For Lugnut & Barb (Patrick & Barbara Malone)


To everything, turn, turn, turn
There is a season, turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven.

* * *

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time of peace, I swear it’s not too late.

(Apologies to the Byrds).

For many years now, Pat Malone has been a good friend to one and all. He has supported both the newbie and the experienced audiophile alike with his knowledge, his honesty, his camaraderie, his warmth and his wit. We have all immensely benefitted from his participation. Whether caring support or a slight barb was needed, it was delivered ... gracefully and intuitively. If we did not know his name, we might call him “Mr. Integrity,” and if not that, then perhaps just “Sir” out of our respect.

For many years now, it has been our time to benefit from Pat. It has been our turn. And now it is a different time. Now it is Pat’s turn ... and Barbara’s turn. It is time that we show Pat some of the support he has so often and generously shown us, and time that we show Barbara how much we appreciate her sharing her beloved Pat with us. And we are glad – no, we are extremely moved – that so many of us recognize what time it is.

What does one do to show a cherished friend how much he means to us? There is no one perfect answer. But it seemed to many of us that one good answer was hopefully to enable Pat to enjoy the music maybe a little bit more than before. So the pieces of a new system, and some other goodies, are now arriving on Pat’s doorstep (excepting that we could never replace Pat’s cherished Linn turntable), which we hope he will enjoy:

Supratek Syrah preamp
Blue Circle BC22 amp
Snell K7 monitors w/ stands
Ridge Street Audio Poiema! interconnects and speaker cables
Shelter 901 cartridge
Proton Tuner
Snell THX subwoofer
Hsu sub amp
Audiopoints for all components

–also–

various LPs
$250 Acoustic Sounds gift certificate
$250 Music Direct gift certificate
more than $1200 in cash

We hope this may bring some added pleasure to Pat's and Barb's days, and we offer our most sincere thanks and deep gratitude to the following people who made this possible:

Steve Dobbins (Vetterone)
Dean Yamasaki (Gunbei)
Robert Schult of Ridge Street Audio
Bob Graffy of Snell Acoustics
Larry Howkins (Cello)
Peter Bongers (peterb)
Skip Pease (Shventus)
Tom Lyons of Star Sound/Audiopoints (Twl)
Scott Campbell (SpiritMan1113)
Cole McKinney (Slate1)
Joe Galbraith (Slipknot)
John McGrogan (jmcgrogan2)
John Woodworth (The_smokester)
Jeff Logan (Jeffloistarca)
Dan Anderson (Danlib1)
Michael Klein (Swampwalker)
Albert Porter (Albertporter)
Oris Newman (Newmanoc)
Toby Earp (tobias)
Jack Sujovolsky (Jsujo)

With warmest regards,
Doug Deacon
Paul Frumkin
paul_frumkin
Pat,

You're a good person and as I've found from our worldly discussions, a true patriot.

Enjoy the burger, fries and soda more often! Next time while sitting in front of your new system.

Dean
Pat - I have only recently begun to participate in the Vinyl Asylum. I have been following the "About Lugnut" thread, and now this one. The heartfelt expressions of caring in these posts bring tears to my eyes. I don't know you, but you are obviously very well loved, and deservedly so. I wish I had the honor and pleasure of knowing you as well as so many of the other folks here do.

All the best to you and Barb. May you always be surrounded by good music.

OakIris
Vernon at Prairie Poducts sent me some cool damping material and S. D. Campbell is sending me more vinyl than I'll have time to listen to.

Please note, I try very hard to answer each email and will try very hard to post gifts that aren't being listed above. Boa2 sent me Lance Armstrong's book for example and Cello is sending me some breathing exercise CD's. He's even gifted me an airline ticket and hotel room in March so that I can attend a cartridge/tonearm shootout at his house. This will give me a chance to meet Doug Deacon and who knows who else? If I forget or overlook answering or mentioning such things in this thread, please forgive me.

I feel wonderful today and it's because of all this good will. Thank you all again for being so kind.
I'm baaacckk. And, feeling much better. I've got a problem though. I'd have to go to quite the inventory exercise to catch up on all of the packages I've received and haven't acknowledged receiving in this thread. I just decided not to do it for two reasons. One, it would eat up valuable time that I need to use enjoying each piece of "stuff". Second, I'm lazy. Hehe. Know this, the expression each piece represents is what has sustained me this last ten days. You guys have been on my mind when not much else has. That, is powerful medicine.

Pat
Good to hear from you again, Pat. I was about to drop you a line and see how you were doing. Consider it dropped. Speaking for myself, I say rest, enjoy, get well, !@#$ the formalities. No apologies needed. Take care.