The grandson of John Tyler, the 10th POTUS, is still alive

Posted By on December 18, 2022

It took a little research, but the thought of the 10th President of the United States still having a living grandson alive today seemed … well, unbelievable. Mentally, I worked the numbers … and then had to do a little JohnTyler10thPOTUSInternet sleuthing … but low and behold it was true.

President John Tyler was born in 1790 and was president of the United States from 1841 to 1845. If you recall American history, you might remember the slogan “Tippecanoe and TylerToo” during 1840 when he was the running mate of William Henry Harrison.

Anyway back to the family tree: With John Tyler’s first wife Letitia, who was the same age, he had eight children. She died during his presidency in 1842. Then in 1844, he remarried a woman who was 30 years younger, Julia Gardiner. With Julia, he had seven more children (the most offspring of any U.S. president). One son was Lyon Gardiner Tyler born in 1853. Lyon, like his father, remarried a younger second wife, after the death of his first wife Anne in 1921, with whom he had three children. His second wife Sue, was 35 years Lyon’s junior, and had three additional children. One son, Harrison Ruffin Tyler who was born in 1928, is therefor the grandson of President John Tyler and is still living as of 2022 and is 94 years old. An amazing bit of human interest of history.

Keeping an eye on the weather for Christmas week travelers

Posted By on December 17, 2022

WeatherPreChristmas2022

We have had a relatively mild, although gloomy, couple of weeks this December 2022 so far … unlike it was in 2010. BUT … this could change by the end of next week as the forecast is for a winter snowstorm to hit much of the eastern half of the U.S. According to forecasting yesterday, a cold front will be colliding with a lot of moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico … which means snow. Better get out your boots, warm coat and hat out if you are planning to go outside or travel. It could be a White Christmas.

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What to do with an old Amazon Echo Dot? Tear it down.

Posted By on December 16, 2022

alexadot_aniWhat “should” a person do when an older piece of tech stops working?

Give up? Buy new?

Well we have an older first generation Amazon Echo Dot continued to be unreliable in maintaining a WiFi connection to our mesh home network. After several restarts over the last couple of months, full reboots and re-setups, I’ve given up. Partially because voice assistants have improved and are all that not that expensive anymore (Amazon, Apple and Google all want customers married into their ecosystems). In our case, I had a spare unused Echo Dot that replaced the one in the iAV2B alarm clock and so curiosity got the best of me and I wanted to see what exactly was inside.

Archive: Old photos found from my ONU college days #TBT

Posted By on December 15, 2022

1974_Capri_1980

1974Capri_dallas_gFirst up, is a rainy photo of the second car that I rebuilt … but this 1974 Capri was really my first car since I bought it with my own money (paid $600 at a junkyard in 1978). The car I think of as my first car would be a 1967 Ford Custom 500 (link to when it was newer and towing a trailer) was really my mom’s car that I learned to drive on. It eventually required rust repair, repainting and the engine rebuilt when I was in high school (great lessons with some extra help from my dad and neighbor). The Capri required a bit more (cough, cough)  body work since Dallas and I replaced a front quarter clip (photo left).

ThistleSailingKiserLakeOHJeffOnCall1979

The other couple of photos: 1) Was sailing (racing Thistles) on Kiser Lake just east of Sidney, Ohio and 2) my long time college buddy and good friend to this day Jeff Pitts when he was volunteering as an EMT in Ada, Ohio (looking out of our 2nd floor Founder’s Hall dorm window).

Great memories and am glad to be able to archive these photos before they are gone!

Archive: Merry Christmas 2022 and have a Happy New Year

Posted By on December 14, 2022

CorbettChristmasCard2022frt_m

As is my December tradition, I’m including a digital copy of what once was our Corbett Christmas Letter but is now a just a “card” on my blog. CorbettOostraCanmoreAL_July2022Our year as a family was full of too many great times to include, but highlighted by a special event: a 40th Anniversary and trip planned by our family to the Canadian Rockies (part 1 and part 2). Our year was also intermixed with family gatherings for holidays and birthdays, babysitting in Perrysburg and several trips to Florida. Our grown children had a few house-highlights of their own, as Katelyn and Drew started their homebuilding project and Taylor bought a nicely remodeled condominium in Walnut Hills/Cincinnati.

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Like the short, but sweet (Idiom) update on the card, I’ll close with Merry Christmas wishes to all who read my blog and for peace, hope, joy and love as we welcome in a new year.

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Happy Birthday Drew and creative names for snowplows

Posted By on December 13, 2022

My daughter is great at sending links to items she thinks would be great for the blog. The other day Katelyn sent an “Ohio Turnpike Name-A-Snowplow Contest” story that OrangeSnowPlowArthad some pretty creative names — well actually, like her mom, she had her husband send it 😀 (BTW, Happy Birthday Drew!). 

Here are the winners:

  • Ctrl-Salt-Delete, Nicole G.
  • Blizzard Wizard, Jacqueline F.
  • Plow Chicka Plow Wow, Joshua K.
  • You’re Killin’ Me Squalls, Linda V.
  • The Big LePlowski, Matthew S.
  • The Blizzard of Oz, Annette B.
  • Ohio Thaw Enforcement, Jonathan H.
  • Clearopathtra, Samantha S.

LINK to full story

Music Monday: Remembering Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie

Posted By on December 12, 2022

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Archive: Christmas trees, homebuilding and Ellerie’s big bed

Posted By on December 11, 2022

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Homemade Croutons: My mother would have smiled

Posted By on December 10, 2022

With inflation pushing grocery prices up, Brenda refuses to purchase store-bought croutons unless they are “on sale.” So since we had a quarter loaf of stale bread after our recent week away, I decided to cube and turn it into Rosemary, Italian seasoning, Garlic and Olive Oil croutons.

After making them (bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees),  I contemplated how my mother would have been proud to know we were not wasting stale bread. She always had old bread drying in the cupboard and would almost always make her own croutons … or assign me when I was a kid at home the duty of grinding the bread into crumb to be used on our fresh or freezer full of Lake Erie Yellow Perch. I can remember helping my Grandfather Bluhm, Uncle Bob and DadC cleaning wheelbarrows full of fish after successful weekends of fishing. What a life we lived in able to roll our boat down the beach and catch fish in the summer … or go out on the ice and icefish in the winter. A great childhood and great  memories.

Tech Friday: Moved my blog to an AMD Premium server while updating the OS to Ubuntu 22.04.1

Posted By on December 9, 2022

About this time of year the handful of servers that I maintain need to be looked at a little closer. Often I’m only doing the minimum maintenance, updates and backups … because there are often problems after an update. Pointing being, maintenance on this server have been getting over looked and put on the back burner.

So MyDesultoryBlog.com is getting some new hardware and a spiffy Linux “Jammy Jellyfish” update. After a few tense hours yesterday, I “think” it is updated and running smoothly?

For one reason or another, this year I decided to go all out (cough, cough) by spending an extra $12 and have updated the relatively low-priced hardware, as well as the Linux version (now Ubuntu 22.04.1). Instead of a teeny, tiny ,wimpy server, I’ve upgraded to a 64-bit AMD “Premium” … which mean it is now just a “tiny, wimpy” server.

It will be interesting if I notice any improvements? I’m dubious … as I still plan to move things to a Raspberry Pi someday.

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