My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on January 13, 2018

Google Maps view of the space D-8 that will be Encore’s new dock

After hauling Encore last year for some much needed out-of-water bottom work, I’m hoping to relaunch and have her back in the water in February for the improving weather this upcoming spring. But with such few trips and infrequent sailing, I’m torn between keeping her and testing the market with a FSBO sign? 

Having owned and worked on her for the last several years planning for our "great escape" and thinking Brenda and I would be able to fly down to Florida and sail regularly before we fully retire, I’m starting to have my doubts? "Realistically," we are still a few years from retirement and health insurance when not working (Medicare) … and are currently both enjoying our very comfortable home, granddaughter and family who are now all in Ohio.  What to do, what to do???

So for now, I’ll buy a little more time, try to enjoy life and escape now and then to the boat when possible – it’s really not all that bad!

Category: Personal, Sailing, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: dock, encore, florida, harbortown, marina, planning, sailboat

Posted By RichC on January 12, 2018

Testing and tweaking the Handbrake software I use for video encoding and am hoping to improve the .MP4 compression settings for MyDesultoryBlog and others. The test video is an 18 sec knife sharpening iPhone clip and the new setting should average about 25-30 MB per minute at full 30 frame/sec at a reasonable 1280 x720 full screen size video.
 

Category: Blogs, Computer, Software, Video | No Comments »
Tags: compression, handbrake, iphone, knife, mp4, sharpening, tech friday, techfriday, testing, video

Posted By RichC on January 12, 2018

Last spring I was so disgusted with the Time Warner to Spectrum change for cable and Internet along with their price increase that I switched to Cincinnati Bell Fioptics. The painful rewiring and equipment switch worked to my favor and lower the bill with the help of a representative that handled everything as if he knew exactly what I wanted and needed. I could not have been happier.

Fast forward 9 months and whatever goodwill Cincinnati Bell Fioptics had going for themselves from the customer service perspective they lost with a series of increases to our bill. December to January the "loss of a rebate" as it was explained, along with a "bundle increase" caused my bill to go up 12.5%. Then unknown to me, the next bill was also going to see another 6% increase meaning an 18% jump in 2 months. This was one of my biggest gripes with TWC and Spectrum!  After complaining to a foreign sounding  representative, "Markus" was able to magically waive part of the upcoming increase until the end 2018 (so he says, we’ll see?)  So with no change of service on my part, after 9 months of service with the new provider, my monthly cable and internet has gone up 13% from my sign up period and likely would have gone up 18% if I would not have made a fuss. Am I suppose to be happy?

I’m sure I’m not the only one frustrated with how these semi-utility companies operate. It is a lousy way to run a business.

Category: Business, Misc, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: billing, cable, cincinnatibell, customer service, fail, hassles, internet, rant, spectrum, twc

Posted By RichC on January 11, 2018

While eating out on January 9th, I stealthfully pick up the check for a local police officer just as I’ve seen others do in the past. I find a gesture like this is a polite way to let street officers know we have their backs and appreciate them for the tough and often thankless job they are expected to do.

The conversation at our table turned to the challenges law enforcement officers face in dealing with not only the criminals, but the “political correct” and in my opinion overly soft approach they are expected to use when dealing with uncooperative hoodlums. It is hard enough for officers in the US to do the job when having to overthink when to use physical force … but it would be so much worse to be expected to function as law enforcement in the UK (video snippet below) where criminals know the police don’t even carry the tools (let alone have much political backing) when the use of force becomes necessary. I’m thankful most communities around me back our police give them what they need to keep themselves and the public safe in most encounters.

Category: Misc, Politics, Video | 1 Comment »
Tags: blue ribbon, bluelivesmatter, british, cops, enforcement, law, police, video

Posted By RichC on January 10, 2018

Bits and pieces are still arriving from my Christmas shopping. Sometimes I forget that not every company/individual doing business online is shipping with the efficiency we become accustom to with Amazon and other big online retail sites.

In any case, one of the gifts I assembled was an emergency kit that included survival items we hope never to need, but that would be nice to have if public services are unavailable for any length of time. After doing research on a water purification set-up, besides including water purification tablets, I opted for the Sawyer Mini Filter to Smartwater bottle hack  – because Brenda still buys plastic water bottles, against my protest and grumbling).

(more…)

Category: Archive, Health, Misc, Shopping, Video | No Comments »
Tags: amazon, ebay, filter, hack, prepper, shipping, smartwater, video, water, youtube

Posted By RichC on January 9, 2018

Category: Automotive, Social Media, Video | No Comments »
Tags: driving, facebook, snow, tesla, towing, truck, winter

Posted By RichC on January 8, 2018

Our Amazon Echo Dot Christmas gift is the gift that keeps on giving now that I’m learning new “skills.” There isn’t anything earth-shattering it is currently doing, but the “easy” interface to Amazon’s cloud server for content and function may be limitless … at least looking into the future. It is an impressive device; perhaps other “voice assistance” gadgest are just as impressive?

Music playing is a core function of the Echo, but that would be too simple to mention in this post — but it does a fine job of finding and playing Amazon Prime Music (we are Prime connected). Frankly I still prefer Pandora and the Echo is well connected to my 50+ channels. Surprisingly, this Amazon device plays Pandora (free) without commercials just like Pianobar on the Raspberry Pi (nice), unlike my iPhone, iPad and computer. iHeartRadio works well too. Spotify … nope, not unless you subscribe to their premium service.

Back to today’s MusicMonday connection. One of the connected Alexa “skills” that my son-in-law sent me happens to be a bible study podcast that I enjoy call Truth for Life by Alistair Begg (he was our pastor at Parkside Church when we lived in Hudson, Ohio). It is excellent for those quiet times reflecting and studying the word of God. I tried it out on Sunday and enjoyed following along in another of my new gifts, the Alistair Begg edition of Spurgeon Study Bible (thank you Katelyn, Drew and Annalyn).

Alistair, who has the obvious accent from growing up across the pond, closed Sunday’s podcast with a reference to The Beatles and their title song from their album Help!

How apropos for Music Monday.

Category: Alexa, Audio, Music, Raspberry Pi, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: Alexa, alistair begg, amazon, beatles, bible, christian, echo, help, music monday, musicmonday, spurgeon, study, truth for life

Posted By RichC on January 7, 2018

After tweaking WordPress last week with AMP plugins, I noticed several posts were missing their schedules. I added a Schedule Post Trigger plug-in that corrected that issue, but never deactivated it after removing both AMP plug-ins.

This past weekend, scheduled posts were not triggered at the correctly dated times so am testing with this post after deactivating.

Category: Blogs | No Comments »
Tags: plugins, test, testing, wordpress

Posted By RichC on January 7, 2018

This content is restricted.

Category: Archive, Personal, Photos, Video | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, drew, family, granddaughter, john deere, katelyn, Photos, video

Posted By RichC on January 6, 2018

Filling space with a 22 second video clip and testing “autoplay” and “loop.”

Category: Video, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: ocean, sports, surfing, video, waves, windsurfing