My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on December 3, 2019

The more time I spend in the basement workshop, the more I enjoy having my coffee with me and “warm.” Usually I just use an insulated stainless steel coffee container, but lately I’ve gone back to a ceramic cup so it can easily go into the microwave for warming. When sidetracked by projects or working in the shop, I often forget my coffee for 20 or 30 minutes and it is only lukewarm or cold. So after bringing the parts back from a potpourri-warmer that broke, I fitting them into a ceramic flower pot bottom and it now perfectly keeps my cup-of-joe piping hot.

BUT, real updates and maintenance items still needed to be done. Before Thanksgiving, Brenda wanted the mudroom bench and garage entry stairs cleaned up and looking fresh. They were long overdue for a coat of while gloss ,so I sanded and repainted with “porch floor paint” which seems to hold up well on high traffic areas. The seat still are too easily scratched and scuffed as are the garage stairs so maybe a seat cushion is on the project list? As for those garage entry stairs, I replaced the vinyl treads with inexpensive bound-edge carpet treads … very nice … especially held in place with a couple nylon snap-clips which hold firm but snap off so both the carpet treads and painted steps can be cleaned. 

Category: Archive, Misc, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: coffee, garage, home, house, maintenance, mudroom, paint, painting, remodel, selfie, steps, treads, updates, warmer

Posted By RichC on December 2, 2019

Thanksgiving dinner with the Corbett, Oostra and Ankrom familes (click for high res)

It is nice to have a few holiday rituals and for us, it is a Thanksgiving family feast with my brother and his family. Brenda, in particular, has now fully taken over the setting of a nice decorative table with all the trimmings (MomC always loved) … and she includes a few of the MomH side touches too (as well as several of her own!) — Thanks for the tradition moms! (and apple pie Claire!)

Besides the great food, we enjoyed our time together. Ron and I “try” to get the families together a couple times each year, but as each family grows, it gets more challenging (Katelyn is due in February and Keira in June).

This year it was also nice to have Taylor’s girlfriend Megan with us … and then again with her parents on Saturday for the Ohio State vs Michigan game football game (there are no bigger fans!)

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Category: Archive, Holiday, Memories, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: ankrom, brother, corbett, dining room, dinner, family, food, ham, Holiday, oostra, schnieders, table, thanksgiving, turkey

Posted By RichC on December 1, 2019

Likely too busy to post something … but this is mesmerizing (I wish I had this kind of TIG welding skill!)

Category: Misc, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: ani, filler, gif, tig, welding

Posted By RichC on November 30, 2019

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Category: Archive, Education, Personal, Photos, Sports | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, buckeyes, drew, family, football, katelyn, megan, ohio state, osu, Photos, rankings, taylor

Posted By RichC on November 29, 2019

With the advent of decent quality inexpensive home security products and cameras, it has never be easier to keep an eye on “motion” that happens around a business or home. The key for most of us is to find the least expensive quality “small” product … in our case the Wyze cams have beat out the Canary cams (a couple of both).

Over time I’ve learned the pitfalls of “doing home security on the cheap,” but at the same time our monitoring costs (monthly) are now much more reasonable and with our many Echo devices … easy to control from anywhere I’m connected.

Development and technology all cost money and the budget products like Wyze can run into problems when outsourcing (partnering) some of their technology needs. One feature called “edge-AI” is with Xnor.ai and offers “Person Detection” (vs just motion) actually running on the device itself. That is somewhat unique for a $25 camera in that it does not have to send the motion video to an outside server for analysis before triggering an alert. Unfortunately Wyze has just been informed that Xnor.ai is no longer going to lease their technology to Wyze and has terminated their lease agreement (their right within the contract).

This leave users someone a step back as now Wyze will have to develop their own AI “person detection” and more than likely will have to do it on their internal servers rather than on the camera hardware. Hm, more motion alerts in the short term and more uploaded data in the long run.

That said … Wyze deserves credit for how it communications with customers (below).

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Category: Cloud, Computer, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: ai, cameras, cams, canary, detection, edge-ai, home, monitor, motion, security, tech friday, techfriday, wyze, xnor

Posted By RichC on November 28, 2019

If African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar in the late 1800’s could express his “thankfulness” so eloquently on Thanksgiving, those of us living in the United States today should have little problem appreciating the freedom and abundance that we all too often take for granted.

It is great to have our family coming to our home this year for a Thanksgiving Day feast this November 28,2019.

A Thanksgiving Poem 
Paul Laurence Dunbar – 1872-1906

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
   Our harvesting is gladly o’er
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
   Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, flood, and sword
   We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
   We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
   The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
   Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of our hath brought us grace;
   When thou were nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
   But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land
   Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
   From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
   Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
   Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
   To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
   Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
   Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
   We could not thank thee for them all.

Category: Holiday | No Comments »
Tags: family, Holiday, idioms, poetry, thanksgiving

Posted By RichC on November 27, 2019

When we remodeled our kitchen in the spring of 2017, I disconnected the 40 amp 220 volt electric range that we originally had in the island, and dropped the capped wires through the floor and ceiling of my basement workshop. My intention was to eventually “drop” a 220 volt line so I would have a dedicated “out of the way” plug for my Delta cabinet sized table saw. After rethinking this over and over on how I wanted this to function, I decided that the far right corner of the extended table was best, Last weekend I dropped a conduit and put the plugs on the end of the table (it should be out of the way for 99% of my cuts).

Finally … the 20+ years of tripping hazard (and chew hazard when our dog was a puppy) and extension cord wire that I constantly had to plug in and unplug is no more. As a bonus, I also used the back side of the plug to put in two 110 volt outlets … one which I use for the Shop Smith which has become both a stand for the new outfeed table and my dedicated bandsaw with its own IKEA light. Perfect!

Category: Archive, Hobby, Personal, Photos, Tools, Woodworking | No Comments »
Tags: basement, delta, electrical, shopsmith, tablesaw, woodworking, workshop

Posted By RichC on November 26, 2019

Most men I know can rattle off a few milestone moments in their life as they bumbled their way through being a child, then teenager and finally an “on-your-own” adult. One of the organizations that once helped young men learn responsibility and integrity (and hopefully still does)  was the Boy Scouts. With good leadership, most Troops can begin with a Tenderfoot and give him mini-milestones of growth and responsibility. Although my BSA Troop 124 disbanded before I earned Eagle Scout, Still the structure was instrumental in giving me tools and teaching me character in order to mature from boyhood to manhood. As the BSA trademark line goes, Prepared. For Life.™

The reason I was even thinking about this was due to cleaning out my tool chest this past weekend, Buried under the top tray was a “dangerous” tool … a hatchet that was awarded to me in 1972 while in the Boy Scouts. This milestone “adult tool” was given to only one scout to carry and be responsible with while on campouts, etc. As one of the Patrol leaders (Crow Patrol – caw, caw) and highest level scout in our Troop at the time, it was my responsibility. I felt a sense of moving from one station in life to another …one that demanded less childish behavior and someone who was now expected to be a leader … on the way to being an adult.

Lesson: Metering out small milestones is a great way for mentors to teach boys how to become men. Thank you to all those men in my life both within organizations like the Boy Scouts or athletics … and  those friends and family who guided me through those formative years.

Category: Archive, Memories, Misc, Personal, Photos, Tools | No Comments »
Tags: boy scouts, boys, growing, hatchet, leadership, men, mentor, mentoring, milestones, responsible, teaching

Posted By RichC on November 25, 2019

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Category: Entertainment, Music | No Comments »
Tags: dusty springfield, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, oliver nelson, series, six million dollar man, song, television, theme, tv

Posted By RichC on November 24, 2019

While I was suppose to be cleaning up and throwing away junk that has taken over some of my basement woodworking shop, as usual ended up sidetracked in making a few jigs for my upcoming projects AND reorganized a couple of cabinets that were buried under boxes and clutter on a back wall.

I moved the now working tabletop drill press (was my dad’s and had a bad chuck) and my Shop Fox Mortising Machine to a new countertop that was the ramp for Brenda’s home rehab a few years ago. The cabinet drawers provided much handier storage for my Ridgid battery powered tools (they were in a bag) and moving the drill press frees up my router table that was doing double-duty. It now slides perfectly under the countertop when not it use … and because I added Teflon slides to the legs, glides easily on the tile floor. So far I’m happy with the change as it makes my shop feel bigger and it is definitely more usable.

Now that I was on a roll … I stayed up late and moved our kitchen table from behind my 10 inch Delta table saw an FINALLY added the outfeed table that I’ve been planning. It basically is a 3/4” of finished plywood with hinges fitted so that it can be folded down for space (dictating the length). I still have my outfeed roller for ripping 8 foot stock so really won’t miss anything. Instead of adding support legs, I used the non-business end of my Shop Smith since I primarily use is as a bandsaw and horizonal drillpress/sander nowadays. Unfortunately I’ll need to do some electrical work if I don’t want to string an extension cord (hm, I have a 220V line from the old electric range hanging from the ceiling?)

After sanding the outfeed table, I added a little ZipGuard for protection, extended the miter slots with the router and put a coat of bowling alley wax on the surface for protection. I’m excited to give it a try … and might even “finally” build my panel cutting jig!  (idea below for inspiration)

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Category: Archive, Hobby, Personal, Photos, Productivity, Tools, Woodworking | No Comments »
Tags: bandsaw, cabinet, drillpress, mortiser, outfeed, reorganize, ridgid, router, saw, shopsmith, sidetracked, table, tablesaw, tools, woodshop, woodworking, workbench, workshop, zipguard