My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on April 28, 2020

My wife and kids think I should be working for Ridgid Tools as I have been extremely happy with their cordless tools of late. I have updated my old NiCad driver and drills with newer Lithium based brushless tools and they are so much better. A big thank you continues to go out to Katelyn and her father’s day gift a couple years ago, otherwise I would likely still be suspect that battery powered tools were still a waste of money. The better lithium powered tools had come a long way in the past decade and since I’m overly paranoid as to battery life, but was sold on the lifetime warranty extending to the “battery” when Home Depot Rigid tools are purchased packaged with a tool and then registered together within 30 days.

So far I have not been disappoint with the quality … and only a little bit in their size and weight … they are slightly bigger and heavier than other premium brands.

But not for long: Ridgid has pre-announced their new SubCompact series of 18 volt brushless tools coming out this year. They are significantly smaller and lighter so I suspect more competitive with the other brands like DeWalt and Milwaukee. Since I’m not a trade user, the heftier versions that I have are just fine, but if I were to need a replacement … having a SubCompact drill, driver and impact wrench would be great!

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Category: Advice, Hobby, Misc, Personal, Tools | No Comments »
Tags: battery, cordless, home depot, lithium, powertools, ridgid, shop vac, subcompact, tools, warranty, workshop

Posted By RichC on April 27, 2020

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Category: Music | No Comments »
Tags: 70s, annalyn, elton john, facetime, mp3, Music, music monday, musicmonday, tiny dancer

Posted By RichC on April 26, 2020

Some of us are fortunate in life to have had a few teachers take enough interest to make a difference. I suspect they inherently knew the positive influence a good teacher can make long after a student leaves their classroom. One such teacher, really an extra curricular advisor for me, was Doris Eggleston. Last week her daughter Karen Gagermeier shared her mom’s obituary (below). Thank you Karen and my condolences to you and your family. Both your mom and dad were wonderful people (my mom and dad square danced with Doris and Gene for years after retirement).

Click for Cromes-Edwards Funeral Home Obituary

Archiving a few of my Memories:

Our family moved to Sidney from a rural area east of Toledo (Curtice/Oregon) when I was in high school. Moving is rarely easy, but it was especially challenging in high school and trying to fit in with kids in small town Sidney, where most kids grew up together generation after generation. Thankfully I was not “new” alone and chummed with three other guys in the same situation – our “Fearsome Foursome.”  That definitely improved things.

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Category: Archive, Education, Friends, Human Interest, Memories, Obituary, Personal, Photography | No Comments »
Tags: archive, brenda, college, curtice, dadc, doris eggleston, funeral, journalism, karen gagermeier, memories, momc, newspaper, obit, Obituary, ohio, onu, oregon, photography, printing, richc, sidney, teacher, toledo, yearbook

Posted By RichC on April 25, 2020

Once upon a time, I worked at Sea World in Aurora, Ohio. I did not work with the Killer Whales (Orcas), but was fortunate enough to have been able to “hang out” with them when the park was closed. I would often enjoy sitting on lunch breaks watching them “watching me” while exercising in the “big performance tank” and imagining what it would have been like to encounter one (or a pod) 😳 without the experience of human interaction. Gulp …

Do you enjoy kayaking and watching wildlife? How about "this" close? #orca pic.twitter.com/oLVyEzneAU

— Rich Corbett (@RichC) April 24, 2020

Category: Environment, Nature, Social Media, Video | No Comments »
Tags: kayak, killer whale, ocean, orca, sea world, twitter, wild

Posted By RichC on April 25, 2020

If you’ve watched, read or remembered any of the Public Service Announcements (PSA) since the Coronavirus pandemic started, you will probably smile when watching this.

Category: Health, Humor, Video | No Comments »
Tags: breifing, coronavirus, covid19, Humor, mp4, psa, video

Posted By RichC on April 24, 2020

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that our brightly color cardinal enjoyed “looking at himself” in our window’s Canary cam – he was probably looking for a mate. Now that he’s found one … he seems to be avoid her; she is likely checking his usual haunts and asking “where is he?” I suspect there are baby cardinals to take care of and our brightly colored male cardinal want out of his new responsibilities .

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Category: Environment, Humor, Nature, Personal, Photos, Technology, Tools, Video | No Comments »
Tags: ani gif, birds, canary, cardinal, nature, painting, pry bar, tools, workshop

Posted By RichC on April 23, 2020

After cutting a few miter joints earlier this month with a 45 degree jig on my table saw crosscut sled, I started to contemplate the best way to cut clean tendons and dadoes. In the past I’ve used an added fence to the stock miter gauge, but it really doesn’t do a great job. Of course to the Internet I went to come up with a better miter "sled" idea.

Instead of just downloading plans, I decided to start from scratch (meaning material I had on hand) and make one that fit my needs and Coronavirus "stay-at-home" available materials. I used a piece of 3/4" plywood leftover from the kitchen cabinets during the remodel a couple years ago and just incorporated the angle as a way to lighten the small sled. I glued a couple pieces of straight hard maple pieces from "Annalyn projects" for the fixed fence adn then added dovetail "slide" grooves and an low profile adjustable guide/clamp with pricey MicroJig clamps for hold-downs (send me an email if you find a place to buy them at reasonable prices).

I do prefer using the dovetail slide clamps for hold down clamps over other methods (looked at adding aluminum tracks). In the past I’ve used wedge pressure clamps, the toggle hold downs or my simple block of wood with sandpaper glued to the bottoms (below).

All in all, the new sliding miter jig is great for nearly ever precise crosscut operation. So just when I thought my big table saw crosscut sled couldn’t be beat … this little jig is the lightweight go-to jig.

Category: Archive, Ideas, Personal, Photos, Tools, Woodworking | No Comments »
Tags: clamps, crosscut, dado, dovetail, fixtures, jigs, microjig, miter, project, sled, tendons, woodworking, workshop

Posted By RichC on April 22, 2020

The Coronavirus is doing what environmentalists and anti-fossil fuel advocates have only dreamed of doing … killing the petroleum industry. There is so little demand for crude oil that “Producers must pay buyers $37.63 a barrel” to refine their product. There is no place to store it as companies who explore and drill are dead and those who have productive wells are capping them. Even the price at the pump for gasoline has dropped to levels we haven’t seen in decades – a Tweet below with a photo from a few days ago off I-75 in Franklin, Ohio. There just isn’t any demand anywhere in the world as everything has come to a screeching halt do to the COVID19 pandemic.

On a brighter note … (more…)

Category: Archive, Energy, Financial, Health, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: cincinnati, coronavirus, covid19, family, gasoline, megan, ohio, oil, prices, river, taylor, twitter, wsj

Posted By RichC on April 21, 2020

As the United States and the world prepare to open society in phases after well over a month of stay-at-home orders due to the Coronavirus, the debate between those who see the health risk as too high and those who fear a full on economic collapse (world wide depression) continues.

Several states are seeing protests due to the draconian measures being force on them by state governors, while others line up at food banks just for food. Unprecedented millions have lost their jobs, filed for unemployment insurance and those businesses who would like to bring them back are fighting to stay solvent. In the meantime, the Democrats seemingly refuse to add additional funds to the current Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act without additional pork barrel add-ons. It seems Speaker Nancy Pelosi is comfortable playing politics as she illustrates her compassion with those suffering (#sarcasm) by showing off her gourmet chocolate ice cream and twin commercial refrigerators (video clip).

The least government can do if “forcing” businesses to stay closed and restrict their ability to run their business is to throw them a “longer” lifeline … otherwise a lot more companies will find their only option will be that of bankruptcy and shuttering for good (BTW, 50% of the jobs in America come from small businesses … and in turn their and their employees pay the taxes used to pay federal, state, county and city government workers).

As to my initial point of how do we balance the risk of spreading COVID19 and the additional deaths with the loss of jobs, homes, businesses and our economy? If it were an easy answer, we’d all be in agreement. Perhaps herd immunity, along with targeted hot spot quarantines and age/risk based stay-at-home mitigation is the best answer … see Mark Levin’s April 19th interview with Dr. David Katz below.

Category: Business, Financial, Health, News, Politics, Video | No Comments »
Tags: congress, coronavirus, covid19, dr david katz, foxnews, herd immunity, icecream, mark levin, mp4, nancy pelosi, small business, stay at home, video, youtube

Posted By RichC on April 20, 2020

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Category: Music | No Comments »
Tags: free, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, the foundation, zac brown