AdNews last year launched the WFH Diaries during the depths of the fallout from the pandemic, a way of sharing how people were spending their days.
This time we're asking for a run down on how everyone likes to start their day working from home. Some dress to impress, others slip on the t-shirt.
And everyone has their own way to carve the day into manageable chunks.
Bram Williams – Co-Founder, Archibald Williams:
This year I’ve only worn navy blue. Same three things from Uniqlo, same Boston Red Sox hat. Lockdown just means shorts not chinos, but the uniform still goes on around 5.30 a.m.
If I’ve got to follow up on some car parts from the States or Europe (I just had a set of conrods made in England for a Ford Cosworth MAE 997cc screamer I’m building) or obscure electronics componentry (often from Eastern Europe, at the moment), this is a good time to respond to emails or eBay with the hope of resolving things in real time. I’ve got a couple of first-generation (’83-’84) Marantz (basically Philips) CD players on the bench, a busted Nakamichi 480, and a little pair of Aegis-Mullard 5-10 mono amplifiers that I’m restoring, so I’m chasing a bunch of parts.
Interestingly a lot of the knowledge for early CD players and cassette decks seems to be concentrated in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. -- probably because of the limited access to high-end western consumer electronics these countries had back in the day.
A preservation culture necessarily emerged in this part of the world – and through the modern era this has evolved into an upgrade and restoration network that often pushes the state of the art.
My mate Ken has connected with a bloke in the Czech Republic who seems to be the leading authority on the 3D printing of small cogs used in the transports of things like VCRs and carousel CD players. Ken needed a cog the bloke didn’t have, so he invited Ken to participate in a Global NPD Program (GNPDP). Basically, Ken sent the munted fragments of the cog he had (out of a Sony CD carousel he got along with a semi-functional Sony ES twin-well tape deck, all free from some guy off Gumtree), to his new mate in Prague. Old mate there made three prototype repop variations, sent ‘em back to Ken for vigorous testing, with Ken ultimately approving, I think, v.2 due to “Accuracy and Smoothness” (AaS). Ken pays nothing but a bit of postage and, for evermore, if you’re restoring your non-working ’89 model carousel you can get the part straight off the shelf for a few Euro (but please be sure to send Ken half a dozen cans of New).
Then I do work “meetings” on Zoom.
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