Archive: A few leftover Florida photos and oddities

| March 19, 2025

Going through my iPhone’s photos folder to see what I’ve missed posting about  is becoming a habit. This past weekend I realized that the SpaceX Falcon9 rocket with the crewed Dragon capsule‘s launch contrails on Saturday evening were blogworthy as was a condo “parking lot” photo of the Blood Worm Moon on Saturday evening (click […]

Music Monday: Naked Eyes – “Always Something There To Remind Me”

| March 17, 2025

While listening to Pandora’s version of 1970’s music last week, I picked up a song that “reminded” me of 1982, the year Brenda and I were married. The song was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s and originally recorded as a demo by Dionne Warwick in 1963; it was “Always Something There To Remind Me.” […]

Semi-excessive Florida Beach Walking and the Snowy Egret

| February 22, 2025

There was a north wind for our beach walk today, but we continue to add a few more steps to it each day. It is shocking to see Brenda able to comfortable walk ever day with her replacement hip — medical science is amazing. On our walks, we continue to enjoy briefly talking to others […]

There’s no place better for Valentine’s Day than on the beach

| February 15, 2025

We have been enjoying our time together in Florida this month. The weather has been near perfect after a little “expected” cooler, damp, jacket weather that Florida received in January. Next week could be different … according to my weather and tides watcher — report courtesy of Brenda. 😉 Our daily walks are getting easier […]

Tech Friday: Computer development from 1940 to 2100 #TikTok

| February 14, 2025

I’m not much of a TikTok person (actually anti-TikTok) and you might want to take this with a grain of salt, but it is interesting to contemplate where computer development is going in the next 75 years? 

Excellent speech by VP JD Vance on Artificial Intelligence, etc.

| February 12, 2025

Excellent speech by US Vice President JD Vance on artificial intelligence in a summit in Paris, France. He told European and Asian leaders that the United States will dominate AI. Worth watching. NEW: JD Vance speaks at an artificial intelligence summit in Paris, France, tells European and Asian leaders that the United States will dominate […]

Music Monday: Stumbled back to the 1960s for some good vibes

| February 10, 2025

The Music Monday post was prepped prior to the Super Bowl ads … but after seeing this one, I had to include it (see tomorrow for Super Bowl post). Too late … I’ve already started today’s Music Monday post and only then realized the song was also posted five years ago. 😉 But as I […]

Wish my father-in-law could see this Martin B-26 Marauder video

| February 9, 2025

Several decades ago we took Brenda’s father, Fred Howard, to the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio and seeing the Martin B-26 Marauder on display triggered an emotional response. Having flown 50+ bombing missions as a navigator  in Europe during World War II and seeing his “ship” (similar) after so many years brought […]

Review: Post-Liberalism, America and the Church, a discussion

| February 4, 2025

Although I’m not recommending a discussion between Michael Horton, James Wood and David VanDrunen to all Christians, the YouTube conversation between theologians is still interesting for those who are politically active in society and the church. The panelists explored the significance of post-liberalism and how it contrasts with classical liberalism, particularly in relation to Christian theology […]

Collision between AA commuter jet and Black Hawk Helicopter

| January 31, 2025

Each time I hear about an aviation accident I think back to the years I was flying small planes. The conversations by news people regarding the state of safe aviation in the United States … be it DEI hires, technology or congested air traffic control space … has me struggling to know what level of […]

Music Monday: Steely Dan and “Reelin’ In The Years” #video

| January 27, 2025

“Reelin’ In the Years,” a song by American rock band Steely Dan was written by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The song features Fagen on vocals and is an early example of their easily recognized sound. I found it interesting to read that Fagen thought it “dumb but effective,” and Becker said it was “no […]

Shared by my daughter and granddaughters and made my day!

| January 26, 2025

Here’s hoping this lifts someone reading my blog today … Micah 6:8 — New International Version  He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.     And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy     and to walk humbly with your God.

It is cold nearly everywhere and even snowing in Florida

| January 23, 2025

Spotted in the Florida Panhandle above and airboat video in Louisiana below 😊 Saw the photo below on social media as a Polar Vortex powered Arctic Blast pushes across the country … and I thought, “climate change” (so long as it is warmer weather) … isn’t coming fast enough!  

Music Monday: “It Never Rains in Southern California” (1972)

| January 13, 2025

While listening to a 1970 oddity song this week as the wildfires ravaged areas around Los Angeles California, a song by Albert Hammond (co-written by Mike Hazlewood) triggered Music Monday thoughts. It is an “oddity” in that “It Never Rains in Southern California” is the only hit I remember Albert Hammond recording (photo upper left […]

Our recent snowstorm reminds me of the old days in Ohio

| January 6, 2025

Winter has arrived in much of the heartland to the east coast for January 2025 … and here in Cincinnati too. It is a storm that is impacting travel on roads, by air and even the power lines since there was ice and freezing rain included with a significant snow. Taylor was out with Megan […]

Music Monday: “One Particular Harbor” by Jimmy Buffett (1983)

| January 6, 2025

A newly married friend recently returned from his honeymoon in a beautiful and tropical location. He sent a photo overlooking the turquoise water of a harbor filled with anchored boats. It definitely pulled at my “dream” strings and has me missing boats and the sailing life. As the cold weather continues to make me think […]

A clean and very funny Silent Letter Day comedy #video

| January 5, 2025

Before I add the humor (video below), I wanted to include a photo of the girls ice skating on their last day of Christmas break. It was so nice to have the extra time with “Mommy Katelyn“ on Friday and doing something special (great smile and photo)! Spotted this on X.com and it made me […]

There are Rockford fans and then there are super Rockford fans

| January 1, 2025

Television has made a lot of people famous, but only a handful of cars have tagged along with a show’s protagonist to lasting fame. One such example is the pairing that rose to a lasting stardom is the 1977 Pontiac Firebird Formula and James Garner as the stars of The Rockford Files. While Garner passed […]

Weather: What is Winter 2024-25 going to be like?

| December 18, 2024

I do enjoy checking the Farmer’s Almanac (above) and the Old Farmer’s Almanac for seasonal forecasts (below), but rarely go back to see how accurate they are (although have shared here before). That’s probably their assumption, although they claim to be 80% accurate?  As has been true in every year since 1792, the newest edition features […]

The Oostra’s new house has their first Christmas tree … and a little baseball podcast for ThrowBack Thursday #TBT

| December 12, 2024

Today’s archive post will be quite the Throwback Thursday #TBT stretch … as the photos and Christmas tree subject matter are from last weekend … even though “The Longest Game” podcast forwarded by my daughter Katelyn is a baseball story from years ago (she knows I enjoy baseball). Let’s start with the baseball story from 1981 […]

With Katelyn and Megan the figure skaters in our family, who knew Taylor would learn through osmosis?

| December 10, 2024

With early November and December winter weather showing up somewhat early, there’s no better time for Megan’s employer to have a holiday gathering at Kings Island. For their business, it is time to promote WinterFest with 7-million lights and some ice skating.  Both Megan and Katelyn learned, and then taught, figure skating for the Queen […]

Music Monday: KC and the Sunshine Band – “Get Down Tonight”

| December 9, 2024

There’s no getting away from highlighting music from the 1970s on Music Monday — I can’t help myself. 😊  While listening to the segment-change music on a Fox Business show, KC and the Sunshine Band’s “Get Down Tonight” from 1975 caught my ear. I realized that Harry Wayne Casey and his band was highlighted before in […]

Archive: Thanksgiving 2024 photos with our family

| December 3, 2024

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Left over post-election Biden vs The Press humorous #video

| November 30, 2024

Perhaps it is just me, but this leftover video of a press corp reporter begging for President Biden to make a comment on a recent trip to South America had me laughing. Rarely do I feel sorry for the media, but in this reporter’s case, I do. 😊 

Interesting and handy tips from a social media #video

| November 27, 2024

Here’s a quick video for a holiday shortened week, but picked up a few good ideas as this video flashed by on the social media site X.com.  

Music Monday: “Life is A Highway” and a VW waterpump failure

| November 25, 2024

Not that my daughter appreciated that her 2018 VW Tiguan left her stranded on the “highway” … but sometimes automotive breakdowns are a part of “life.” So it seemed somewhat appropriate to feature the catchy Tom Cochrane‘s “Life is A Highway” as today’s Music Monday song. Sorry about the water pump failure Katelyn!  Tom Cochrane originally […]

Music Monday: Lobo – “Don’t Expect Me to Be Your Friend”

| November 18, 2024

Although I listened to a fair amount of “easy listening” music through the years and have posted music by Lobo years ago on Music Monday, I don’t recall listening to his 1972 song back in the day. According to Wikipedia, Kent LaVoie (Lobo) released the “Don’t Expect Me to Be Your Friend” on his “Of […]

Archive: Taylor talking with WKRC regarding Batavia Township

| November 14, 2024

After a great visit with Taylor in Florida last week for his planning conference, he’s right back into the hornet’s nest in trying to find the best way to navigate economic growth and housing development in his township. The battle lines are being drawn between fairly large housing developers and builders who are growth focused […]

Archive: More Autumn 2024 family photos and video

| November 12, 2024

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Where did you meet your spouse? How couple met 1930-2024

| November 2, 2024

Here’s an eye-opening video chart from LinkedIn shared on social media (X.com). Although some might question the raw data, it is nevertheless interesting … particularly as people started meeting each other online!   

Archive: Our family is enjoying the 2024 autumn weather

| October 29, 2024

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The iPhone16, US Mobile auto top-off and bigger photos and video

| October 26, 2024

One of the biggest changes and needs now that our family of iPhones takes larger photos and video … and are now 5G capable … is the need for more data. I’m no longer satisfied with our “pooled” 6GB USMobile plan. I sort of knew this would be a problem, but for most of the […]

Amazingly large fireball passes over Lake Erie seen by hundreds

| October 23, 2024

My daughter Katelyn forwarded me this impressive fireball image and earthsky.org article with a YouTube video captured by people from Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Western NY (she hinted that it was “blogworthy” … so what is a dad to do? Share it, obviously). 🙂 The meteor (??) was clearly seen streaking over Lake Erie […]

Music Monday: Willie Nelson singing “On The Road Again” (1979)

| October 14, 2024

A quick song for Music Monday that is fitting for today. “On The Road Again” is from Willie Nelson in his prime … and one that everybody knows, probably by heart. If you don’t know the song or the artist, you haven’t lived long enough. 😊  

Super crazy, scary AI podcasting with experimental NotebookLM

| October 6, 2024

In September, I read a couple of articles (1 and 2) in the Wall Street Journal talking about coyotes in our suburban and urban America and sent a copy to Drew and Katelyn (their camera just picked up a coyote walking by the girls playhouse – click for video). Anyway, we’ve been seeing them for […]

The November 2024 election is ONE month away. Vote wisely.

| October 5, 2024

In case you are looking for guidance when it comes to who you elect to run your city, county, state or country … put this thought in the back of your mind when it comes to who has been putting their thumb on the scale (think lawfare) and which political party “might” … no guarantee […]

Hurricane Helene storms north from the Florida Panhandle

| September 27, 2024

Hurricane Helene hit the Florida Panhandle, Georgia and the Carolinas with a furry as a category 4 storm. The early damage looks heavy, not to mention the death count (22  from the WSJ article as I post this). Currently in SW Ohio we are getting heavy wind and rain (not sure when I’ve seen this […]

Music Monday: How about Gene Cotton from a 1978 hit song?

| September 23, 2024

While out and about the other day, the song “Before My Heart Finds Out” popped on SiriusXM’s The Bridge channel. I recalled the song from 1978, but not the artist Gene Cotton. According to a Wikipedia post, it was from his 8th album, Save the Dancer and “became his greatest hit reaching number 23 on […]

Music Monday: Linda Ronstadt and “When Will I Be Loved”

| September 16, 2024

It has been a longtime since I’ve turned up the radio louder than normal in the car (my Menieres issues) … actually I can’t remember when; it has been that long. Anyway, over the weekend I was running out to the hardware store and picking up Brenda’s favorite takeout, Chinese “Sweet and Sour Chicken” while […]

Our regular Red Fox is looking much healther on the Fox Cam

| September 12, 2024

Back in July, the Red Fox who regularly is spotted on my Wyze Cams was looking unhealthy. I  did some research and diagnosed that the fox likely needed to be treated for mange. The treatment was to inject a small amount of ivermectin into meatballs and see if I could get him or her to […]

Feel good snippet from X.com — The plus side of Social Media

| September 9, 2024

Tech Friday: Big Tech’s data access knows no bounds … and neither do some politicians and government agencies

| September 6, 2024

Europe and their big government overreaches in restricting personal liberty by American standards, but that same heavy handedness often does more that the U.S. to protect an individual’s privacy from Big Tech and their sweeping data collection machines.  Ever since social media and cloud-oriented companies desired to take ownership of their users data, it has […]

Archive: Labor Day Weekend photos in Toledo with KDAE

| September 4, 2024

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The tropical weather in the Pacific is being watched by Hawaii

| August 28, 2024

Normally this is the time of the year to watch the tropical weather in the Atlantic Ocean “because” in impacts the Caribbean islands and most of the eastern seaboard and Gulf of Mexico states. BUT … this year so far the storms impacting Hawaii are in the news. Category 1 Hurricane Hone passed mostly south […]

My 2010 BMW X5 35d is still a “looker” even as it ages #diesel

| August 17, 2024

Back in October of 2015, I was helping Taylor look for a “used” new car (he bought a BMW 528i) …  and for me, the “wanting a diesel again bug” bit again, so I bought a 2010 BMW X5 35d that needed a little TLC (ie. a good deal). So started a long process in […]

Wyze Cam filler: I’m failing in my helping our mangy red foxes

| August 13, 2024

Since today’s post was a personal family updated, here’s a lunchtime Wyze Cam filler regarding trying to treat a couple of our Red Fox regulars with mange. So far I’ve fed ivermectin to a black cat, a opossum, possibly a squirrel and two evil raccoons from a couple of cam locations. (see post).  It’s a […]

Starting an Annie Jacobsen book, “Nuclear War: A Senario,” and adding a couple others to my “want to” read list

| August 10, 2024

Not that I’m contemplating “doomsday” or ultra-paranoid, but the new book by Annie Jacobsen called “Nuclear War: A Scenario” is indeed frightening and does make me realize just how quickly the President of the United States must make nuclear decisions — 6 minutes. Our military interactions over the past 100+ years have all been quick-strike […]

Music Monday: “Tin Cup Chalice” by Jimmy Buffett and memories

| August 5, 2024

It would be nice “to go back to the islands” …  well maybe going back in time to when we took a trip down A1A (Florida highway and Jimmy Buffett’s 1974 album title) and drove down to Key West. I sort of want to do it again, although I suspect Key West is no longer […]

Planning to treat a local Red Fox for Mange with ivermectin

| July 30, 2024

For a while now I’ve posted WyzeCam videos regarding the wildlife in our area … including coyotes and more recently a relatively bold Red Fox. Oh, he is still skittish and will run away as soon as I open the door or he sees me, but lately I notice he has lost his tail and […]

Archive: Today is for highlighting my granddaughter Ellerie

| July 27, 2024

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Music Monday: Heart and their hit “Dreamboat Annie” from 1977

| July 22, 2024

The music from the 1970s never fails to catch my ear when I’m listening to the segment music to the Fox Business programming that I listen to during the weekdays. A song by Heart was used on Varney & Co segment change and then again played on SiriusXM’s The Bridge over the weekend. So for […]

Music Monday: Alabama and “Forty Hour Week (For a Livin’)”

| July 1, 2024

It is hard to believe that the country music band “Wild Country” from Fort Payne, Alabama, now known as “Alabama” has been around since 1969? I was surprised. The band’s popularity exploded in the late 1970s and early 1980s after 2 hit songs in 1977 and a record deal with RCA Records (about the time […]

Connecting with family led to talking about “end of life” planning

| June 30, 2024

Every once in a while my cousin Diane calls or text messages me to catch-up on our lives. She is a few of years older than me, but once you hit a certain age, those “few years” aren’t the same as when she was in high school or college and I was still in junior […]

This weeks leftovers: Laundry Room Update, Lift Pump Switch, Congressional Baseball Game and WyzeCam Pet detected

| June 15, 2024

While clearing a few photos off my iPhone 7 Plus due to limited storage space this week, I decided it might be nice to archive a few photos … so “leftovers” from the week sounded like a good idea for this post. First, Brenda wanted a few new hooks for mops and things in the […]

Excellent shop tip for better plug welds on automotive panels

| June 12, 2024

Great from Eastwood‘s “Mark’s Garage” in using a 4-fluke end mill in a cordless drill to remove “weld through” primer’s and coatings when making plug welds. Also appreciated the budget minded 3/16″ drill bit advice from a follower: “You don’t need to buy an end mill. Grind a drill bit flat on the end and […]

Surprisingly bold Red Fox lounging in our front yard last week

| June 8, 2024

As rural turns to even more suburban, the bolder some of our wildlife is getting. Last week a slender fox appeared on our security Wyze Cam and instead of just passing by as usual, opted to lounge for a few moments ‘midday’ in the front yard. Very strange behavior for the coyotes and foxes that […]

Music Monday: Shakin’ ani-gif reminded me of Jerry Lee Lewis

| June 3, 2024

Some “before my time” 1950’s music was triggered by this animated gif from 150 or so years ago.  It’s “The Killer,” Jerry Lee Lewis (1935-2022), and his 1955 song, “Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On” that is today’s Music Monday song … which likely means I should mention, “Great Balls of Fire” from 1957 too […]

A different kind of Memorial Day remembrance

| May 27, 2024

Each year Memorial Day holiday often brings out the best in Americans. Those I know, at least give “thought” to the service men and women who fought and died to protect and preserve our country, our freedom and way of life. It is of course, will never be enough appreciation from those of us who […]

Instead of a Jorgensen Handscrew, here’s a drill press jig idea

| May 26, 2024

Here’s an interesting rainy weekend workshop project idea:  A squeeze clamp drill press vice to hold smaller items securely. Hm … looks interesting and simple enough. I currently use a classic Jorgensen wood clamp called a Jorgensen Handscrew (above) to hold pieces while using the small drill press, but could use something like this. Check […]

A Cardinal keeps triggering the Wyze Cam and Panera Inflation

| May 25, 2024

No matter how I set the trigger, our friendly cardinal regularly triggers a warning on our Wyze Cam. He is enjoyable to watch and so I really don’t mind it.  On the other hand, I DO MIND the price increases hitting Americans at the gas pump, grocery store and restaurants … not to mention nearly […]

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