My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on May 20, 2013

My son mentioned a video produced by his alma mater, Lakota East High School, and after first thinking it was just another goofy video, I realized that the community and student body effort was a lot of work – I even watched it to the end as the music gets more appealing to those of my generation.

At a time when the millennial generation is chastised for being self-centered, the Lakota East students are changing my opinion. The attention given, coordinated involvement and dollars raised ($12,000 to-date/Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center) for Spina Bifida is impressive … impressive enough in my mind that they should be able to attract the attention of Ellen DeGeneres – their goal. I’ll do my part and mention it here and use the hash tag #wewhatellen in my subject line tweet.

Category: Health, Local, Social Media, Video | No Comments »
Tags: cincinnati, ellen, lakota, lip dub, spina bifida, west chester

Posted By RichC on May 19, 2013

Great series of 13 photos from St. Maartin’s Princess Juliana International Airport on Weather.com this month where Maho Beach-goers get up close and personal with landing aircraft (one of many posted short videos below).

Category: Aviation, Photos, Travel, Video, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: aviation, beach, maartin, maho

Posted By RichC on May 18, 2013

I’ve been taking too many things apart and not putting them back together fast enough, so before I go any further, I think I’ll put some new parts back on? (forgetting where all my parts are from and where they go) I’m okay with working on brakes, rotors and wheel bearing, although I’m having the races pressed into the hubs by my buddy Jack Cook … but I’m not as comfortable in working on the AC system and probably should be leaving it to someone else. Anyway it has been enjoyable so far, but time to reassemble a few items this weekend.

Category: Automotive, Mercedes, Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: 300d, bearing, brakes, diesel, mercedes, turbo

Posted By RichC on May 17, 2013

Category: Misc, Photos, Space | No Comments »
Tags: iss, photo, space

Posted By RichC on May 17, 2013

May 16, 2013 You could end up with a lot less savings at 65 than you ever anticipated because of fees charged by the financial institutions managing your retirement accounts. Robert Hiltonsmith, who researches retirement security, says those fees were disclosed to 401(k) plan participants until only recently.

NPR AUDIO LINK

Category: Audio, Financial | No Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on May 16, 2013

As Taylor wrapped up his senior year in college and reviewed his posted grades for the last time, he read me his 20-some page capstone paper and showed me a video he did for another class. I enjoyed the history lesson …

Category: Archive, Education, Personal, Video | No Comments »
Tags: cincinnati, miami university, planning, taylor, urban

Posted By RichC on May 15, 2013

The first Canadian to walk in space, who also was the first Canadian to command the International Space Station, is now the first human to shoot a music video in space on his last day on the job.

Category: Misc, Music, Video | No Comments »
Tags: Music, nasa, space

Posted By RichC on May 15, 2013

A Motley Fool financial advisory email arrived in my email box this week which caught my eye with a subject line reading “The death of diesel.” While this seems to predict dire news for those of use who are advocates for compression ignition engines, I’ll paraphrase Mark Twain and say that announcement of diesels death may have been greatly exaggerated.

Dear Fellow Investor,

Take a look at The New York Times from Monday, April 22. The front-page article begins…

“The natural gas boom has already upended the American power industry, displacing coal and bringing consumers cheaper electricity…

Now the trucking industry, with its millions of 18-wheelers moving products like potato chips, underarm deodorant and copy paper around the country, is taking a leap forward…”

Internal combustion engines are under pressure with advances in Hybrid, EVs and alternatively fueled or at least assisted propulsion, but really it just means fuel options are expanding, hardly “the death of.” As suggested by the article, natural gas may eventually replace some of the petroleum oil based fuels that power North America’s fleet vehicles and present opportunities in companies that convert engines and vehicles (aka: WPRT), but that hardly brings about “the death of diesel.” New technology and the cheaper and more abundant natural gas is a good thing and means petroleum and bio-forms of diesel “fuel” will have to compete which in turn is an overall positive for our lifestyle and economy. Petroleum will still be available and will still be a very attractive fuel … besides, even with the natural gas boom and improving technologies, diesel is still the most available, portable and efficient fuel available. Try lugging batteries or natural gas capable of powering a vehicle 500+ miles without refueling … and for those of us using diesel, alternatives should keep fuel prices more competitive. The prediction of “the death of diesel” is a bit premature.

Category: Diesel, Energy, Financial | No Comments »
Tags: diesel, fool, gas, investing, motley, petroleum, wprt

Posted By RichC on May 14, 2013

Just saying “married” and seeing these photos is making me feel old!

I’m posting a couple brother-sister photos from our family trip to Montana back in 1999 and this past weekend. That day was about Taylor so we purposely didn’t mention Katelyn’s upcoming birthday.

This year, I won’t be seeing Katelyn for her birthday, but will still wish her one by email, blog post and probably a phone call tonight – boy are we ever connected nowadays! I don’t feel too bad for her as I know someone who loves her just as much do will make her birthday special.

Category: Personal, Photos | 1 Comment »
Tags: birthday, katelyn

Posted By RichC on May 12, 2013

EDIT: Still working the bugs out of the WordPress plug-in Postie (missing the text?) when it comes to including images and video via email from my iPhone and iPad. The above is a short test video demonstrating shutting down an idling 1982 Mercedes Benz 300DT 5-cylinder diesel using the manual shutoff under the hood.

Category: Automotive, Diesel, Mercedes | No Comments »
Tags: 300d, diesel, mercedes, youtube