My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on January 3, 2018

Before sending another check to the guy I have doing some bottom work on Encore, I really need to inspect the work. I don’t want him to stop working, but I don’t want bottom paint slapped on the new epoxy fiberglass repair before double checking the layers, fairing and keel work and epoxy barrier coats either, so I’ve been checking airfares daily – yesterday I spotted a cheap flight that should work.

Of course I’m not sure when the work will be to the stage of checking, but mid-January was a"target date." Between work and scheduled activity, I’m not sure, but this $25 fare back to fly back from Fort Lauderdale after driving down was the only one on Southwest had left in January so I grabbed it. Gas for the drive down will cost far more than airfare, as will the Uber ride to get to FLL. I only wish the bill for the work on the boat was going to be that inexpensive! It’s a good thing I’ll be saving money staying at the "Jones Motel" on the drive down … their hotel rates never change! (it is great to have such wonderful friends … I can’t wait to see Mark and Dar!)

Category: Aviation, Friends, Misc, Sailing, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: dar, encore, flights, florida, friends, jones, mark, southwest, Travel

Posted By RichC on January 2, 2018

Ok … so this nautical fix has not been endorsed by my wife, in fact, she will not be seen with me from wearing these pants in public ever again … although like most women,  I’m not sure she is fond of cargo pants anyway?

My Eddie Bauer flannel lined winter cargo pants are a go to favorite when the temperatures are at or below zero, but the zipper fly broke the other day. They are only one-half season and are hard to justify throwing them out … nor can I will good conscience expect an exchange. Sewing in a new zipper is beyond my expertise and Brenda would say her time is worth more that fixing my pants – probably true?

Not to be dissuaded I started down the Velcro path and decided instead to "play" with my Sailrite  Snap Fastener Kit instead (always looking for an excuse to bring sailing into a fix). Unfortunately the shiny silver snap is hard to get beyond with a tucked in shirt … but pulling over a fleece or untucked shirts are pretty easy when dressing casual in the winter. I’m calling this fix a success even if sewing it a Velcro fly would have been a better choice.

Category: Misc, Photos, Sailing, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: cargo, eddie bauer, fix, pants, repair, sailrite, snap

Posted By RichC on January 1, 2018

Happy New Year 2018 to all those following or reading MyDesultoryBlog … thank you.

A regular inclusion each year has been the Lake Superior State University Annual List of Banished Words. This is their 43rd year of doing it and there are some welcomed ones in this year’s list — highlighting the ones that bug me most!

Unpack – Misused word for analyze, consider, assess. Concepts or positions are not packed, so they don’t need to be unpacked.

Tons – Refers to an exaggerated quantity, as in tons of sunshine or tons of work. ‘Lots’ would surely suffice.

Dish – As in to dish out the latest rumor on someone. Let’s go back to ‘talks about’ and leave dishes in the cupboard.

Pre-owned – What is so disgraceful about owning a used car now and then?

Onboarding / Offboarding – Creature from the HR Lagoon. We used to have hiring, training and orientation. Now we need to have an “onboarding” process. Firings, quitting, and retirements are streamlined into “offboarding.”

Nothingburger – Says nothing that ‘nothing’ doesn’t already. I’ll take a quarter-pound of something in mine.

Let that sink in – One could say shocking, profound, or important. Let that sink in.

Let me ask you this – Wholly unnecessary statement. Just ask the question already.

Impactful – A frivolous word groping for something ‘effective’ or ‘influential.’

Covfefe – An impulsive typo, born into a 140-character universe, somehow missed by the autocorrect feature.

Drill Down – Instead of expanding on a statement, we “drill down on it.”

Fake News – Once upon a time stories could be empirically disproved. Now ‘fake news’ is any story you disagree with.

Hot Water Heater – Hot water does not need to be heated. ‘Water heater’ or ‘hot water maker’ will keep us out of hot water.

Gig Economy – Gigs are for musicians and stand-up comedians. Now expanded to imply a sense of freedom and a lifestyle that rejects tradition in a changing economic culture. Runs a risk of sharecropping.

Category: Blogs, Holiday, Misc, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: 2018, annual, banished, list, lssu, new year, words

Posted By RichC on December 31, 2017

After installing Cloudflare in hope of adding another layer of security to WordPress blogs, I noticed a couple issues with sluggishness compared to my own DNS. I wish it were quicker, but something isn’t right since instead all aspects seems slower after switching. Even after bypassing the caching feature things continued to run slow. Once back to my own DNS and separate Comet Cache, speed is back to normal. The only concerns is the 11 threats detected in a 24 hour period. Hm? Perhaps I should give a another try?

Category: Blogs, Computer, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: blog, cache, comet, dns, mydesultoryblog, speedtest, tweaks, wordpress

Posted By RichC on December 31, 2017

Let’s end 2017 with a kitchen cabinets knob repair. One of the changes to our new kitchen were the crystal looking knobs … Brenda felt they were too small. So we added larger ones, but the adhesive they used is not as solid as it should be, so out comes the epoxy and clamped in my bench (below).
 
Speaking of epoxy, I put together an "Epoxy Bucket" with every kind of adhesive, tape, stick’em that I could think of, along with rags, brushes, mixing cup and sticks for Taylor and Drew. I suspect it will be one of those handy items when needing to make a home repair – I use epoxy all the time and even probably when it is the the right "fix" for the job! HA!

Category: Misc, Personal, Photos, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: adhesive, epoxy, fixes, glue, kitchen, repair

Posted By RichC on December 30, 2017

This content is restricted.

Category: Personal, Photos, Video | No Comments »
Tags: annalyn, babysitting, boatshoe, boatshoes, drew, family, howard, katelyn, ohio, perrysburg, sperry, topsider, topsiders

Posted By RichC on December 29, 2017

In the world of community supported software and Internet applications, there are few better than those associated with the Linux Foundation Collaborative Projects … like Let’s Encrypt. The latter provides HTTPS certificates that are perfect for lightweight Linux OS webservers and it operates on a "donate" for certs services basis.

This month Let’s Encrypt plans on offering the highly requested Wildcard Certificates which will help sites using subdomains as a way to access the server. If I ever get Quickdex.com up and running, I’m hoping to use MongoDB to set up users with their subdomains. A project for the future.

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Category: Advice, Blogs, Computer, Raspberry Pi, Software, Technology, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: blog, https, letsencrypt, linux, security, ssh, ssl, tech friday, techfriday, website

Posted By RichC on December 28, 2017

My daughter and son-in-law, who moved back to Ohio in 2017, send me occasional updates from my "birth" city and the surrounding area. This past week the Toledo Blade reflected on 2017 in the "glass city" with its Finding Nellie illustration and included the Promedica Promenade Park revitalization … with Drew’s dad dancing in the center of the illustration.

Smiles aside, those who suffered through the decades of urban decline in Toledo are now enjoying a very strong urban and suburban rebound. NW Ohio residents and local businesses must be pleased with the dedication and teamwork of city and business leaders in bringing back their city. Hopefully the growth will continue in 2018 and make  residents (and former residents) proud to call Toledo their hometown.

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Category: Archive, Business, Human Interest, Misc, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: blade, nellie, newspaper, ohio, oostra, promedica, promenade, toledo

Posted By RichC on December 27, 2017

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Category: Archive, Holiday, Personal, Photos, Video | 2 Comments »
Tags: annalyn, brenda, christmas, corbett, drew, family, katelyn, rich, taylor

Posted By RichC on December 26, 2017

California Gray Whale watching is on most ocean lovers "want to do list" but few have up close and personal opportunities like this. Part of me wants whales to "fear" humans and keep their distance (for their own protections and survival), where another part of me loves seeing the bond between mammals and knowing the sensitivity helps make us "want" to protect whales from commercial whaling operations for little economic gain.

Humans and killer whales (orcas) are the adult gray whale’s only predators Aboriginal hunters, including those on Vancouver Island and the Makah in Washington, have hunted gray whales.

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Gray whales have been granted protection from commercial hunting by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 1949, and are no longer hunted on a large scale. Limited hunting of gray whales has continued since that time.

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According to the Government of Canada’s Management Plan for gray whales, threats to the eastern North Pacific population of gray whales include:[133] increased human activities in their breeding lagoons in Mexico, climate change, acute noise, toxic spills, aboriginal whaling, entanglement with fishing gear, boat collisions, and possible impacts from fossil fuel exploration and extraction.

Western gray whales are facing, the large-scale offshore oil and gas development programs near their summer feeding ground, as well as fatal net entrapments off Japan during migration, which pose significant threats to the future survival of the population.[31] The substantial nearshore industrialization and shipping congestion throughout the migratory corridors of the western gray whale population represent potential threats by increasing the likelihood of exposure to ship strikes, chemical pollution, and general disturbance.

LINK

Category: Environment, Nature, Photos, Social Media | 1 Comment »
Tags: gentle giants, gray, ocean, Photos, whale, wikipedia