RichC | March 31, 2009
If you are near West Chester, Ohio in eastern Butler county Tuesday night, consider filling up your car while saying hello to volunteers from a church called Journey. (they meet at the Lakota East High School in Liberty Township on Sundays) According to Youth Minister, Luke Dooley (@yeloodekul), members will be staffing a couple pumps […]
RichC | March 31, 2009
Volkswagen Jetta TDI fans will enjoy seeing their long lasting and economical diesel being used in NYC as a taxicab. In the newer body style, rear seats have a couple more inches, so really the A5 Jetta makes perfect sense as a taxi. If you’ve ever looked at the trunk (boot), you’d know that luggage […]
RichC | March 30, 2009
FoxNews kicked off a new interactive site call thefoxnation.com on March 30th in order to “leverage its brand online, especially among conservative true believers,” and by broadening the reach of “high-decibel” stars such as Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck to an online audience. After a quick review and watching the 1000s of comments flood in, […]
RichC | March 30, 2009
Volkswagen has done a great job with the design of the new Golf GTD. Its design is similar to the popular Rabbit Golf although has a noticeable sporty edge. VW says it will stress fuel efficiency, clean diesel and better performance over the European Golf TDI. According to Motortrend, “under its hood is a more […]
RichC | March 29, 2009
Congratulations Lee and Sachi LeFever. I saw your Common Craft video being used on the CBS Sunday Morning program during the commentary segment with Nancy Giles; CBS did used the ‘paid’ version I hope? I’m not sure I the innuendo that a Twitter user might be a”Twit” is correct (“Tweep” might be correct though), but […]
RichC | March 28, 2009
Sort of a short sailing/vehicle post today as I noticed that Richard Jenkins from the UK brought the land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle this month. He reached 126.1 mph in his Greenbird “car” … if you can call it that. It reminds me of an ice boat, but is and extremely efficient and […]
RichC | March 26, 2009
If you’ve been surfing the web for any length of time you’ve seen the artist ‘cartoon’ looking avatars. One company called Cartoonme.com makes it easy to convert a current photo into an avatar. I tested the web based service the other day and received my €3.50 EUR ($4.89 US) cartoon-ish looking avatar back by email […]
RichC | March 25, 2009
I was talking to a friend about Miami University old WMUB’s “HelpDesk” radio program which has moved to the podcast only format now that the radio station is no longer broadcasting its own content (ended in February 2009). He asked me how to listen to the program now that it is no longer on the […]
RichC | March 24, 2009
I’d be all set if I only knew a bit more about algae based fuels — like biodiesel make from algae! (mentioned many times before) Here in southwest Ohio I’ve seen more than one pond or small lake showing signs of spring; it the algae bloom season. The heavy algae growth come a bit before […]
RichC | March 23, 2009
This is one driver that I don’t want to see parallel park! Speaking of “park” … that’s what the letter *P* is for …
RichC | March 22, 2009
Very few things irritate me more when traveling down the interstate and looking for fuel only to find out that the interstate sign doesn’t match the price at the pump. It use to be that when this happened that it was only a couple cents, but now in the day of 10 – 20 cent […]
RichC | March 21, 2009
As mentioned before, the Terrafugia Transition car-based airplane is being developed on the east coast this year and the above is a bit of video from the first runway based test flight on March 5th. Retired USAF test pilot Col. Phil Meteer comments that the test was “remarkable for being unremarkable.” Performance Cruise: 100 kts […]
RichC | March 20, 2009
It has finally arrive, the Twitter business model. The co-founder and CEO Evan Williams announced that the Twitter Premium accounts would be the way the company would begin to generate income. He explained that since corporation and celebrities are “flocking to Twitter for their social media needs” that this gives them an opportunity to have […]
RichC | March 19, 2009
I filled my NCAA March Madness Bracket online (ESPN) and to my son’s horror I didn’t pick The University of Akron Zips to win, even though I’m funding that program through his tuition. I have to admit that it is a positive time for Akron in that the university is a very attractive place to […]
RichC | March 18, 2009
There is no way to get my ‘herding dog to do this, but I’m going to make her watch it anyway! 😉 Still, the online video is too cool to not post while I stop for lunch today!
RichC | March 17, 2009
I’ve been enjoying using Twitter after a brief learning curve trying to figuring out how to get my head around the concept of following 140 character text messages (TweetDeck is my favorite client on a computer). Surprisingly it can be somewhat addictive even for someone who is a not hyper-stimulated video gaming kind of guy. […]
RichC | March 16, 2009
I’m keeping my eye to the web as I’d like to know when “for sure” we’ll see the Palm Pre hit the Sprint inventory. If someone knows the exact date, they are not saying … but the BoyGenius website (very accurate stuff BTW) is correct, the “leaked” map still has it slated for the 2nd […]
RichC | March 16, 2009
The space shuttle Discovery rocketed into space at 7:43 p.m. EDT on Sunday with the crew of STS-119 and the cheers from the team on the ground. The comments made by the NASA was that it was a smooth launch and that the team operated near perfectly. The early evening launch was the the 100th […]
RichC | March 15, 2009
While checking in with Spacevidcast.com‘s coverage of Shuttle Discovery’s planned launch on UStream.com, it is interesting listening to NASA’s “fit team’s” walk around 3 hours prior to launch and what they actually do. One unusual thing during today’s walk around was a fruit bat clinging to the shuttle assembly; the NASA consultant commented commented that […]
RichC | March 15, 2009
Laughing at my idiocy. I dislike shaking spray paint cans so taped to end of recipricating saw blade & squeezed the trigger. Hey it works! # Wrapping up the day although my whiteboard still as a list of unfinished tasks. Going to weld & paint a broken gate tonight. # New laptop battery is no […]
RichC | March 15, 2009
Laughing at my idiocy. I dislike shaking spray paint cans so taped to end of recipricating saw blade & squeezed the trigger. Hey it works! # Wrapping up the day although my whiteboard still as a list of unfinished tasks. Going to weld & paint a broken gate tonight. # New laptop battery is no […]
RichC | March 14, 2009
Although there were a few things missing in this episode of the PBS Motorweek, I did enjoy seeing and hearing biodiesel still being promoted. I particularly enjoy their highlighting the ‘Appleseed’ processor! (how do you like that @girlmark)
RichC | March 13, 2009
Although I don’t spend every moment watching the stock market as an indicator of our economic woes, I do feel the pain when it comes to paying for college and saving for retirement. So I can’t help but take a breath while noticing the averages rise a bit over the last few days. That said, […]
RichC | March 13, 2009
After spending the last couple years running Microsoft’s Vista OS on my traveling notebook computer and recently installing the new Windows 7 Beta, I can’t imagine ever being forced to go back to such a pitiful operating system as Vista. Perhaps it was Microsoft’s strategy that users suffer so no matter what came out next […]
RichC | March 12, 2009
This past week, folks on Twitter celebrated the birthday of popular actor, martial arts/fitness star and conservative political supporter Chuck Norris as he turned a very young 69 — Happy Birthday. (Chuck Norris search) In keeping with one of the curious trends started some years ago, fans began sharing the short “tough guy” jokes, or […]
RichC | March 11, 2009
Keel Brightman, the son of a friend of mine (Donna Lange’s) is participating in an adventure of a lifetime this spring in the Pacific Northwest. He is part of a small group who has started in British Columbia, Canada this March and is hoping to paddle the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. The team […]
RichC | March 10, 2009
Palm Pre gets a unique appearance on NBC’s Late Nite with Jimmy Fallon as Joshua Topolsky from Engadget brought one along in his pocket — he must rate pretty high in the tech world to have had that priveledge! The Pre has made only a handful of appearances since the introduction, so is sort of […]
RichC | March 9, 2009
Small and informal (as usual) EAA284.org gathering on Sunday afternoon and continued to discuss a couple rib stitching and wing/fuselage covering options. Stewart Systems less toxic EkoBond were looked at (PDF Manual) and we entertained thoughts on possibly creating a How-To video for making stitching needles from welding rods. Although I’m building an aluminum aircraft, […]
RichC | March 8, 2009
Although her life was full and death was peaceful, it is difficult for me to say an earthly goodbye to my wonderful Aunt Lois. She was my closest aunt (my mother’s only sister) and growing up we were always together with her and her family. My brother and I were practically best friends with her […]
RichC | March 6, 2009
Since I haven’t been traveling this week, I’ve had a few minutes to do a full database backup and reinstall on a new server. One of the primary reason I’ve been anxious to do was because of some significant slowing in access. Thankfully the upgrade was painless and looks to have corrected my primary speed […]
RichC | March 6, 2009
TopGear.com American is working on their “triple 7” — $7000, 70mpg, 0-60mpg in under 7 seconds. They have purchase a VW Rabbit diesel in New York and are transplanting a TDI engine in Regina, Saskatchewan and have labeled the project the “Sipster.” The current video shows the engine transplant (below) although the project was announcmed […]
RichC | March 5, 2009
Powerenz.com makes a very portable set of solar panels that looks to provide a great way to charge or power low wattage electrical devices while away from conventional power sources. The flexible panels can be easily toted in a bag or backpack and will provide up to 180 watts of power. They can also be […]
RichC | March 4, 2009
YourFonts.com makes it easy to create a personalized font based on your own handwriting. I created one in about 15 minutes, including the scanning and uploading — very cool. After printing out the PDF template , I used a fine tip ‘Sharpie‘ to scribble in the letters and numbers as the very easy instructions describe. […]
RichC | March 3, 2009
I’ll keep this post short since my mood is the same; the markets tried to find a reason to bounce after loosing 299 point on the DJIA yesterday, but traders and investors would have none of it. The averages did cross yesterday’s ‘ugly’ close a couple time throughout trading on Tuesday, but in the end […]
RichC | March 2, 2009
WSJ Online Here’s a bright thought: if, scratch that, when … the economy rebounds, it most likely will rise quickly from the shocking lows we are currently seeing. The dark side is that this selloff doesn’t seem to be finding a bottom and there aren’t many confident traders ready buy stocks again. Today’s news from […]
RichC | March 2, 2009
In my circle of diesel loving friends I have rarely heard that people have difficulty in deciding between the well equipped 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI or 2009 Toyota Prius, but that isn’t always the case for those listening to all the media hype praising hybrid cars. In case you are one of the few looking […]
RichC | March 1, 2009
I had a Skype conversation with Cali Lewis (aka: Geekbeat.TV) and her business experts on Saturday for a pilot for a new podcast called WealthNation, I think? She invited me to ask a couple business questions pertaining to liability protection utilizing a corporation or LLC and a follow up on product patent protection. Unfortunately I’m […]