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Music in a bottle · 04-25-2009, 05:06 AM

What is the meaning behind your user name? Some folks are so passionate about tubes, and tube audio, antique radios and so on, often referring to themselves as bottle heads. I recently got into the antique radio scene with my wife, and our first Philco radio had a distinctly blue number 24 tube. I almost immediatly got hooked on the tube thing, contemplating those musical electrons floating through space within the glass bottle of a tube, and so hence came to the user name of Music in a bottle, a spin off of "message in a bottle" "lightning in a bottle" "ship in a bottle" and so on. My wife, a retired English professor, was very impressed and loved the name instantly, and we think it's pretty original and one of a kind as it relates perfectly to the tube audio thing. Whats your story?

***Ron Ramirez*** · 04-25-2009, 05:28 AM

Very good question. I've often wondered this myself, with the propensity for some in selecting what seem to be unusual usernames.

Mine is pretty obvious. But I did NOT give that name to myself. Many years ago, when I began to specialize in collecting Philco only, other collectors would see me walking up and say, "Here comes Mister Philco!" The nickname stuck.

Uffda · 04-25-2009, 06:39 AM

"Uffda" is the Norwegian all-purpose equivalent of the Yiddish "Oy Vey". Covers everything from surprise to appreciation to disgust. Growing up in
northern Minnesota, I probably heard it 30 times a day.

My ebay moniker - jbenny39 - would have been more fitting for radio forums. Meaning obvious to anyone familiar with Jack's shtick.

Texasrocker · 04-25-2009, 08:01 AM

My username came naturally for me before Al Gore "claimed", to be the internet inventor, period! Just another "liberal" ploy for the Dems to enjoy in their memory-world to me. Many yrs ago, ol "Texasrocker" moved to Austin, Tex ( way before Austin was called the Music Capitol of the World) in circa 1971 in quest to be a Rock Star! I succeded too!!,.. in my musical-dream from those days! I played live music & recorded in the BEST Tx recording Studios ever since! I still do Recording Sessions for "pay only" "exact specs" Bass Guitar rec tracks. I once ordered for 25$ extra in Texas, to have my vehicle- plates printed w/ " TX-ROKR", back in 1984, and it stuck with me ever since! ( No ego intended at all!!) I figured I earned-it!
I played live music with the Best Tx Musicians ever offered-up!! from Tx,way back in the good ol early 1970s era Tx Music Days, "Armadillo World Headquarters Days"( now famous Concert niteclub Austin Landmark), and even played Bass with Stevie Ray Vaughn as a sub bassist in the Austin Band "Cobras" days before SRV "honed his guitar skills"!!!
The main reason, I got involved in the vintage "tube-electronics restoration" technology, was way-before the internet was ever born, hanging out with tube-techs in music-instrument stores repair-depts keeping my orig Ampeg SVT all-tube ( pre& amp section,... SVT is also known as ( super valve technology)... 300 watt ( 6- 6550s tubes in push-pull & biased correctly), and I wanted to learn how to service it while "on-tour",... & on the road back then!
As a result of what I learned way back then "on the road-on major Band Tours Busses", flyin by the-seat-of-my-pants!!!, in such locations as "Casper Wyoming", to keep our Bands amps working onstage, ( in January no-less with blizzard temps taking toll on all our stage-amps in the travel conditions, pc preamp boards "warped" out of the amp chassis as orig designed!, the local Casper Wyo music-stores,etc,... "didnt have a Mashall Amp, or Ampeg Tube Amp tech" in town!,peroid!! I kept my Bands Amps repaired via LD phone-calls to Tx Rocker Music Stores that sold all us old Tx Musicians our gear & they supplied elec- parts shipped in when necessary!! All this got me interested in restoring vintage tube Radios as a result. Now ,... "its all this"!!... as John Lennon would say? Ive learned over the yrs that tube amps are all similar in repairs depending on age, just as vintage tube radios.
So therefore, I figured TexasRocker as a username would suit me fine. Ive learned vintage tube-repairs the hard-way, case-by-case, and vintage Philcos Radios are no exception to the rule! As we say in Texas, "aint nothin but a thang", but these vintage radio forums are a great place to share info indeed! Ron & Chuck have the newbie-techs covered indeed!! I didnt mean to get "off-topic" here at all!... I just hope ALL the newbies that visit these vintage Radio websites ( especially Philco),... take away with them the vast amt of info offered on the internet for free!!
I sure wish I had the same online-info avail for Marshall, Ampeg, & StudioMaster back in the early 1980s! For me, the "best" thing about vintage-tube technology restorations, is ALL the NICE folks you meet along the way!! One of the "sharpest" tube techs I ever met , is no longer with me these days! Never take anything for "granted" on learning vintage-tube technology! We still ALL learn something new in every case-by-case restoration! Sorry I rambled again, but I enjoy my time spent here on these forums indeed!! Keep all those vintage "tubes" sparkling, into the future!!
Sincerely, Texasrocker!! Icon_wink

exray · 04-25-2009, 01:38 PM

My "exray" comes from my ham radio callsign. I was originally WB4SXX and spent a lot of time yelling 'xray xray' in DX pileups. My radio cronies eventually tagged me with that as a nickname. When the new 2x1 callsigns started coming out I timed submitting my application so as to get a WX4 prefix and wound up as WX4A.

The e got added to xray because the 'xray' username had already been taken when I signed up for email at my present location.

-Bill

codefox1 · 04-25-2009, 06:59 PM

I started using Codefox as a moniker close to 20 years ago, because that's how long I have been writing programs in Foxpro, a dying language derived and much improved by Microsoft from the still more ancient dBase language. (Any more legacy coders out there?)

So I guess that many of the handles we have here are work related. Some of them may also be childhood knicknames or hommages to our heros. What would really be interesting is to share what our day jobs are (or were, as I suspect there are quite a few of us are retired, wanting to retire soon, or winding down in our profession.)

I am definitely of the 'wanting to retire soon' group being of Rat year, and one Rat older than Ron Ramierez, whose birthday, I learned on this forum is the same. Of course I am referring to the 12 year cycle of animal years which you can check out on the placemat in your local Chinese Restaurant.

I am not Chinese, I have nordic and Enlglish roots, and "Off-dah" and "Sisu" are definitely in my vocabulary. Come to think of it. I'm really a mutt, since my mother was Norweigian, her father was Finn, my Father was from Ireland, and all the rest of 'em were mutts so far as I know. My ex is Tiawanese, my lady friend is Chinese, and my son has trouble filling out forms. He often enters (other) and specifies Horse, for he was born in 1990, a horse year.

As such, the dinner table is somethat variable. On the other hand, we have a lot of Holidays.

Music in a bottle · 04-26-2009, 02:32 AM

Ron Ramirez Wrote:Very good question. I've often wondered this myself, with the propensity for some in selecting what seem to be unusual usernames.

Mine is pretty obvious. But I did NOT give that name to myself. Many years ago, when I began to specialize in collecting Philco only, other collectors would see me walking up and say, "Here comes Mister Philco!" The nickname stuck.

Well. I'd be tempted to say that mine says it all, but then my user name is not "Ron Ramirez",the ultimate name that even comes with a web site about old radios! So tell me Ron, Why Philcos? They are super cool, but then so is Zenith!

Michael Dennis · 04-26-2009, 04:10 AM

Me, partially from an email addy. I'd have had to add quite a few numbers to "Michael", my name, because "Michael", Michael 1", etc. were already taken, so I decided on the Russian version "Mikhail". But that was taken too, so I added "7", as my birthday is February 7. I came to find out a couple months ago that there actually IS a "Mikhail7", which has nothing to do with me anyhow. So I at this point wouldn't mind changing it to something else. I used to like reading "Showcase" comics which featured a WWI pilot, so the comic that freatured him was called "Enemy Ace". Also, I used to read Superman comics and I liked the "Bizarro" stories. I admit I like to think back sometimes to the kidstuff I enjoyed as a kid in the 1960's. Actually, I'd just as soon use my real name if it wern't for the fact that some people can find out a lot about a person just from their name, so about the last thing I need is a battle to prevent identity theft.
But whatever, please, just don't call me late for Miller Time.

Regards,

Enemy Ace, or
Bizarro1

Music in a bottle · 04-26-2009, 11:52 PM

Texasrocker Wrote:My username came naturally for me before Al Gore "claimed", to be the internet inventor, period! Just another "liberal" ploy for the Dems to enjoy in their memory-world to me. Many yrs ago, ol "Texasrocker" moved to Austin, Tex ( way before Austin was called the Music Capitol of the World) in circa 1971 in quest to be a Rock Star! I succeded too!!,.. in my musical-dream from those days! I played live music & recorded in the BEST Tx recording Studios ever since! I still do Recording Sessions for "pay only" "exact specs" Bass Guitar rec tracks. I once ordered for 25$ extra in Texas, to have my vehicle- plates printed w/ " TX-ROKR", back in 1984, and it stuck with me ever since! ( No ego intended at all!!) I figured I earned-it!
I played live music with the Best Tx Musicians ever offered-up!! from Tx,way back in the good ol early 1970s era Tx Music Days, "Armadillo World Headquarters Days"( now famous Concert niteclub Austin Landmark), and even played Bass with Stevie Ray Vaughn as a sub bassist in the Austin Band "Cobras" days before SRV "honed his guitar skills"!!!
The main reason, I got involved in the vintage "tube-electronics restoration" technology, was way-before the internet was ever born, hanging out with tube-techs in music-instrument stores repair-depts keeping my orig Ampeg SVT all-tube ( pre& amp section,... SVT is also known as ( super valve technology)... 300 watt ( 6- 6550s tubes in push-pull & biased correctly), and I wanted to learn how to service it while "on-tour",... & on the road back then!
As a result of what I learned way back then "on the road-on major Band Tours Busses", flyin by the-seat-of-my-pants!!!, in such locations as "Casper Wyoming", to keep our Bands amps working onstage, ( in January no-less with blizzard temps taking toll on all our stage-amps in the travel conditions, pc preamp boards "warped" out of the amp chassis as orig designed!, the local Casper Wyo music-stores,etc,... "didnt have a Mashall Amp, or Ampeg Tube Amp tech" in town!,peroid!! I kept my Bands Amps repaired via LD phone-calls to Tx Rocker Music Stores that sold all us old Tx Musicians our gear & they supplied elec- parts shipped in when necessary!! All this got me interested in restoring vintage tube Radios as a result. Now ,... "its all this"!!... as John Lennon would say? Ive learned over the yrs that tube amps are all similar in repairs depending on age, just as vintage tube radios.
So therefore, I figured TexasRocker as a username would suit me fine. Ive learned vintage tube-repairs the hard-way, case-by-case, and vintage Philcos Radios are no exception to the rule! As we say in Texas, "aint nothin but a thang", but these vintage radio forums are a great place to share info indeed! Ron & Chuck have the newbie-techs covered indeed!! I didnt mean to get "off-topic" here at all!... I just hope ALL the newbies that visit these vintage Radio websites ( especially Philco),... take away with them the vast amt of info offered on the internet for free!!
I sure wish I had the same online-info avail for Marshall, Ampeg, & StudioMaster back in the early 1980s! For me, the "best" thing about vintage-tube technology restorations, is ALL the NICE folks you meet along the way!! One of the "sharpest" tube techs I ever met , is no longer with me these days! Never take anything for "granted" on learning vintage-tube technology! We still ALL learn something new in every case-by-case restoration! Sorry I rambled again, but I enjoy my time spent here on these forums indeed!! Keep all those vintage "tubes" sparkling, into the future!!
Sincerely, Texasrocker!!

Actually texas, one of my e bay names was very liberal oriented, and reeked of "Hillary for president"! I have since changed it to something else......Got tired of all those wacko Texans threatening to come baptize me.

Texasrocker · 04-27-2009, 04:13 AM

I heard that music in a bottle! Nothin worse than a van full of Texas baptists getting after you! Since over 50% of our Texas Baptists here locally, are democrats, those are some scary-folks indeed! Icon_wink

The ones that didnt ride the Church bus, are the blue-hair elders still driving their Big Caddys to Church at 20 mph in a 70 mph zone with their vote for Obama/Biden bumper stickers still attached! Its all good thou, those folks really need to be
prayin', now indeed!! Icon_wink

Michael Dennis · 04-27-2009, 10:26 AM

I wouldn't have thought it possible to be Baptist AND a democrat!

Music in a bottle · 04-29-2009, 01:11 AM

Mikhail7 Wrote:I wouldn't have thought it possible to be Baptist AND a democrat!

Don't fit, unless you're one of those priest's who take a shining to the choir boys!

***Ron Ramirez*** · 04-29-2009, 01:17 AM

Mikhail7 Wrote:I wouldn't have thought it possible to be Baptist AND a democrat!

Ever hear of Jimma Cahtah? (Or, as I refer to him not so lovingly as, Old Peanut-Brain.) ;)

And how about ol' Slick Willie?

And untold numbers of Kentucky politicians?

Sorry, Mike...believe me, I am not trying to be critical...just having a little fun here! Icon_lol

But hey, guys, we're getting off-topic here...so let's hear more stories about your username and why you selected it.

Music in a bottle · 04-29-2009, 01:18 AM

Texasrocker Wrote:I heard that music in a bottle! Nothin worse than a van full of Texas baptists getting after you! Since over 50% of our Texas Baptists here locally, are democrats, those are some scary-folks indeed! The ones that didnt ride the Church bus, are the blue-hair elders still driving their Big Caddys to Church at 20 mph in a 70 mph zone with their vote for Obama/Biden bumper stickers still attached! Its all good thou, those folks really need to be
prayin', now indeed!!

Now, I know you probably blow by them like they're standing still, flipping them the bird! It's all good. Me, I'm not really the praying sort, but if I was, I'd be praying for Bama. Right now, he needs all the help he can get! Anyone who'd want to be in charge of this mess, surely likes pettin' the ol' corn back rattler!

Music in a bottle · 04-29-2009, 01:21 AM

Ron Ramirez Wrote:
Mikhail7 Wrote:I wouldn't have thought it possible to be Baptist AND a democrat!

Ever hear of Jimma Cahtah? (Or, as I refer to him not so lovingly as, Old Peanut-Brain.) ;)

And how about ol' Slick Willie?

And untold numbers of Kentucky politicians?

Sorry, Mike...believe me, I am not trying to be critical...just having a little fun here!

But hey, guys, we're getting off-topic here...so let's hear more stories about your username and why you selected it.

Jimmy may have sucked as a president, but he built lots of houses for free, and for a president to volunteer his time for free, I think the man is just alright by me!