My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on April 28, 2018

While on the subject of reading and books (after posting about Robert Kurson’s Rocket Men a couple days ago), I realized I didn’t really share much a book I read a couple years ago (mentioned briefly in 2016). Star Sand by Roger Pulvers  (May 2016) is currently a free Kindle download for Amazon Prime customers and is my favorite book from the last couple of years … followed closely by Dr. Francis Collins book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. They are totally different types of books … but both excellent.

Star Sand is based on a fictional diary that was found in a cave on a small Japanese island more than a decade after World War II along with the remains of three people. The story begins with a 16 year old Japanese girl named Hiromi collecting star sand — fossilized star on the shore — when she sees two deserters from the army. They were holed up in a cave and she decides to care for these sick and starving men. The journal ends without resolution … until in 2011 a university student decides to investigate who the bodies found along side the journal in 1958 might be. The search leads her to a survivor and brings closure to the enjoyable story. It was easy to mistakenly read as if the story was true … helped by the fact I do not read much fiction anymore.

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Category: Books, History | No Comments »
Tags: amazon, Books, favorite, kindle, prime, reading, roger pulvers, star sand

Posted By RichC on April 27, 2018

As someone who appreciates a good chart or graphic to illustrate a point, here is a great "Chart of the Week" posted to CNBC’s website this week. The article highlights where the "three comma club" super wealthy keep their money … compared to the rest of us. The graphic looks at the asset distribution for each tier of net worth.

Category: Financial, Human Interest | No Comments »
Tags: asset, cnbc, infographic, investing, wealth

Posted By RichC on April 26, 2018

Routine: Alarm at 5:50AM, brew coffee, fix oatmeal, shower then shave (probably backwards), watch/listen to news and business information by tuning into Morning with Maria on FoxBusiness  (Gen Jack Keane‘s reflection on iPhone in photo left earlier this week).

I’m probably not the only one who is more comfortable having a morning routine than winging it … or if stated negatively, being stuck in a rut. On the other hand, that is how I am wired.

Category: Human Interest, Misc, News, Personal, Productivity | No Comments »
Tags: comfort, fox business, life, mornings, routine

Posted By RichC on April 25, 2018

We live in a highly partisan time, where our differences seem to matter more than our similarities … they shouldn’t. So as can happen after the passing of the highly respected First Lady Barbara Bush, age 92 last week, people and leaders come together to show their respect for her and her family. It is good to know the nation and its politicians can still come together … even if it is for a very short time. The Paul Morse photo below does my patriotic self good.

President George H. W. Bush is in our prayers as he was hospitalized after the funeral for his wife. He is talking but in intensive care according to multiple news reports.

Obituary: Barbara Bush – Jun 8, 1925 – Apr 17, 2018

Barbara Bush, the former first lady of the United States, died April 17, 2018, at the age of 92.

Her death, which came shortly after Bush decided not to undergo further medical treatments for congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, was announced in a statement from the office of her husband, former President George H. W. Bush.

One of the world’s most recognizable women in the 1980s and ’90s, Barbara Bush presented a grandmotherly image that hid an iron will and strong determination to help her family succeed. And succeed they did — all the way to the top, more than once.

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Category: Obituary, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: barbara bush, first lady, leaders, Obituary, politician, president, united states

Posted By RichC on April 24, 2018

This content is restricted.

Category: Faith, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, baby, christian, church, dedication, drew, family, katelyn, waterville

Posted By RichC on April 23, 2018

It is impressive what can be accomplished with a little boldness …

Category: Advice, Humor, Photos, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: ani, boldness, dock, dog, gif, Humor, jefferson, seal, sealion, thomas

Posted By RichC on April 22, 2018

Ordered the book Rocket Men, The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon based on the author Robert Kurson and enjoying the writing style and content in his previous book Shadow Divers. If you enjoy history, space exploration, NASA and the heroic astronauts and scientist that took on the 1960s race to the moon … this book is for you.

In the early chapters, the content triggered my thinking about the the previous generations of Americans who accomplished amazing things in a very short period of time. Mentally I started to think about the amazing decades of 20th century innovations to today’s malaise (last few decades). What incredible building projects we saw from advancement in manufacturing, constructing huge skyscrapers filling US cities, hydroelectric dams and development of the airplane in the early 1900s. America came together in very short order to become the world preeminent military power after being attacked in 1941 in a very few years – amazing what was accomplished. In the decade of the 1950s we created the Interstate Highway System connecting our nation … followed by EVERYTHING that happened all at the same time in the 1960s. We had the near nuclear holocaust with the Soviet Union, racial unrest within our country, a long painful and unpopular war in Vietnam … all the while catching up and surpassing the Soviets in the space race and "choosing to go to the moon in this decade" as President Kennedy so memorably challenged us. 

Then, something changed? Instead of visionary goals and great accomplishment, we seemed to lose our ambition and drive of achievement. We sat back in our comfort, became wasteful and self-absorbed. Instead of leaders dangling carrot and encouraging each of us to be our best, government made it too easy to "just get by" without much effort.  Years turned into decades, and the once inspirational government agencies and programs became bloated bureaucracies. We as a nation sat back on the laurels of our past and patted ourselves on the back. We now we have a significant number of Americans less interested working hard, sacrificing for the future or taking risk. Besides the innovation of a few in technology and building a sharing economy, what great accomplishments have marked America since the Rocket Men?

TIDBIT for the fun of it:
Still one of the most popular posts on my blog is -"Who is Max Peck?" – was a question I asked after reading First Man back in 2005 (note the comment left on my blog to this post from Nancy PECK Coyle below).

Category: Books, History, Space, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: amazon, Books, reading, robert kurson, rocket men, rocketmen

Posted By RichC on April 21, 2018

It is probably the 1958 Packard Hawk photo on this particular Hemmings Daily post that caught my eye, but the article (and follow-up comments) are interesting too. I’ve archived the PDF of this post just in case it disappears.

Photograph by Thomas A. DeMauro

No single factor ever sinks an automaker. The struggle between profits and losses typically has its roots in circumstances suffered from decisions made years, if not decades, prior. Packard, one of the most prestigious American automakers, was no different, and a talk this weekend at the National Packard Museum will examine the various reasons behind its decline and death.

When Packard resumed building cars after World War II, it started from a relatively strong position and had many years of profitable business ahead of it; indeed, in 1949 the company sold nearly 105,000 cars, just short of its own production record. But the bricks in the company’s foundation were already starting to come loose in the late 1940s.

As Michael G.H. Scott pointed out in Packard: The Complete Story, due to a prewar concentration on lower-priced cars, “Packard was now geared for volume production of lower-priced cars” even though “many think Packard might have survived longer had it again concentrated only on the carriage trade after the war” and “the war’s end would have been a fine time for a fresh total-luxury approach.”

READ full article on Hemmings Daily

[adinserter name=”Block 1″]

Category: Automotive, History, Packard | No Comments »
Tags: auto, cars, classic, collector, hawk, hemmings, museum, packard

Posted By RichC on April 20, 2018

Google today launched Chrome 66 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. The desktop release includes autoplaying content muted by default, security improvements, and new developer features. You can update to the latest version now using the browser’s built-in updater or download it directly from google.com/chrome.With over 1 billion users, Chrome is both a browser and a major platform that web developers have to consider. In fact, with Chrome’s regular additions and changes, developers have to keep up …

Source: Chrome 66 arrives with autoplaying content blocked by default

Category: Computer, Technology, Video | No Comments »
Tags: browser, chrome, features, google, internet, tech friday, techfriday, update, venture beat, video, youtube

Posted By RichC on April 19, 2018

Throwback Thursday #TBT: A lot of my free time in high school and college was spent dreaming about sailing living on a sailboat.  I read and reread stories, the monthly magazines and bookshelves of accumulated nautical books about cruising, seamanship and maintaining a sailboat — I was focused on “would be possible for me to live the cruising sailing lifestyle?”

In those early years, there were a few couples who captured making the live-aboard lifestyle (on a shoestring) possible as well as Lin and Larry Pardey. They kept my interest piqued year after year … and renewed it time and time again even as my ordinary life got in the way.

If you’ve read my blog through the years, you would have noticed that I’ve included posts, book segments and videos about the Pardeys before, but including this video leaves me a bit melancholy as we are ALL watching the sand pile grow larger at the bottom of life’s hourglass. Upbeat as always Lin shared a positive comment from Larry, just before his memory completely disappeared. She mention to him a couple years ago that wouldn’t it be nice to have one more sailing adventure … to which he replied … “that would be downright greedy.” What a life they have lived.

Category: Books, Hobby, Memories, Sailing, TBT, Video | No Comments »
Tags: boat building, Books, inspirational, new zealand, pardey, sailboat, TBT, video, youtube