck's blues and zydeco. 

Seems that this church, when they purchased the amp new was told, "it's a tube amp so it's bad to turn it on and turn it off and it will wear it out." They installed it in the worship sanctuary, turned it on and never turned it off for so many years that I can't now recall (like I said remembering is a part) but it was maybe 20 years or so. Just for reference I'll mention here that the U.S. military has vacuum tube technology on stand by so operations won't much be disrupted by nuclear war and despite the heat that the tubes in the church amp probably generated the building never caught fire and after all those years a very minor part of some sort was all that failed and my friend was able to replace it for pennies to have an essentially free amp. 

When I retired my old doctor, who was a bit younger than me retired also which I guess is a kind of tuning off. I had to get a new doc so for convenience I chose the same one my wife sees. I have not had to see him much. There was the "Welcome to Medicare" while I put these government dollars in my pocket visit where we talked about how if he was retired he would not get a haircut or take a bath either.

 Actually Medicare does not pay him that well but probably combined with the Affordable Care Act insurance my wife uses makes us worth his trouble. An insurance agent related to me that during a tennis game with a local doc who was spouting misinformed political ideology about why he would not accept ACA the agent used tennis balls to demonstrate how the ACA rocked a circle around the sun and how much money the doc was letting stream out uncollected into the solar system. Next day the doc signed to take those government dollars. 

So anyway during those few visits to the doc we share I could tell he was asking questions to establish which one of us was steering the ship so to speak. Lately it's been a group of two effort. Remember I mentioned that remembering to turn things off thing? 

There's the coffee maker. With the fixed income austerity measures I bought the cheapest coffee pot possible. That means it does not have auto turn off. Leave this on all day and the last bit of coffee in the pot cooks to a nice caffeine rich sludge. She's in charge of turning this off. 

Cathy sews for a hobby. Sometimes when finished she irons what she sews. The iron sets on the sewing table. I'm supposed to be watching if she turns it off. 

I think I left the gas BBQ grill on all night once that I know of. It was a low heat and amazingly enough I cooked several more meals on it before running out of propane so I guess it's getting pretty good miles per gallon. I also left the water hose on which I hate to waste the water but it is a drought and several trees in the back yard benefited. Because these two forgettings cost us money I think she might have docked my allowance.

I do play tube amps around the house pretty often but have not left them on unattended because I use a compensation strategy of an always on fuzz pedal creating a 60 cycle hum, static or back feed squawk that reminds me the amp is operating.  

So I guess what I have here today is always use a tube amp and keep an eye on the old lady. She probably keeps an eye on you.