There were dozens of great things to record at the Grandpa-George studio space. One of them was a toy Douglas picked up at thrift shop for less than three dollars called the Talk and Learn Alphabet Center. It’s a kind of cheaper version of a Speak and Spell.
The voice recordings on the unit are great, sometimes hilarious, and have a lovely low bit graininess to them. Me and Derrin Evers took turns pressing the buttons while the recorder was running. Here’s a brief selection of what we collected.
Alphabet Center
Signs of Spring are making themselves heard in Minneapolis. For example, I recorded the sound of snow quickly melting into a storm drain near the Mississippi river in Minneapolis last night. The temperature was approaching fifty degrees Fahrenheit (ten Centigrade) creating a steady stream of water pouring into a grate adjacent to a cobble stone street. The sound was loud enough to capture my attention as I cycled past it, and nearly drowned (no pun intended) out the ambient noise of traffic and a nearby power plant. 
I made this recording during a five minute walk to one of the several subway stations in the