My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on June 6, 2019

Who doesn’t enjoyed reminiscing and remembering fond memories from the past?  I know I do … and it is obvious the actor Rob Lowe does as well.

Last week the actor was in Sidney, Ohio before his one-man show at the Schuster Center in Dayton. His fondest for the Dayton area is fairly well know, but even I didn’t know he had a connection to Sidney … my parents home for almost 40 years and where I graduated high school? We ate at The Spot restaurant dozens of times … and even after listening to the many stories from my parents over the years, the fact Rob Lowe’s grandfather, Bob Hepler owned The Spot for 50 years, it never came up (history). 

A Teen Center in 1960 and a photo of Rob, Mika & Chad Lowe and grandfather Bob Hepler 1992

Huh, it seems strange considering all the interesting tidbits and newspaper clippings my mom would share with me over the years that she didn’t mention the Rob Lowe connection? (and now  my daughter Katelyn is the one finding and share interesting Sidney tidbits to share with me! HA!)    

SIDNEY – Actor Rob Lowe, who is known for roles in “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “The Outsiders,” “Parks and Recreation” and the “West Wing” among many others, visited Sidney on Friday.

Lowe is in Ohio for his show “Stories I Only Tell My Friends LIVE” and stopped by Sidney to explore childhood memories and eat at The Spot, a restaurant his grandfather Bob Hepler owned and operated for 50 years.

“It’s probably been 20 years (since I visited), but Sidney was my second home growing up as a kid,” Lowe said. “I grew up in Dayton, but my grandparents lived here. I spent almost half my life in Sidney so I like to come back and see the old house, see The Spot and look at the memories.”

His show, inspired by his memoirs “Stories I Only Tell My Friends” and “Love Life,” explores his four-decade career in Hollywood, fame, fatherhood and marriage. He performed on Thursday in Cleveland and has shows on Saturday at Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center and Sunday at Dayton’s Schuster Center.

(more…)

Category: Archive, History, Human Interest, Memories, Misc, Photos, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: bob hepler, dadc, History, hometown, katelyn, memories, momc, Photos, Restaurant, rob lowe, sidney daily news, sidney ohio, the spot, tidbits

Posted By RichC on June 5, 2019

Nasty bugger … thankfully I think I caught this guy (or any of his buddies) before sucking my blood.

Nowadays with Lyme Disease you can’t be to careful with letting ticks bite or burrow. I’m not sure our area is considered risky, but I don’t want to chance getting infected either (I thnk this guy is a male American Dog Tick).

This past weekend and each night this week have been busy for Brenda and me in getting our yard ready for a weekend with Taylor for his 30th birthday. We always seem to need a little shove in getting motivated; who knows, we might not even have opened the pool yet if it were not for Taylor wanted to have friends and family over. This year Brenda worked hard on weeding and thinning down her landscape mounds … and I moved 5 trailers full of mulch (10 yards!). The yard is finally looking like summer.

One of the more painful things this year was getting this little screwy piece of razor sharp and barbed metal out of my finger. Who knows where it came from, but I’m glad it was me and my finger rather than one of his friends.

Just a couple photos of the mulch after a hard week of work – we need to keep up with this and be sure to do it every year.

Category: Archive, Environment, Health, Nature, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: chores, disease, home, house, landscaping, lyme, mulch, ohio, Photos, tick, yard

Posted By RichC on June 5, 2019

We were obviously not alone in sheading tears over the lost of our favorite local restaurant Spinning Fork in Fairfiled, Ohio(we’ve eaten there since 1995)… but thankfully the family, recipes and history looks like it will be around a while longer, just not at the same location.

They have moved to a Hamilton Elks Golf Club location in Liberty Township, Ohio and look to be forgoing lunch for now and serving dinner — posted 4PM daily opening time — but might be working on adding some new employees according to a Facebook post … so we’ll wait and see … but for now we will definitely be checking them out for dinner.

Hm, since it is our anniversary is today, maybe Brenda would like to give the new location at 4444 Hamilton-Middletown Road in Liberty Township, OH a try tonight?

Category: Archive, Business, Food, Local | No Comments »
Tags: anniversary, elks, fairfield, favorite, favorites, forchetta, golf, liberty township, ohio, Restaurant, spinning fork

Posted By RichC on June 4, 2019

One of the long running medical debates in my family is my  use of a fairly expensive supplement called glucosamine. Ever since I injured my knee 15+ years ago and received what seemed like a miracle steroid injection – suffered for weeks — I’ve been more serious about taking better care of my joints. Aging and wear definitely takes a toll and after seeing an orthopedic surgeon, who reviewed my MRI, concluded that the only two treatments for my knees were: surgery to clean up the joint or a knee replacement. Personally I’d like to avoid the knife so now constantly looks for ways to take care of the joints I have (you should too).

What I “think” I have found for me is that avoiding excessive and repetitive weight loaded motion helps prevent swelling in the joints and that strengthening muscles supporting the knee helps; not abusing helps too. So keeping to that discipline and combined with light use of NSAIDs like Ibuprofen (Advil/Motrin/Aleve) to reduce pain and more importantly reduce inflammation after using my knees – I’ve been able to stay steroid injection free for over a decade.  

A few years ago, Drew my son-in-law, pointed me to the idea of Synvisc-One injections as a possible option.  Supposedly one injection can provide OA knee pain relief by cushioning and lubricating knees … that makes sense and gives me another option.

But I have not had to look into anything further yet which brings me to the debated supplements for joints. I consistently take glucosamine to which most medical studies do not conclude as a recommended treatment option. One of the larger studies from overseas indicated that the results seemed about 50/50, but that those taking it “claim” it helped them (I’m in that camp). It may be likely that other things I do are helping and that I’m giving credit to the glucosamine supplement? Whichever it is, I continue to take it daily and remembering the discomfort I felt, refuse to give up taking it … as do about 20% of adults in countries where it is available without a prescription! (shocking) 

Introduction
Glucosamine is a non-vitamin, non-mineral supplement widely used to relieve osteoarthritis and joint pain. Glucosamine is closely regulated in most European countries, where it is only sold with a prescription. However, in other countries such as the United States and Australia, it is a popular dietary supplement and approximately 20% of adults consume it daily.

The effectiveness of glucosamine in patients with osteoarthritis and joint pain continues to be debated. Emerging evidence from epidemiological studies suggests that glucosamine could have a role in preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and reducing mortality.

Which leads me to a March 14, 2019 The BMJ  7-year follow-up study from UK Biobank that look at participants taking glucosamine from 2006-2010 and Cardiovascular Disease risks. Although not conclusive without further long term testing, the findings are that those habitually taking glucosamine for osteoarthritis pain have a lower CVD risk. Looks like a win-win for me. HA!

Conclusions
Habitual use of glucosamine supplement to relieve osteoarthritis pain might also be related to lower risks of CVD events. Further clinical trials are needed to test this hypothesis.

LINK to BMJ.com study

Category: Advice, Health, Medical, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: biobank, bmj, cardiovascular, cvd, disease, glucosamine, ibuprofen, joints, knee, pain, thebmj, uk

Posted By RichC on June 3, 2019

This content is restricted.

Category: Music, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: 1982, anniversary, brenda, faithfully, journey, lyrics, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, richc, song

Posted By RichC on June 2, 2019

If you grew up watching Get Smart, then you know about the “cone of silence” … but do you know about the “bottle of protection?”

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a guy work over a stove and frying pan of hot oil. If you’ve done this before, no doubt the spatter occasionally burns your hand … especially when using a short utensil. I noticed this inventive chap cut off a plastic soda pop bottle, fed the handle of the utensil thru the screw cap and stuck his hand in the bottle to protect himself  from spatter. It was ingenious enough for me to give it a try while cooking some chicken fried rice.

FYI – Reality check:  I doubt for a single pan of fried rice it is worth it … but would reconsider, or just wear a glove, if I were frying up a bunch of fried fish fillets!

Category: Entertainment, Humor, Innovation | No Comments »
Tags: ani gif, anigif, bottle, cone of silence, cooking, creative, frying, funny, get smart, Humor, oil, protection, stove

Posted By RichC on June 1, 2019

For Christians, who pray for wisdom, for the health and safety of our families and the stressful issues we face daily, prayer is something most of us have been taught to do from an early age. I’d like to think that this daily “practice” of prayer prepares us to be great “prayer warriors” for others when requested.

So … I’m passing along my brother and sister-in-law’s prayer request (below) to those who frequent My Desultory Blog and will be willing to pray for their daughter Sarah. She is my youngest niece and has lived with and treated an inoperative tumor since she was four years old (my graduation blog  link 1 and link 2). Over the years, there have been ups and downs for her and her family, but amazingly … through constant prayer, the grace of God and excellent medical care … Sarah has summitted every mountain she has had to face.

Will you add Sarah to your prayers and beseech God to miraculously eliminate this tumor and restore Sarah’s eyesight – “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. – Luke 18:27 

Please pray for Sarah Gerber. She was diagnosed at age four with a chiasmal optic glioma and has undergone numerous surgeries and chemotherapy protocols.  By Gods grace she is now a junior at the University of Georgia. Unfortunately, the tumor has continued to grow and hemorrhaged last November.

We have been told by our oncologist that this hemorrhage could mean tumor death or growth. Would you please join us in prayer for the death of this tumor and the restoration of Sarah’s vision in Jesus Almighty Name!

As we walk down this path we have learned that the Lord God simply wants us to focus on Him.  HE is the author of life, the provider of our salvation.  HE is in absolute control and makes no mistakes. 

We so appreciate your prayers

"I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?"
Jeremiah 32:27

Category: Faith, Health, Human Interest, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: anng, cancer, chemotherapy, family, garyg, gerber, healing, pray, prayer, request, sarah, sarahg, tumor, warrior

Posted By RichC on May 31, 2019

If you are using Apple’s Photos app, you’ve probably noticed the software attempts to identify faces of people (not just Apple either). This can be helpful for “you” to sift through photos, but also seems a bit nosy when the app also builds a pile of “facetile” photos on its own. Most people likely will not see these photos since they are buried in an obscure resource face folder, but there are megabytes of them there and generally will not show up in a Spotlight search (default settings). Surprisingly in my case, they did show up in my cloud backup … so be aware if that is something you use.

Now,  I’ve used TimeMachine with local harddrives for my backups primarily (not trusting “free”  but with strings cloud storage), but after an iMac issue this past year, also started to use my .edu Google Drive with a Terrabyte of no cost storage to automatically backup some of my iMac data to the cloud. Only then did I notice and start to wonder about all the automatically created “facetile” images (7853 of them in my case) being sent to a BigData company. Hm, now what is Google doing with it?

Likely almost all images taken by smartphones are already analyzed for facial recognition anyway, but seeing “facetile” images automatically being plucked out of the hidden resource folder on my iMac, and then only by chance noticing these archived “facetile photos” were being backed up to Google Drive, and likely scanned for their facial recognition database, was a bit unsettling. It has me wonder how many others are completely oblivious to this process automatically happening?

Category: Cellphone, Cloud, Computer, Photos, Software, Tablet, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: app, apple, backup, bigdata, cloud, Computer, drive, facial, google, imac, ios, phone, Photos, privacy, recognition, tablet, tech friday, techfriday

Posted By RichC on May 30, 2019

I’m not sure Hollywood can match this on a sitcom! You are invited to throw out the first pitch at an MLB game … and then you do this! – another LINK
 

Category: Humor, Sports, Video | No Comments »
Tags: baseball, first pitch, Humor, mlb, video

Posted By RichC on May 29, 2019

It is summer and what is more “summery” than being out in the sun and going to the beach … and thinking about “JAWS.” Yikes!

Ever since the iconic “we’re going to need a bigger boat” Jaws movie came out in 1975, most people have been both fascinated and fearful of the Great White Shark. Although being attacked by a shark at most beaches in the U.S. is highly unlikely, tracking apps and devices from organization like Ocearch do show just how often these creatures get to our beaches. Personally speaking, if you really need to fear being attacked by a shark (and you really don’t), learn about the aggressive Bull Shark.

Likely the movie solidified our already innate fear, but the continued release of beachgoer stories and photos like the one captured last year by photographer Euan Rannachan keeps the movie and thoughts alive. Here’s a FeatureShoot.com story about how he capture the “Jaws” movie poster photo (below) –  it is an interesting read … with some great photos. 

Category: Movies, Photography, Photos, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: beach, bull, Euan Rannachan, great white, jaws, movie, ocean, ocearch, photography, sharks, summer