Slow, but not necessarily steady, progress on my home office

| July 17, 2021

Slow progress on my home office as I continue to work in disarray; I am missing my accessory junk … including a small hanging TV. I don’t necessarily “watch” business television, instead listen to the stream via SiriusXM to my Aftershokz Aeropex headset. Occasionally though, do still find it helpful to have a video image […]

A week of summer with Annalyn and Ellerie at our house

| July 11, 2021

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Archive: Leftover personal family 4th of July weekend photos

| July 10, 2021

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Preparation yardwork for upcoming concrete driveway project

| June 29, 2021

Beautiful Panarama iPhone7 Evening Sky photo – 6/28/2021 In preparation for the driveway demolition crew to arrive (neighborhood driveway work needs to be done before road repaving), I spent the weekend working to get access around the garage ready for the workers. I’m not exactly sure where our driveway fits into the schedule, since several […]

Birdhouses and raccoons and a great Drew and Katelyn photo

| June 20, 2021

Received nice photo from Katelyn and Drew last week and since I included one of Taylor and Megan last week, this is one that needed to be archived on my blog. Most most personal photos nowadays are of our granddaughters as Brenda and I have long ago moved past the stage of photos our ourselves […]

Moving ahead a little bit with the mini split AC installation

| June 15, 2021

This past weekend I moved forward in getting the mini split AC unit installed in my home office. I started the planned chair rail  and cork wall (insulation, sound deadening and a place to pin maps, etc). I’m not sure about the can of worms I’ve opened, but I spent half the day on Saturday […]

We celebrated Taylor’s 32nd Birthday in Cincinnati for dinner

| June 10, 2021

We had a great time celebrating Taylor’s 32nd birthday last night after work at Pepp and Dolores restaurant in Cincinnati thanks to Megan. Brenda and I enjoyed arriving a little early and sitting at the bar talking with the bartender while sipping some Italian wine. We ended up discussing menu since she wasn’t overly busy. […]

Celebrating wedding anniversary number 39 without fanfare

| June 5, 2021

Brenda and I are still a year away from a milestone wedding anniversary, but we aren’t taking our 39th for granted – Happy Anniversary Brenda! This past year has been challenging … but an improving year on all counts.  Everyone has been dealing with the COVID19 pandemic, but thankfully for us, we are coming out […]

Bought a high efficient HVAC mini split unit for the home office

| May 29, 2021

A separate air conditioning unit has long been on my “want list” for my home office. I’ve contemplated adding a high efficiency minisplit inverter unit for years to better balance the southwest corner upstairs office in our house. It has never really been comfortable in the summer with multiple computers, printers and gadgets, especially in […]

Back to Perrysburg for Annalyn’s dance recital and babysitting

| May 28, 2021

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A Toledo Mud Hens game and Katelyn’s surprise birthday party

| May 26, 2021

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Blood Moon, Lunar Eclipse and our new Half-Moon Window

| May 25, 2021

The final new “half-moon” window was installed on Monday this week with the proper wagon-wheel spokes (photo below) .. which coincides with this week’s  “Super Moon.” What makes this one somewhat unique is that there will also be a lunar eclipse where the earth shadows the moon. A total lunar eclipse completely blocks the moon, […]

Washing cars, opening the pool before a surprise trip to Toledo

| May 25, 2021

This past weekend was a busy weekend and won’t likely let up for a little while – full schedule … and I’m not even really back to traveling for work! It started with getting the mowing finished up on Friday night so that I could spend time on getting the initial pool cleaning and pump […]

Happy 35th Birthday to our daughter Katelyn today – 5/14/2021

| May 14, 2021

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Happy Mother’s Day: Revere, respect and honor your mother. Who knows how many days either of you will have.

| May 9, 2021

I probably should be quoting from Leviticus 19:3, but I can’t help but remember Ferris Bueller commenting that, “Life moves pretty fast …” when thinking about respecting and honoring mothers today. So for Mother’s Day 2021, focus your attention on your mother before it is too late … because from experience, “life does move pretty […]

Archive: A few saved family photos from the week that was …

| May 5, 2021

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It was good to get away to sunny Florida for a restful beach week

| May 2, 2021

Although I know much of the country has lived locked down for much of the year, Brenda and I have probably done a little more than most. She has worked in the pharmacy without much of a break and since the COVID19 vaccinations have started, has been very busy. We had planned a trip to […]

Canary cam selfies, Taylor and his fraternity friends in the Bahamas and the passing of the UK’s Prince Phillip

| April 10, 2021

It is that time of year again … spring, when the camera loving birds (1, 2, 3) sit and look at the Pool Garage camera. The downside is that every time they sit and look at the Canary cam, it triggers a motion alert to my phone. Taylor and Megan are on their way back […]

Double spline miters, my granddaughters and early drives #TBT

| April 8, 2021

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Archive: Granddaughter catch-up photos from this past week

| April 3, 2021

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An Akron/Canton CAK photo from my Palm Treo in 2006 #TBT

| April 1, 2021

While cleaning up one of my old Flickr accounts where my Palm Treo 700p photos were backed up, I stumbled across one of the first photos with it I took and posted to this blog – June 2006. Even though the camera was lacking by today’s cellphone standards, I still think the Palm PDA turned […]

Ancestry and two cute St. Patrick’s Day granddaughter photos

| March 21, 2021

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Weekend mailbox project update and Annalyn’s first haircut

| March 14, 2021

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Handy IFitIt tools for gadgets and Spring 2021 family photos

| March 13, 2021

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Finishing a desktop bookholder project for my son Taylor

| March 9, 2021

While finishing up a small black walnut book stand or bookholder for my son’s birthday later this spring, I decided to archive a photo since Taylor doesn’t regularly read my blog (watch this be the exception). I wanted to make something for him since the granddaughters usually get most projects. He is also the other “sailboat” […]

Happy Birthday Annalyn. Thinking about my granddaughter.

| March 4, 2021

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Celebrating Ellerie (1) and Annalyn’s (4) Birthdays in Toledo

| March 2, 2021

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Archive: The Howards and the Woodcocks in Florida #TBT

| February 18, 2021

A couple of weeks ago I shared a 1990s photo of Brenda’s dad with a close friend Hugh Woodcock and saw another one from 1997 to archive for a Throwback Thursday #TBT. Both MomH (2017) and DadH (2013) have passed away, but since Mrs. Woodcock (Ann) commented on my “snowy February stay-at-home” post, I figured […]

Archive for posterity: Sold a little more fractional Bitcoin shares

| February 18, 2021

Almost 1 year ago, I started to use the Chromium-based Brave Browser and an Uphold account to receive the BAT (Basic Attention Token). I convert to Bitcoin along with the income generated on MyDesultoryBlog.com … which currently seems to be the digital currency of choice; I really did it just for the fun of it […]

Workshop brainstorming for better chip and dust containment

| February 16, 2021

It is time for a little more research on better dust and chip control in my basement workshop. Brenda can deal with the noise and giving me a place to escape, but she is not fond of the dust that makes its way upstairs – those with basement woodworking workshops know what I mean. I’ve […]

Happy Valentine’s Day to friends and family, especially my girls!

| February 14, 2021

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Tech Friday: New 1500mAh batteries for my Lumix GX8

| February 5, 2021

When I pulled out my Lumix GX8 DSLR camera over Christmas, I noticed that the “cheap” batteries that I had purchased as backups to the primary Panasonic branded 1200mAh battery were no longer holding charges. They were still chargeable, but their life was short. So I added a new spare battery to my shopping list […]

Archive: DadH, Hugh Woodcock, Lynda and Mark photos #TBT

| February 4, 2021

I always stop in to visit with lifetime friends of Mom and Dad Howard,  Ann and Hugh Woodcock when I’m close, but hesitate to even tell them I’m nearby “in the days of COVID19.” I really hate putting it off though, since one never knows how many days friends in their 90s have? The photo […]

Woodworking ideas: Workshop dust collection improvements

| January 30, 2021

My basement woodworking shop is a dust-making mess in our house, but there isn’t much I can do about it now other than to improve how I collect and filter and keep dust from gravitating into the furnaces cold air returns and upstairs. In our previous house in Hudson Ohio, I was fortunate to have […]

Tech Friday: Our small Echo Dot on the Home Theater ceiling

| January 29, 2021

Now that the wiring in the basement is no longer laying on the floor in order to feed the kitchen television cable extender and ceiling repairs are finished up, I’ve been cleaning up and moving things back into the home theater and game room areas. With some fresh paint everything looks pretty good, so I […]

Archive: Professional Brenda and the Hawk Migration #TBT

| January 28, 2021

When searching for a photo of my 1996 Toyota 4Runner (never found one), I stumbled across a couple personal photos from 1997 and will archive them for today’s Throwback Thursday #TBT. One of “professional Brenda” dressed for the office in 1990’s style (ha!) and the other of our family on an October Hawk Migration birding […]

Do all grandparents love their grandchildren as much as I do?

| January 27, 2021

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Woodworking: Collecting workbench hold-down ideas

| January 20, 2021

It is common when woodworking on a bench to use some kind of vise or clamp to hold down a work piece. For longer boards I’ve always used either a couple of clamps on each end or my home-built vise and square hardwood bench dogs. (below) BUT … I’ve envied woodworkers who have 3/4” holes […]

The wire from the TV signal box is now in the basement ceiling

| January 16, 2021

My wife is great … and her decorating and building taste as to what “looks” nice grows on a person after nearly 40 years of marriage … but I still grumble about some of the decision she makes. One of them was wanting a drywall ceiling rather than something removable when we finished the basement. […]

A Toyota 4Runner window sticker and missing a photo #TBT

| January 14, 2021

While shuffling through a bunch of old scans and photos and uploading stuff to my Miami University .EDU Google Drive account for free cloud storage after downgrading my subscription to OneDrive (they refused to renew the 1TB of space at my previous 4-years of discounted service), I ran across the window sticker from my black […]

Archive: On January 6, 2021, my nephew Ben, Emily, Liev and Ellis welcomed beautiful baby Lyra Eileen Skinner into the world

| January 13, 2021

We don’t see my nephew and his family nearly enough, but a week ago, my nephew Ben, his wife Emily, and their two boys, Liev and Ellis welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world. The boys baby sister, and Ben and Emily’s first daughter, Lyra Eileen Skinner was born in the morning, weighing a […]

Our family Christmas 2020 and a few too many wrap-up photos

| December 29, 2020

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Merry Christmas to all who check in on My Desultory Blog

| December 25, 2020

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Our granddaughters are coming and new Great Room windows

| December 23, 2020

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The Great Conjunction: Saturn and Jupiter align on Dec 21st

| December 20, 2020

For those who enjoy astronomy, space exploration or just looking at the night sky, an event know as Saturn and Jupiter’s Great Conjunction is happening on December 21st (although look in the southern sky shortly after sunset  any night this month). A “conjunction” is an event that happens every 20 years for these two planets […]

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Slick roads and an accident.

| December 19, 2020

Although this is the second snow of the season, the weather has turned colder and we ended up with a touch more of the white stuff this week … and with it, yet another accident on Bethany Road to our rear. I saw the flashing sheriff’s car lights and since I’m working from home, I […]

Promotional Products from an exciting Dot-Com start-up #TBT

| December 17, 2020

For Throwback Thursday #TBT this week I’ll include a couple photos from 1998 or 1999. These Soma.com photos are items from my friend Jeff sent to me when cleaning out his apartment. He (and my wife Brenda) were hired to build out the first Dot-Com era online Pharmacy … or at least the fulfillment facility. […]

Merry Christmas 2020 and wishing you a “Hopeful” New Year

| December 15, 2020

It has been a challenging year to say the least with the Coronavirus still raging in the US and around the world. So many lives, businesses and plans have been forever changed. Brenda and I just feel blessed to be surviving the pandemic and able to function in a day to day matter. We hear […]

Santa Mouse slippers, Christmas stories and Echo messages

| December 12, 2020

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Repairing the aging Caldera Hot Tub … AGAIN #TBT

| December 10, 2020

Well, it happened again. The stainless steel heater element pipe in our Caldera Hot Tub has failed again (last time was 2013). There must be some electrolysis accelerating the corrosion unless the stainless steel tubing is just that poor of quality? On the other hand, like the repair guy commented, your hot tub is far […]

Missing sailing but appreciating a Cape Horn installation video

| December 6, 2020

Sometime the best part of keeping a daily blog is that provides a place to archive tidbits for future reference. The Sailing Uma “gear review” tagged YouTube clip on their channel has a fantastic installation video for the Cape Horn Wind Vane self-steering gear that I might need when taking apart ours for repair. Currently […]

Archiving pre-sale Zillow photos of Mom and DadC’s house #TBT

| December 3, 2020

As a ‘still listed’ page owner according to my Zillow update emails of my parents house listing in Sidney, Ohio, I realized that it will not be long before those pages and photos disappear. I likely still have the original photos on a compact flash drive card (who can still read those), but probably won’t […]

Our family is getting into the 2020 Christmas decorating spirit

| December 1, 2020

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Memories of Grandmothers and Aprons plus photos #TBT

| November 26, 2020

Since I’m pre-writing this by a few days for Throwback Thursday #TBT, I realized just before post it that  it will also be Thanksgiving on Thursday. Our family won’t be getting together as usual (same for a lot of families for a COVID19 resurgence), but ours was planned that way since we rotate holidays; Katelyn, […]

Ellerie’s Christmas project and decorating before Thanksgiving

| November 25, 2020

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Apple Mac announcement event this past week along with some fun babysitting Annalyn and Ellerie in Perrysburg, Ohio

| November 14, 2020

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Archive: 1958 Packard Hawk electrical issues, schematics and an Indian Summer bike ride for Annalyn and Ellerie

| November 12, 2020

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Family Filler: A couple of great leftover weekend photos

| November 4, 2020

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Waiting for a Halloween updates from my granddaughters

| November 1, 2020

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Ellerie was dedicated at Waterville Community Church

| October 27, 2020

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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.
My Desultory Blog