My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on February 17, 2020

Although watching NASCAR is not the highest priority on our list of things to do, it has been a long time mid-February favorite whether we were home, at the boat or visiting Brenda’s mom and dad years ago in Florida. This year we treated it as a Super Bowl kind of Sunday and were impressed with all the excitement leading up to the race, yet disappointed that there was both a rain delay AND eventual reschedule. I can’t imagine being a fan who plans their vacation down in Florida for Speedweek, expecting to be back home on Monday … and then missing the actual Cup Series race?

The highlight for most supporters of President Donald Trump at the race, was to seeing the president and first lady Melania not only attend to cheers and pride, but  to watch the presidential motorcade with “The Beast” (2 of them) paced the field of around the legendary racetrack. How cool was having our president, also the grand marshal, saying “Gentlemen, start your engines.”

After lap 20 or 200 … the leaderboard stands like this: (today’s  conclusion will be at 4PM .. we hope!)

EDIT:
An update on the 2020 Daytona 500 after the rain delay and finishing on Monday afternoon and evening. The race was extremely close and filled with wrecks, especially the end. The last lap had full throttle pushing and blocking action which ending with Ryan Newman on his roof and heading to the hospital. The win (second straight and third overall) for Denny Hamlin was a bit subdued after he realized Newman’s car flipped in the air and was struck at 200mph by another car. Thankfully as of this post, Ryan Newman is speaking in the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, but still in serious condition. It is a reminder that even with all the advancements in safety over the last couple of decades, racing at 200 mph is still a very dangerous sport.

EDIT 2/19/2020: Miraculous! Ryan Newman and his kids.

Category: Archive, Automotive, Entertainment, News, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: archive, daytona500, florida, melania, nascar, potus, racing, speedweek, trump

Posted By RichC on February 17, 2020

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Category: Advice, Blogs, Financial, Health, Music | No Comments »
Tags: be prepared, blog, boy scouts, life, living, lyrics, motto, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, ooh la la, planning, retirement

Posted By RichC on February 16, 2020

Although one could spend all day or night watching YouTube advice videos from expert woodworkers, I’ve limited my viewing to a few guys. I’m fond of Jon Peters for both the quality of his videos and for the short “focused” tips. In a recent YouTube video, he points out how often he finds himself using his biscuit jointer and gave me an idea for attaching table and bench seat tops that I would not have considered (photos).

We gave my dad a German made Elu Biscuit Jointer (purchase by Dewalt in 1994) shortly after he retired in 1992, as he started to add a few tools to his workshop after retiring. I inherited his biscuit jointer and have used  it only a few times since DadC’s passing, but I think of him every time use it.

In 1994, DeWalt took over the German wood working power tool producer ELU. DeWalt increased their line of tools using ELU’s technology. As of 2001, DeWalt manufactures and sells more than 200 different power hand tools and 800 accessories. (Wikipedia)

The most common use for the biscuit jointer is to align edge to edge boards instead of using dowels, which is all I’ve ever used it for… but  there are a variety of other joints that can be made. An interesting use that Peters demonstrates is using a biscuit slot as a way to attach a table top or bench seat (video below). Hm?

The other great tip he offered up was rather than centering the biscuit, leave a little more space between the biscuit and the surface or top of project so that the slot and biscuit doesn’t telegraph on the finished surface. I would not have thought of that!

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Category: Productivity, Tidbits, Video, Woodworking | No Comments »
Tags: biscuit, jointer, jon peters, mp4, tips, video, woodworking, youtube

Posted By RichC on February 15, 2020

While emailing my daughter this week about taking her “long living” bunny, Pumpy Umpy to the vet (injury and can’t move his leg), I mentioned that I eventually had to take Tootsie to the Butler County Humane Society as a way to prep for her eventual decision. I ended up seeing this “Keep in touch” image when scrolling down on the front page.

Who knows what the right call is for Katelyn’s rabbit, but for me and after several trips to the vet for Tootsie, I decided that being a dog who is deaf (she was a long time – known issue for Australian Cattle Dogs) and being 17 years old and almost blind (hard to find the edge of pool and falls in) was not a happy life. The final failure was that she was no longer able to hold her bowels and likely had colon cancer.

Deafness: Australian Cattle Dogs have been known to suffer from congenital hereditary sensorineural deafness (CHSD), or rather deafness that is inherited rather than acquired through illness. CHSD occurs shortly after birth before the ear canal opens. The exact cause is unknown, but it is believed that an inadequate blood flow to the cochlea results in death of the sensory nervous cells, resulting in total deafness. As the name suggests, CHSD is an inherited disease. Researchers are not yet sure whether the gene carrying CHSD is recessive or dominant, so when looking to adopt an Australian Cattle Dog inquire with the breeder whether deafness runs on either side of their line.

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Category: Health, Misc, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: animals, australian, blue heeler, bunny, cattle dog, cattledog, dogs, family, humane society, katelyn, pets, pumpy umpy, Rabbit, tootsie, vet

Posted By RichC on February 14, 2020

Nope … I’m not going to forget Happy Valentine’s Day and have remembered to get something “sweet” for Brenda … although it is a good thing she reminded me earlier in the week with a “be sure to pick up a couple gift cards for the kids” comment. Whew!

I was also reminded by my “single” friend Jeff that  Valentine’s Day, February 14th, was on a Friday this year and that we might want to switch out our normal  “ever-other-Friday” scheduled lunch (we did). At that moment, I also realized that for all without a significant other, it is Single Awareness Day. 😐

Category: Holiday, Human Interest, Humor, Misc | No Comments »
Tags: ani gif, anigif, awareness, celebrate, Holiday, Humor, remember, remembering, single, valentine's day

Posted By RichC on February 13, 2020

Last week, a Jasper, Alberta family photo near a glacier for a ThrowBack Thursday #TBT post, had me sharing a few of my thoughts on climate change. I should have included another photo that had a few more from our family (especially since my sister-in-law, Lynda,  just returned home from the Cleveland Clinic). The trip was actually a 40th anniversary present to MomH and DadH (Brenda’s parents) … but the adult kids volunteered to go along too. 😛 So for this week’s TBT, I’ll add that photo … and archive 50-minute long low-quality video pulled from a VHS tape before it is completely degraded.

Lynda, Mark, Ann, Gary, MomH, DadH, Brenda & Rich near Athabasca Glacier

We flew in from Ohio and New York to Calgary, Alberta and headed west to the Canadian Rockies … I can still hear my late brother-in-law Mark singing “climb every mountain” and “the hills are alive, with the sound of music.”

We had a good time hiking and celebrating in Baniff (just as Taylor, Jeff and I did in 2005) and stayed at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise – it was nice (personal video for the blog’s digital archive below).

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Category: Archive, Personal, Photos, TBT, Video | No Comments »
Tags: 40th, alberta, anniversary, athabasca, baniff, canadian rockies, dadh, family, glacier, howard, lake louise, momh, mp4, Photos, sound of music, TBT, throwback, thursday, video

Posted By RichC on February 12, 2020

Here’s a tech tidbit for those noticing a high CalendarAgent CPU demand on your Apple Macintosh computer. For me, the process cranked up the CPU to 60-70% trigging high fan speeds and this process continued without finishing. I noticed slightly sluggish behavior AFTER a recent MacOS software update, although might have happened prior to that? I’m currently running Catalina, but from my digging, this excessive database processing can happened in several earlier versions too.

The solution for me was to kill the process and then rebuild the Calendar database. I actually stopped both the Google Calendar and Apple Calendar before rebuilding – perhaps doing both was unnecessary?

Here is what I found in Apple StackExchange:

If you need a little more clarification, see below:

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Category: Advice, Apple, Computer, Software, Technology, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: activity, apple, calendaragent, Computer, cpu, database, fix, high use, mac, macos, monitor, problems, rebuild, terminal

Posted By RichC on February 11, 2020

A month ago Virgin Mobile sent this happy customer (great service) an update indicating that due to the Sprint T-Mobile combination that the Virgin partnership would be spun off to Sprint’s Boost Mobile prepaid group.They promised an equal or better “deal” which has yet to be noticed … but then it has only been a day or so (I have my doubts).

Anyway, my account transfer has taken place and the new iPhone app is now working. So far, so good as there has not been a change to my phone or service but I am still unsure as to the details such as pricing and “add-ons” to my account. Time will tell. For now, the hotspot still works, calls are coming in and an LTE speed test from my home indicates decent speed and ping times. Stay tuned as my phone still displays Virgin Mobile and probably will until they push a carrier update out.

 
Just a little embedded Twitter automotive humor …

Good thing this driver sprung for AWD! #automotive #humor pic.twitter.com/zSUhSMsa7S

— Rich Corbett (@RichC) February 10, 2020

Category: Automotive, Cellphone, Humor, Social Media | No Comments »
Tags: ani gif, anigif, automotive, awd, boost, carrier, Cellphone, gif, Humor, mobile, smartphone, social network, sprint, tmobile, tweet, twitter, virgin

Posted By RichC on February 10, 2020

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Category: Music, Video | No Comments »
Tags: 1960s, mamas, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, oldies, papas, youtube

Posted By RichC on February 9, 2020

It has been a struggle to make a decision on updating my favorite tech gadget, but after the first generation Brydge Keyboard finally would not charge, I had to do something.

I thought about going all out and moving to the iPad Pro series, but realized that all the functions that I appreciate are already on the basic iPad. I personally prefer the thumbprint-homebutton log-in rather than the camera, can live with the bezel being a little wider; I really don’t have a problem with the performance of the aging processor, which is still rated at 10 hours and gives me a full day of battery use. I did however upgrade the storage to 128GB which was a no-brainer considering I have plenty of files, but will just stick with wi-fi and tether to my iPhone hot-spot rather than pay for an extra wireless plan as I did initially with the iPad Air.

As far as I could find, the Best Buy — $100 off purchase for the 128GB model $329.99 … plus I added 2-year $69 Apple Care — seemed like a fair price for a great Apple product. I’m especially pleased with the ever-so-slightly larger and sharper Retina display and snappier operation (my Air was getting old in the tooth).

The favorite add-on is the Brydge Keyboard which matches the iPad and allows it to function as my travel notebook computer (for the most part). I probably should have looked at the Apple keyboard, but having had a couple other brands before the Brydge … it just wasn’t worth the bother. This bluetooth connected keyboard make it so much easier to type (posting this with the new iPad and Brydge Keyboard) AND the high quality leather case is a must have … but pricey (it should protect both if they are dropped and they offered me a 20% discount due to the fact my old one would no longer charge). After day one … all is functioning as it should and I only hope they give me the same long and dependable service that the last combination did.

Category: Apple, Gadget, Shopping, Tablet, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: 7th generation, apple, brydge, Computer, favorite, gadget, ipad, keyboard, tablet