Closing in on Christmas, so why am I not in the right mood?

| December 20, 2023

Ok, so I’m not focused this year on “the reason for the season” (or frankly even the secular celebration of Christmas) … therefore it is really time to do something about it. We didn’t even write our Corbett Christmas Letter!  Thankfully turning to Truth For Life and Alistair Begg’s teachings and message “It is HIStory” […]

Who else has tried to “pinch-to-zoom” a paper map? #humor

| September 23, 2023

I had to laugh at myself the while reading one of the World War II Pacific Island campaign history books then looking up at my cork wall and trying to “pinch-to-zoom” the paper map for more details. Oh, the tech habits we adopt! And since this is a random kind of filler humor post, below […]

Books: “Once They Were Eagles” by Frank E. Walton

| September 12, 2023

Occasionally when a good book is finished, it leave you wanting it to continue and hoping for more. That is the case with Frank E. Walton’s book “Once They Were Eagles.” It is the second book in the pile that I’m reading focused on the infamous World War II era’s VMF-214 better remembered at the […]

The Declaration of Independence: Freedom isn’t free

| July 4, 2023

Here’s an afternoon post for the 4th of July … our U.S. Independence Day. Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons […]

The Chinese Militarization of the South China Sea

| March 16, 2023

The South China Sea has become a hotly contested region in recent years, with multiple countries claiming various parts of the sea as their own. China, in particular, has been actively asserting its dominance over the region by building military structures and increasing its naval presence in the area. The WSJ published a detailed article […]

The grandson of John Tyler, the 10th POTUS, is still alive

| December 18, 2022

It took a little research, but the thought of the 10th President of the United States still having a living grandson alive today seemed … well, unbelievable. Mentally, I worked the numbers … and then had to do a little Internet sleuthing … but low and behold it was true. President John Tyler was born […]

Remembering the attack on Pearl Harbor 81 years ago

| December 7, 2022

It feels uncomfortably routine, to nonchalantly include a remembrance post on December 7th each year … but it is important to reflect on the evil of man and human devastation associated with war.  In remembering the loss of American lives inflicted by the Japanese in their “unprovoked and dastardly” attack of Pearl Harbor, I’ll include […]

Native American tribes in America before the Europeans #maps

| November 20, 2022

Maps and history have always held my interest (as they do for my son Taylor too). Having grown up when schools glossed over most of American the history prior to Columbus in 1492 (or perhaps the Vikings) … it is interesting to learn a little bit more about the “approximately 20 million” Native Americans that […]

Idioms: The whole – or full – nine – six – yards phrase

| October 30, 2022

Although the meme floating around social networks (the one at the bottom of this post) is probably not correct, I enjoyed it enough to do a little digging. Personally I’ve always thought that “the whole (or full) nine (six) yards” had to do with the innings in a baseball game (old article below), so I […]

Books: “The Day the Markets Roared” by Henry Kaufman

| September 4, 2022

Having recently read an article about Dr. Doom and “his pinnacle of influence” on August 17th, 1982, I’m adding Henry Kaufman’s book “The Day the Markets Roared” to my Amazon Kindle “want to read” list. Obviously since it is a look back on financial market history, it is not all that crucial that I read […]

Pyramid of Giza in Egypt from above

| August 31, 2022

The largest of the Egyptian pyramids is the Great Pyramid of Giza., one of The Seven Wonders of the World.  It was the tomb of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu and was build in the early 26th century BC. It stands 481 feet and is normally seen from a horizon view as in Wikipedia  (photo […]

Number of shots or gun salute for Independence Day celebration?

| July 4, 2022

According to a little American Revolutionary War reading this past year, our Declaration of Independence was celebrated on July 4, 1777 with a 13-gun salute in the morning and 13-gun salute in the evening (13 for the 13 colonies). Interestingly, many historians suggest that the Declaration of Independence was actually signed on July 2, 1776 and […]

Books: “The House of Yan” by Lan Yan and personal tidbits

| May 5, 2022

Although I don’t know all that much more than what I read about China, the culture and history intrigues me. After moving to Sidney, Ohio in high school, I felt like a fish out of water since most kids grew up in town and had gone to school with each other their entire life. When […]

Books: “The End Is Always Near” by Dan Carlin

| February 27, 2022

My son Taylor is a history buff and turned me on to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcasts. I particularly enjoyed Carlin’s long running Supernova in the East series and commented a couple times previously as it corresponded with quite a few books that I’ve read (and am still reading) detailing World War II and the […]

Praying for the people of Ukraine and the instability of our world

| February 24, 2022

Russia, lead by the wicked Vladimir Putin, has invaded and attacked their neighbor on February 24th after massing their military around Ukraine this past year. They started the invasion with missiles and air strikes to all but eliminate Ukraine’s air defenses and are currently crossing borders from all directions with overwhelming military force. For students […]

Inflation Hot? (Part 2): Inverted Yield Curve and Recession

| February 12, 2022

Although this is really not a smooth continuation from yesterday’s “Inflation Hot” post, the financial and economic theme remains the same … so it will be considered “part 2.” The post left off with trying to stop inflation in the 1980s and forcing a recession, actually “back to back recessions.” We can all hope that […]

Inflation Hot? Stop it with a recession or two. (Part 1)

| February 11, 2022

It is pretty obvious to most consumers that even with years of the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates low, printing money and Congress spending, inflation remained in check at under 2%. Unfortunately after the last round of easy money policies during the pandemic, business shutdowns and government giving away money, this is no longer true. […]

Books: Downloaded “Unknown Valor” by Martha MacCallum

| January 21, 2022

The hefty book (1139 pages) that I tried to finish by the end of 2021 is finally done (halfway into January 2022) … so now in that same World War II Pacific vein, I’m starting Martha MacCallum’s “Unknown Valor” this week. I remember hearing about it last year, but never added it to my to-read […]

Books: Joe Scarborough’s “Saving Freedom” about “strange little man” called Harry Truman

| November 16, 2021

The author Joe Scarborough is not one of my favorite TV commentators … although I did like him as a politician back in the 1990s. In 2020 he wrote (and narrated) a book published by Harper Collins called “Saving Freedom.” I’ve been contemplating it and since the digital is on my Glose reader app, thought […]

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History: Supernova in the East #podcast

| September 27, 2021

A couple of weeks ago, Taylor introduced me to a Dan Carlin “Hardcore History” podcasts. He thought I might enjoy them, since both of us particularly appreciate learning more about military history. The series is called “Supernova in the East” detailing the Japanese Empire from pre-World War Japan through WW 2 in six long lectures […]

Music Monday: The Coasters, “Yakety Yak” and an aviation tweet

| August 16, 2021

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Audio book from WSJ+: “All Against All” by Paul Jankowski

| May 22, 2021

Audiobooks and eBooks are some of the perks that come with being a long time Wall Street Journal subscriber. This WSJ+ membership includes early pre-production copies and likely word-of-mouth publicity marketing associated with giving away free “controlled” copies of books. I say controlled because readers do not really own the books, but are granted the […]

How to run email lists, sell your product and retain customers

| March 10, 2021

After cleaning out my email in-box and “attempting” to unsubscribe to a bunch of marketing oriented email lists, it became clear that I chose to remain subscribed to the lists that do more than plug their products or repeat sales again and again. A couple “subscribed-to” lists stood out because they were informative and were […]

An interesting #book: EPIC – An Around-The-World Journey Through Christian History by Tim Challies

| January 10, 2021

Thanks to my daughter Katelyn and her family, I’m in the process of reading the Tim Challies book, “EPIC – An Around-The-World Journey Through Christian History.” It is the new book I mentioned in my 2020 Christmas wrap-up post … and it has been challenging to put down. BUT … I’m sort of using it […]

Bold and accomplished leaders often lack diplomatic tact

| January 9, 2021

As a “very” amateur military history buff who is currently reading the book “I Marched With Patton,” I came away from Frank Sisson’s memoir in thinking about other leaders who earned the respect of their men, but offended others and were seen as abrasive. Accomplishing a goal and “winning” was for the most part their […]

A cigar box for sewing clips and NE Ohio drugstore memories

| January 2, 2021

Adam Savage, from Mythbusters claim-to-fame, has been regularly posting a few of his shop ideas online. A few months ago he triggered me into improving my portable Sailrite Sewing machine set-up (well my wife’s sewing machine that I use .. cough, cough). Anyway, a few weeks after he built his table for his impressive Sailrite […]

World War II book: “I Marched With Patton” by Frank Sisson

| December 30, 2020

When it comes to being the first to read a book, I’m not the guy to turn to, but eventually I do get around to some of them. I’m particularly fond of the history oriented books from the last century and “I Marched With Patton” by Frank Sisson fits that criteria.  This World War II […]

Books: Finished Operation Vengeance, starting Pacific Crucible

| October 14, 2020

This past week I finally finished Dan Hampton’s excellent historical World War II book titled “Operation Vengeance” about the operation to kill Isoroku Yamamoto and can finally move on to the book I mentioned in September after reading a WSJ review. Since the “reviewed” book was the third and finally Ian W. Toll’s book in […]

The longest serving US military rifle – the Coconut Rifle

| July 8, 2020

The “Coconut Rifle” … known to most as the Colt ArmaLite AR-15 (SN 000106) … the original for what is now the longest primary service weapon in our country’s military history. The originals firearms (20 of them) were manufactured by Colt in 1959. One of them #106 was involved in a July 4th 1960 “Watermelon […]

Tech Friday: Word processor WordStar in 1980 for the Apple II

| April 3, 2020

Above is a graphic sent by a friend, who knows of my long time Apple addiction … and it had me pondering the Steve Jobs vs Steve Wozniak struggle when trying to grow Apple Computer back in the early days (watch the Danny Boyle movie called Steve Jobs). One of the founders was an advocated […]

All things RMS Titanic … now you know the rest of the story

| March 11, 2020

My friend Jeff gave me a couple “used” books for Christmas this year after we talked last year about our favorite authors and books over the decades. Sloan Wilson, of “Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” fame, also wrote several World War II US Coast Guard and Merchant Marine novels that both of us read […]

Tech Friday, sort of: If you like geography, world history and maps – you will like this

| February 28, 2020

Right-click and Save-as for a very interesting larger download version of this map A new Brilliant Maps twitter feed is constantly sharing some very interesting mapping  projects and this one was particularly intriguing. As a commenter posted, “obviously a map like this is going to disputed, but PisseGuri82 has gone to great lengths to explain […]

Automotive history photo and story that got attention last year

| January 2, 2020

Every once in a while, a story about cars and history (my memories) catches eyeballs. One such story in Hemmings Motor News last year did that for me in part because my dad had a 1972 Ford Pinto and because the Mt. St. Helens eruption in May of 1980 was a big deal news story. […]

A little Computer Mouse history … and then some #TBT

| November 21, 2019

Hello World! It is frightening to think that I’ve been using computers for FORTY years and have used and have seen the slow evolution in input devices clustered around a device called the Computer Mouse. So for ThrowBack Thursday #TBT this week, the above is a photo of the original “mouse” in 1964 by Douglas […]

Why Delray Beach? – “Doors open, doors close” opportunities

| November 9, 2019

When chatting about our recent vacation to Florida with a long time customer (friend) in Akron, Ohio, he asked why we picked Delray Beach, Florida as an area to buy a condo (I detected he is beginning to think about retiring). Although I realized that I really haven’t given much thought to how we ended […]

Fifty years ago NASA launched Apollo 11 in our race to land a man on the moon in the 1960s

| July 16, 2019

In the space race with the Soviet Union (USSR) during the 1960s, the United States “rocketed” ahead on July 16, 1969 as NASA sent the three men of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins into space at 9:32AM EST. The Apollo command module and Lunar Module (LM) sat atop the huge 363-feet […]

Book: Moondust – In Search of the Men Who Fell to the Earth

| July 14, 2019

As we approach the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon in 1969, I’ve been enjoying both television anniversary shows, articles and the book Moondust – In Search of the Men Who Fell to the Earth. The Andrew Smith book, in particular, has been enjoyable as it blends events from the author’s memory […]

Congratulations – 130 yrs for the Wall Street Journal newspaper

| July 8, 2019

As a newspaper oriented guy from years ago, I have a soft spot for ink on paper and digital journalism (started as local newspaper photog when in high school and worked for Knight Ridder in the 1980s). Even my eventual career path followed from what I learned working for newspaper companies. But as a subscriber, […]

Happy Independence Day 2019 – tainting another symbol

| July 4, 2019

Most Americans love their country and enjoy celebrating our country’s “amazing” 243 year history and success. We are thankful for the rag-tag group of patriots from the 13 original colonies who boldly fought for their independence from Great Britain. In school, my generation (and previous) learned about our forefather’s near impossible struggle for freedom and […]

The challenges of pursing the American Dream – a discussion

| June 21, 2019

Taylor is my millennial antagonist when it comes to discussing politics, investing and both government and personal finances. We both enjoy debating, so it’s cool most of the time. He is also a product of his generation just as I am of mine. We view the role and expanse of government differently when it comes […]

The Spot, a Sidney Ohio landmark & Rob Lowe memories #TBT

| June 6, 2019

Who doesn’t enjoyed reminiscing and remembering fond memories from the past?  I know I do … and it is obvious the actor Rob Lowe does as well. Last week the actor was in Sidney, Ohio before his one-man show at the Schuster Center in Dayton. His fondest for the Dayton area is fairly well know, […]

The Notre Dame de Paris burned – April 15, 2019

| April 15, 2019

One of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in Paris, France was gutted as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris France burned. The entire roof and main spire collapsed (below) along with what looks like significant damage to the rose windows. The heart wrenching images and video flooded social media streams and newsfeeds at […]

Ancestry: Allen George Howard’s horse was named Gus #TBT

| March 14, 2019

Throwback Thursday posts can be interesting, especially when archiving a couple of my old photos from the early 1990s and tidbit of information that is likely not saved any place else (the horse was named Gus). Here’s a little Howard family history (my wife’s side of the family): Brenda’s grandfather, Allen George Howard died young; […]

Tech Friday: The Wayback Machine and Cincinnati Style Chili

| March 1, 2019

This is an unusual Tech Friday post, but after being frustrated this week in clicking a dead link to an article that disappeared after a website was updated, I decided there must be a better way to ensure information, links and websites remained useful … WITHOUT having to archive them entirely on my computers, servers […]

“Poor Packard” – the old Detroit plant continues to degrade

| January 28, 2019

It seems there is no end to suffering in the rustbelt when it comes to legacy automotive companies like Packard. The deteriorating Detroit plant which has seen years of neglect saw one more nail pounded into its coffin … the crosswalk collapsed and was cleaned up in January 2019 (photos above). The iconic name and […]

To-Do and old photos from history – Machu Picchu from 1911

| January 9, 2019

Photo from history website pulled from Reddit Machu Picchu, an ancient Inca settlement in Peru, wasn’t discovered by someone with a camera until 1911. American archeologist Hiram Bingham took the first known photo when he visited in 1911. Bingham arrived in Peru with a small team of explorers to search for the famous “lost” cities […]

The passing of our most qualified president – George H. W. Bush

| December 2, 2018

Perhaps it is human nature to reflect on ones own personal shortcomings and selfish thoughts at the passing of another well remembered United States president? President George H.W. Bush (1924-2018) lived an amazing life in an amazing time to have been alive. His completed life reminded me of a verse in Ecclesiastes (see bottom of […]

Book: The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WW2 Story …

| October 24, 2018

I can’t vouch for the complete book (I’ve just starting reading it), but for those of us who appreciate first hand accounts of heroism, survival and World War II history … spending $2 on Alistair Urquhart’s "The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific," is well worth it. An amazing story […]

When it comes to dentistry, be glad you live in the 21st century

| October 17, 2018

There was a time we winced at dentistry pre-20th century (some still do today), but imagine going to an Egyptian dentist back in 2000BC or there about? Yikes! "Egyptians were very comfortable with and knowledgeable about the human body. Mummifying bodies required them to drain the blood and extract the organs leading to a basic […]

Book and photo of WW2 bombs drop from a B-26 over Germany

| August 17, 2018

While monitoring a military history Twitter feed, decided to add this “bomb bay view” photo from the World War II bomber group my father-in-law flew with. He was the navigator for the 394th Bomb Group of Martin Marauder B-26s and flew nearly 50 bombing missions over Germany. They were known as the “Bridge Busters.” (Read […]

Do you appreciate modern dentistry?

| August 8, 2018

With a niece a new dentist and both a late father-in-law and brother-in-law who were dentists, the #70 Mike Rowe "The Way I Heard It Podcast" was interesting – You Might Feel A Little Pinch. I’m thankful for modern dentistry … although may look at my dentist with a little more scrutiny. Check out mikeroweWorks […]

Why are so many millennials anti-capitalists?

| April 11, 2018

With freedom desired by nearly everyone on earth and history clear as to choice and “the market” lifting our standard of living, why do so many young people embrace socialism and big government?

The Mỹ Lai Massacre happened 50 years ago #VietnamWar

| March 16, 2018

If our remembering the  Mỹ Lai Massacre and teaching the history prevents the mass killing of civilians by U.S. soldiers in the future, it is a sober lesson that needs to be taught. One would have hoped we could have learned from a prior military actions, like from the No Gun Ri massacre in Nogeun-ri, […]

Who is this revered and famous American President? #TBT

| January 25, 2018

Throwback Thursday #TBT photos usually have to do with oneself or at least something from our own lifetime. I’m archiving a unique photo of this great American leader (the first known of him in 1840), as I wanted to save it to my blog. Most of us study our US Presidents in school, but usually […]

Book: Churchill’s Trial by Larry P Arinn

| January 22, 2018

After contemplating the purchase of Larry P Arinn‘s Churchill’s Trial at full price since it was published, but having too many unfinished books on my Kindle and reading table, the $1.99 price was exactly what I needed to download. I’m looking forward to the scholarly writing of Dr. Arinn as he delves into the trials […]

Christmas Music Monday: Merry old semi-nautical carol

| December 25, 2017

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Surprised at what I’m still learning about the Vietnam War

| September 22, 2017

The Ken Burns and Lynn Novick 10 part documentary THE VIETNAM WAR airing each night this past week on PBS has been eye opening even for someone who "thought" they knew their Vietnam history. I’ve read a lot of books over the years and lived through most of the war stateside in real time (to […]

An excellent Civil War history lesson #video

| August 27, 2017

Racing in Daytona Beach – my dad’s photo from 1950

| August 16, 2017

Another photo (above) from my an envelope containing a few of my dad’s trips before meeting my mom … interesting to think about the history of stock car racing in Daytona Beach Florida. Back in the early 1950s the beach and A-1-A were used at the straightaways and a grandstand at the corner. What I […]

Happy Flag Day – an excellent podcast from Mike Rowe

| June 14, 2017

Flag Day 2017 — “Something To Stand For” by Mike Rowe of MikeRoweWORKS

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog