My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on December 19, 2013

Gold dropped to a six-month low on Thursday selling off as the Federal Reserve’s pulled back in the U.S. monetary stimulus.  It closed down 2% to $1,196.31/ounce which is the lowest since June 2013. Give credit or blame the Fed which took its first step in winding down the easy money policies which helped to drive gold to record highs in the past few years.

Realistically the Fed’s move on Wednesday to trimmed the pace of its monthly asset purchases was modest. They inched back by $10 billion to $75 billion. With the U.S. central bank also lowering its expectations for both inflation and unemployment over the next few years, concern eased and gold lost value. "A lot of gold investors are anticipating deflation not inflation as a result of the Fed announcement, taking advantage of the downside momentum and shorting gold at least temporarily," said Jeffrey Sica, chief investment officer of New Jersey-based Sica Wealth with over $1 billion in client assets.

Category: Financial | No Comments »
Tags: fed, gold, investing, trading

Posted By RichC on December 18, 2013

When needing to make precise cuts or dadoes on the table saw, I have found that making them from the marine material Starboard is the best (shop around for price). Most likely the experts in woodworking have found other stock that would just as well, like the self-healing cutting board material, but since I had a few extra cut-off from boating projects this worked great for me. I just outline with a pencil from a previous throat plate, rough cut on the bandsaw an finish to fit with a sander … just be careful not to overheat or load up the sanding disk. The material that I used is just thick enough to permit four screws that can be tweaked to offer a perfectly flushed table top surface and the plastic material is both stiff and slick enough for wood to slip nicely, whether using a fence or slide.

Category: Advice, Tools, Woodworking | No Comments »
Tags: saw, table, tips, tools, woodworking, workshop

Posted By RichC on December 17, 2013

It feels better to get WordPress updated to the current 3.8 version, as well as updating all the plug ins. This latest version is named “Parker” in honor of Charlie Parker, but don’t ask me what bebop has to do with blogging? 

Along with getting WP updated, a database optimization and backup was in order as well. Whew, it is nice when it all goes smooth. 

Category: Blogs | No Comments »
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Posted By RichC on December 17, 2013

It has been a busy year with weddings, graduations and new jobs  … and they would have been enjoyed A LOT by my mom, especially if she had better health. Unfortunately her last year of life was difficult — with constant pain, reliance on mind numbing pain medication and the inability to do even relatively simple things. Who wants to live like that? Not me … or in the later months, not mom. Thankfully, she does not have to suffer anymore(12/17/2012).

I miss my mom and remember the simple things she did that demonstrated her love for me. An example was  how she turned my shirt collars. “Huh,” you ask? Well, even though my mom gave up on “darning socks” in the 60s, she continued fixing my shirts and turned the worn collars by re-stitching them “new side up” allowing me to get double the wear out of my shirts. As it is often said, “it is the simple things in life that mean the most.” I love and miss you mom.

Mom (Jeanine Corbett) at home in Sidney Ohio — October in 2010

Category: Personal | No Comments »
Tags: collar, death, life, momc, remembrance, shirt, simple

Posted By RichC on December 16, 2013

Merry Christmas to those who regularly read my “desultory” daily posts or may have just stumbled onto my blog. It has been a busy year and although my Google Analytics stats are no longer growing (they are actually down), the AdSense revenue is up? That aside, I am including more archival information “for me” than being focused on being newsworthy. I attribute the decline in views to more content being read on phones, privacy and cookie blocking in browsers and an overwhelming amount of content available on the Internet … along with my opting to post more “personal content” rather than sharing news about technology and gadgets or information on biodiesel, aviation and Volkswagen TDIs.

As has been my habit in the last few years, I am again including our personal annual Christmas letter as a PDF for those who might be closer friends or family. Not to worry if you are on our Christmas card list though, as Brenda refuses to give up on personal snail mail cards and letters. Either way, you’ll get the message that we want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a and healthy and Happy New Year …  and Brenda would want me to include a “carpe diem” to all.

Category: Archive, Holiday, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: archive, brenda, Corbett Christmas Letter, drew, family, katelyn, letter, pdf, rich, taylor

Posted By RichC on December 15, 2013

We’re closing in on Christmas and it is beginning to look a little more festive around our house. I still have a few things to do, but at least the tree is up and decorated. It is a bit smaller this year but I didn’t have someone twisting my arm!

This is the first year that Taylor hasn’t been around for the annual Corbett Christmas tree “battle” over choosing the right tree. We have always done this together and secretly I think we have both enjoyed the “feisty debate” over the size and price of a tree, and essential father-son Mexican lunch. I’ll let you guess who wanted the tree bigger, and who wanted it cheaper.

I have to admit I miss having Taylor around … maybe about as much as he misses being around … at least that’s how I read his Facebook post … “Starting the countdown till when I’ll be back in Cincy! 11 days — never thought I would be this excited.”

Category: Holiday, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: christmas, family, taylor

Posted By RichC on December 14, 2013

My older SCS PTC-IIe Pactor modem came back from Farallon Electronics after being updated with a new electronic serial number and Pactor III update – faster speeds using the HF radio (still very slow by modern Internet standards). A Winlink account is now active and seems to be working over Telnet, so the step is to find a station and tune it in manually with my Icom IC-718 (no auto tuning from computer). Currently the temporary 20-meter dipole antenna is not tuned but plans are to improve both the antenna and add an Icom AT-130 tuner. It is a little limiting since I’m not transmitting and receiving the strongest of signals, but after a little experimenting I was able to exchange data with a couple east coast stations and one in Florida, the Sarasota Power and Sail Squadron, using the RMS Express email client on my six year old Win7 Gateway notebook.

About the time everything was set up and working using my old KD8VSB call sign, I received notice from the FCC that my call sign request has been canceled and updated with the new shorter personalized “vanity” call – K4RDC. Time to set it all up again with the new call and email address.

Category: Radio, Sailing | 3 Comments »
Tags: amateur, ham, hobby, icom, modem, pactor, radio

Posted By RichC on December 13, 2013

As the big tech companies look for ways to push the use of their products, some of us are looking for ways to keep them from taking over our computers. I welcome having the option (easy option) to disregard the intrusions, but often spend too much time ignoring, opting out or disabling something that should be an “opt in” choice.

A perfect example is in using Microsoft’s Windows Update. It is relatively easy to turn the entire service off, but that’s not necessarily prudent or something I wanted to do. So I set the service to “pop-up” and let me know when “important updates” are available and then choose to install on my time. Unfortunately the nag seem to be way too often and requires regular reboots even on Windows 7 (something I thought was improved?) BUT more than that, I am frustrated in seeing the same couple of “updates available” for features I don’t want. ie. Bing bar and Bing Desktop.

If you choose not to download and install an update, it frustratingly remains “available for you the next time you visit Windows Update …and the next time, and the time after that as well.” I my mind, there’s no reason to see this over and over again in list of available updates. Of course, there isn’t an obvious way to remove the item from the list barring installing it (no thank you). Thankfully there is a less than obvious way to hide the update from appearing … and it is somewhat hidden and is easy to overlooked.

In the list of available updates, right-click any update that you don’t want to see again, and choose Hide Update. If you later change your mind—or if you just want to see a list of the updates you’ve chosen to hide—on the main Windows Update page, click Restore Hidden Updates.

Category: Advice, Computer, How-To, Technology | No Comments »
Tags: bing, microsoft, techfriday, updates, windows

Posted By RichC on December 12, 2013

The more delays and longer the flight, the more cranky passengers are bound to get. Now imagine sitting in the middle seat of modified Airbus A320 as the scrunched seats get smaller and give up 3 more inches to the aisle seats? Oh, I’m sure those fortunate enough to book the wider seats, will be happy, but at the expense of your two seat mates?

A “Middle Seat” travel article in the WSJ today mentioned that Airbus is offering a wider seat to airlines “thinking” they could squeeze a few more dollars from travelers willing to buy “more square inches of space” (I’m thinking about the Michael Douglas character talking to Kathleen Turner in “War of the Roses” – see YouTube trailer about the 1:50 mark). 

According to Scott McCartney, Airlines are surprisingly reluctant to price their wider seats higher as they do for those with more legroom — we’ll see how long that lasts. For now, it looks like keeping a close eye on the aircraft model (A320)when I book tickets … although suspect most of us over 6 foot are already vying for the aisle seats?

Snippet below … pertaining to our “growing girth.”

The growing girth of people has led to wider seating areas in many public situations where space is limited and packing in seats can lead to more revenue. In 1990, the average seat in performing-arts theaters was 21 inches. By 2010 that grew to 22 inches, according to a study by Theatre Projects Consultants Inc. The new Yankee Stadium opened in New York in 2009 with seats ranging from 19 to 24 inches wide, compared with 18 to 22 inches in the old Yankee Stadium, according to the baseball team. The basic seats on Amtrak’s Acela trains are 21 inches wide. (Older trains have coach seat cushions 20 inches wide.)

But airlines have been making coach seats skinnier, not wider. On widebody jets, airlines have more flexibility to determine how many seats they want in each row. On American Airlines’ existing Boeing 777-200s, for example, the airline has nine seats in a row. On its new 777-300s just being put into service, coach cabins have 10 seats in each row. The width of the fuselage didn’t change—it’s a longer airplane—so the seats shrank from more than 18 inches to about 17 inches. Other airlines are making similar moves with widebody cabins.

Category: Aviation, Travel | 2 Comments »
Tags: a320, airbus, airlines, Travel, wsj

Posted By RichC on December 12, 2013

Winter arrived and autumn lasted only a week or two  this year — at least that’s the way it seems to me. I’m generally slow to give up on warm weather, but this year the switch was literally overnight. Thankfully I took advantage of one nice weekend to close the pool (barely) … but the lead light and service door to the hot tub are still on the ground outside buried under snow. The replacement heater is sitting on my workbench and I’m waiting for a warmer day to crawl in and switch out parts. It is hard to believe, but it seems like there was more time when the kids were at home and involved in all of their activities; how can that be? At any rate … it looks like it is time to give up on an Indian Summer and bring in the cushions.
Notice the cushions are still on a couple Adirondack chairs — goes to show how far behind I am.

Category: Misc, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: autumn, chores, hot tub, weather