My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on August 29, 2021

Local politics, issues and selecting/electing those who make decisions that impact where we live should be a much higher priority than most of us give them. Unfortunately I’m guilty of lacking attention to what is going on locally and was pretty much oblivious when my kids were growing up; we should all be more focused on what was happening. Most of America’s attention is too preoccupied with raising their families and making a living to give politics (especially local politics) much more than lip service or in an election year maybe a little more attention since half of us vote (how pitiful is that?)

On the other having an opinion on issues and what is best for your community and country can be pretty challenging. From information overload to knowing who or what to believe or what you want government to do or be in charge of can seem overwhelming. I suspect that is why so many don’t comment, or share an opinion when comments are requested … or even vote.

This brings me to a local issue we are facing in Liberty Township, Ohio where growth and expansion is trying to be dealt with without drastically changing our semi-rural culture and community. With a nearly 400% growth since we moved here in the 1990s, our infrastructure has been under pressure. Thankfully those elected to manage have been outstanding and attentive over the years, but the more we grow, the less the area resembles why we moved here. The rural neighborhood are beginning to resemble the suburbs around most cities and to offset cost and provide services … we are attracting businesses. With businesses comes the need for more even more expansion with even more roads, services and then more people. At some point (it is inevitable) the attractive rural yet suburban area that we have called home will no longer be the place I want to be living in (although Brenda is still happy here).

“I-75 & Millikin Road Interchange Study” (video below)

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Category: Archive, Local, Misc, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: cincinnati, community, dayton, interchange, interstate, liberty township, local, ohio, openhouse, study, virtual

Posted By RichC on August 28, 2021

Friday was Day One, of what is the longest day of the planned two day driveway pour (Day 2 on Monday). The crew was at the house before 5:30AM with spot lights, last minute prep and ready for the first truck of concrete which was scheduled to arrive at 6AM – was here at 6:15.

The Canary Cam picked up the action at dawn and by 10AM the three full trucks poured their loads in front of both garages. The “sweat rake” (their term) moved the heavy liquid as the boards and floats were manned by what seemed to me an experience crew. At first Brandon, the foreman, was a bit gruff, but by the time I had chatted with him a few times I realized that he was just a “matter the fact” kind of guy. He is very competent and well respected by both the company’s owners/management and the crews who work for him. Since the job is yet to be finished, I hate to heap too much praise on him (HA!).

So far so good; including a few photos below for the archive.

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Category: Archive, Idioms, Misc, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: big pour, concrete, driveway, home, house, idiom, idioms, pano, Photos, project

Posted By RichC on August 27, 2021

Now that I’m spending more time working from my home office than ever before, I’m shock that I didn’t improve the comfort in my south west corner office before this year? The mini split AC unit has made a world of difference in controlling the temperature … and started me thinking about growing up without air conditioning or for that matter not having it in our first Aurora, Ohio house or second house in Hudson … although we did add a window AC unit? Thankfully not all that long after we gave up heating with wood and coal, we replace the old oil furnace after running a “long” expensive gas line from the road with a cleaner and more efficient natural gas furnace and we included adding central air. I do still remember economizing though and running the whole house fan in the hallway ceiling in order to pull cooler evening air  – it seemed fine back in the early 1980s … although even in NE Ohio I would not want to be doing that now. Here in Cincinnati with summer daytime temperatures regularly over 90, it is hard to believe we considered installing a whole house fan when we built our house. Now we almost never open our windows and replaced the double-hung in the rear with fixed windows.

My second point when it comes to tearing out and preparing to pour our concrete driveway and having had a week of dry, hot weather is that you don’t want o be opening windows. The crushed limestone base being work and compacted creates tons of dust. It is bad enough that the exterior of our house has been dusted white and all our outdoor furniture and patios are caked with limestone dust, but can’t imagine sucking that inside?

Shocking thought: We have as much invested in our driveway than we spent for our first house! (if I include the blacktop section in the back from 2008)

More for location photos below ..

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Category: Archive, Environment, Memories, Misc, Personal, Photos, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: air conditioning, aurora, blacktop, concrete, driveway, dust, hudson, limestone, minisplit, ne ohio, project, whole house fan

Posted By RichC on August 26, 2021

In continuing in my effort to document the driveway project, here is another photo (below) that is likely to make the kids smile and Brenda frown, due to our long running “turtle” jokes. The workers painting a turtle made me smile … at least more than the swimming snake I dipped out of the pool (video #TBT). Really though, I wanted to archive it for an  “under the driveway drain reference” … just in case I need to know where it is located. At this point I just hope the concrete trucks do not crush the pipe.

Category: Archive, Misc, Personal, Photos, TBT | No Comments »
Tags: archive, concrete, drains, driveway, gravel, pipes, project, snake

Posted By RichC on August 25, 2021

We finally got the final grading, under the concrete pipes and extra gravel ($) issue semi-resolved and have the driveway project back on track while the weather is good … although very hot. Thankfully I was able to get the stumps taken care of since our contractor did not want to risk damaging the underground electric (crumbling driveway photo) … but thanks to Big Rob, all is well (Brenda really got a kick out of him coming to the rescue).

For the archive I’m going to save a few quick photos below:

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Category: Archive, Misc, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: concrete, driveway, home, house, progress, project, update

Posted By RichC on August 24, 2021

Our driveway project has been nothing but one problem after another. “Grr” … and my granddaughter Annalyn’s buddy Daniel the Tiger would say (ah, memories)!

If replacing an existing concrete driveway isn’t challenging enough on the financial budget, running into cost overruns once the demolition is done kind makes one sick the stomach. The crews who were suppose to dig out the stumps refused to tear out the “relatively small” (8-10 inch) Norway Spruce we planted at the corner of our detached garage … because it was too close to the main power lines that run from the transformer. To make matters worse, for some reason the concrete company could not fine a company to grind it out either so the driveway sits until “the homeowner,” me, could find a way to takes care of the problem.

So I spent an afternoon on the phone frantically calling around to find someone who could give me rushed service and thankfully ended up with “Big Rob.” He is a good ol’ boy (and big) who operates old school out of his truck and trailer and had to drive from an hour away (he was recommended by a tree company that was book 3 weeks out). He was friendly as could be so I called my neighbor thinking since I’ve already paid the premium ($75 extra) to get same day service, it might be helpful to both my neighbor and “Big Rob.”

I’ve used stump grinders before both here and when we lived in Hudson, but nothing like this older Rayco RG50 which made short work out of both the stump and well down into the roots. I’m sure my kids would razz me due to making small-talk, but Rob filled me in on the several stump grinders he owns and why this one is his favorite (although we needed to use my jumper cables to get it started). This diesel grinder costs him $15K used a decade ago and he replaced the engine for another $3000, but it chews up stumps like butter … nothing like the wimpy ones I’ve rented in the past. The stump, and chunk sticking out of the ground in the photo, took him less than 15 minutes and so he chipped out a second one for me since I connected him next door for few of my neighbors’ dollars.

Category: Memories, Misc, Personal, Photos, Tools | No Comments »
Tags: big rob, concrete, driveway, problems, project, stump grinding

Posted By RichC on August 24, 2021

On Sunday night to escape from the distressing domestic politics of the day as well as the Afghanistan debacle … and partly wanting to get my mind on my faith and my attention on what I can control in life … I turned off the TV and put aside the pile of secular topical books that usually ends my day. I’m talking about books on a variety of subjects that includes economics, investing, history and politics from the pile that sits next to my chair (or on my ebook reader). Besides watching some television with Brenda (lately a Hogan’s Heroes DVD series for comedy sake), I usual read a couple chapters in the evening.

Exercising a little discipline, I tiptoed back into the Alistair Begg book I gave to Brenda in June on our anniversary. Also, since my daughter Katelyn is also currently reading it, I figured that I better finish reading the smallish book before she questions me further … and I should probably study the Book of Daniel a little bit too … which is the focus of “Brave by Faith.”

The question asked in the introduction … although paraphrased be me is … 
“How do Christians live in a society that is becoming increasingly hostile to our faith and Biblical teachings?”

Many of us appear to be completely overwhelmed by the reality that we are no longer a majority and our views are no longer considered acceptable or even expressible.

That is because the winds have changed … the prevailing wind is no longer at the back of the sails of professing Bible-believing Christians. Indeed, the wind appears to be blowing hard behind the forces of secularism.

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Category: Books, Faith | No Comments »
Tags: alistair begg, book of daniel, Books, brave by faith, christianity, reading, secularism, thegospelcoalition.org

Posted By RichC on August 23, 2021

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Category: Misc, Music | No Comments »
Tags: driveway, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, pano, photo, song, wik

Posted By RichC on August 22, 2021

As I commented on the utter failure in Afghanistan last week regarding the decision President Biden made in leaving Afghanistan, it is just another “ fail decision” in a short 8 months by this president and his administration (we can’t take much more). The US exit was ill-conceived and poor planned. It was made ignoring what could happen (and did) and left us in disarray not that the Taliban has taken control. It leaves Americans and our allies stranded throughout the country. This failure to plan for “likely” if not for “all contingencies” dishonors those who have shed blood and worked to achieve their mission – that of protecting our homeland and our citizens (including those who served as intelligence operatives, translators or as support civilians).

It is all too clear that the Taliban, ISIS fighters and Al-Qaeda have become emboldened and stronger than they have been in 20 years … and that the free-world’s confidence and trust in the United States is at an all time low. Who can blame anyone for not trusting the United States? We will regret the day that this ill-conceived “timeline-oriented” pull-out (likely was based on the 20 year anniversary of 9/11 political talking point) was President Biden’s reason to rush the exit of troops from Afghanistan … clearly ignoring sound voices warning of the potential or likelihood of this unfolding catastrophe; it seems to me that President Biden only relied on his own consistently poor judgement and “woke” advisors.

When I think of using the “regret the day” reference … I can’t help but see the BILLIONS of dollars of advance American weaponry that is now in the hand of the Taliban. President Biden will go to his grave knowing that HE is the one who made last week’s decision and that when our own weapons are used by our enemies to kill Americans, that blood will be on his hands.

I cannot imagine just how anxious every terrorist organization is to get their hands on our advanced weapons, either to use them against the west or sell them to the highest bidder (US taxpayer?) to finance their radical Islamic crusade … often called jihad. 

Afghanistan’s military has laid down its weapons, and the Taliban have wasted little time in collecting them, raising concerns about how easily troves of U.S.-made arms, military aircraft and armored vehicles have fallen into enemy hands and the new capabilities they bring.

Scores of videos have emerged of Taliban fighters rejoicing near abandoned American helicopters, carrying U.S.-supplied M24 sniper rifles and M18 assault weapons, stacking other small arms and materiel in unending piles and driving Humvees and other U.S.-made military trucks.

The Taliban have seized airplanes, tanks and artillery from Afghan outposts and from evacuating U.S. personnel, revealing one of the heavier costs of a U.S. troop withdrawal amid a collapse of Afghanistan’s government and army.

LINK to “Taliban Seize U.S. Weapons in Afghanistan, Stockpiling Helicopters, Guns and Trucks" – WSJ

Category: Millitary, News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: afghanistan, biden, jihad, Politics, regret, taliban, terrorism, war, weapons, woke

Posted By RichC on August 21, 2021

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Category: Archive, Personal, Photography, Photos, Space | No Comments »
Tags: carseat, ellerie, family, granddaugher, gx8, lumix, momc, moon, photo, preschool, summer