Saturday, September 25, 2010

Sarasota Arts Scene - Jazz

From Harry this week - personal interest.


For a small city, Sarasota has an incredibly vibrant arts scene. Here's an example.


My wife, Jacquie, and I went to a jazz concert at a local church. A six-piece group, they performed incredibly well. Their ages - 13 to 17 years old, and they've been around three years. From their publicity:

"They created the group three years ago, playing jazz in front of a local grocery store on Saturday mornings. Seeing how determined they were, Greg Nielsen, a jazz trombonist, took them under his wing and has been coaching them ever since."

They've made several television appearances including the Grammy awards and, this past summer, appeared at three European jazz festivals including Montreux in Switzerland. (The cost - $35.000.) The thirteen year old is the very petite female trumpeter/vocalist. It's surprising to see such power (both trumpet and voice) from such a small girl. An audience member told us she started the group at age nine. She's incredible - from the on-stage appearance it seems like she's the leader. Three previous members of the group have graduated and gone on to college.

Anyway, as I said, personal interest this week. If you're interested here's a link to their site, complete with videos.

http://www.jazzjuvenocracy.com/

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Discontinued Action-Paks? Call us.

As most of you know, many years ago Action Instruments introduced plug-in "Action-Pak" transmitters and alarms.(Note: Action-Pak is an Action Instruments trademark.) Action grew, became a highly regarded company, added other product lines and were eventually acquired by Eurotherm. Their line still includes Action-Paks but some models are no longer available.

One of our favorite stories - a company called us desperately looking for a special version of an old Action module. They told us, not only could Action no longer make it, they insisted they never had! The customer forwarded us a copy of Action's user's manual.

OK - a special - a one-piece order - we had to charge for some engineering, but we did it. They've ordered a few more since.

Over ten years ago another company came to us because Action no longer made some of the (standard) products they used regularly. Our product line included them (still does) and that company has become one of our better customers.

We're not trying to knock Action. They are a well-respected, quality company. But if you need plug-in modules they no longer offer, e-mail or call us. We probably can help. (And, our customers rave about our service.)

Signal Conditioners - our web site: http://www.jhtechnology.com/
e-mail: jhtek@jhtechnology.com
Phone: (941) 927-0300 or US toll-free (800) 808-0300
Fax: (941) 925-8774

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Political Ads - Lying is Legal

From Harry -

Here in Florida we just finished a typical primary campaign featuring two Republican candidates for Governor, and two Democratic candidates for Senate, heaping piles of dirt on each other. I got to thinking - somewhere in the past I'd read that court decisions had declared lying in political ads to be protected by the Constitution.

After strenuous research (meaning 30 seconds on Yahoo) I found I was right. What's worse, the Federal Communications Act prohibits broadcasters from refusing to run specific ads - even those known to be untrue - unless they refuse all political advertising. If you're interested, here's a link to a 2008 Time Magazine article on the subject.

Truth in Advertising? Not for Political Ads

Don't believe everything you hear!