Part of feeling better the last 24 hours or so is getting back into the things I enjoy. Like music. I spent some time today and yesterday and repositioned my speakers in the main system to find the true “sweet spot” And to restart my buggy Roon and Tidal software.

The speaker tweaking was a great success, though it won’t be popular with K. She likes the speakers up against the windows and as unobtrusive as possible. Turns our the sweet spot. where the speakers disappear and the sound appears inside your head, requires that the speakers are moved out (wider) and forward a couple of feet. And voila, it’s like you have headphones on. But these “headphones” can shake the floor if you want them to, all while revealing the little nuance hidden in a well-recorded song. The music now sounds *great*; the sound I’ve been looking for. We’ll negotiate over the speaker moves.

The Roon/Tidal restart, I’ll give it a 50% success. There’s a problem somewhere, and the Elac music server that runs Roon just doesn’t give you the tools to look inside and see what’s going on – what’s working and not. Could be network, could be software versions and connections, could be cross-software authentication, could be…lots of things. From here, I have a few options:

• Create a new Roon server from something like my old Mac mini or laptop, get rid of the Elac
• Just go with Tidal and a simple streaming device – the Marantz receiver I’m running at the moment is probably a great Tidal streamer
• Keep banging away at the problem with insufficient software tools
• Become a movie-quality server hacker

I’m unlikely to put in the time to do the last thing, or even the next to last thing. But until I do something, my digital music collection is crippled. First world problem.

That’s when you know all is basically OK in your life – when your problems are first world problems.

Today Heather Cox Richardson tells the story of how the Mexican drug cartels are behind the fentanyl drug epidemic in the US.

It seems pretty black and white to me. Mexican organizations (cartels) are attacking the US, killing 200 people every day. Why can’t the State Dept and DoD work with the Mexican government on joint military strikes against these targets? Ms. Richardson advocates a financial approach to the problem, but she’s nicer than me. The cartels are a disease affecting both the US and Mexico. Time to cure that disease.

Special forces strikes at locations softened up by drones, missiles and laser guided bombs make sense. Target the production sites, the money processing sites, the chemical import sites, and the homes of the leaders. That last part is tougher because of “civilians”, particularly the families of the leaders. I’m sure these guys constantly surround themselves with innocents as a shield. But one way or another, you have to take out the leadership.

I have to believe that if we put our minds and weapons to it we could eradicate this problem. And I think US and Mexican governments working together to solve this problem would be healthy for both nations.