Aero-Flex String Trimmer

I hate (a strong word I reserve for the most deserving) regular string trimmers, the kind you have to wind easily-breakable plastic string around a hub and never feeds out when "bumped".  I know it works for the pros, I've seen it, but this once a week home amateur needed salvation and it has been delivered with this Aero-Flex head that uses the pre-formed and easily installed lines that you see below (with the cover removed). 

https://aero-flex.com

PDF Preview

The most recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader includes a PDF thumbnail previewer, but it has to be enabled on the Preferences ... General screen, as pointed to below.  Those previews, particularly when viewing large or extra large icons, are a handy way of quickly spotting the document you're looking for.

https://get.adobe.com/reader

AutoCorrect in Outlook

Outlook's AutoCorrect features not only fixes common misspelling, typos and keyboard accidents, but also changes certain combinations of keystrokes into faces and arrows.  Best of all you can add your own special combos to spice up our emails, perhaps adding some greek like π or Ω.  

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/choose-autocorrect-options-for-capitalization-spelling-and-symbols-e7433b94-f3de-4532-9dc8-b29063a96e1f

Folder Colorizer 2

If you're like me, you have way too many folders on your desktop and you resort to finding the one you want by scanning them one by one.  Folder Colorizer 2 is a free (I love free) tool for Windows that allow you to change the color of a folder to make it stand out.  You can use one of their preselected colors or choose one from the sixteen million available in the Color Editor. 

https://softorino.com/foldercolorizer2

Balsamic Glazed Brussels Sprouts

It's rare that the recipe on the back of the package makes a 5-star addition to your evening meal, but Trader Joes shaved Brussels Sprouts is that rare exception.  Already shaved, it's like getting a 20-minute head start on this super simple combination of oil, bacon, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.

https://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/3179

Octane 2.0

Google upgraded their JavaScript engine tester, designed to test the second most important factor in your web browser experience (after Internet bandwidth of course).  My six-year-old Macbook Air laptop comes in with the decent score below, and much better than my Acer Chromebook 14's score of 7,512 and my iPad Air 2's score of 9,557.

http://chromium.github.io/octane

1977 Dayton River Corridor Classic

My first half-marathon was the inaugural Dayton River Corridor Classic, held the afternoon of Saturday, October 29, 1977.  My pace was about 8:08 per mile over those 13.1 miles and not being used to that kind of distance, I was sore for several days after.  The soreness fades, but being part of Dayton's running history lasts forever.

https://www.rundayton.org/brief-history-of-the-drcc

Double The Mice

I recently added a second mouse, the wired USB one pictured on the right above, to my traditional wireless Bluetooth mouse to the left of the keyboard.  I tried a pair of wireless mice, but couldn't get both to work at the same time.  The goal here was to be more efficient when needing to use repeated left-handed shortcuts (e.g. ALT-TAB), but I've found that occasionally switching back and forth helps relieve wrist fatigue.

Rock Garden

Transformed an area where nothing would grow well into a decorative rock garden.  Replaced 700 pounds of dirt, sod and roots with at least 1,000 pounds of Imperial River Rock, flat stones and paver sand laying on top of a couple sheets of landscape fabric to prevent weeds.

We can still "rock" it in our 60's!

Everything Bagel Hot Dog

Another fusion of breakfast and dinner, combining this man's favorite, a jumbo hot dog, with cream cheese and the five ingredients that top my favorite bagel, that being sesame and poppy seeds, dried onion flakes, dried garlic flakes, and coarse sea salt.  Summer will see this being devoured several more times.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/everything-bagel-hot-dog-3877124

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/everything-bagel-seasoning-mix-3348139

Elevated Herb Garden

Last weekend's project was building this (almost) 3 foot by 4 foot elevated herb garden, and planting
sweet basil, cilantro, rosemary, Italian oregano and flat Italian parsley.  It was so heavy we had to move it from the garage to the back yard, taking three short rest breaks and barely getting through the extra-wide gate, before installing the 2'x4's that make the floor. Add the garden soil and I'm estimating about 500 pounds.

Here's hoping those fat rabbits can't jump this high.  Next step will be calling Elmer Fudd.

https://www.wisconsinmommy.com/build-elevated-raised-garden-bed

First Successful Flight of the Wright Flyer

My home office wall decorations are now complete with the addition of this classic Wright Brothers picture showing Orville piloting, laying on his stomach, while his brother Wilbur looks on.  The brothers took turns flying, so it just happens that Orville was piloting when they made history.  It's amazing how far flying has progressed since 1903.

https://www.framedart.com/first-successful-flight-of-the-wright-flyer-print-703536.htm

Phone Identification

My solution to wanting a good samaritan to be able to return my phone in case I misplace it is to place a business card info-side down under my Pixel 2's protective phone case.  Given my company's logo on the back of the card, I guess this might also be a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075N1HNFK

Printing Password Protected PDFs

What to do if you get a PDF that's disallowed itself from being printed?  Simply upload it to your Google Drive and print it from there.  Really, it's that easy.  Seriously, why would anyone bother to try to prevent printing, or make themselves believe that's even technically possible to do that in software?  Silly rabbits...

https://www.labnol.org/software/print-password-protected-pdf-files/29918/

KitchenAid Food Processor

Our newest kitchen machine is a 9-cup KitchenAid food processor and my favorite feature (so far) is ExactSlice, allowing six different thickness to be cut with the slide of its lever in front.  As the GIF below demonstrates, it takes a stick of hard pepperoni down to even slices in a few seconds.

https://www.kitchenaid.com/shop/-%5bKFP0933OB%5d-407279/KFP0933OB

Santa's Address

The official Canadian address for Santa Claus uses the postal code of H0H 0H0, cleverly matching the jolly one's famous laugh.  Eleven thousand "postal elves",  volunteers from Canada Post, respond to more than one million children's letters to Santa, answering each one in the language or in which it was written.

SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE H0H 0H0
CANADA

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/santas-canadian-postal-code

Chicken Salad with Caesar Dressing

It's the addition of the avocado in the caesar dressing that caught our attention in this simple recipe and the results were superb.  I like the fact that the dressing, instead of sliding the rest of the ingredients around, binds it together nicely.  And you might tell I liked the dressing by the double scoop (at least) on each English muffin.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chicken-salad-with-caesar-dressing-5191075

Google Sheets - Waterfall Charts

Among the recent improvements to Google Sheets is being able to create waterfall charts, like the one below that tracks the number of miles I've run per year since 2004 (I turned 49 that year).  Lots of customization is available, including adding the number of miles that year inside the blue bars and the cumulative total above.  That's not all, as you can discover at this Google blog post.

https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/pivot-cloud-intelligent-features-google-sheets-help-businesses-uncover-insights/

CVG and CMH Airports

My closest airport, about 30 minutes away, is Dayton International Airport, which has the "DAY" airport code, which makes total sense.  The other two I use are Cincinnati, "CVG", and Columbus, "CMH", which are not so obvious and need some history lessons.

Cincinnati's airport is in Northern Kentucky, and the nearest major city at the time of its opening was Covington, hence the "CVG".

As for Columbus, the "CMH" stands for "Columbus Municipal Hanger", its original name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati/Northern_Kentucky_International_Airport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glenn_Columbus_International_Airport

Emotional Speed

My Life Experiences blog contains stories about my life, this one containing three about going fast, or better said, faster than I expected.  I hope you enjoy The Skiing Story, The Motorcycle Story and The Great Leap Story, including the back story to each. 

https://lifeexperiences.paulishing.com/2018/04/emotional-speed.html