My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on August 29, 2010

A few years ago Donna Lange sailed alone around the world on her small well built Southern Cross 28 sailboat (see PDF Brochure). I enjoyed staying in touch with her and posting on my blog. Brenda and I also enjoyed catching up with her as well last year in Annapolis for a boatshow and get her to sign a copy of her book, Captain D & Wise Mother Ocean. After her circumnavigation, she settled in West Palm Beach and is teaching nursing as well as continuing to speak, write, sing and volunteer with the organization Ocean Watch (see North American link). This summer, after prepping her sailboat Inspired Insanity, she set sail on a 1000 mile 12 day sail from Rhode Island to West Palm Beach – but all did not go as planned. She tells of her trouble off Duck, North Carolina.

Edit: Photos and video used in this post from Megan Claire D’Andrea and Ian Hilley.

Category: Sailing, Video-TV | 4 Comments »
Tags: donna lange, friends, mp4, sailing

Posted By RichC on August 28, 2010

Sharing a video from EAA Airventure 2010 … not mine. Thanks for the link Steve. (for another good video from the previous 2009 Airventure click here)

Category: Aviation, Video | No Comments »
Tags: airventure, eaa, flying

Posted By RichC on August 27, 2010

My father-in-law was taken to the hospital on Wednesday this week and since I was conveniently working in NE Ohio, I opted to head to Jamestown NY in order to lend a hand. Getting him to the hospital ended up being the right move and he is resting far more comfortably under doctor and nursing care than remaining at home. My mother-in-law appreciated having me around as all three daughters needed a couple days to adjust their schedules; I was glad to be able to help.

While here, I also took some time to take care of a few home projects, haul some stuff to the dump and mow grass. Interestingly, there is also a black bear spending time eating the ripening berries behind the barn and bulldozer shed. I failed in getting his picture, but can post a photo of his “droppings” … but won’t. Instead, how about a mistake that all of us make at least once in our lives? I stopped at McDonald’s on my way home and whoops!!!
🙂

Category: Personal | 2 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on August 26, 2010

USA Today reported last week that civil servants received average pay and benefits of $123,049 last year, while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation. The report, using data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, also said the federal compensation advantage had grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $62,000 last year … when did this happen?

Category: Politics | No Comments »
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Posted By RichC on August 25, 2010

Drugs, teens, alcohol and driving … not good combinations.

Eden arrested and released before crash

BEAVERCREEK, Ohio (WDTN) – Brennan Eden, the driver of the car that went airborne and crashed on I-675 in Beavercreek, Ohio Aug. 23 had been arrested and released by Beavercreek Police approximately an hour before the crash occurred.

According to a statement by the Beavercreek Police Department, Eden, 19, of Mason, Ohio, was arrested at approximately 6:13 a.m.

Police said the Eden was found in his car with a juvenile female in a parking lot near the corner of Beaver Vu Dr. and N. Fairfield Rd. Police said they found an unopened can of alcohol, a trace of marijuana, and drug paraphernalia inside Eden’s car.

Eden was cited for prohibition, drug paraphernalia, and drug abuse and released prior to 6:54 a.m. Police said Eden was cooperative and there were no indications he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of his arrest.

The girl was also arrested then released to the custody of her father.

Eden crashed his car at approximately 7:15 a.m. Witnesses said Brennan was passing other drivers at speeds of at least 100 mph before he drove off the left side of the roadway while passing a Sugarcreek Twp. police car. The crash was caught on that officer’s cruiser camera.

Eden lost control of his car and slammed into the concrete pillar of a bridge south of Indian Ripple Road. The force of the crash broke the car into three pieces and Brennan was ejected.

"He went down into the median, into the grass, hit the guardrail, went airborne and the car hit the center post of the bridge and literally exploded into three main pieces," said witness Mark Riley.

Brennan was was flown to Miami Valley Hospital by Careflight where he was last listed in critical condition.

Ohio State Highway Patrol Lt. Marty Fellure said they are still investigating the crash trying to determine Eden’s speed and why he was passing cars on the berm.

The crash shut down the southbound lanes for nearly six hours.

Megan O’Rourke; Web produced by David Robinson

http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/news/local/greene_county/eden-arrested-and-released-before-crash

VIDEO DELETED

Category: Misc, Video | 4 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on August 25, 2010

A couple day’s before our vacation, Sprint pushed out the webOS 1.4.5 update to Palm webOS phones. I resisted the urge to update prior to leaving (thankfully), as I had some concern that the Pre Backup Utility wouldn’t be sufficient to restore the ‘homebrew’ apps, patches and tweaks I installed over the past year, an assumption was correct in my case.

The actually update pushed overnight and was no problem, but attempting to restore the customization to the phone was a complete failure. The “restore” feature from the Pre Backup Utility whirled endlessly and by morning after a reboot had restored my phone to factory specs and no personal data whatsoever. The balance of the morning was spent synchronizing data via “the cloud” so I could at least have my contacts and calendar functioning again.

Back to tinkering again this afternoon after finally giving up on restoring my tweaks and patches using the Pre Backup Utility – a waste. Hopefully over time I’ll have everything back to the way I like it. For now, I’ve got UberKernel and Govnah running again in order to bump chip speed up to 800 MHz from the stock 500. It ran fine on the previous OS so I’m hoping the same for webOS 1.4.5.

From memory I’ve used Preware to install most of the patches and some of the programs that I use regularly. After flushing the text messages it looks as if that is back to normal … but my contacts are jumbled, I’ve lost speed dials and a few ‘homebrew’ programs.

Other than that, the phone is running again but seems to be draining the battery even faster than before??? Since I’m traveling Wednesday, I’ll give the new webOS a more appropriate test.

Category: Cellphone, Technology | 6 Comments »
Tags: smartphone, sprint, webos

Posted By RichC on August 24, 2010

Category: Automotive | No Comments »
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Posted By RichC on August 23, 2010

I’m wrapping up a final post from a fantastic family summer vacation. The trip to Bermuda and back has me wondering where the week went? The time was both relaxing and exciting … and especially nice considering the four of us enjoyed it together – I probably should “thank” Brenda for pushing the trip even though I resisted in such a down economy.

Our “Day 7” was spent  aboard ship at a 18 knot clip heading northwest toward the US. The previous evening’s navigation out of Bermuda’s barrier reef system is tricky considering the depth of the water inside, but after looping across the north side of the island from the dockyard, north of Hamilton and surprisingly tight around St. George, we were on our way.

We spent some of the day in the sun and some at an art auction … something we have enjoyed over the years. I’d like to say that I’m somewhat more knowledgeable about art, but I just can’t get past the “marketing” associated with selling art to a captured audience. Nevertheless, if I get beyond the price tag, I do enjoy browsing and do appreciate the works. We’ve not purchase any heavy marketed Peter Max art yet (his site), but did come back with a nice Bermuda beach painting for our home.

Besides relaxing in the sun and art shopping, we did our share of eating as well. All of us gained at least a couple pounds and will need to be a bit more disciplined when it comes to our exercise and eating these next few months. The food was great … fish every night for me so I don’t feel too bad even though the quantities were excessive.

By the morning we were cutting through the haze passing the New York harbor lightship and knocking down buoys. The sun didn’t really rise, but the cloudy sky lightened and offered an interesting view of the ferry dock, the Statue of Liberty and New Jersey side of the Hudson River.  We disembarked at 10:00 AM and were exploring downtown in the rain until crossing the Queensboro Bridge and crowding our way through the LaGuardia Airport.

Just as we were set to takeoff, ATC stopped flights and our pilots shutdown the engines as we sat on the taxiway. Thankfully it wasn’t one of those multiple hours situation and we were back underway within 15 minutes.

The day wasn’t quite over as we made the quick trip from CVG home, unpacked … then repack to take Taylor to Miami and moved him into his room. We did the obligatory run to Walmart for last minute college supplies including a small refrigerator and late night Taco Bell … then I could head home. Whew … work the next day was going to be a relief.

😉

Embed broken – link here.

Category: Personal, Photos | No Comments »
Tags: bermuda, dawn, family, ncl, vacation

Posted By RichC on August 22, 2010

Being an atoll, Bermuda is surrounded and protected by an outer barrier reef system which would be more appropriately named a “great barrier reef” since it rings the entire chain of islands. The distance to the outer reef varieties from 1 to 9 miles offshore. Today we “sailed” (powered due to light wind) several miles off the western tip to Eastern Blue Cut and had the best snorkeling we’ve have ever experienced. No exaggeration! The reef was under very clear water and full of fish, flourishing corals and ideal swimming with little swell or chop. This particular location has only been accessed twice this year by our dive boat due to the normally larger swells, but today light winds and diminutive seas, made conditions absolutely perfect.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an underwater camera and can only brag just how beautiful the colors and conditions were. Unfortunately we had to be back at the ship at 4:30PM so we can set sail for NYC. Depressingly the trip is zipping by.

Eastern Blue Cut

Testing a series of sunset photos using an album feature for Windows Live Skydrive,

View Full Album

or using the embed code …

Category: Personal, Photos | 2 Comments »
Tags: bermuda, family, ncl dawn, snorkeling, vacation

Posted By RichC on August 20, 2010

No we’re not the next Tucker family (Teddy Tucker) of Bermuda and even though we were looking at one of the 200+ shipwrecks around the “Devil’s Islands,” we did not find gold.

Another day of water sports and fun in the sun, today was spent kayaking over the coral colonies, looking at fish and an 1891 hulk of the ‘Old Ironsides’ like ship of the HMS Navy called the Vixen.  According to what we’ve read, it was a heavy and slow warship designed and built by the British after the United State built the Monitor and Merrimac. It ended up in Bermuda and was sunk purposely after spending it later years housing Irish laborers who were brought to the island an built much of Irish Point … the “dockyards” where the cruise ships now come in.

Besides swimming, ocean kayaking and “eating too much” … we enjoy the evening on a glass bottom boat that cruised into the Bermuda Triangle. The nighttime puttering around was fun both because of the underwater lighting of coral and shipwrecks, but the evening views of the homes along the way.

Real estate here is not exactly affordable … nor is anything you purchase at stores. We spent most of the day on the west end of the “islands” which are connected by bridges (the longest we passed under just after sunset with the moon rising in the east – photo left). Besides staying cool splashing in the ocean from kayaks, we yelled with excitement every time a green turtle was spotted. They were shy, perhaps due to their reputation as a source of food for Bermudians throughout much of its early history?

As for Thursday night … we all slept well … even with a cobra in our stateroom!

Category: Personal, Photos | 5 Comments »
Tags: bermuda, family, ncl dawn, sunset, vacation