My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on October 23, 2016

It has NOT been an enjoyable campaign season … a very long year and a half! Citizens of voting age in the United States (see Twiitter comment below) voluntarily head to the polls to decide who they want or more appropriately DON’T want as their president for the next 4 years. I doubt I’m alone in holding my nose when filling out my ballot … but tried to have a sense of humor by teasing a friend while hovering over the Green Party candidate (photo). I’m voting absentee this year as I was suppose to be traveling,  but had something even more exciting than the election coming up that made changes to my travel schedule! (stay tuned as I’ll "reveal" that excitement in November)

As a very frustrated conservative voter, I’d generally not do much more than joke about voting for a third party candidate … but this year won’t fault those considering it (so as long as they realize who they are really helping to get elected?) Frankly, if the Libertarians could have gained enough ground, this would have been the year to have challenged our current two party dominated election. It is really too bad Gary Johnson was cornered out of the presidential debates and made a couple gaffes that were the only things to get him any press coverage — besides his openness to legalizing drugs and marijuana use. Looking at both Johnson and Welds’ records as governors, I don’t think they governed as nutty as the media portrays them.

Something to think about below (my Tweet as moderator Chris Wallace closed the 3rd presidential debate on 10/19/2016):

Disagree with Wallace: Voting is NOT an "obligation for those living in this country" , but a "privilege for citizens of this country."

— Rich Corbett (@RichC) October 20, 2016

The point of my disagreement was that 1) you must be a citizen and not just living in this country (federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting) and 2) it is a privilege that can be lost (“a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people” — convicted felons can’t always vote) and that it is not an obligation (“an act to which a person is morally or legally bound.”)

Category: Personal, Photos, Politics, Social Media | No Comments »
Tags: ballot, campaign, clintion, election, johnson, Politics, stein, trump, twitter, voting

Posted By RichC on October 23, 2016

The Indians will host Games 1 and 2 as well as Games 6 and 7 (if necessary), as a result of the American League’s victory in the All-Star Game this past July. Games 3, 4 and 5 will be played at Wrigley Field.

The official schedule for the 2016 World Series (all times Eastern):

Game 1: (Cleveland) Tuesday, Oct. 25, 8 p.m. on FOX

Game 2: (Cleveland) Wednesday, Oct. 26, 8 p.m. on FOX

Game 3: (Chicago) Friday, Oct. 28, 8 p.m. on FOX

Game 4: (Chicago) Saturday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m. on FOX

Game 5*: (Chicago) Sunday, Oct. 30, 8 p.m. on FOX

Game 6*: (Cleveland) Tuesday, Nov. 1, 8 p.m. on FOX

Game 7*: (Cleveland) Wednesday, Nov. 2, 8 p.m. on FOX

*If necessary

Category: Sports | No Comments »
Tags: baseball, chicago cubs, Cleveland Indians, mlb, schedule, world series

Posted By RichC on October 22, 2016

My daughter took her "leased" Juke into the Nissan dealership in Minnesota for a $25 oil change and while it was in the service bay, the service department recommended she do a few additional maintenance items totaling $1200 … "but we can do it all today for a flat $1000" (don’t you just love it when automotive service departments see $$$ when they see a young lady … and you wonder why car dealers get such a bad reputation). Thankfully she gave me a phone call and will have her Drew look up a couple How-To YouTube videos, pick up couple filters online and change them himself.

That reminds me … our Honda Odyssey needs a cabin air filter!

One of the questionable design idiosyncrasies of our 2002 Honda Odyssey minivan is to have purposely blocked the access door for the cabin air filter with structural plastic  … I can only assume it was engineered for better support behind the glove compartment? A sure way to know if the filter has ever been replaced is when you realize the support is still in tack! Someone … my dad … obviously never fell it was important to change the cabin air filter … so after 15 years, I suspect that is is overdue.

After picking up the correct filter (online for me), is to remove the glovebox. A couple tabs can be push into the box cavity from the sides. Next, remove the 2 small bolts under the box holding the hinges in place.

The glovebox drops out and offers an open view of the air handling components behind. Be sure not to lose the small clips that are used for the hinges … they can drop into the plastic that surrounds the footwell (don’t ask how I know this).

The next step is to note the Honda prepared notches in each side of the plastic support and use a tool to snip or cut the "unnotched" sections. I used wire snips but instead of playing with my hot knife (far cleaner) … I ended up cutting them with a cut-off wheel on my 4-1/2" grinder. If you dislike dust, avoid using the cut off wheel.

There are a couple more fasteners that hold the metal bracket behind the cut out plastic and to access the cabin filter door, this will need to be removed too … but you will replace this bracket. The surrounding plastic dash trim will not need to be removed, but you will need to pry it and flex it a bit in order to get a socket and fingers to the fasteners holding this bracket in place. I used a wadded up rag to hold the flexed plastic trim out of the way.

Once out of the way, the "snapped on door" pops off and the old cabin filter can be slid out. Having a snooted vacuum is helpful in getting this opening cleaned out.

The end of the new filter is marked for airflow direction, so be sure to keep the arrows aligned and going from right to left.

Put the snap on door back in place removing or replacing any degraded foam gasket … and replace all but the plastic support that was cut out.

By the way … a cabin air filter can be pretty dirty after 15 years. Ugh!

Category: Advice, Archive, Automotive, How-To | No Comments »
Tags: air, cabin, filter, honda, How-To, juke, katelyn, maintenance, nissan, odyssey, service

Posted By RichC on October 21, 2016

Twitter status above illustrating second attack shutting down services.

The cyber threat continues … as  a second wave cripples some of the biggest domain names through Dyn (Manchester, NH), a company that provide DNS services for connecting domain names to IP addresses. Dyn said it had resolved one attack, which disrupted operations for about two hours, but disclosed a second attack a few hours later that was causing further disruptions.

Homeland Security last week issued a warning about a powerful new approach for blocking access to websites – hackers infecting routers, printers, smart TVs and other connected devices with malware that turns them into "bot" armies that overwhelm website servers in distributed denial of service attacks.

Yahoo Finance

As of this post at 2PM EST on 10/21 … Dyn is still limping along under the deluge. Level3 map after first attack early Friday morning below:

Category: Computer, News, Technology | 1 Comment »
Tags: attack, computers, cyber, domain, dos, dyn.com, internet, security

Posted By RichC on October 21, 2016

TIM BERNERS LEE REGRETS THE DOUBLE SLASH

Given what Sir Tim did for all of us when he developed HTML and created the World Wide Web, he’s got a fair amount of credit in the bank. If he did have any major regrets about the web, we wouldn’t find it too difficult to forgive him, but his mea culpa relates to only two characters, the ‘//’ at the beginning of every web address. “Really, if you think about it, it doesn’t need the //. I could have designed it not to have the //,” he said, according to Business Insider.

Category: Computer, History, Innovation, Technology, Tidbits | No Comments »
Tags: Business, double slash, insider, internet, tech friday, tim berners lee

Posted By RichC on October 20, 2016

How about hanging chairs on the walk (not so you can sweep the floors), but for added storage and clothes hanging space? You’ll probably not see me doing that, but you might catch me working on this kind of project … at least for my workshop or garage! (See newspip)

Category: Misc, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: chairs, clothes, creative, hanging, newspip, upcycling, wrench, wrenches

Posted By RichC on October 20, 2016

It was a great series for the Cleveland Indians and #believeland fans. After only a moment of doubt (last night), the team effort by the Indians made both the series against the Boston Red Sox (3-0) and the championship series against a power hitting bunch from Toronto … the BlueJays (4-1).

Tuesday afternoon’s 4th win for the Indians was in pitching dominance style as the BlueJays were kept from scoring … ziltch, notta, nothing!  Andrew Miller, Cleveland’s closer, was a shoe-in for the MVP … and well deserved. He was absolutely outstanding.

Now Cleveland will face the National League champs … either the Dodgers or the Cubs. I’m guessing that the majority of Major League Baseball fans are secretly rooting for Chicago? A Cubs/Indians World Series would be fantastic.

Category: Sports | 1 Comment »
Tags: alcs, baseball, believeland, bluejays, cleveland, indians, rallytogether, toronto

Posted By RichC on October 19, 2016

Wouldn’t you know, about the time the Cubs find themselves inching closer to a World Series (drought since 1908), the Logmein FREE cloud storage component know as Cubby is being retired. I highlight "free" since paying PRO customers will continue to keep their storage.

For me, Cubby has been a regular file exchange option, although far from the best. Still it has been quick and reliable on all devices from iOS devices to Mac and Windows based computers. Let’s hope the retiring of the cloud based "Cubbies" is not an omen when it comes to the Chicago Cubbies in their National League Championship Series with the Dodgers.

It is time to move stored files to another cloud storage service (FAQs regarding moving here and their "shutdown on November 16, 2016" announcement below).

For those using more than one paid or free cloud storage services, check out odrive.

YouTube video on how to save and move files from your Cubby.

Category: Advice, Cloud, Computer, Sports | 1 Comment »
Tags: chicago cubs, cloud, cubby, free, logmein, odrive, storage, world series

Posted By RichC on October 18, 2016

Maybe it is just me being a little nervous, but there are a lot of potential triggers for panic. The craziest presidential election I’ve ever seen, a stock market that has risen longer than average between recessions (with tepid economic growth), unrest in the middle east (of course always on fire) and both the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians still looking at a World Series run??? (drought chart below)

Category: Financial, Politics, Sports | No Comments »
Tags: baseball, chicago, cleveland, economy, election, surprise, vanguard, world series

Posted By RichC on October 17, 2016

Rumors are swirling that something or someone has started triggering the Wikileaks "Deadman’s Switch," which has been put in place if something should happen to founder Julian Assange.

Some suspect that a "state party" intentionally severing of his Internet link was more than just someone attempting to silence the release of more incriminating emails, which Assange claims would "sink Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid" (Assange’s "death" was also rumored but not confirmed). Others suspect that Julian Assange is being hack by a large cyber attack … likely a government (currently the U.S. is the most likely ‘state party’) considering that Hillary Clinton, her operatives, Democrat and those in power are currently being hurt by Wikileaks leaking emails. — LINK

Julian Assange's internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 17, 2016

Category: News, Politics | 1 Comment »
Tags: deadman, emails, hillary clinton, julian assange, switch, wikileaks