My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on June 14, 2022

Although I once enjoyed reading biographical and history oriented books by Douglas Brinkley, as well as enjoyed interviews with him on TV, I’ve recently noticed a bit more political partisanship in his commentary and his appearances.

To be fair, I wanted to give his writings another shot and try to remain open-minded. The book “Rightful Heritage” is about an icon of the political left, Franklin D. Roosevelt, so I suspect the subject matter will be more aligned with his currently ideology … but I could be wrong.

I’ve yet to start the ebook downloaded to my Glose reader so will look forward to starting it as soon as I finish the audiobook, “Land of Big Numbers.” Perhaps I should have read “The Wilderness Warrior” about a “distant cousin” Theodore Roosevelt first?

A brief synopsis online mention that both men were environmental leaders who desired to protect our public lands, scenic roadways and national parks.

Rightful Heritage is an epic chronicle that is both an irresistible portrait of FDR’s unrivaled passion and drive, and an indispensable analysis that skillfully illuminates the tension between business and nature—exploiting our natural resources and conserving them. Within the narrative are brilliant capsule biographies of such environmental warriors as Eleanor Roosevelt, Harold Ickes, and Rosalie Edge. Rightful Heritage is essential reading for everyone seeking to preserve our treasured landscapes as an American birthright.

Category: Books, Environment, History, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: biography, book, Books, douglas brinkley, ebook, Environment, glose, land of big numbers, reading, rightful heritage, roosevelt, the wilderness warrior

Posted By RichC on June 13, 2022

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Category: Music | No Comments »
Tags: doobie brothers, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, siriusxm, south city midnight lady, the bridge

Posted By RichC on June 12, 2022

Thank you Drew for sharing this amazing backyard rainbow photo from last week!

“I set My rainbow in the cloud … and I will remember My [promise to] … every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh … that is on the earth” 
— Genesis 9:13-16 (Devotional thoughts from TruthForLife.org)

Since I also had a leftover photo from a HelloFresh.com fish dinner (below), I’ll include the delicious looking and tasting Tilapia  AND for the genius “toaster for pizza leftovers” idea. Brilliant!

Category: Faith, Food, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: backyard, Faith, flood, genesis, genius, hellofresh.com, pizza, promise, rainbow, sunday, tilapia, toaster

Posted By RichC on June 11, 2022

CPI up 8.6% driven by a 35% jump in energy prices and 12% increase in groceries

This is what a “sea of red” looks like for investors and stock market traders … and I can only imagine the “red” those living on a fixed income or families struggling to make ends meet must be seeing?

When it comes to 401K or IRA retirement savings, very little was left untouched on Friday after May’s CPI report indicated that inflation is now part of our lives (as if we didn’t know when grocery shopping, eating out, paying bills or filling up our vehicles). The rest of the year is going to be a “tough row to hoe” … as the Davy Crockett idiom suggests.

Someone online posted a price for gas prices the other day “before” they even more recently jumped to a national average of $4.98/gal for unleaded gasoline. It does tell the story as to an inflation trigger:

1. Restrictive US energy policy
2. Print and spend gobs of US$
3. Keep the economy shutdown longer than necessary
4. Pay people to stay home
5. Portray weakness abroad (Putin invades Ukraine forcing world to react by sanctioning Russian gas and oil)
6. THEN … double down on even more spending, ESG and Green New Deal policies … 👉 “just look into my eyes,” campaigned then candidate Joe Biden   🤔

Category: Business, Energy, Financial, Idioms, News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: biden, davy crockett, energy, fuel, gasoline, idiom, idioms, inflation, investing, seeing red, stock market

Posted By RichC on June 10, 2022

Taylor last weekend at the Cincinnati Zoo with Megan

While typing the subject line of this post, I wondered at what “age” is respectful to NOT mention a number when sharing a Happy Birthday greeting?  Hopefully not at 33 yet, since from memory those were the years I pretty much felt my best (pre Menieres!) .
(more…)

Category: Archive, Gadget, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: birthday, brenda, firebox, megan, richc, safe, selfie, taylor

Posted By RichC on June 10, 2022

A semi-disaster struck as my iMac choked on a Parallel 17 "virtual Windows" update on Thursday. It reminded me of the movie "Blackhawk Down" or perhaps "White House Down" … hence the subject line for Tech Friday.  

The virtual Windows 10 side of my computer booted, but everything from the connected drives to the display resolution was messed up. I stayed up late … or early… working on the problem only to throw in the towel and crawl into bed at 2:30AM. By morning I had things to do and decided to use my Apple TimeMachine backup from before the update to rebuild the 200GB virtual drive. Unfortunately this process from a USB connected drive was an 8 hour ordeal so computing and "market slide" watching for the day was on my Lenovo notebook (it seems sluggish too … or perhaps that new Apple MacBook M2 powered Air is just looking attractive)?

So as I’m prepping this post for Friday morning … I’m tweaking the reinstall and debating if I should try to update Parallels to 17 again??? Gulp.

Category: Apple, Computer, Financial, Movies, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: apple, blackhawk, crash, imac, lenovo, m2, macbook air, parallels, stock market, tech friday, techfriday, timemachine, white house down

Posted By RichC on June 9, 2022

There are days we humans need to be reminded that we are small in relation to the universe, but unique (Genesis 1:27) and loved (John 3:16) in relation to God’s magnificent creation.

TIDBITS:

Voyager 1 continues into heading into our outer solar system as the space probe continues to communicate with the Deep Space Network and transmits back to Earth (to make this post a Throwback Thursday #TBT post, it was launched when I moved into Founder’s Hall at Ohio Northern University back on September 5th 1977).

Here’s a photo “of Earth” … and according to NASA and JPL it is currently 14.5 Billion miles away. It is the “most distant artificial object from Earth.”  Amazing.

In a further testament to the robustness of Voyager 1, the Voyager team tested the spacecraft’s trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) thrusters in late 2017 (the first time these thrusters had been fired since 1980), a project enabling the mission to be extended by two to three years. Voyager 1‘s extended mission is expected to continue until about 2025, when its radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) will no longer supply enough electric power to operate its scientific instruments.

— LINK

EDIT: From recent ScienceAlert feed …

NASA’s Voyager 1 Is Sending Back Mysterious Data From Beyond Our Solar System

NASA’s Voyager 1 is continuing its journey beyond our Solar System, 45 years after it was launched. But now the veteran spacecraft is sending back strange data, puzzling its engineers.

NASA said on Wednesday that while the probe is still operating properly, readouts from its attitude articulation and control system – AACS for short – don’t seem to match the spacecraft’s movements and orientation, suggesting the craft is confused about its location in space.

The AACS is essential for Voyager to send NASA data about its surrounding interstellar environment as it keeps the craft’s antenna pointing right at our planet.

“A mystery like this is sort of par for the course at this stage of the Voyager mission,” Suzanne Dodd, a project manager for Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.

“The spacecraft are both almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planners anticipated.” (more…)

Category: Education, Faith, Science, Space, TBT, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: astronomy, college, creation, founders hall, jpl, nasa, onu, photo, probe, space, voyager1

Posted By RichC on June 8, 2022

In keeping with a previous book, I downloaded another book: “Land Of Big Numbers” by Te-Ping Chen. It is a collection of stories … on the “diverse and legion Chinese people” and according to a review, this book offers an “acute social insight” on Chinese history, their government, “and how all of that tumbled—messy, violently, but still beautifully—into the present.”

Currently, I’ve only listened up to track 4 of 13 of the “Lulu” story published in the The New Yorker and record for this HarperAudio book. The reader Eddy Lee does a great job of reading and it is interesting contemplating all the young Chinese people trying to circumvent China’s censors … and risking their future by resisting the CCP.

I’ll keep listening and am looking forward to the stories from Fiona Rene, Matt Yang King, Christine Lakin, Katie Tang, Chris Naoki Lee.

(more…)

Category: Audio, Books, Human Interest | No Comments »
Tags: audio, audiobook, Books, censorship, china, chinese, land of big numbers, listening, reading, te-pin chen

Posted By RichC on June 7, 2022

Brenda and I enjoyed our anniversary weekend staying around home, working in both the yard and for me painting on Sunday afternoon (Brenda helped out at a store short a pharmacist in Dayton).

Slowly I’m making progress in painting the guest bedroom (pano photo below). Ceiling are done, walls have their first and second coat of new color and trim paint is yet to be done. Hopefully I’ll find the time and more importantly the ambition to keep plugging along … but I really prefer to be working outside, tinkering in the workshop or really anything but painting.

I did get a chance to cut out and glue the leather surface to the newly oak-banded corner desk project. Tedious to say the least, but it is turning out pretty nice. It won’t be a piece of “fine furniture or anything, but it will definitely be a functional computer desk for my upgraded office.

No warm sunny summer weekend would be without a dip in the pool and sitting on the back porch. I continued reading a little more from “The Old Man and The Boy” but was distracted by a new Kindle book by Bill Rivers: “Last Summer Boys: A Novel” … and a butterfly (video below). HA! It doesn’t take much!

Category: Archive, Books, Misc, Personal, Photos, Video, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: bill rivers, Books, butterfly, corner desk, guest bedroom, Last summer boys, mp4, novel, painting, pano, project

Posted By RichC on June 7, 2022

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Category: Archive, Cellphone, Personal, Photos, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: 5G, annalyn, cincinnati zoo, drew, ellerie, family, granddaughers, iphone13, katelyn, megan, taylor, verizon, weekend