My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on August 14, 2020

Friday afternoon was a day of server housekeeping, along with the week’s usual billing and accounting. It was also time to update this blog’s WordPress plugins and to the current version called “Eckstine” 5.5.

In WordPress 5.5, your site gets new power in three major areas: speed, search, and security.

Thankfully after the move to the new server hardware in May 2020, everything has been running so much better than before (knock on wood).
 

What’s the meaning of the phrase ‘Knock on wood’?

This phrase is used by people who rap their knuckles on a piece of wood hoping to stave off bad luck. In the UK, the phrase ‘touch wood‘ is used – often jokingly by tapping one’s head. The phrases are sometimes spoken when a person is already experiencing some good fortune and hope that it will continue – for example "I’ve been winning on every race – touch wood".

What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Knock on wood’?

(more…)

Category: Blogs, Idioms, Software, Technology, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: blog, eckstine, housekeeping, idiom, knock on wood, server, update, wordpress

Posted By RichC on August 14, 2020

Wouldn’t you know, just as I was contemplating how to get rid of our annoying pair of Mourning Doves (pretty much pigeons in my book), they go and have at least one baby. Now I can’t in good conscious shoo them away.

The little guy must have jumped or fallen out of the nest and wandered his way into the stones under a bush next to the door of the detached poolhouse garage (they also love to take selfies in the Canary cam)? He or she can’t fly yet but has nice feathers and bright eyes .. also camouflaged nicely for the surroundings. The mom and dad are hanging around as they always do (sit on the peak of our house every evening), but also stand with the little fledgling bird until I approach. I wonder just how long before flight? Let’s look it up!

Dove babies grow exceedingly fast. By 12 days old they’re big enough to leave their nest and venture into the big wide world.

If they’re over-cautious about leaving their nest then they’ll find themselves hungry, as their parents stop coming to the nest to feed them after this time.

They don’t abandon them completely though, instead, they keep an eye on them from a nearby branch and watch as they eventually leave the nest.

At first, they won’t be able to fly. Instead, they become fledgling birds and will spend the next four days stuck on the ground before they grasp the art of flying.

LINK

Category: Blogs, Environment, Nature, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: baby, bird, birds, doves, mourning, nest, pigeon

Posted By RichC on August 13, 2020

There is no doubt in my mind that I would have tried to do this if Photoshop would have  been as advanced when my kids were younger (or if I would have been has skilled – I’m basically a retoucher). As it was, I did include one of Katelyn’s computer art pieces (on my Mac SE or perhaps Mac II Ci) for Taylor’s birth announcement, but nothing like this dad. So here’s an image for ThrowBack Thursday #TBT.

Tom Curtis runs the ‘Things I Have Drawn’ Instagram page from London and shared his two kids drawings online. As the BoredPanda.com blog comments, “the result is both terrifying and hilarious.” Of course when it is a good thing, you really can’t get too much of it so there’s a page1,  page2 and page3 at this point. Good stuff.

Here are a few more examples in case they disappear (more below the break):

A dog and an elephant (I think?) …

… and since I’m working on birdhouses for Annalyn (previous post) … (more…)

Category: Art, Blogs, Computer, Humor, Memories, Social Media, TBT | No Comments »
Tags: artwork, drawings, Humor, parenting, photoshop, photoshopped, TBT, throwback, thursday

Posted By RichC on August 12, 2020

An image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is just too beautiful not to include on MyDesultoryBlog. I many not be the biggest astronomy or space geek, but I do spend time looking up at the stars in the evening. Although I didn’t get a good look at the NEOWISE comet last week (not for the lack of trying), I do plan on staying up late or getting up early to try to see the Perseid meteors 2020 this week.

The barred spiral galaxy known as NGC 4907 shows its starry face from 270 million light-years away to anyone who can see it from the Northern Hemisphere. This is a new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the face-on galaxy, displaying its beautiful spiral arms, wound loosely around its central bright bar of stars.

Shining brightly below the galaxy is a star that is actually within our own Milky Way galaxy. This star appears much brighter than the billions of stars in NGC 4907 as it is 100,000 times closer, residing only 2,500 light-years away.

NGC 4907 is also part of the Coma Cluster, a group of over 1,000 galaxies, some of which can be seen around NGC 4907 in this image. This massive cluster of galaxies lies within the constellation of Coma Berenices, which is named for the locks of Queen Berenice II of Egypt: the only constellation named after a historical person.

Text credit: ESA (European Space Agency)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Gregg

Category: Nature, Space | No Comments »
Tags: astronomy, comet, galaxy, hubble, meteors, nasa, neowise, ngc4907, persied, skywatching, space, telescope

Posted By RichC on August 12, 2020

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Category: Archive, Humor, Misc, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, archive, birthday, brenda, coronavirus, covid19, family, goggles, Photos, swing

Posted By RichC on August 11, 2020

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Category: Archive, Misc, Personal, Photos, Travel, Video | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, archive, bees, birdhouse, bluebird, brenda, drew, ellerie, family, granddaughters, home, house, katelyn, mp4, Photos, pool, project, pyramid hill, richc, vacation

Posted By RichC on August 10, 2020

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Category: Music | No Comments »
Tags: album, beatles, mp3, Music, music monday, musicmonday, paul mccartney, ringo starr, siriusxm, song, the bridge, walk with you

Posted By RichC on August 9, 2020

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Category: Automotive, Packard, Personal, Photos, Social Media | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, charging, circuit, drew, ellerie, family, hawk, katelyn, mig, model3, packard, tesla, tig, twitter, vacation, welding

Posted By RichC on August 8, 2020

Although I’m looking high and low for some material to replace the clearance foam bead filled pool floaties I bought a few years ago, I continue to re-stitch and reinforce the old product with “Brenda’s” Sailrite Ultrafeed LS-1.

The new stitching holds as long as the old fabric holds up, but sooner or later I’m going to have to replace all the float items (noodles, beanbag like chair) with either new material or find new ones. So far I have not been able to find this mildew and sun resistant two ply (coarser and finer mesh) material … so I’ll keep repairing until then.

Category: Misc, Personal, Photos, Recreation, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: beanbag, chair, float, material, mesh, pool, repair, sailrite, sewing

Posted By RichC on August 7, 2020

It is always concerning to use and recommended a software product for years and to hear negative news on the software from a reputable antivirus. Last month, Microsoft Defender marked the “crap cleaner” known as CCleaner as PUA (Potentially Unwanted Software) likely due to the “PC cleaning software’s bundling unwanted add-on and annoyance software. The risk in doing this for semi-reputable company … if they are which is likely for their free version … is that users choosing CCleaner could end up with more “junk” on their computer than they are actually cleaning off their computer.

In 2018 I stopped regularly using CCleaner to “Fix Registry Problems” due to concerns that it might “error on the side of cleaning” that will trigger errors that render Windows inoperable. LINK

After tweeting the TechRadar article, CCleaner tweeted a reply saying“Our products and our partners’ products are genuine and so we are in discussions with Microsoft to resolve this issue as soon as we can.”

Hm .. Windows 10 is warning users not to install @CCleaner – @techradar https://t.co/FGETn48dmS

— Rich Corbett (@RichC) July 31, 2020

Category: Advice, Computer, Social Media, Software, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: ccleaner, defender, microsoft, pua, registry, scanning, Software, tech friday, techfriday, tweet, twitter, virus, windows, windows10