My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on December 22, 2024

Part of me wonders why I continue to post “something” … “anything” … on the MDB pages everyday? Perhaps it is habit or an addictive obsession, but then again I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used it as a way to track my family life as a timeline.

As the years roll by (I started blogging in 2005), the posts have become more personal and reflect and record  moments and events. Still, I tend to fill space and empty days with odds and ends fillers … and with whatever “desultory” thoughts that are on my mind. 

Hopefully those who regularly check in are not deterred from visiting again and have learned to put up with the odds things that have filled up my life for almost 20 years of blogging.

The phases over time are somewhat sentimental  to me … but here’s the short list of what topics have interested me:

1. Cars and in particular small Volkswagen TDI diesels
2. Aviation, the experimental aircraft building (EAA) 
3. Biodiesel and homebrewing recycled cooking oil 
4. Printing, publishing, sales and business while phasing out my work life
5. Reading, books, history and topics of interest
6. Entertainment, movies and of course music
7. Kids, Family, School, College, Weddings, Funerals and milestones
8. Sailing, hiking, backpacking, vacations and recreation
9. Faith, Politics and life advice
10. Hobbies, photography, workshop tools and woodworking
11. The general news of the day and miscellaneous thoughts
12. And to make this list an even dozen: Computers, smartphones and technology

_ _ _

Category: Blogs, Misc, Personal | No Comments »
Tags: blog, blogging, life, mdb, phases, posts

Posted By RichC on December 21, 2024

Where should you work — for the government or their private counterpart?

From economist Stephen Moore:

According to @RealEJAntoni‘s recent analysis, the cost of state and local government employees is a staggering 41.7% higher than their private sector counterparts. 

While wages are 24.4% higher, the real kicker is benefits—an astonishing 83.0% more!

Category: Financial, Human Interest, Politics, Social Media | No Comments »
Tags: benefits, career, comparison, government, pay, stephen moore, work, x.com

Posted By RichC on December 20, 2024

As a “Stone Age” user of the Apple Macintosh computer, it is always surprising to stumble upon a feature or shortcut that I didn’t know about.

Command-click the files to Quick Look

I often use the Quick Look spacebar shortcut (2007) to preview a file in a folder, but until reading an iBoysoft article this month, did not know about the Command-Y shortcut for previewing multiple files at a time.
 

Wow! So for today’s Tech Friday I’m passing along my learning something new after all these years. 😉

Category: Advice, Apple, Computer, Software, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: Computer, iboysoft, keyboard, macintosh, macos, quick look, shortcuts, tech friday, techfriday

Posted By RichC on December 19, 2024

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is infiltrating almost everything we do on a smartphone, tablet or computer these days. Last week, my X.com feed sent a message that “you should try generating an image of yourself” based on whatever data it collects. I suspect it relies on my profile information, but am not sure what else it “thinks about.” Obviously Grok AI does not dig too deep into my birth date or age (AI generated image below)? 

The “very young” image at least didn’t offend me, but had me contemplating if I should include this in a ThrowBack Thursday #TBT or Tech Friday post? 😊 

EDIT Add: And while I’m tinkering with AI, Apple Intelligence just updated their much ballyhooed AI feature including a Genmoji AI feature. For the fun of it, I used our family as test subjects. Gulp! (below)

(more…)

Category: AI, Art, Social Media, TBT, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: ai, artificial intelligence, grok, image generation, images, TBT, tech friday, techfriday, wikipedia, x.com

Posted By RichC on December 18, 2024

The Federal Reserve is less sure about how much it’ll keep cutting rates after agreeing to a reduction this Wednesday afternoon. Chair Jerome Powell admitted that the decision was a close call (see WSJ and rate chart from 2000-2024 below).

The latest cut, approved by 11 out of 12 Fed voters, will lower the Fed’s benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 4.25% and 4.5%, which is a two-year low.

Investors, traders and the stock market responded with disappointment as they love cheaper money and keeping businesses growing and consumers spending. A lower cost of borrowing sounds great until inflation reappears and debt levels rise (and don’t even get me start on our Federal government’s spending level — insane!)

Category: Financial, News | No Comments »
Tags: borrowing, charts, debt, deficit, dow, federal reserve, indices, nasdaq, rate cut

Posted By RichC on December 18, 2024

I do enjoy checking the Farmer’s Almanac (above) and the Old Farmer’s Almanac for seasonal forecasts (below), but rarely go back to see how accurate they are (although have shared here before). That’s probably their assumption, although they claim to be 80% accurate? 

As has been true in every year since 1792, the newest edition features a healthy dose of wit and wisdom, as well as the Almanac’s much-anticipated, traditionally 80 percent–accurate weather forecasts.

“This winter, temperatures will be up and snowfall down throughout most of the United States,” reports Carol Connare, the Almanac’s editor-in-chief. “While there will still be plenty of chilly temperatures and snow for most slopes, the high heating costs associated with the season shouldn’t hit so hard. We’re predicting a temperate, uneventful winter—potentially a welcome reprieve from the extremes of recent years.”

There will be exceptions, of course. Winter rainstorms will leave Florida, the Deep South, and southern California soaked. Meanwhile, heavy snowfall is expected in central and southern Appalachia, the western Ohio Valley, and the Rockies—calling all skiers and sledders!

See the General Weather Report in The 2025 Old Farmer’s Almanac for more details on predicted atmospheric, solar, and climatic patterns.

LINK

Category: Video, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: farmers almanac, map, mp4, weather, winter, wyze

Posted By RichC on December 17, 2024

It is that time of year … time for Christmas photos … with children and pets?

Well a “dog” in the case of Megan and Taylor, but our granddaughters in the case of Katelyn and Drew. In both cases these 2024 photos belong on in the My Desultory Blog archive.

Here’s one of Gigi with Santa and the Oostra family with the “96 year old mouse” from the unfortunately politically woke Disney corporation ☹️ — Mickey Mouse from Disney on Ice “Find Your Hero” show.   

Category: Entertainment, Holiday, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: christmas, disney, drew, gigi, girls, granddaughers, katelyn, megan, mickey mouse, petsmart, santa, taylor, wikipedia

Posted By RichC on December 16, 2024

It is probably time for me to start listening to Christmas music, but I’m still stuck on SiriusXM “The Bridge” and stumbled across another great song from my high school and college years.

So for today’s Music Monday, here’s a song by the Stills-Young Band (Stephen Stills and Neil Young) from 1976 called “Long May You Run.” Enjoy!
  

Category: Music | No Comments »
Tags: long may you run, music monday, musicmonday, neil young, siriusxm, stephen stills, thebridge, wikipedia

Posted By RichC on December 15, 2024

Click image of landscape pond from back in 2008 when we
asphalted the rear driveway. Both have aged. ☹️

My mistake this past month was when it came to scrubbing some of the waterfall area off and using Dawn dishwashing soap … whoops! Not a big deal, but it still has creating an offseason soapy looking landscape pond. 😊 

As for some interesting social media advertising, I thought a couple freebie ads of the year were by President-Elect Donald Trump (McDonalds) and Argintina’s President Javier Milei (Stihl). 

Category: Human Interest, Marketing, Photos, Politics | No Comments »
Tags: $MCD, advertising, dawn, dishwashing, donald trump, javier milei, landscape, mcdonalds, pond, president, soap, stihl, wikipedia

Posted By RichC on December 14, 2024

Although I’m glad the 2024 presidential election is behind us in the United States (and hope Kamala Harris becomes a lost memory), there’s a lot of angst in our country and in the world over the political direction and change.  I’m cautiously, optimistic that a Trump administration will have a foreign policy that leads to less war and killing (peace through strength) and that it will economically gives the United States an opportunity to innovate and grow our economy again (and shrink government — but call me dubious). I know, it is a tall order.

A concerning chart was floating around on social media from Financial Times (FT.com) early this month and it points out a significant change over the years in the difference between young men and women’s political ideology. One thing looks clear to me, men worldwide tend to trend more conservative and women are becoming more liberal … or in current day U.S. political speak, progressive. Hm, why the dichotomy?

I saw a long post from Kevyn Nightingale, a Canadian, on Quora.com but will only include the last couple of paragraphs:

Progressives believe the government can make the world better. A large number of us reject that premise. That’s part of what happened with the election of Donald Trump (no, I didn’t vote for him; I’m Canadian).

So here we are. In America today, “liberals” are modern-day socialists, of varying stripes. “Progressives” are just those on the left-er end of that spectrum. “Socialists” like Bernie Sanders are further out than that; they look for a system like those in the Nordic countries.

Conservatives are everybody else. Libertarians mostly hang out with conservatives, because they’re willing to accept them into the tent. That’s mostly a blue-team vs red-team thing, though. And because so many American conservatives are religiously oriented, the red team will always contain significant tension.

LINK

Category: Human Interest, Politics, Social Media | No Comments »
Tags: conservative, liberal, men, Politics, progressive, women, world