Music Monday: The Drifters and Under the Boardwalk
Posted By RichC on February 5, 2018
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So much for new home theater seating for Super Bowl 52
Posted By RichC on February 4, 2018
This is what I get for procrastinating until this weekend — TWO right hand seats!
The boxes containing the long delayed leather home theater seats (ie. basement flood of 2013) arrived a couple weeks ago but I waited until 
this weekend to unpack since I was out of town last weekend. I unboxed them and started putting the individual seats together thinking it would be nice to have them set up for the Super Bowl with friends on Sunday night — NOPE!
Oh well … we’ll still have enough seats and HOPEFULLY enough food for Super Bowl LII. 
That said, I’m pretty confident Wayfair will correct the issue even if is will be delayed.
Our long delay in finishing the home theater had to do with a minor disagreement between Brenda and I as to how to best get the proper seating into the room. The first problem is that the stairs and door do not permit a full size couch or sectional; we needed separate units.
I was ok with fewer larger/bulky seats and counter high barstool seating behind. Brenda wanted a sectional but it was way too challenging to fit in our space and seat enough people. We compromised with a slightly more compact sized theatre recliner and are putting them in two rows of 4 in order to seat eight in front of our 112" HD video projector (I still like this for a dark basement home theater like ours). Once done, the only two missing pieces will be an actual reflective screen instead of painted wall and a replacement sub-woofer.
Super Bowl LII – New England Patriots vs Philadelphia Eagles
Posted By RichC on February 3, 2018
Once again … those of us who enjoy NFL football are forced to watch the New England Patriots play yet again in a Super Bowl. The last time they met the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl was in 2004, the outcome was 24-21 … which is slightly under margin of victory being predicted this year. Personally I suspect the majority of the country either doesn’t care, or is pulling for the underdog Eagles.
Ask Alexa. Who’s gonna win? 
Date: Feb. 4, 2018
Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
Where: U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
TV: NBC (check local listings)
Stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
Announcers:
- Al Michaels (play-by-play)
- Cris Collinsworth (analyst)
- Michele Tafoya (sideline reporter)
Huge stock market sell-off. The economy is strong. Time to buy?
Posted By RichC on February 2, 2018
I played the “high risk, high reward” game on Friday while watching most if not all stocks collapsed over rising interest rate concerns. It looks more likely that the Federal Reserve may have to be more aggressive in raising rates in order to control inflationary pressures after the jobs report. Unemployment is low, the economy strong and about every business sign is pointing to good times ahead — perhaps that in itself is a worry?
The U.S. economy added a better-than-expected 200,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, its lowest level since December 2000.
The early morning selling continued right into the close on Friday and few seemed to be willing to buy and hold over the weekend … especially as the well telegraphed news of #thememo (PDF) was released to the public. Few analysis tied the concern regarding the obvious anti-Trump political bias and abuse of power at the top level of the FBI to the market sell-off, but I’m sure most traders were paying attention to the news.
Since I recently sold a few stock positions that had run up for no other reason than I was concerned the gains were too fast, I did end up buying back in once again. For the record, I’m back owning Ford ($F). Who knows if buying shares at $10.66 is a near term bottom, but after their recent “miss” and selloff, I’m hoping the negativity was already priced in prior to the panic selling today? It seems to me that at a time consumers are spending, have more money in their paychecks to spend due to tax cuts, having near full employment and those pressures forcing wages to rise (although only slightly) … Ford should at least sell a few cars. We’ll see.
If you own a Mercedes Benz 300D, you know this sound! #humor
Posted By RichC on February 2, 2018
Only an old Mercedes Benz diesel driver can fully appreciate this … very funny.
Hospitality of good friends and a Bundt Cake Breakfast #recipe
Posted By RichC on February 1, 2018
It sure is nice to have friends like Mark and Dar to impose on when traveling … although I KNOW they would say I was invited and was not an imposition (the mark of true friends!) 
They put me up at what I now refer to as the "Jones B&B" as they always feed me AND give me a place to sleep instead of driving non-stop to Florida. So nice. This past "stay" they tried out a new recipe out for breakfast … tell me this doesn’t look great?
Mark and I enjoyed talking into the early morning hours about everything under the sun … including photos and plans from his latest dream of building hunting log cabin on a piece of acreage. He also ended up making copies of a couple recipes so Brenda and I can try making it at home – but I’m almost positive they will not turn out as perfect or taste as good!
Bundt Cake Breakfast (above)
1 cup diced Ham
2 c tater tots…still frozen
1 dozen whisked eggs
1 can (8) Pilsbury Grands biscuits..diced up (raw)
2 c. Cheese…your choice…I used Cheddar
1/4 c milkAll mixed together. Put in greased bundt pan. Bake on 400 degrees for 45 mins. When done flip onto platter and cut and serve
You can use any meat or any veggie you want!!!! The key is not to add too much bread and the tater tots add just the right amount of potatoes…they shred up and you would think they were hash browns without making it dense! I have made this SOOOOO many times and varied the ingredients almost every single time! but this morning these were the simple ingredients I used!!! So get creative!!!! you won’t find this recipe anywhere because, as usual I MADE IT UP!
An impressive final Supermoon of the trilogy (see previous post)
Posted By RichC on January 31, 2018
I haven’t been wielding my camera around much lately as it is so much easier to whip out the iPhone and take a photo or some video … but occasionally there’s a subject that can’t be photographed easily with a smartphone or even with a DSLR. Here was my quick attempt last night with the supermoon on Florida’s Treasure Coast. 
Someone on Twitter suggested the photo was Photoshopped due to the cloud looking as if it were behind the moon, so I posted a screen shot of the raw shots in my folder. 
EDIT 1/31/2018 – Image of the SuperBloodMoon on Wednesday AM from the Griffith Observatory.
Once in a lifetime event – a supermoon trilogy
Posted By RichC on January 31, 2018
| A Supermoon chat with John Rowe & Mike Hasking – 1/31/2018 |
Tonight is your last chance to witness a once in a lifetime lunar event.
A super blue blood moon will be visible in the night’s sky for just over an hour, from 11.50 tonight.
It’s the third in a trilogy of large, red moons caused by the unique position of the moon.
Stardome educator John Rowe told Mike Hosking the trilogy probably won’t happen again this century.
"When these three things come together, super, blue and blood, we won’t be alive. Let’s hope it’s not cloudy."
The last so-called "supermoon trilogy" was in 1866.
Playing games on a smartphone while attending SOTU2018
Posted By RichC on January 31, 2018
What was your representative doing during last night’s State Of The Union address … hopefully not playing Candy Crush on a smartphone like Michigan’s Democratic Representative Brenda Lawrence?
[adinserter name=”Block 1″]
President Trump delivered an optimistic 2018 SOTU address
Posted By RichC on January 30, 2018
With a rebounding economy, strong stock market and job opportunities for all who want to work … there is optimism in the country. President Donald Trump capitalized on the positive attitude most American have and highlighted the recent tax cuts as something all will start to see in their paychecks this year. Besides the IRS taking fewer dollars from middle class workers, employers by the hundreds are giving many of their employees $1000 – $2000 bonuses, wage increases and several are voluntarily increasing their minimum wage. Since he is still talking … reviewing infrastructure spending plans and immigration (both high hurdles), I’ll close for now and finish watching.
Also … this is the first time I’m more impressed with the Twitter streamed video on my computer rather than the hotel BloombergTV coverage (no FoxBusiness or FoxNews). 
(iPhone image of my computer Twitter feed above).
Speech excerpts below:
Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee
- lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
- digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.