BREAKFAST IN AMERICA

[Ian Mackenzie]

That morning I drove down to met Rick and Clark at Ricks home in Joliet.

Again Map Quest proved very useful and it loot about 1 hour traffic.

Clark and I arrived within a few minutes ad we cooled our heels on Ricks front porch with around of stout ales as I recall that Clark produced from is small esky. Nice work Clark.

Later on Rick treated us to a tour of his JBL and Sae collections. Not that Rick's JBL collection is understated, its not..he has JBL in very room and on every floor. But Rick is a SAE nut. He has more SAE amps than SAE had in their warehouse on a good day..I'm not kidding.

Ricks garage workshop and tools are unsurpased. I have never seen such fine craftsmanship and such a well organised shop as Rick has. We spent a good deal of the day just talking about veneering and cutting techniques.

Then down to Ricks JBL room. I can honestly say it was better than the real deal. Clark and were speechless. That other pic Rick took was not my idea but it summed it up. Incredible.

Thank you for a great day Rick.

Here is the product.

Ian

[saeman]

Hello Ian:

I'm glad to hear that you arrived home with only minor physical damage. You will soon realize that the party is over and you are back to the daily grind. Thanks a lot for the wonderful compliments on your visit here. As stated before, we needed another day as we barely scratched the surface on every thing we could have talked about.

Had you decided to come a month later I would have been better prepared for a good listen. I am nearing completion of my room and in a couple weeks I hope to have my equipment cabinet in place and have my turntable up and running. I'm anxious to spend several weeks just listening to vinyl. As you suggested I will spend some time re-orienting the 4345's to improve their performance in this room. I hope to have some exciting news for you in the future. I'm hoping for good results with minimum EQ effort but we shall see.

Thanks again for the visit - Rick

[Titanium Dome]

Nice shots of Chicago. You can't take a bad picture there.

In your first night shot, the building where my daughter works is on the left hand side, just to the left of the taller Aon Center, formerly the Amoco Building, formerly the Standard Oil Building ("Big Stan"). Chicago at night is spectacular.

Rick's builds also look spectacular.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Minor Physical damage...those English woman need to cut their nails........

Rick,

Yes to was too short but I can still see the rosewood veneer....

It was like entering the JBL Tomb.

I think Heather would go crazy if see saw your 4341's in the flesh.

Can you post a pic of those for us?

The plan to try out some of the wood finishing tips over the Christmas break when I re build my 4345's. I am making the templates in the mean time!

Ian

[Ian Mackenzie]

The next step in the U.S.A leg of my vacation was N.Y City.

I had visited the city before in 2004 but only saw a glimpse as a first timer. So this time the plan was to have a deeper look at the Big Apple.

Did I find any JBL? Only at Scotty's down and Coney island and Rob's place out on Long Island. But Rob and I did spot some small JBL in a bar while bike riding on Sunday out on Fire Island.

I am sure there are plenty of JBL installations in all those great clubs and pubs but I was really in Manhatten to see the sites and do what New Yorkers .....

So here are some pictures of my stay. I spent time cruising the Hudson river snaping views of the city, touring the hop on hop off bus, the Subway, Central Park and walking around through the West Village area and down towards Battery Park and of course Wall Street. By night did a night bus tour over to Brooklyn, I went to a few bars and clubs including the Blue Note jazz club and bought back a cd of the band playing that night.

Here we have my first taste of New York as I caught the subway at 103 street down to 42nd street to collect my multipass tour tickets. I was bowled over when surface at steeet level on 42nd street.

Lots of NY taxi's and a short walk around the corner and we are in Times Square by day! If you think its dazzles wait to you see the night pics..... this is one very cool place. The excitement is electrifying.....you can feel the pulse of the city here. Centre of the western civilized world for some.

I had lunch at Planet Hollywood before taking my Circle Island cruise.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Here we have some image from the deck of the Circle line ferry.

There was a bit of haze that day but you get the idea. The third image down is Eliss island.

I have lots of images so if anyone would like to look at more images please pm and I will email you a file.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Here we are on the way back to the Circle Line Pier.

As I understand it the island is some 6km wide and 20km long.

Just behind the green domed buildings is ground zero. The second last image is looing over to N.J. The cruise guide made a point of saying the clock face next to that building is larger then Big Ben's in London. That would be right...go figure.

Had the Titanic completed her maiden voyage this last image would have been the view coming on to NY. The pier of the Line that owned the Titanic and her ill fated sister ships remains just to the south of the Circle Line pier. Brooklyn Bridge is to the far right.

[Ian Mackenzie]

The next few posts are a glimpse of the city from the hop on hop off bus tour ending in a display of light anc color in Times Square.

It was quite good tour as we tracked though the various aspects of the city. Midtown, the Gardenh, the rag trade and fashion districts, down Seventh avenue to Greenwich Village through Soho and then down Broadway to Battery Point. Then back up to East Village and the United Nations Building.

[Ian Mackenzie]

More images of the tour:

The Empire State Building, the 911 memorial and the club area. We did pass ground zero on a night tour I did later that evening. It was a dark, sad, large empty space.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Here we comeback up the city to the United Nations

The facade of all those style of apartments is cast iron. Some more familiar sights, I think that bridge shot will end up in Don's bridges thread.

So you can see the NY city scape is quite dynamic....The best it yet to come.

[Ian Mackenzie]

These images are from other other side of the Brooklyn Bridge.

We stopped from an Ice cream and I managed to set up the camera on self timer for these night shots. Then back up to the city.

[Ian Mackenzie]

These images are of Times Square.

[opimax]

Beautiful shots , sorry I couldn't make it up for the "crawl"

My one time in NYC the most unusual memory was the lights in Times Square produced noticeable heat, not even real close to them, it just struck me as I wasn't expecting it all.

Mark

[Ian Mackenzie]

We opted to do other things like sailing and bike riding over the weekend so don't feel bad about it!

Here is Central Park on Friday 7th September 2007..my birthday it so happened. I had an early Thursday night after such a big day touring the city so I was up early. This was to be a day of leisure...a walk in the Park and later on lunch in Greenwich Village. Then the train down to Coney Island for the ride of my life..!

It is hard to imagine that in a place so clean and beautiful you would fall prey to the less friendly people.

It is not the case in NY City these days. In fact I had more issues with street beggars and undesireables in Chicago than anywhere else in the USA.

[Ian Mackenzie]

Some more images of Central Park NY.