RichC | February 28, 2009
For those who enjoy surfing I’m embedding a couple enjoyable clips from the Volcum House Show on O’ahu, Hawaii. The first clip has some great surfing footage and tour of a three story home overlooking the big winter waves to the west of Hale’iwa (Sunset Beach & Waimia Bay) and to the east of Kaena […]
RichC | February 27, 2009
On Friday afternoon President Obama spoke to the troops at Camp Lejeune North Carolina and laid out his plans for the promised troop withdrawal and timetable from Iraq. (WSJ) His plan is to scale back the current 142,000 troop force which is now in Iraq by the latter half of 2010. The date specific for […]
RichC | February 27, 2009
It is looking more and more like President Obama is more in tune with a 19 month troop withdrawal plan favored by the Pentagon which keeps a significant ‘support’ presence in Iraq. I listened to my Representative John Boehner this morning (also enjoyed his speech at CPAC) and it sounds like the President’s position is […]
RichC | February 26, 2009
Just like the cow methane gas studies, an article in the Wall Street Journal had the same attention grabbing ability for me: Silencing the Lambs: Scientists Target Sheep Belching to Cut Methane. Nevertheless, researchers and policy makers at the United Nations believe that the livestock industries are a major contributor to climate change and that […]
RichC | February 25, 2009
RichC | February 24, 2009
If you enjoy ‘grass roots’ aviation, you’ll enjoy the StoriesThatFly site based in the Northeastern part Ohio … or read a little bit about it here.
RichC | February 23, 2009
For those that appreciate engineering and diesel automotive history, today was the day in 1893 that Rudolf Diesel was granted a German patent for his diesel engine design. Rather than burning gasoline in a cylinder with spark ignition, the diesel engine uses ‘fuel oil’ (or vegetable oil — peanut oil in Rudolf Diesel’s case) using […]
RichC | February 22, 2009
We streamed the movie “The Interpreter” to our HD Tivo this weekend and besides being an excellent movie, I enjoyed a relatively unrelated scene where Silvia Broome, played by Nicole Kidman, reads from notebooks written in by her list making brother. One of the listed items (again unrelated) were interesting words … one of which […]
RichC | February 20, 2009
I called a friend of mine to check on his wife who was scheduled for surgery this week and after hearing that she was in recovery, our conversation shifted to the new 2009 BMW 335d that was sitting in front of the Akron area Dave Walter dealership. Although I know how the soft-sell enticement game […]
RichC | February 19, 2009
Traders saw most stocks fall on Thursday, putting the Dow Jones Industrial Average back on a bear-market closing low track. The financial sector continued to decline and there was little desire by investors to buy equities with the gloomy economic data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 89.68 points, or 1.2%, to close at 7465.95 […]
RichC | February 19, 2009
Posting a Palm Treo 700p photo from the road … heading south from Cleveland on I-71 Thursday afternoon. Enough is enough with winter and snow; I’m ready for spring. Here’s a morning photos after the “lake effect” snows blanketed NE Ohio.
RichC | February 19, 2009
Thought I would test a simple “web widgets” building site at Widgetbox.com that helps users create simple scripts for blogs, websites or social networking sites. So far so good although I’m not sure I need anymore content sardined onto my computer desktop, homepage or blog? Here are a couple, one widget which helps to find […]
RichC | February 18, 2009
My wife has hinted that she was “ok” with me planning a backpacking trip with my buddy this year, so I started sifting through my gear (we regularly went we were younger) in anticipation of planning a trip to the mountains. One exceptionally great piece of gear that makes a long day of hiking more […]
RichC | February 17, 2009
A friend of mine passed this along and I though a few here might enjoy the inspirational story and watching the video. Jessica Cox, born without arms, recently earned her sport pilot license at Ray Blair Airport in San Manuel, Arizona. She flies this Ercoupe plane the way she does most other things in her […]
RichC | February 16, 2009
Looks like I’ll need to do a bit more clean up sometime this week as the wind has knocked down one of our dying pine trees. I can’t say that I don’t expect to loose a few more, but its always depressing to loose a little more property line privacy.
RichC | February 15, 2009
I’ve been know to heat up some leftovers under the hood before and enjoyed reading the occasional article detailing the process … and talking to the odd-ball few who enjoy motorhead cuisine. In perusing a ‘magazine’ topic at an excellent time-killing site, Alltop.com, I stumbled on a How Stuff Works article on cooking/reheating food under […]
RichC | February 14, 2009
For those of us already familiar with the new clean diesel breeds, it will come as no surprise that long running PBS automotive program Motorweek selected the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI as the Drivers’ Choice Award winner. They previously reported positively on the VW TDI although on in February announced it along with all their […]
RichC | February 13, 2009
I’ve been using Fuelly.com to track the fills and gas mileage on my less than economical Honda Pilot. The web interface is a super easy way to track and add information each fill up or the even more convenient mobile interface can make adding the odometer reading (or number of miles), gallons and price a […]
RichC | February 12, 2009
I’ve enjoyed the Cincinnati Auto Expo in the past although am unsure if I’ll find the time to head down this year. The Duke Energy Center (Cinergy) will have the filled floorplan set up as unusual and I’ve even heard that the Volkswagen booth is going to be much larger than in previous years (according […]
RichC | February 11, 2009
While reading Kara Swisher‘s AllThingsDigital’s “Boomtown,” I came across a quote she posted in the side bar of her blog pulled from Brian Solis … … 120 is the new 140. Retweeting is one of the most valuable currencies in the Twitter economy. Leave room in your tweets to make it easier for someone to […]
RichC | February 10, 2009
It is interesting to ponder what make for a viral video? Here’s a YouTube clip where a dad records his “still woozy” son after a trip to the dentist. Hard to believe this clip is closing in on 7 million views since was posted 10 days ago!
RichC | February 9, 2009
President Barack Obama pushed for public support to get behind an economic stimulus plan Monday evening in his first press conference. His push for an $800 billion-plus package used “fear” to push for passage of a bill that has seen little public detail; speculation has been debated as to what is pork and what is […]
RichC | February 9, 2009
There aren’t all that many following the sailing and blogging of Reid Stowe on 1000days.net (perhaps as many as 1000 or so according to his blog stats), but I am one who regularly track his progress and am noting just how long he has been at sea. Reid has been sailing on his old schooner […]
RichC | February 7, 2009
I grew up in a commercial fishing and cottage community on Lake Erie just east from the Crane Creek State Park (label on the map below) and fondly remember ice fishing every winter. As a family we enjoyed recreation on the frozen lake from playing hockey to fishing, ice boating and snowmobiling. It was a […]
RichC | February 6, 2009
People often ask me what make a diesel car attractive enough that one would be willing to not only pay the couple thousand premium on the sticker, but find fewer marketing promotions at dealerships? I’ll usually point to the solid resale and better fuel economy, which is usually a topic of conversation at our GTGs. […]
RichC | February 6, 2009
A couple nice looking BMW diesels recently available in the U.S. look to be edible for tax incentives this year. They have been added to the IRS list of cars using technology helping promote more fuel efficient vehicles. The new 335d sedan and X5 xDrive35d SUV fit the IRS Lean Burn Technology Motor Vehicle Tax […]
RichC | February 5, 2009
Sunset on I-71 between Cleveland and Columbus (click for larger)
RichC | February 5, 2009
My daughter emailed me an article (also below) in the February 6th issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education which debates accelerated medical school programs. It caught her attention because one of the medical schools mention is Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine — NEOUCOM, her school. For the most part, the article does a […]
RichC | February 5, 2009
Last year, General Motors announced that it would build a $370 million engine plant in Flint Michigan to supply the 1.4L engines for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and Cruze; autoworkers in the depressed southeastern part of Michigan thought this was good news with so many jobs were leaving the area. In October, GM started the […]
RichC | February 4, 2009
After downloading the .iso and creating a Microsoft Windows 7 Beta installation DVD last month, I’ve been ‘on-again off-again’ while contemplating taking a chance on a Microsoft Beta OS replacement for my Gateway notebook computer. Finally after hearing the positive reviews (compared to Vista), and the fact that the cut off day to download and […]
RichC | February 3, 2009
Here’s hoping that everyone who lives in my neck of the woods, from Dayton to Cincinnati Ohio, made it home safely? The roadways on Tuesday afternoon were about as slick as they can get without being sheets of ice. That was evident by the very slow going and significant number of vehicle either in the […]
RichC | February 3, 2009
Although all the Superbowl 43 ads are here, I’m only going to embed one … not because it is a favorite, but because I know my Audi-loving son will enjoy it (besides we both enjoyed the Tranporter movies with Jason Statham). Check out the making of the Audi Superbowl ad below …
RichC | February 3, 2009
Volkswagen, a leader in clean alternative fuel technology, will be launching four new BlueMotion vehicles. Two of them will be super clean diesels, the Passat BlueMotion, Passat Blue TDI, one running on compressed natural gass — the Passat TSI EcoFuel, and the headliner a Touareg V6 TSI Hybrid. The Touareg with be be VW’s first […]
RichC | February 2, 2009
A friend of mine forwarded some talented computer morphing work on flixxy.com. The video below starts with George Washington and morphs through to the 44th President of the United States.
RichC | February 1, 2009
Superbowl XLIII (43) has turned out to be quite the exciting game as the Arizona Cardinals came back in the forth quarter to take the lead. (23-20) Pittsburgh used the last 2 minutes to mount a last stand and marched up the field just hoping to make it into field goal range in order to […]
RichC | February 1, 2009
I enjoyed another ‘babyboomer worthy’ Superbowl halftime show with Bruce Springteen. He entertained the crowd with “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” “Born to Run” and “Glory Days” and although The Boss did a great job, I missed “Born in the U.S.A.” Halftime entertainment aside, Superbowl XLIII has given us an exciting first half as the score is […]
RichC | February 1, 2009
Here’s an interesting three letter “pwn” technique that provides for a very easy way to download a YouTube clip that you might want to save. The trick is to use the pwnyoutube.com site in a shortcut way by navigating to a YouTube video then putting the letters “pwn” in front of the “youtube” part of […]