RichC's posterous

-- posting to My Desultory Blog (mydesultoryblog.com)

Terrific weather day for outdoor spring cleaning

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Saturday was a great day for cleaning the pool decking, 'one' of the back patios, grill and teak outdoor furniture. Ten years or so in, I'm still pleased with how our unfinished teak cleans up even after spending the winter outdoors. I don't expect to finish the job tomorrow since I'm planning to visit my mom who is "not happy" in the rehab center. I do wish her surgery would have at least relieved her pain.

Besides the nice weather and bright sunshine all day, I ended up spending a few hours cleaning the carburetor on my pressure washer after sitting too long. I'd be curious to know if the several small engine tools I have are unusual in gumming up after sitting over the winter with our current blends of gasoline?

Outstanding hypermiling in a 2012 VW Passat TDI

Taylorsvwpassat

Thought I would post some impressive VW Passat TDI clean diesel numbers ...

John and Helen Taylor – Volkswagen calls them "mileage experts" and "the world's most fuel efficient couple" – recently drove a stock 2012 Passat TDI SE all the way from Houston, TX to Sterling, VA without refueling. That's 1,626.1 miles from just 19.3 gallons. Bad with numbers? VW has done the math for you: it's 84.1 miles per gallon (we came up with 84.2, but who's counting?).

My sailing friends know how to be thankful

I received a needed lesson in blessings and being thankful today. My sailing friends Mark and Judy Handley have been sharing their daily lives online for many years while cruising around the world. Their circumnavigation ended over a year ago, but Judy continues to document their return to a "somewhat" more normal life. Unfortunately this includes Mark dealing with chemotherapy treatments, a return to work and continuing boat (their home) maintenance. But ... along with the challenges come blessings. Their daughter and her family are close ... close enough for them to see everyday. Their challenges are viewed through the prism of being grandparents ... something Judy documented as "blessings" in her 'log' entry and recent photos -- below, Mark rests after a chemotherapy session as his newborn grandson sleeps in his arms.
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Mark’s not feeling great, the weather is crappy, the work on the deck is not
getting done, but one photo changes all of that. This afternoon Mark went
with me to pick up Sam and Jonah and then we both spent the afternoon at
Heather and Jed’s. Mark slept on the sofa with Oliver and through the lens
of my camera I saw just how much we have to be thankful for. Oliver’s hand
with such smooth soft skin next to Mark’s hand, rough through years of use,
brought tears to my eyes. How lucky we are to be here, close to
grandchildren, while Mark is going through these months of chemotherapy. He
is smothered in love from Sam, Jonah, and Oliver as his body is fighting
this battle, and I’m certain that love will win. Then tonight we had a
Skype call with Justin, Jo, and Ziggy. Ziggy was having a late afternoon
nap. We watched him sleep through much of the call, but finally he came to
life. He looks like he has doubled in size since we were there at
Christmas. It is so hard being so far away, and soon it will be doubly hard
when Ziggy’s baby sister is born. But we are conjuring up ways to get the
whole family together in the fall. So tonight, instead of complaining about
those things that are not perfect right now, all I can really do is count my
blessings.

Anarchists had multiple targets in northeast Ohio

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Traveling through NE Ohio today, I had thought about driving across route 82 this morning ... but hearing the news that anarchist planned to blow up had me rethinking my route (not that there was really any danger -- thank you FBI). I've often thought, that just as with the "interstate snipers" from a few years ago, it doesn't take much for "evil-doers" (as President GW Bush would say) to target Americans as they go about their daily lives. Would we change our routines?

After reading a little in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the bridge wasn't the only target ...

Clevealnd bridge Bomb plot suspectsFBISuspects (left to right) Connor Stevens, Anthony Hayne, Brandon Baxter, Joshua Stafford and Douglas Wright.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Blowing up the Ohio 82 bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley was apparently not the only terrorist action in mind for members of a loosely organized anarchist group arrested by FBI agents Monday, officials said.

Members of the group actually "placed the devices at the base of concrete pillars ... and attempted to detonate them at a remote location" on Monday, but what they thought were bombs were actually "inert devices," the FBI said in a news conference this morning.

According to an affidavit, various members of the group -- three of which had been charged early today and two others were were being charged -- had also talked about attacking or detonating explosives at the following:

  • The Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland
  • The Justice Center in Cleveland
  • A Cuyahoga County Homeland Security operation called the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center.
  • An unidentified Ku Klux Klan location in Ohio
  • An Interstate 480 bridge known as the Valley View bridge.

Members of the group also talked about putting smoke grenades on the Veterans Memorial Bridge (Detroit-Superior Bridge) in Cleveland as a diversion while they "knocked the bank signs off the tops of the larger buildings in downtown Cleveland" ...

http://tinyurl.com/72hyffd

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