My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on November 3, 2022

Although it was not unexpected, my long time friend Jeff‘s father passed away last week. It was the way we all would want to die … "peacefully in our sleep at home." 

My memories of Alton Pitts are few since he lived in Florida, but the few I have are of kindness. I first met him when I was in college with Jeff and a bunch of us guys heading to Florida over our Christmas break (our annual "thing"). We were invited to spend a couple nights with Jeff at his dad’s St John’s River condo rather than our usual camping. Very nice and far more comfortable. While the other guys headed off to Bush Gardens for the day, Jeff and I went fishing with a guide on the river … courtesy of Mr. Pitts. I thoroughly enjoyed our morning "learning" what big Florida bass fishing was all about and spent the afternoon buzzing around in his dad’s boat on the river … even rescuing a dog and cutting my wrist (there is a story and a scar in that).

Years later, when Jeff was established in Ohio, Mr. Pitts stopped by our house for a visit and I could tell he was glad to see his son successful and with friends. For Jeff’s part, he could not have been a better son. Taking trips with his dad, loving to dad’s wife Thelma and always willing to visit for weekends. No regrets.

My deepest condolences to Neal, Conrad and my best friend Jeff.

On Monday, October 24, 2022, Alton G. Pitts, loving husband and father of three children, passed away peacefully in his sleep in his home having consumed a last meal of his favorite chocolate ice cream, just 20 days shy of his 96th birthday. On November 13, 1926 Alton was born to Henry C. and Mamie Powell Pitts, two school teachers who had met at North Florida Teacher’s College in Madison, Florida. Alton had three brothers, Henry C., Louis Martel, and Robert Allen, and two sisters, Mary Sue and Margy. On June 30, 1951, he married Helen Clever and they had three sons, Conrad, Neal, and Jeff. Alton is survived by his wife, Thelma Owen, three sons, six grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.

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Category: Friends, Obituary | No Comments »
Tags: alton pitts, condolences, florida, jeff pitts, jeffp

Posted By RichC on November 2, 2022

If you like maps and watching the borders of countries, here’s a small, quick video of the changing borders in Europe over the centuries. Pretty wild.

Category: History, Tidbits, Video | No Comments »
Tags: borders, countries, europe, maps, mp4

Posted By RichC on November 1, 2022

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Category: Archive, Holiday, Personal, Photos, Tools | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, carving, costume, dadc, dremel, drew, ellerie, family, halloween, katelyn, megan, pumpkin, taylor, treat, trick

Posted By RichC on October 31, 2022

It doesn’t get any odder than seeing a “very low” fly-by photo from a fellow aviation enthusiast Ron Eisele on Twitter and having it trigger a
“how low can you go”
McDonalds commercial from way back when???

It’s probably not an appropriate Music Monday, but the music well is dry today … so I’m using this video.
 

Category: Aviation, Music, Social Media, Video | No Comments »
Tags: commercial, fly by, low pass, mcdonalds, mp4, music monday, musicmonday, twitter

Posted By RichC on October 30, 2022

Although the meme floating around social networks (the one at the bottom of this post) is probably not correct, I enjoyed it enough to do a little digging. Personally I’ve always thought that “the whole (or full) nine (six) yards” had to do with the innings in a baseball game (old article below), so I never really gave it much thought to it … although having in interest in sailing, I did like the nautical explanation:

One proposed origin involves the world of full-rigged sailing ships, in which yard is used not as a measure of length or size, but as the name of each horizontal spar on which a sail is hung. All square-rigged sails unfurled, with 3 yards on each of 3 masts, could then be described as the whole nine yards …

LINK

The sailing theory aside, the most likely meaning to the phrase has to do with sewing and tailoring as fabric is measured in yards which is sold from “bolts.” The problem is that a bolt of fabric contains between 30 to 100 yards of fabric .. so obviously it would not mean the entire bolt?

The Oxford English Dictionary places the earliest published non-idiomatic use of the phrase in the New Albany Daily Ledger (New Albany, Indiana, January 30, 1855) in an article called "The Judge’s Big Shirt." "What a silly, stupid woman! I told her to get just enough to make three shirts; instead of making three, she has put the whole nine yards into one shirt!"

LINK

According to Wikipedia, “there is still no consensus on the origin.” So we can still believe what we want to believe … and the military aviation explanation is pretty interesting.

World War II (1939–1945) aircraft machine gun belts were nine yards long. There are many versions of this explanation with variations regarding type of plane, nationality of gunner and geographic area. An alternative weapon is the ammunition belt for the British Vickers machine gun, invented and adopted by the British Army before World War I (1914–1918). The standard belt for this gun held 250 rounds of ammunition and was approximately twenty feet (6⅔ yards) in length. However, the Vickers gun as fitted to aircraft during the First World War usually had ammunition containers capable of accommodating linked belts of 350-400 rounds, the average length of such a belt being about nine yards, and it was thought that this may be the origin of the phrase.

Category: Aviation, Idioms, Millitary, Sailing, Social Media, Sports, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: ammo, History, idiom, idioms, meme, newspaper, phrases, sewing, the whole nine yards, wikipedia

Posted By RichC on October 29, 2022

My friend Jeff and I enjoy discussing and debating nearly every topic under the sun, but few subjects have held our attention over the decades like the impact of technology on society, geopolitics and how changing governments handle or don’t handle the demographics shifts.

I tend to look at it from the perspective of an investor and “pretend” economist; Jeff often looks at it from the bigger “doom and gloom” economic collapse of society picture (and often how it relates to Biblical revelation).

The latest book we are reading together is the 2022 book by Peter Zeihan, “The End Of The World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization.” Neither of us bought the book, but instead borrowed it digitally from the library. I prefer using the Libby app (for libraries using Overdrive) since I can often read it on my Kindle, but this time the only copy that was available was on Hoopla which only let’s me read it on the iPad, but also had an audio copy available – sometimes nice too (here’s the PDF from Harper Collins and a “Future of Agriculture” map).

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Category: Books | No Comments »
Tags: demographics, discussion, ebook, economy, end of the world, geopolitics, hoopla, investing, ipad, jeffp, kindle, libby app, overdrive, peter zeihan, reading

Posted By RichC on October 28, 2022

For those using Apple products and subscription services, the monthly cost is going up. The company announced new version of their iPad lineup this week followed by the news that they are hiking fees for Apple Music and Apple TV+ subscription services this week for the very first time.

In the U.S., the cost of Apple TV+ for new and existing subscribers will increase to $6.99 per month. That’s a 40% increase form the original $4.99 per month, the price point it originally launched at in November 2019.

Apple Music is increasing from $9.99 to $10.99 per month for the individual plan, while the family plan (which provides up to six accounts) will increase $2, from $14.99 to $16.99 per month. It’s the first price hike for the service since it first bowed in June 2015.

In addition, the price of the Apple One bundle — which includes Apple Music and Apple TV+ — will increase starting Monday (Oct. 24), rising $2 from $14.95 to $16.95 per month for the individual plan. Apple One also includes Apple Arcade, iCloud+, Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+.

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As a $AAPL shareholder, seeing “subscription services” revenue increase as content improves (and inflation rises) is a good thing. With a steadily growing (and hooked) subscription user base, Services now accounts for 23.6% of Apple’s sales.

Services Growth to Slow Down in Q4

Apple expects Services revenue growth to be lower than the June-end quarter due to challenging macroeconomic conditions and unfavorable forex. In the fiscal third quarter, Services revenues grew 12.1% from the year-ago quarter to $19.60 billion and accounted for 23.6% of sales.

LINK

The question in my mind is that with a slowing economy either currently in, or heading into a recession, will consumers continue to pay for more and more streaming services from the growing number of providers? At what price point will even Apple devotees jump ship?

Category: Apple, Financial, Streaming, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: aapl, apple, apple tv+, ipad, price increase, streaming, subscription, tech friday, techfriday

Posted By RichC on October 27, 2022

Favorite actors pitching products has been a staple in the advertising business for a long time … probably because it works!

Shortly after this Gigi and James Garner commercial came out for Mazda 323 in 1986, we bought a “new” 1988 Mazda 626 turbo that replaced a Volkswagen Golf (MK2 Wolfsburg edition). To this day the 626 Turbo remains Brenda’s favorite car … even with the crazy “strangling” automatic seatbelts!
 

Category: Automotive, Marketing, Mazda, TBT, Video | No Comments »
Tags: 1986, advertising, commercial, gigi, james garner, mozda, TBT

Posted By RichC on October 26, 2022

Last Saturday’s project was some overdue maintenance on what was a very nice day her in SW Ohio. The temps were warm at 77 degrees and the sky clear. I took the opportunity to start draining the oil in the BMW X5 35d with 195K miles in the morning, then drove the Mercedes 300d Turbodiesel to meet my buddy Jeff for brunch … which turned into lunch instead (the wait was 45 minutes at Bob Evans) and even check on the new Costco going in just off Liberty Way here in Liberty Township. Who knows … Brenda and I may even eventually get a membership?

As mentioned earlier, the Ravenol oil that I’ve used previously was getting way too expensive … just as is was the previous change. In 2020, I switched to Rowe brand 5W-30 full synthetic. This go around I opted for a Eurol 5W-30 full synthetic kit (actually 2 of them) from Blauparts and don’t expect to notice anything difference; it is still a premium European spec oil designed for the BMW diesels.

I’m sticking with the Mann Filters for both oil and air, although gave thought to just cleaning the air filter out with the vacuum cleaner since it still looked pretty good (probably not a good idea … so I put the new air filter in too). The X5 should be good until 210,000 miles as besides noticing cosmetic wear, mechanically it is sound.

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Category: Automotive, BMW, Diesel, Personal, Photos, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: 300d, Blauparts, BMW, costco, diesel, eurol, maintenance, mann filter, mercedes, oil change, ravenol, rowe, x5 35d

Posted By RichC on October 25, 2022

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Category: Archive, Personal, Photos, Sports, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, archive, college, drew, ellerie, family, football, jodyo, katelyn, megan, ohio state, osu, taylor, tylero