The years sure do start to melt together and numbers in the thousands of daily posts doesn’t seem possible? But the stats don’t lie and neither do the years. So as I did last year, I’m archiving MDB numbers. Personal blogging for most has given way to social media and podcasting and video “shorts” these […]
It has been too long between truly “desultory” posts, so I’ll add one on the topic of iOS photo editing and iOS apps. Ever since I updated my iPhone from the long-lasting iPhone 7 Plus almost a year ago, I’ve been missing the magnifier highlighting tool that was part of Apple’s previous iOS. Now that […]
As we head into another Independence Day tomorrow, I find myself pausing on this Throwback Thursday #TBT to reflect not just on America’s history, but also on the digital trail now spanning 20 years that I’ve been leaving here at MyDesultoryBlog. The Fourth of July has always been more than fireworks and barbecues for our […]
While Katelyn was home with her family over the Memorial Day weekend, she made a comment about Drew’s hairline while he was swimming in the pool; she used the term “Widow’s Peak“ and it stuck with me as something “desultory” enough for MDB. According to GrokAI (sketched an illustration too): A widow’s peak is a […]
Part of me wonders why I continue to post “something” … “anything” … on the MDB pages everyday? Perhaps it is habit or an addictive obsession, but then again I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used it as a way to track my family life as a timeline. As the years roll by […]
When working with Bing‘s webmaster tools, I noticed that some search results for MyDesultory Blog.com were missing. After a bit of reading, it looks as if I may have crammed too much into the index HTML page? According to their guidelines (it doesn’t impact other search engines), a heavy index page (+125KB) removes a website […]
I received an email from a regular blog reader questioning the new Sign-In feature that I implemented last month; it hinders anonymous viewing on My Desultory Blog for some posts. Yes it is a restrictive change, but it is not all that cumbersome once you are “Sign-In.” The WordPress security is minimal and the only […]
Just marking server and blog updates to end the month of February 2021. I’ve put this WordPress 5.6.2 update off a few weeks in order to be sure I had a full backup, etc. Note to self, check on the Seagate hard drive attached to the iMac as Time Machine backups have been regularly failing […]
The menu “navigational links” just under the header of My Desultory Blog are primarily there for my own short-cuts … and I haven’t changed them for years. A few aren’t really used much anymore, with improved browser bookmarks – one click bookmarks are just much more convenient. This past week I made a change. I […]
Who we are Our website address is: https://mydesultoryblog.com. What personal data we collect and why we collect it Comments When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection. An anonymized string created from […]
#TeamFiona playing cards on sale for short time at Cincinnati area Kroger It is strange after 50 years that curiosity finally piqued my interest as to how the four kings on playing cards came to be … who are they? Of course the beauty of having the Internet at your fingertips is that finding “an” answer […]
Those who have been blogging for a while learn to monitor their viewership. We’d like to know what kind of traffic is hitting the servers and often looking at the breakdown as to what generates interest and ad clicks. In the early days, a "hit counter" was sufficient, but as country music artist Loretta Lynn […]
I’m bummed to see that total views on MyDesultoryBlog are down about 10% this past year. The drop-off may have to do with more users looking at things on their mobile devices? Blogs, mine in particular, are difficult to read on a small screen phone and longer copy (like the previous two posts) are not […]
Most of us see a few posts or images that seem interesting, thought provoking or just surprising. The Desultory tidbit title is a way to toss those collect bits into a miscellaneous post. This week a “size of Africa” map caught my attention as did an post titled “Money can by happiness” in The Economist. […]
Now running WordPress 4.0, “Benny” (for Benny Goodman) … send me a message if there is a problem on my site.
Once in a while the “post for the day” reaches desperation levels and inspiration comes to me in the shower … literally! So after reaching into the simpleton part of my brain – the majority of it, before I get a wise crack – a brilliant cheapskate idea for my eventual advice book crops up. […]
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 […]
After a few days off after arguing with my “previous” web hosting company in serving up my blog, I’ve moved the 12 gigabytes of files and content over to a new server. The task was not made any easier by my 6 years of linking photo, video and embedded content from a variety of places. […]
After 6 years and over 2600 posts to My Desultory Blog, I’ve finally decided to use a few dollars from my Google’s Adsense earnings (small as it is) to register the domain name mydesultoryblog.com. For the time being I’ll still post under my originally richc.myarchive.us (and probably will continue); this myarchive.us site was intended to […]
As of April 5, 2011 … My Desultory Blog and its associated databases have been updated to the latest release of Word Press, version 3.1.1. WordPress 3.1.1 WordPress 3.1.1 is now available. This maintenance and security release fixes almost thirty issues in 3.1, including: Some security hardening to media uploads Performance improvements Fixes for […]
The topics posted here are far from the recommended ‘single subject focused’ blogs written to purposely attract readers, yet despite this lack of professional focus, the site still gets read. My Desultory Blog manages to generate close to 10,000 unique IP accesses each month and 10 GB of data transferred. One of the most surprising […]
A friend … and regular reader of my blog … sent me a message mentioning that the “Word of the Day” over at Dictionary.com was none other than desultory. Thanks Scott.
Occasionally I enjoy looking at archived posts from the previous year, or even several years ago by clicking on links in the right hand side bar’s “Years ago on this day“ list. It is surprising how fast 4 years have gone by? It was in April 2005 that I moved my paper journal to a […]
I’ve been battling a storm water problem since we built our house and every year tweak my existing water routing plan contemplating new ways to deal with it. I spotted a “This Old House” video clip that offered a solution … a few more dollars than I want to spend, but I appreciated the engineering […]
Two totally different topics … “Brain Port” as described at MSNBC and a personal video. (humor me) First, a concept and device that was introduced 30 years ago by Dr. Paul Bach-y-Rita at the University of Wisconsin; it is know as “Brain Port.” Originally it was a video camera that routed images through electrodes to […]
In keeping with ‘desultory‘ in my blog, I ran across some useful advice from a specialty produce distributor in regard to storing and ripening fruit. Karen Caplan of Frieda’s Inc. suggests that you rinse peaches, nectarines and plums and place in a shallow wire basket for ventilation after purchasing, rather than putting them in the […]
It is impossible to not smile when the sun is shining and the beach is calling me. Brenda and I are so thankful to have this time together and feeling free doing something we both love — walk the beach. Yes, I wish my foot was back to normal, but surprisingly walking on the beach […]
Likely Brenda and I did not properly thank our kids for the over-the-top Christmas gift this year. They all have the robot vacuums in their homes and regularly rave and show us just what they are able to do these days. I think both of us thought we might eventually buy one since our first […]
The WyzeCam came through in trying to figure out where a letter disappeared to. After tracking her steps, Brenda could not find a letter and check that needed to be delivered. She knew that she had taken it with her, but couldn’t find it (it happens to all of us). So after checking multiple times […]
The advantage of having a social media presence is that I’m never at a loss for posting something on MyDesultoryBlog! 😊
It is that time of the year: Checking out Lake Superior State University’s Banished Words List — their 50th! (My daughter will like the first one after mentioning it to me back in 2025). Here are this year’s golden class of banishments and rationale: 6-7 “There are six or seven reasons why this phrase needs […]
The Christmas decorations have been taken down and almost put away for another year. While doing so, I re-stacked and re-stored a few items (should have thrown more away). One of the items that made me smile was my Grandma and Grandpa Bluhm’s ceramic clock that I clearly remember and can still see on their […]
While this is not exactly a new map (1980-2014), the “Average Length of Winter in Days” in North America likely doesn’t change all that much. Still, the BrilliantMaps repost of it in December makes it interesting, at least to me, as we hibernate this January 2026.
I think about my granddaughters every morning when I go through a Seinfeld-like routine (“about nothing”) when I pick one of the three Kellogg’s cereal bowls out of the dishwasher or cupboard. It’s only a silent mental routine by me in “hoping” I pick “Tony the Tiger” bowl, the kids favorite bowl. The morning or […]
While listening to Charles Payne on Fox Business, he referenced The Mamas and The Papas when commenting on a stock pick for 2026 by a guest: Monday.com LTD (ticker $MNDY). The comment referenced the song Monday, Monday (previous post) as being a 1966 hit and number 1 song. A second reference is today’s Music Monday […]
As someone who has spent most of their career dealing with “graphic design” in one way or another after 40 years working at Consolidated Printing and Publishing Co, this sign on the door struck me as humorous. We can only hope it isn’t real? On a non-humorous note, I found my K4RDC (amateur radio) U.S. […]
J.K. Rowling, born Joanne Kathleen Rowling on July 31, 1965, in Yate, England, is the acclaimed British author of the Harry Potter series, which has sold over 600 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 85 languages. Inspired to write the series during a delayed train journey in 1990, she completed the first […]
I saw this on social media and thought it was worthy of archiving as we close out 2025 … and is a bit political … so beware. 😉 Larry Page: “Elon is one of the people who genuinely understands physics and applies it.” Sergey Brin: “Elon is someone who thinks extremely deeply about hard technical […]
The 1971 recording of the song “One Tin Soldier” sung by Jinx Dawson, lead vocalist of Coven, is my pick for today’s Music Monday. It triggered some of last year’s book reading on “Kent State: An American Tragedy” and my post in TheHustings. For those living through the Vietnam and military draft era, music was […]
Really just cleaning out my folder of “things I’ve saved” because at the time I thought they were interesting. First up, a newspaper clipping point to “Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas on Immigrants being American” from 1907. His point that “any man who says he is an American, but something else, isn’t an American at all.” I […]
One of the highlights of 2025 on the automotive front, and as a car enthusiast, was making a solid financial move in selling Brenda’s 2010 Acura RDX and buying a very clean 2019 Tesla Model 3. The “key” was to purchase it from a known seller and before the end of September using KeySavvy. This […]
Merry Christmas! Our Christmas Eve was quiet as Brenda and I are waiting to celebrate with our family this weekend — family rotations and all (but those are good memories in thinking about our 43 years of ‘back and forth’ with our parents and extended family). Picking up from yesterday’s thought on the journey: That […]
With Christmas Eve upon us, we are still gathering bits and pieces for the holidays; Brenda is still pulling out some old decorations and I’m hobbling around on my lingering foot issue that’s made 2025 a bit more “bah humbug” than usual. But … at least I’ve been thinking a little historicity and the “real […]
Last week I asked Alexa+ to play some Christmas music in our house while decorating the tree. If not for that, I may not be in the Christmas spirit even yet. I’ve been rather bah humbug and whiny about my nagging foot injury the later have of this year. So it is time to at […]
Every so often I run across another article reminding us that Social Security may not look the same in the future as it does today (one was in TheStreet.com highlighting Dave Ramsey). That should surprise exactly no one. Yet many Americans still talk about Social Security as though it were a full retirement plan rather […]
Here’s a Tech Friday item: The lidar maker Luminar for self-driving cars has filed for bankruptcy according to The Verge. Unfortunately for them, technology changes fast even when you have a great product and are innovative; in the real world, companies are still required to have a profitable business plan that keeps the lights on. ☹️ […]
It is interesting how when you are older, and as years pass, that items we have don’t age the same as they did when we were younger? Take for example clothes, I can put on a 10+ year old piece of clothing nowadays and still think that it is relatively new. Kitchen appliances are that […]
Brilliantmaps is a social media account on X.com that I follow for year … and have posted from before. This past week, one of the posts on their website was on a set of retired NationalAtlas.gov maps of Ohio. Since I’ve been a life long “Ohioian,” it seems fitting to include a link to their […]
It is the time of year that I do my best to reach out to my existing Consolidated Printing and Publishing Co. customers that I’m still serving. The gradual slowing down of my nearly 40 year old business continues and I’m still doing my best to keep loyal and long time customers satisfied. Is maintaining […]
AFTER a photo from my daughter, who was very proud of her husband, and his “Teaching Excellence” award a few days ago (we are very proud of you too, Drew) … I’m going to comment on happiness in America (see previous personal post). First, and for the record, my family makes me happy, very happy. Perhaps […]
Have you ever wondered about those oddities on clothes and why they continue to be added even though “most” people don’t use them? I suspect most people have heard that the little pocket on jeans was put their by Levi Strauss for the pocket watch, but it is still interesting. Coins? Matches? Lipstick? Flash drives? […]
Today’s “Freebird” for Music Monday by Lynyrd Skynyrd is a 1973 classic, but I also recently heard “Freebird!” being exclaimed as a joke Fox Business as a way to “break the monotony” of a conversation and humorously “make fun of” each other on the 12-2pm slotted “The Big Money Show.” So for today … here’s […]
I’ve been on the waiting list to download the ebook “Taking Midway” by Martin Dugard from my local library for months, but my hold recently came up and so I checked it out two days before National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (today). The timing is excellent for “remembering” the 2403 fallen Americans back in 1941. Martin […]
On Thanksgiving weekend, our family walked around the shops in Liberty Center before going to the movie Zootopia 2 as a family; it was very nice. Besides the granddaughters enjoying the candy store, I particularly enjoyed a shop with an old Volkswagen Microbus. Of course I couldn’t help but reminisce about my old friend Charlie […]
After reading an opinion from several years ago, but also after recent events, rising tensions and political divide in the U.S. … the same article is being passed around social media again. The writings seemed almost too spot on so I was interested in knowing how much truth there was to it — so I’m […]
The “over-forecasted” first winter snowstorm for 2025-26 was spot on. By morning we had at least 6 inches of heavy snow. About the only thing that would have made it look a little prettier would have been some sunshine … but it was still beautiful (took the photos too early in the morning though). I’m […]
From regular reading of rumors, the Apple M5 MacBook Air is likely a spring of 2026 event … but besides a faster chip, CPU speeds and GPU, the display will likely stay the same until 2027. Who knows though, if the price and specs are right, it could be an upgrade option for me? BUT […]
A month or so ago, David Bowie and the song “Changes” was highlighted on Music Monday. It started me thinking about other hits, and I realized that “Rebel Rebel” was another one of the timeless classics that should be included. It was a 1974 UK release and big hit. It is likely known worldwide by […]
Thanksgiving “return home” weekend travel look dicey in some parts of the midwest and could snarl air travel for those who might be flying. Thankfully for us, KDAE are traveling home on Saturday and not Sunday, but will likely face a little weather (since I’m writing this after they left our house on Saturday). It […]
Since I’m still “admiring Brenda’s 2019 Tesla Model 3,” but I’ve also been intrigued by some of the impressive navigation and realtime data. The other day on a trip to our local Costco, the Sentry Mode security recorded all the carts and people who were around the car while parked. I now know why so […]
Earlier this week, I heard Thanksgiving prayers and greetings from several with different backgrounds and religions … all were U.S. based, except the one from Israel. It struck me as somewhat unique in how those outside America respect our holiday of Thanksgiving. I’ve even heard that it is a growing trend for other countries to […]
This could have been the last nice weekend to finish up yard work such as raking and hauling leaves – and my rake is about to be retired, as am I! Who knows as a few trees are still fulling loaded with leaves; perhaps the wind will blow them elsewhere??? Anyway if felt good to […]
It is odd just how the human mind works when connecting a couple of entirely different names? Last week, in a discussion on X.com, an automotive journalist, CarGuyTom, toss out the celebrity name, Ema Thompson, after a poll he was running. Knowing Tom was a fan of jazz music, the name for some strange reason […]
There was article regarding The Joy of Doing Nothing in the WSJ’s Lifestyle section on retirement last week … which forces the question “when to actually retire” and “how to actually retire?” One of the comments triggered a mental debate on slogan that get reversed, depending on who you are talking to: “It is better […]
I’ve been using an Apple iPad the same way for nearly the past decade or so (yikes, 2011); using it has been pretty much a habitual rut for me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy using every iPad for reading, browsing, note taking (typing as I don’t have an Apple Pencil) and answering emails … […]
In keeping with last week’s smart home fixes, the Wyze Palm Lock was one of those spontaneous purchases (a discount offered) that I really should have added to my Christmas list, but with a recent theft event in our neighborhood, it seemed “wyze”to add it sooner rather than later (it’s ok if you rolled your […]
Last week a song segment from “Take Me Home” came on the TV between one of the NFL games and it triggered “good emotions.” Likely that was because 1985-86 were great years for both Brenda and me; we were enjoying sailing on Brenich, fixing up our first house and getting it ready to sell and […]
If you’re like me and thousands of frustrated smart home users, you’ve probably hit the wall with Sengled bulbs, their Hub and Alexa. For the past six months (and officially since Amazon axed the integration on August 1, 2025), the Sengled Home app error codes with NSURLErrorDomain -1202 — thanks to a flaky SSL certificate […]
After meeting my buddy Jeff for lunch last week, we decided to start a new book to discuss. This has been something we’ve done over the years, although I admit, he is much better in staying on task when it comes to reading than me. The book, “God, the Science, the Evidence, the Dawn of […]
Today’s earlier post had to do with Tesla (“Musk’s $1 Trillion Is Not Guaranteed” – so I wanted to archive it since it was also posted on TheHustings). Also, the weather has vastly improved and it seemed like a good time to add another Wyze Cam driveway video highlighting the disappearing autumn colors. Besides, I’m […]
Elon Musk‘s new Tesla pay package isn’t a guaranteed $1 TRILLION payout, it’s a stretch-goal incentive structure requiring him to achieve extraordinarily ambitious milestones: deploying 1 million robotaxis, selling 10 million FSD subscriptions, scaling to 1 million Optimus robots, and growing Tesla’s market cap 6x to $8.5T (surpassing Nvidia’s peak). Tesla also laid out a […]
My daughter mentioned that the band Journey announced their farewell “Final Frontier” tour this month and wondered just how closely we followed them, knowing the band heyday was in the 1970-80s — our music listening years. We of course listened to them, but couldn’t say that Journey was at the top of our “loved their […]
Why do public schools, a college education, the social safety net and health care continue to need more money? Because government is inefficient and too heavily involved … especially at the Federal level. Late last week I sent my right-leaning column commentary to TheHusting.news — we’ll see how it is received. No doubt those on […]