Posted By RichC on August 7, 2018
I just love good ideas. Here is one that I grabbed off of an ad on my iPhone that uses the car door pillar “loop” to hold a machined aluminum hook attached to a step. The simple step is used to reach items strapped to a roof rack or car top carrier. It would be really handy for taller SUVs or CUVs.
Brilliant … now to figure out how to make it or better yet, where to buy it.
Posted By RichC on August 6, 2018
I was reminded in a tweet last week (below) of an inspirational book and story I read as a young boy growing up in Ohio. The book and story was that of the transatlantic 
voyage of Tinkerbelle (book of the same name) was made by Robert Manry back in 1965. He was a copywriter at the Cleveland Plain Dealer in Ohio and added to the interest for a semi-landlocked boy interested in seafaring adventures.
In part, Manry’s voyage (and that of Robin Lee Graham’s on Dove and others) spurred on my sailing interest. I nagged and encouraged my parents to buy our first sailboat (the “Fiberpile” — satirical nicknamed by a sailing friend) which gave me enough sailing exposure to “get my feet wet,” although growing up and boating on Lake Erie didn’t hurt. Great memories … although I’m spending too much time remembering life and looking back and not enough looking forward to my next 30 or so years!
Tinkerbelle in the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum. April 2018
Posted By RichC on August 5, 2018
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Posted By RichC on August 4, 2018
This was posted back in 2016 and thought it was great advice for all of us to read again … whether working in the media, in our personal day-to-day interactions or posting on social networks.
My daughter starts middle school tomorrow. We’ve decorated her locker, bought new uniforms, even surprised her with a new backpack. But tonight just before bed, we did another pre-middle school task that is far more important than the others.
I gave her a tube of toothpaste and asked her to squirt it out onto a plate. When she finished, I calmly asked her to put all the toothpaste back in the tube. She began exclaiming things like “But I can’t!” and “It won’t be like it was before!” I quietly waited for her to finish and then said the following:
“You will remember this plate of toothpaste for the rest of your life. Your words have the power of life or death. As you go into middle school, you are about to see just how much weight your words carry. You are going to have the opportunity to use your words to hurt, demean, slander and wound others. You are also going to have the opportunity to use your words to heal, encourage, inspire and love others. You will occasionally make the wrong choice; I can think of three times this week I have used my own words carelessly and caused harm. Just like this toothpaste, once the words leave your mouth, you can’t take them back. Use your words carefully. When others are misusing their words, guard your words. Make the choice every morning that life-giving words will come out of your mouth. Decide tonight that you are going to be a life-giver in middle school. Be known for your gentleness and compassion. Use your life to give life to a world that so desperately needs it. You will never, ever regret choosing kindness.”
Posted By RichC on August 3, 2018
After impressing almost all analysis with their quarterly report, stock buyers continued to buy $AAPL stock on Thursday making Apple the most valuable company. I watched the coverage on and off all afternoon on Fox Business and the party atmosphere and giddy excitement reminded me of the same dot.com partying in the late 1990s. Oh to have kept my shares in this company the many times I’ve owned it … instead I have a bunch of practically worthless Apple stuff!
The company’s market cap rose above $1 Trillion in value proving they are doing enough things right to have people want to own $AAPL stock and closed at $207.39, up $5.89 or 3%.
Posted By RichC on August 2, 2018
Perhaps it is a sign of the times, but with all the political hate and violence over someone expressing their first amendment point of view, I had to second guess myself in wanting to add my NRA renewal stickers to my cars. In the end, I added them to the old Mercedes and BMW X5 35d, but avoided making Brenda a potential target since she has to park her car in a retail parking lot. It is too bad we even have to give our freedom of expression a second thought … especially for something as basic at support for the 2nd Amendment. Very sad.
Posted By RichC on August 2, 2018
I have, and do, support a few crowd funded projects — I’ve placied preorders taking on risk and see it as taking a small scale venture capital risk (without much reward). A couple bigger investments 
have been Elio and MagFast. The latter posts weekly, and relatively personal updates via YouTube video, on how the process is going> Since I supported the previous ThingCharger and saw their first company struggle with growing pains and eventual failure, I feel that I’m part of the family business.
Seymour Segnet shared a little bit of his history (including the failure) and an updated "best guess" timeline for their newest Magfast Charging system project. This is something I wish Elio Motors would be better at doing (below is his long winded, but worthwhile for me since I’ve been onboard since 2013, presentation as to the past and current timeline.)
Posted By RichC on August 1, 2018
Brenda and I had a good time talking to our millennial son Taylor and his girlfriend Megan last weekend. In contrast to our usually politically deteriorating topics of conversation (like his dad, Taylor loves to debate), it was a very enjoyable time. He picked up some shrimp and brought over the ingredients to make us dinner which was probably the best tasting meal I’ve had all year — what a great cook (and it was pretty much ALL Taylor!)
Most of our conversation was around house-hunting as he has been looking at interesting properties and pondering buying his first house. I’m hoping he doesn’t feel forced into buying “just anything” since besides the unrealistic pressure of age and doing what peers are doing, he is feeling as if the prices and bidding battles on listed properties makes houses more attractive than they are — the “if someone else wants it, I better bid on it too” competition. I know he wants to buy and own a house in the high taxed and higher price urban Cincinnati area, but since he is “the county planner” for Clermont County just east of Cincinnati, I think his smartest move would be to use that knowledge to make a smart buy where he knows all the players. 
We discussed his desire to get into property development and conversation with a respected older (70 year old) developer about how he started in the business and what his advice might be. Very smart.
The fun conversation ended with Taylor telling me that he things he may have found a fun “side hustle.” I’ve bugged him about doing something that makes money in his free time rather than spending it or sitting around playing video games. He was excited to share giving the new Bird scooter 
business a try — very exciting and at least fun. Who knows, might even generated some spending money?
Bird electric scooters ruffle city officials’ feathers with surprise launch
Posted By RichC on July 31, 2018
I’ve mentioned GroupBibleStudy.com before as a website I work on and have helped develop for my friend Pastor Keith Thomas, but didn’t realize I’ve been doing it for 7 years — shocker. It is now time to hand it over to a new volunteer … and I’m finding it difficult to relinquish control, but also know Keith would love to keep his life’s work “in the family” — his daughter will be helping him.
His millennial and tech savvy daughter Anna has volunteered to give the site a makeover and politely argued her point that the “current WordPress CMS site was not up to modern mobile web design standards” (all true). Keith and I often chat about a refreshed look that would be more mobile friendly, but likely because we are both older and set in our ways, we hated the current “Google-forced” look without everything on the front page and at our fingertips.
Time will tell if the new look will pass muster with readers around the world … comments and analytics. No matter, I ‘m glad to have fresh and younger blood wanting to share the Gospel and am hoping Keith’s daughter enjoys helping her dad continue to share the Word while learning web design as a possible career?
Posted By RichC on July 30, 2018
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