Archive: Great tips on getting the most meat out of a lobster

| April 30, 2013

I appreciated a video from America’s Test Kitchen on Lifehacker and thought it was worth archiving and sharing … not that I fix lobster everyday.    Twist off the tail, split the shell on the back, pull legs apart, push meat out with small tools, use a rolling pin to squeeze meat from legs.   [...]

NYC 9/11 debris–aircraft part–found over a decade later

| April 26, 2013

The part, which police believe came from one of the two commercial airliners destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, was discovered Wednesday by surveyors inspecting the rear of 51 Park Pl., several blocks from ground zero. The surveyors called 911 to report the debris with a “clearly visible Boeing identification number,” the New York Police Department [...]

The Jawbone Jambox and testing the WordPress Postie plugin

| March 20, 2013

The addition of a new bluetooth Jambox speaker has certainly improved the audio quality of my iPad … AND the new Postie plug-in for WordPress looks to be a great replacement for Posterous (shutting down next month). Here’s a 2 minute snippet from the iPhone of a post to our EAA284 site. Let’s see if [...]

Political thoughts from the past are surprisingly apropos

| February 24, 2013

Every once in a while, actually a lot lately, someone will include something from the past in their books, articles or blog which reminds me of the challenges we face in becoming independent thinkers. A couple sailing friends of mine who have and are currently living a life out of the mainstream and shared a [...]

Postie test number four after tweaking HTML

| February 22, 2013

There was a glitch in the HTML settings in the previous post, so am making an added Postie plugin test to be sure all is running correctly. The image I’m adding is an ad from a Popular Science magazine that I sorted and tossed after our basement flooding. It is state-of-the-art 1970s technology (answering machine) [...]

Tech Friday – Adding the Postie plugin to WordPress

| February 22, 2013

After using Posterous to post by email to my blog I’ve grown use to being able to simply email a quick post with attachments on occasion. Now that Twitter is shutting down the Posterous blogging platform, I’m looking into new ways to do this. WordPress offers a simple “text only” posting, but there are a [...]

Reminder: Be sure to back up Posterous data before April 30th

| February 18, 2013

Although I’ve only used Posterous to update MyDesultoryBlog by email, I’m going to miss having a place to quickly send text, photos and video for personal archiving. It was a great product while it lasted … an all the coded shortcuts very cool. So tonight I’m doing the “back-up” of data … and will figure [...]

A War Between China and Japan: What It Could Cost You

| February 16, 2013

Shared per Emily Stewart of Online MBA blog … Thanks.   Global economists are keeping their eyes glued to the Asia-Pacific region, where a bitter feud is brewing between two of the world’s most powerful nations over a small collectivity of islands in the East China Sea. The Chinese government argues that a treaty signed [...]

Changes in My Desultory Blog analytics from 2011 to 2012

| January 13, 2013

Hmm, did the content I post to the blog get less interesting or are Internet users getting their fill of personal blogs? Maybe there is just too much content available? After years of increasing blog readership, at least in pageviews, 2012 was the first year My Desultory Blog saw a decline in the numbers across [...]

Autoblog wraps up their 2011 VW Jetta TDI test drive

| January 10, 2013

The popular automotive site, Autoblog, wasn’t overly complementary when it came to parting with a 2011 Volkswagen Jetta TDI after a 12 month 20,000 plus mile test drive. This current and slightly larger body style has been widely criticized for its "cheapened" feel and less than European driving characteristics. Autoblog drivers did however say positive [...]

My friend Keith Thomas shared some video from his Israel trip

| December 28, 2012

Although Pastor Keith Thomas and I do share a few friends (here is his blog), I know there are also a few reading here that also might enjoy Keith’s first attempt at video and editing. I think the camera was new to him (for this trip) and recall he was hoping to document a bit [...]

Video: Contact Juggling

| December 12, 2012

A couple of us spotted a Google+ post the other day highlighting Contact Juggling and found it intriguing and an impressive skill … plus I didn’t write a blog post for today. EDIT: Also upgraded WordPress to “Elvin” — version 3.5.

Deactivating Shareaholic WordPress plug-in

| November 28, 2012

I’m doinh little minor WordPress blog housekeeping by “deactivating” the Shareaholic plug-in due to what I’ve perceived as an overall site slowdown … for very little gain. Most reposts and forwards are done the old fashion way (copy and paste) and besides the few reads of older links, I’m not sure using it has generated [...]

Added the Shareaholic “Sexy Bookmarks” social button bar

| August 30, 2012

I’m finally getting around to adding a social media plugin for WordPress after I received a comment from a friend who said his Internet reading now comes from links being shared on Twitter and Facebook. I had to admit that I no longer use my long list of RSS feeds as often as I once [...]

New car prices seem high, but then so do used car prices

| June 19, 2012

After conversing back and forth with a VW TDI friend of mine in a Google+ thread about the 30-40% increase in new car prices, we sort of concluded in a “maybe we’ll buy a used car?”  Of course with the higher priced used cars recently (particularly diesels), I’m not so sure that is a good [...]

Meniere’s Warrior blog and van Gogh’s Starry Night

| June 13, 2012

Although I’ve been pretty successful in dealing with Meniere’s since my surgery in 2001 (same surgery as Astronaut Alan Shepard), I regularly check back in with a few forum, blogs and websites where sufferers post their thoughts, concerns and suggestions. Last year I had to deal with the symptoms once again, hopefully just due to [...]

Family Net Worth Fell Almost 40% Between 2007-2010

| June 11, 2012

How challenging has it really been for families these past few years? Well if you’re in college or just starting out and able to pay the bills, finding work or able to keep borrowing for school … then you might not notice much (can you tell I’m talking with my college age son while he [...]

My sailing friends know how to be thankful

| May 4, 2012

I received a needed lesson in blessings and being thankful today. My sailing friends Mark and Judy Handley have been sharing their daily lives online for many years while cruising around the world. Their circumnavigation ended over a year ago, but Judy continues to document their return to a “somewhat” more normal life. Unfortunately this [...]

Video for WordPress and embed issues for multiple browsers

| April 23, 2012

Here’s what works and what doesn’t work when using the Hana Flv Player plug in with my WordPress install in an attempt to figure out the best way to post video that will play in all browser/hardware combinations. Embedding test video with the Kodak Playsport Zx5

Surprising what high powered website can do for blog traffic

| April 14, 2012

I noticed a spike in my normal web traffic the other day as a weekend post was mentioned on a high traffic website. As someone who posts to a tiny personal blog, it still amazes me how many clicks and visitors My Desultory Blog generates. Over the years I have also noticed that viewers are [...]

Tech Friday: Chris Miller talks about security for online IDs

| March 23, 2012

Saw these tips on Google+ earlier this week and thought they would make for a good Tech Friday post.  Chris Miller has some great ideas regarding online security such as using a set of fabricated security question answers, separate addresses for Private, Personal and Public emails and setting all online avatars and info the same [...]

Twitter Buys Into Blogging With Posterous

| March 12, 2012

Hmm … I’ll have to keep my eye on this … Twitter Buys Into Blogging With Posterous Twitter said Monday that it has acquired micro-blogging service Posterous, but will leave it up and running. Both companies announced the acquisition in a pair of blog posts that were posted Monday. “Today we are welcoming a very [...]

Finally updated WordPress to version 3.3.1

| March 1, 2012

I did a little housecleaning to my blog today and finally updated the WordPress install to the current 3.3.1 release (Jan 2012).  (updated my WordPress.com “alias” blog and Posterous blog too … but am unsure exactly how and what I want to use the duplicate postings for?)

The Bahamas look pretty inviting this time of year

| January 15, 2012

Although I love our house and like living in Ohio, winter is the time I envy those who have sailed south and are spending their days exploring the islands of the Caribbean. Jen and Maxwell sailing in the Bahamas on sv Anastasia January 2012 A sailing couple spending the winter in the Bahamas aboard their [...]

Rats in Bronx and #odc in Washington DC (no surprise)

| January 9, 2012

A couple of“rat” stories (and a photo above) caught my attention today — and I thought all the “rats” in Washington DC were on vacation? City: Rat population has ‘exploded’ around Occupy D.C. camps By Annie Gowen The rat population around the two Occupy D.C. camps at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza has “exploded”since protesters [...]

Avast! Antivirus, Revo Uninstaller and my WordPress install

| December 21, 2011

I’ve been happily using Avast! as my virus scanner for the last couple years … and have been off and on satisfied for over a decade. The company updates always get me concerned knowing that the free version could become as bloated as are many others (paid versions aren’t immune either). Thankfully the most recent [...]

WordPress and my slow MySQL database issue is solved!

| November 20, 2011

Finally, after about a month of trial and error fiddling with WordPress and MySQL since moving to a new server, I’ve figured out why MyDesultoryBlog has been so slow. Initially I blamed the new server since everything was fine at the old host, and even started to wonder if 6 years or so of daily [...]

Tweaking the blog site after database continues to stumble

| October 14, 2011

Unfortunately the new WordPress install from a couple weeks ago is not running as smoothly as I had hoped. I’ve been tweaking the caching setup and still finding the database is shutting down regularly. I’m in the process of streamlining some of the canned content and advertising items, although am reluctant to reduce my use [...]

The Super Cache plugin, a WordPress tweak and a shirt

| October 8, 2011

This is a miscellaneous post to test the WordPress Super Cache plugin on the new server install. I’ve been having a few update problems with posts and am tweaking the advance setting that will rebuild the cache after each post. Hopefully all domains DNS records will now update with the current post, rather than just [...]

Isarithmic depiction of the U.S. two-party system

| September 19, 2011

This was posted in late 2010, but I found the tracking of our two-party voting pretty interesting sped up over time. While trying to remember my American history, it is interesting to watch the political swings in ideology over the years. The swings between too much centralized government and regulation … and unregulated capitalism has [...]

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.