An away from home work-table and a long overdue desk chair

| January 21, 2024

Really this is to archive a few project ideas (below the break) for Taylor. He is a Mid-Century Modern lover and has consistently focused his decorating with this kind of taste. If dollars didn’t limit his shopping, I think he would be living in a Frank Lloyd Wright home and have it decorated with a […]

Taylor settled into his new office in Batavia Township, Ohio

| June 3, 2023

What a super nice office and comfortable place for Taylor to work. I find myself envious of his new position as “Director of Planning and Zoning” in Batavia Township, Ohio. As a parent, it is rewarding to see your children excelling in their careers and appreciated by those they work for and with. I’m confident […]

Contemplating a new Mac for my new office set-up this year

| January 18, 2023

As the great Yogi Berra is credited with saying, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” It is once again time to contemplate my home office computer set-up … something I seem to do every year. The last time I updated my main computer was when I replaced an early Mac Mini with the current 2012 […]

Salvaged office closet shelves project and polished headlights

| September 6, 2022

Having a few extra “rainy” hours over the Labor Day weekend, I decided to tackle an office closet project that I’ve been pondering. The plan was to either build in a few permanent shelves with holes for wiring to primarily hold the electronic equipment feeding the TV or add a small shelf to replace the […]

Moving back into the home office and pondering family artists

| July 30, 2022

This past weekend I started what is going to be a slow, but deliberative process of moving out of the basement and back into the upstairs home office. No window blinds yet, but we did move the oriental rug from our first floor to the upstairs (Brenda would like to get something new for the […]

Reworking my old corner computer desk for the home office

| May 25, 2022

Now that the desk and hardwood floors are complete, and floor finish has cured enough in my home office, it is time to tackle the trim painting, putting the closet and bookshelves back. Another project I’ve been contemplating is to revitalize my older well-worn corner computer desk. Having used it for a couple of decades […]

The office desk chair mat and hardwood floor protection arrived

| May 21, 2022

The new Lorell brand glass desk floor mat for my home office arrived and so I temporarily set it up in the basement since the painting and last few modifications are yet to be finished before moving back upstairs. All in all I’m impressed with nice quality of the largest size (60” x 48”) tempered […]

A test post due to slow uploading. AWS server problem?

| May 17, 2022

Testing Internet speeds on my end after struggling to upload to AWS servers this afternoon. All seems normal for both 4G and WiFi in my temporary basement home office due to painting and getting thing put back together after hardwood floors were done. It is S-L-O-W-L-Y coming together.

Refinishing home office desk project and cutting the lawn

| May 15, 2022

My weekend chores and projects are in full swing as I cut the lawn longer than usual since it grew fast and thick while we were on vacation. Hopefully after a few cuttings, the thatch will disappear (I’m not fond of raking and hauling to the compose pile). Early Saturday morning I put the final […]

Archive: Guest bedroom and home office floors are finished

| May 4, 2022

Just archiving progress on the hardwood floors project before moving any furniture back in the guest bedroom (above left) and my home office (panorama photo below). I also wanted to save a photo of the can of Minwax branded wood finish, used and mixed to match our existing floor stain (great job by Schindler Hardwood […]

Office and guest bedroom hardwood flooring progress

| April 28, 2022

In keeping with personal home project updating, our hardwood flooring has been moving along this week. The guys are making a mess sanding … but doing their best to contain dust. We are hoping for a stain-match to our existing oak floors, but in any case, the guest bedroom and office are taking shape. Unfortunately […]

Temporarily working from my basement home office #TBT

| April 21, 2022

As the slow progress on finishing my home office continues, I’ve set up a temporary office in the basement (below). It is surprisingly comfortable, but I do miss the daylight and looking out the windows. I can’t help but reminisce to make this a Throwback Thursday #TBT post after finally removing the painters tape from […]

Two more costly projects are underway at our house

| April 16, 2022

First, I mentioned pool repairs were underway earlier in the week. The tiles that I’ve been repairing are now long past due for a full replacement. So the water has been pumped out and a pool tile crew is beginning the demolition prior to making repairs and installing new waterline tile. Brenda’s comment made me […]

Half-Staff days in 2022 and office crown molding, paint, etc

| January 22, 2022

Archiving a couple office update photos after completing the crown molding, painting and “test” fitting of my new Samsung TV that Brenda bought me for Christmas. I also mounted the Yamaha soundbar on a couple special brackets so that the wires, etc remain behind the “skinny” television. As for the crown molding after making the […]

Tackled office painting and a minor winter weekend project

| January 11, 2022

The past weekend projects consisted mostly of trim painting and then roller painting the long and drawn out office update project. Part of it is due to other things getting prioritized … like Christmas and family … and some of it out of my dislike for painting. BUT, I finally “cut” or trim painted all […]

A couple days of photos leftover from the weekend: Part 1

| December 8, 2021

Since part one of a couple of blog photo posts will be pubic and not include family, I’ll archive it first. I finished (hopefully) the NINE trailer loads of leaves I mulched and raked in the front yard this year. Oh for the pre-Global Warming and now Climate Change days of burning leaves rather than […]

Catch-up Tuesday personal blog posts are becoming a habit

| October 5, 2021

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Office project patching update photos and banana bread #TBT

| September 16, 2021

Here are a few leftover project photos from the weekend for Throwback Thursday #TBT to add to the personal archive. Normally we make banana bread in the full-size Bosch oven when our bananas go soft and brown, but  I keep trying to get the convection baking setting correct on our toaster oven – not bad […]

Slow, but not necessarily steady, progress on my home office

| July 17, 2021

Slow progress on my home office as I continue to work in disarray; I am missing my accessory junk … including a small hanging TV. I don’t necessarily “watch” business television, instead listen to the stream via SiriusXM to my Aftershokz Aeropex headset. Occasionally though, do still find it helpful to have a video image […]

Moving ahead a little bit with the mini split AC installation

| June 15, 2021

This past weekend I moved forward in getting the mini split AC unit installed in my home office. I started the planned chair rail  and cork wall (insulation, sound deadening and a place to pin maps, etc). I’m not sure about the can of worms I’ve opened, but I spent half the day on Saturday […]

Bought a high efficient HVAC mini split unit for the home office

| May 29, 2021

A separate air conditioning unit has long been on my “want list” for my home office. I’ve contemplated adding a high efficiency minisplit inverter unit for years to better balance the southwest corner upstairs office in our house. It has never really been comfortable in the summer with multiple computers, printers and gadgets, especially in […]

Woodworking: Tinkering on a prototype desktop book stand

| February 20, 2021

The weather has been … well, wintery and I’ve been working on a self-designed prototype desktop bookshelf or bookstand with the thought of making a couple of them. Unfortunately desks … let alone books … are disappearing as a Future of Everything WSJ article mentioned this past year. The design is relatively simple in that […]

Dilemma: What to do with my aging, shredded faux leather, tired foam, squeaking and generally falling apart office chair

| October 25, 2020

The office chair I’ve used for the passed couple decades has seen better days, but it is still my favorite. The sturdy build is better than most I’ve seen, the arm pivots up out of the way for desk-work and easily sliding up to type, write, read or clean around. The size fits me well […]

TechFriday: Dropbox paid cloud storage is tough to justify

| June 26, 2020

Besides Google’s less intuitive cloud storage, Dropbox was the first cloud service that I gravitated to “back in the day.”  I’ve posted about them before on TechFriday (2015 comparison) and they are still one of the best cloud storage services for the way I work on computers and devices. Unfortunately over the last few years […]

Sanding – my favorite part of woodworking #sarcasm

| April 15, 2020

Instead of spending time this past Easter weekend dressing,going to church and getting together with family, I spent a few more hours sanding … and sanding … and sanding. My goal is to get this old exterior black walnut door (super thick veneer over oak – see above photo) ready to take a traditional oil […]

Keeping up with Taylor, Megan, Annalyn, Katelyn and Drew

| April 3, 2019

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Hidden photos of my kids in a frame that sits on my desk #TBT

| October 19, 2017

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Replacing an All-In-One with an Epson GT-1500 scanner

| May 3, 2017

A lightning strike looked as if it had taken out my Epson Workforce 545 multifunction fax/scanner/printer/copier … which of all the office devices is probably the one I could most afford to lose. I suspect the "jolt" or whatever caused catastrophic failure came over the phone line, since devices plugged into the wall, APC unit […]

TechFriday: Spending a few hours installing old software

| November 25, 2016

It is easy to forget just how much software one ends up with after 9 years using a computer. There was everything from odd ball utilities to a variety of outdated Adobe Creative Suite design software that I occasionally need. These were all versions installed from CD and are not openly supported anymore. Unlike my […]

Paper shredder: To fix or replace … that is the question?

| June 8, 2015

Just because it can be fixed (Jury/ Jerry Rigged) doesn’t mean it should be repaired? The “old-ish” paper shredder in my home office is often over-fed with too many sheets of paper or plastic credit cards. It usually keeps right on chugging until it overheats, but last week it sputtered, ground the gears and stopped. […]

TechFriday: iCloud apps are not just for Apple users

| March 20, 2015

Although cloud based apps aren’t for everyone, they have made inroads over the past few years. Googles’ online Docs, Sheets and Slides have been slowly improving and many other players have entered the foray including Microsoft with their Office Online.   Apple has improve their iWorks online apps and offers their Pages, Numbers and Keynote […]

TechFriday: Apple iOS users have new free Microsoft Office apps

| November 7, 2014

Microsoft is offering standalone versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPhone, giving users a much better productivity suite for the mobile devices. Prior to the new mobile apps, users who wanted to use Office on an iPhone had to use “Microsoft Office Mobile,” which really only allowed users to view documents and input text. […]

Apple iCloud’s online beta for Pages, Numbers & Keynote

| July 23, 2013

Apple is testing a few new online iWork applications for those iCloud users accessing their cloud account. The addition of Apple’s document, spreadsheet and presentation software to iCloud will move the beloved computer company one step closer to Microsoft and Google went it comes to online “Office” productivity software. I’m reluctant to commit to one particular […]

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