November 4, 2026 – The Real OC

November 4, 2026 / / 0 Comments

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Unknown. I know, you are going to say that was Mark Twain. He certainly said things like that but his own institute denies ownership. It seems to be an evolving quote that different people have said similar things until it got to a quaint, concise and readable quote. Nevertheless the sentiment is true and that is what I want to talk about today.

I am going to admit something. Sometimes I get caught up in stereotyping. It is one of the mechanisms that we humans use to process large amounts of data. It happens when you are ignorant of a subject, you don’t really care about it and you have other over-generalizations overlapping. I am going to give a couple of examples here.

I have primarily been a knowledge worker my whole life. Because I have never really held a job that works outside day in and day out it was my belief that by the time the calendar hits November, it is always raining and wet. Now, I am not stupid, I know that it does not always rain. Since my kids have been little, most Halloween nights have been dry. But, there have been some where it was really raining. Based on that one piece of data, I cannot say with certainty that Halloween will be dry.

When I started delivering Amazon, it was my belief that I was going to be wet everyday. I packed my raingear and mentally prepared. When I look back, there was only two days that I actually got wet and I didnt pull out my raingear. Not because I am foolish but because it really didn’t rain all the time. Was it sunny and pleasant? No. It was often gray and damp. But it also wasn’t full on raining. In fact, I was surprised that it was actually sunnier than rainier.

Knowing that lesson from several years ago, I completely ignored it and thought I knew what living on the Oregon Coast was all about. Because it sometimes rained on my camping trips over the years, because we do get double to triple the amount of annual rainfall than where I moved 40 miles in land I figured that it was always going to be wet.

Before we get too carried away, it is almost always damp here outside of the summer. This October has had pretty good weather, half of the days have been sunny with high temps near 60 degrees. The problem I have seen is that it takes a long time to get to that daily high and the humidity is high as well. As an example, the thermal energy to dry out the grass to mow is never high enough. I end up with wet feet and a plugged mower. But, the grass keeps growing and it is not raining, but sunny.

If it is sunny, then it is going to be windy. That is mostly true. What happens is that as the inland temperatures heat up, it starts sucking the cooler and moister ocean air east. But, what I have observed is that this phenomenon typically starts around 2-3pm. So, if you want to get out on the lake before noon will be calm, albeit cool because it is almost never ‘warm’. Because I live about a mile from the ocean, it is not quite as cool or cloudy or windy then the beach.

I thought that in the wet season (Oct-June) was just that. That is actually not true. In fact because of the summer wind, some of the best and most pleasant days are actually in the wet season. You don’t get the thermal drive in the wet season and because the temperature is nearly the same all year around it can be unexpectedly nice. The real problem is that is difficult to predict any longer than a couple of days in the future.

I have lived in tourists towns before but never during the peak season. I expected traffic to be a headache. What I found was that traffic can be a pain Friday through Monday but being that I live here, I know the tricks to get where I want to go and avoid the highway except when necessary. The town also starts to roll up after 8 PM so the peak traffic hours are 12-7 PM. I can work around that schedule and route so that traffic is not much of a factor.

End Your Programming Routine: The real Oregon Coast has been better than I expected. Things are still damp and mild steel rusts pretty quickly. I haven’t sweat much and I relish those days where I go inland and warm up as well as dry out a little bit but that is only a season. I am looking forward to establishing my beach head here and really starting to take advantage of what is around me in a more meaningful way.

November 3, 2026 – Spoken Like a True Idiot

November 3, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From an article on MSN “The rifle found hidden inside a wall during a house renovation“

Old houses have a way of keeping score. Sometimes that means faded newspapers, handwritten notes, or, in far rarer cases, a rifle sealed inside a wall.

Why A Hidden Rifle Stops A Renovation Cold

A firearm discovery changes the mood of a renovation instantly. What starts as a dusty demolition job becomes a scene that demands caution, patience, and a clear head.

That reaction is not overblown. According to reporting from The Independent, one Dallas-area renovation uncovered a weapon hidden inside a wall, the kind of find that reminds homeowners how unpredictable older properties can be. News stories about hidden rooms, false walls, and concealed caches appear often enough to feel familiar, but an actual gun is different because it carries obvious safety risks.

Even an old rifle that looks forgotten can still be dangerous. Ammunition may be nearby, metal parts can remain functional, and no one opening a wall can know at a glance whether the gun is loaded, altered, or unstable after decades in a dark cavity.

Feel free to read the rest of this by clicking on the link at the top if you like.

This is truly what is wrong with America today. I can’t blame the guy who has probably never seen let alone handled a firearm for not knowing what to do. The mere fact is that the firearm was in the wall the whole time and simply exposing it has nothing to do with danger. And drywall is no threat to stopping metal shards.

I will admit this would be unusual and there are plenty of things that somehow made it behind walls. Watch This Old House and you will see this from time to time. My cousins found a 22LR revolver in their basement. Heck, I have put stuff in the walls to be found later. Where do you think the time capsule went?

If you read the article, just imagine substituting a few words. Instead of “a rifle in the walls” you wrote “a black person in the neighborhood”. I mean we don’t know the history or the intentions. How ridiculous. Just because you are ignorant does not mean you have to sound the alarm on your own far fetched intentions.

First of all, I subscribe to the Art of Manliness 100 skills. A man should be able to shoot a gun as well as sew a button. If you can’t, what kind of man are you? Well, you are the kind of man that calls the police because they found a gun. That very well might be the right thing to do in the circumstances. I would subscribe that it is more likely the gun was used in a crime or hidden by a prohibited person rather than blow up because it is behind a wall.

Just the other day we had electricians finishing up some work. I was telling them that we have been having breaker trips since they started doing the work. This was a circuit that they did work on. Finally they pulled off the cover and said that it was wired incorrectly causing the arc fault to trip the breaker. These are professionals that do this work everyday and they made a careless mistake. What of an amateur, or what if they are high on meth or somebody put the gun there and then the stack of drywall was laid up against the wall and it was forgotten, then hidden?

In the days before ‘metrosexual’ was a made up term, people did stuff. Yeah sure, sometimes they stuck their hand in a dark space and shocked themselves. However, the project was not stopped to call an electrician and get a quote to rewire the entire house. The mindset was to see what was going on and carefully work around potentially dangerous situations. Chances are high that if a firearm was rusted to the point of not being reliably safe (even if it was loaded) that would also not reliably function.

End Your Programming Routine: I guess what draws my ire the most is the inference that a firearm should be treated like a pressure sensitive trigger on a bomb. If you look at it the wrong way your chances of injury are high. If there was so much corrosion as to not be able to clear the weapon, I would also assume that the fasteners holding the wall together are in the same state. If you want to become a man, learn to approach your fears. You will be a better person for it.

November 2, 2026 – Are the Old Days Really Better?

November 2, 2026 / / 0 Comments

I recently made it through my wife’s record collection that she purchased used. I am familiar with most of the bands, but not necessarily the song names. My first order was to determine the playability of the collection. While I didn’t expect problems, I found some significantly warped records on picking out some randomly. Since records also have a propensity to be warn out, I wanted to see. I some thoughts about buying a used album collection.

October 30, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 1, Chapters 6-12

October 30, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Two weeks in a row? I have almost pried the train back on the tracks. It doesn’t change the fact that I am worried about staying ahead. At this point I have read a chapter a night and yet I can feel the point that I am at reading is going to surpassed by the weekly deadline breathing down my neck. I guess if that happens I will have to pause until I catch up.

What to say about this week’s section of reading? It is really about character development. The book starts a little abruptly with the conflict between Roark and the school. This week, we see over and over the pattern of asking Roark to bend, his refusal and the consequences for not doing so. In contrast, Keating continues act within the ‘populist’ definition and successes keep coming.

Aside from the character development as well as the personal benefits of populism, we start to see the downside of it as well. For instance, Keating is introduced to Dominque Francon, (his boss’s daughter) and is struck. She recognizes his success but is romantically uninterested. He sees her upside, particularly looks and despite that attraction, he cannot stand up to his long time girlfriend.

Like many people that follow the populist trail, they end up being wishy washy and swarmy. By that I mean they end up not making a decision and playing both sides. Keating is dating Dominique as well as Catherine. Each one he pretending that the relationship is exclusive. Because he is not being genuine himself, it has mental consequences.

I was pretty certain that I was going to go here, but I wasn’t quite sure when. When I think about things, this is the perfect time to mention the political season with the mid-term elections next week. Since I did spend quite a bit of time looking at my ballot, I went over the ballot with my wife last weekend. I am going to give the benefit of the doubt here but I watch political ads and read the candidate bios with my mouth ajaw.

First of all, this is not political but an observation. I cannot trust either side. But there are some contested races and those are getting heavy ad play. One of them is in Washington (not even my state) and it is Marie Perez v John Braun. The incumbent is Perez. In the positive ads she is saying Washington (DC) is broken and she wants to go to fix it. Now wait a minute, aren’t you already in Washington already?

I want to meet the person that says “I know the solution, what we need to fix the problem is the same person that is part of the problem”. On second thought, no I really do not want to meet them. We really need to look at another paradigm of life to see how wrong and gullable the voters really are.

I am a long time Oregon Ducks hater. When I was growing up in Corvallis, home of the Oregon State Beavers there was a bitter rivalry. Both football teams were terrible and had been so all of my life at that time. But then something changed and the Ducks started having success in the mid-1990s. Now it is hard to look back and even remember that they used to be terrible. In fact, part of the reason I don’t like them is that the fans seem smug and patronizing. They say things like “I root for the Beavers too” but what is implied is “because they are no threat to the Ducks”.

This year, before the football season started all of the local talk was that this was the Duck’s year. They had a $40MM of NIL spent on the team. The quarterback was coming back for redemption after losing to Indiana in the playoffs. The schedule seemed favorable and all of that. I hate to admit it, but I almost feel bad for them. Their offense is terrible and consequently their current record is 4-3. Their playoff hopes are all but gone and they simply do not know how to lose and be happy.

The offense has been bad all year. It happens that last year’s Offensive Coordinator left to become the head coach at Kentucky. They seem to be overperforming at 6-1. The Oregon head coach Dan Lanning has been aware of the problems but this week he fired the current Offensive Coordinator. What is the lesson here? The coach didn’t say, this is your problem you need to fix it. Nope, you had your chance and now we need to go a different direction.

In what world do we say you Representative, you Governor, you Senator need to go in and clean up this mess that evolved while you involved? I will tell you what world. It is the world that people say things that they can’t do because it sounds good. I could say that I am going to get a gold medal in 2028. I could even want that but I don’t have a chance in hell of doing it. It is best that I don’t pretend that I am so tone deaf as to advertise that is something I will pursue, let alone achieve.

End Your Programming Routine: I am really not anti-populism. I am anti-populism for the sake of getting elected or getting a career advantage. Principles matter even if those principles are not as popular, especially in politics. If you truly do not have a position, taking the one that seems to be in favor is fine as long as that decision is rooted in solid principles.

October 29, 2026 – Brew Crew Rules

October 29, 2026 / / 0 Comments

This could be the year that the Milwaukee Brewers finally win it all. I am writing this a couple days ahead of the outcome. I may come out and edit this before it posts if something drastically changes but this is not really a story about the the Brewers being champions. It is about the journey to get here.

The pillow in the picture was made for me by my wife and at that time, we were both teenagers. I have kept it around all these years not because I am a huge Brewer’s fan but because she made it. The funny thing is I would be shocked if she did this today. There is hardly a domestic bone in her body. In fact, we joke that the sewing machine I claimed out of her parent’s estate is my sewing machine.

Being a Brewer’s fan has had it’s ups and downs. Mostly downs if I am to be honest. There are a couple of reasons that I don’t follow them too closely. One of them being that it is nearly a miracle that they are ever on TV. Unlike the Seattle Mariners, you can find those games on the radio in most markets here even if they are not on TV. Mostly, I just check in every couple of months to see if they are trending up or down. It is kind of like your 401K.

Last year, I was really hoping for a Seattle vs. Milwaukee World Series. Two teams that have never one one. Unfortunately, both teams had the same results, a series loss to the eventual series contenders. After having the best record in MLB and getting swept by the Dodgers I didn’t hold much hope that the Brewers were going to be contenders. In fact, the year before they got beat in the Wild Card series by the Mets after winning the NL Central. They have had kind of a recent history of choking when it counts.

There are some things about me that apparently my kids don’t even know. We were sitting around grieving after Raya died and talking about how we watched the game when my son said “where did this obsession for the Brewers even come from? It seems kind of random.” To be fair, I had never really ever talked with him about it.

When my dad was midway into his career, the company used to staff projects with people from different offices. At that time, they offered to provide weekly travel or long term lodging. My mom wanted to see places and so we went to Milwaukee for a few months. We lived in a town house and I started Kindergarten. One of the things I got to do was go to a Milwaukee Brewers game with my dad. That became my team.

If I do my math correctly, the year was 1979. I spent the fall in the Milwaukee school district. A couple of years later, the Brewers faced the St Loius Cardinals in the 1982 World Series. I was a kid, what did I know? I didn’t know that this was a small market team that didn’t have the staying power to not get back until 44 years later. It was my first real sport’s loss too.

One of the things I got when I went to the game was a Milwaukee Brewers hat. I still have it, but it looks 47 years old. I consider it retired now but I broke it out for the games. In this age of new uniforms every game a.k.a. purple and black Oregon Duck uniforms it is common to have alternate logos and colors. But when they announced a new, all blue hat instead of the yellow on blue, I decided to get one. I was in high school.

Moving on from high school to college, I took my Brewers hat as a badge of pride. You saw Dodgers, Angels, Giants, Yankees, Red Sox, White Sox and even some Athletics hats but never a Milwaukee hat. It didn’t matter if they were not contenders, the fact that it wasn’t popular was good enough for me.

When I moved into my dorm of 75 kids all of the sudden, there were two other guys wearing Milwaukee Brewers hats there. What are the odds? They were Brewers fans because brewers made beer and that was an extremely important profession particularly on Friday and Saturday night. But still, I found my people. Not only were they Brewers fans but also Raiders fans.

One particular drinking game that I liked to play is called “Asshole“. Our version included the Asshole having to use the term “Brew Crew Rules” before playing a card. With three out of seven being Brewers fans, we had a distinct advantage. That was thirty years ago, maybe it will finally be true.

End Your Programming Routine: I now have a slightly newer Brewers hat that is the original blue and gold. My brother bought it for me about twenty years ago when Nike was offloading baseball hats. Of course nobody was buying Milwaukee so there was ten of those to any other team. There would be a pile of Milwaukee hats, some Cleveland or Detroit hats and then some Montreal Expos or something. Winning a world series won’t change my world but it sure is nice to see two teams that are not there every couple of years.

October 28, 2026 – Pacific Northwest Beer Culture

October 28, 2026 /

There is a little town just south of us that has posted some signs about all of the movies that have been filmed there. That kind of spurred an interest in watching them ourselves. A couple of weeks ago, we rented the movie “Sometimes a Great Notion” filmed right here staring Paul Newman in 1972.

Watching the movie, most of the in town scenes looked to be filmed in Newport, OR. The featured home is still identifiable and is on the Siletz river, still only accessible by boat. I wont go too much into the plot of the movie but it is about an Oregon logging family and their struggle to fulfill obligations in the face of a logging strike. One consumer placement (intentional or not) was copious amounts of Olympia beer.

We are all aware of the Pacific Northwest beer revolution. Brands such as Rogue and Redhook kicked craft beer into national prominence in the 1990s. So much so that they made a major impact onto the national brewers causing industry consolidation and to a large degree decline.

When I was a kid in the 1980s, Budweiser was the self proclaimed “King of Beers”. The big three brands were Miller, Coors and Budweiser. To some degree, the first two were regional with Miller being the most prevalent in the midwest, Coors being largely contained in the mountain west and Budweiser for everyone. They were all here, but what reigned above all were the regional brands of Blitz-Weinhards, Olympia and Rainier.

After watching “Sometimes a Great Notion”, I began to think about those brands again. It used to be that every tavern would have one of those regional signs in the window. Rarely would you see a Coors Light or Bud Light sign in the window. I started doing some quick research to see what became of them. Now, you have to sort of follow the industry in general to get the full picture but I will try to consolidate it into a few words.

The year 2008 was a big year. Remember “too big to fail”? In 2008, Interbrew and Ambev merged and purchased Anheuser-Busch. That same year, Miller and Coors merged to form SABMiller. Later in 2016, InBev merged with SABMiller. There are some other players in the conversation namely Constellation brands (think Mexican beers), Heineken (think European brands) and Pabst brewing. For domestic labels, it is either inBev or Pabst as the current owner.

My dad used to drink Blitz-Weinhard beer, an Oregon beer. This was the cheaper cousin of Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve considered a higher end choice because it mostly came in long neck bottles and locally sourced ingredients. In 1999, Henry Weinhard’s was purchased by Miller and shutdown the Portland OR brewery. That was the beginning of the end with production ceasing in 2021. However, the name was revived by Hop Valley, an inBev company and has limited PNW distribution.

Rainier definitely had the least penetration into Oregon. So while it was known, it wasn’t as popular. Rainier was already owned by Stroh’s (also owned Miller) but was sold to Pabst in 1999. Ironically from 1999-2003, Rainier was brewed at the Olympia brewery after the sale from Miller to Pabst.

That brings us to our subject, Olympia Beer. Pabst purchased the brand from Miller in 1999. At that time, Pabst bought the label and Miller kept the brewery. Miller eventually closed the brewery and both Rainier and Olympia became homeless. Both were moved to California and Olympia continued until the pandemic. 2021 saw the Olympia brand disappear for the foreseeable future.

After watching the movie, I thought I want to see what this Olympia beer was what I remembered it to be. I was reading that at one time it was the sixth largest brewery in the United States. To my surprise, I couldn’t find it anywhere on the shelves. That is actually what lead me down this trail today.

I cannot always say that the old ways are the better ways. The gold rush of post World War II into Oregon forests eventually cut down all of the old growth forest and all those mill towns that existed as proximity to the resources dried up just like Olympia and Blitz-Weinhard. At the top of this post I mentioned Newport OR. That used to be a shipping hub for logs going to Asia on major container ships. Aside from logging, the fishing fleet also had a strong presence. That too has largely gone boutique just like beer and logging.

End Your Programming Routine: Probably someday you will be able to buy Olympia beer on e-Bay like you can buy Billy beer. I myself won’t really miss Olympia having had it in the last ten years. From my memory, it was metallic and somewhat unpleasant when compared to other options. That being said, I cannot deny that my nostalgia for what I remember as ‘good times’ is strong. That beer fueled a generation that is rapidly disappearing and made us what we are today.

October 26, 2026 – Farewell Sweet Girl

October 26, 2026 /

I don’t care what anyone says, being present while something passes on is not beautiful. When hunting, there is reverence and gratefulness for the life that was given in sustenance. But I can also speak personally that there is elation but also heaviness. In some cases, killing a varmint is a closure of rage. It is me, besting my enemy that has sought to cause me harm by stealing and damaging my property.

People that are experienced such as a butcher justify the event as ‘better than the alternative’ and use the phrase they ‘had a good life’. Now, I am not going to stop eating meat and I believe that God put resources on this planet for our survival. It still doesn’t make the situation any easier.

When it is a person, sometimes there is regret or fear or doubt. We have a whole metaphysical justification with the soul and higher calling and no longer in pain. I am going to largely leave people out of this conversation because unlike pets or livestock our relations are significantly more complicated as well as typically significantly longer. There are so many dynamics such as old versus young, accident versus sickness etc.

My dog was six years old. Forget dog years and all of that, this was something that was cared and nurtured for a short period of time. It would be as if of a six year old got terminal cancer. We are as parents still our children’s everything until at least twelve or thirteen when they are able to start acting somewhat independent such as thinking beyond the moment, self care and transporting themselves in some way. By the way, I am not saying children and pets are equivalent, they simply share many of the same needs on a similar time line.

Our girl stopped eating Wednesday night. We had gone through this rodeo a couple of months earlier. At that point, we were able to get some steroids and she seemed mostly normal for a couple of months. But now, the medicine was not working. To make matters worse, she would drink water and then vomit. Even if we tried to get some medicine down, her mouth would become foamy and she would start heaving. Time to circle the wagons.

In our area, there is a service that can schedule a vet out to euthanize a pet or livestock. For that, we set an appointment when we could see death was imminent. In the meantime Raya wanted to be close but not be seen. She was upstairs while we worked but hidden behind the bed. She didn’t make it to the appointment. About 10PM Friday, we heard a death groan. I stroked her head and my wife prayed for a quick passing. In about ten minutes, her struggle was over and she was gone.

Part of me was very relieved that we were no longer subject to the countdown clock. Part of me felt angry that we were selfish in wanting to schedule her passing for when it was convenient for us. And yet, after she died I felt a sense of relief. My wife and I embraced and cried. I have heard it said that abundant life also requires abundant death. One does not exist at the exclusion of the other. I get that, I just hurts is all.

To My Sweet Girl, Raya Hope.

You came into our lives at a period of global instability. We were still grieving the sudden loss of our beloved Snowflake. I was sure that you were not going to be a suitable replacement. But you earned your place with my respect and you did it in a different way.

You did not instantly love every person that walked by. Instead, you protected your people first until you knew that there was no threat. Then you loved them just the same. I can respect that because I felt like I could trust that you had our best interest in mind. I could also feel relatively comforted that you were all bark and no bite. You were intimidating without being dangerous. Yet, I have no doubt that you would put yourself between the bear and us without hesitation.

I am grateful for the time that we were out of town for cancer treatment and yet you were barking out the window at the stranger loitering on the corner. Your teenage brother was scared but assured that you had his back. On more than one occasion your presence gave confidence to the kids that they were going to be OK as long as you were on the job.

Don’t get me wrong, you were sometimes annoying. Like when we would lock you up to keep you away from someone working at the house and you would bark incessantly because we didn’t give you the opportunity to do your job. Or when you thought that the cinnamon rolls were made specifically for you. Those are the things that we will look back in time and chuckle about but it is also what endears us.

I am crushed to lose a good companion so prematurely. You can rest assured that there will not be another one like you, the right combination of Burmese and Golden. I want you to know that we will be OK and that your time of watching over us is complete. I thank you for the job you did, you were loved and you will be missed.

Love, Dad

October 23, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 1, Chapters 1-5

October 23, 2026 /

This series has been long anticipated by me. As I mentioned last week, I have been reading this book for quite a while. This particular section I read months ago and so I had to go back and refresh my mind about what specifically happened. As always, this is not going to be a book report but an analysis about how this book is relevant in our current lives. That is what makes a true classic anyway. In case you are not reading along, I will start with a short summary.

The book starts with the introduction of the two main characters. One by the name of Howard Roark who is an idealistic, architecture student and the other is the Peter Keating who is the star pupil. It is recognized that Roark is the more talented of the two however he refuses to modify his ideals regardless of the consequences. This leads Roark to get kicked out of school and have difficulty finding employment without credentials.

Keating on the other hand seems to have no qualms about delivering what is asked. This includes a propensity to go against his grain even if it is in contrast to his own inner compass. Keating recognizes that Roark is in fact better at his discipline than he is and it drives him crazy that he will not apply it to the ‘common good’. That is winning project work regardless of his design sensibilities and principle.

As they both begin their careers, Keating move up at a rapid pace. Some of that is his ability but there is also a component of win at all costs. This manifests itself as deceit and manipulation. Roark on the other hand stays attached at the hip with his mentor Henry Cameron. Because his aesthetic sense is not popular, it becomes his financial ruin and Cameron gives up his practice leaving Roark out on a limb with no job or prospects.

There are a number of other characters that are introduced into the story that I will simply just introduce the primary ones for now for possible reference at a later point.

  • Guy Francon – Peter Keating’s benefactor and employer
  • Catherine Halsey – Peter’s Girlfriend and safety net
  • Ellsworth Tooney – Catherine’s uncle and renowned art influencer

At one point in my life, I was a member of the Brewers Association. I was having an issue with my chemistry career and I was seriously thinking about opening some kind of craft beer establishment. It came with a magazine and industry information and I remember reading a opinion piece. It went something like this.

I am a degreed and experienced brewer that owns and runs a brewpub establishment. When I make beer using malt extract it comes out better than starting with grain. So this is what I make and serve. Does this make me any less of a professional beer maker?

For those of you not in the know, malt extract is the condensed form of wort (or sugar water). It is considered a short cut in the brewing process and it very common in homebrewing because it reduces the amount of equipment and time required to brew beer. Suffice to say, I could read the angst in the question because it was clearly a chink in the questioner’s ego.

Keep in mind that this kind of dilemma is pre internet forum or social media. This would be the kind of thing that today you would read about in Reddit or similar. It is also the kind of question that would come up in a new or isolated or enthusiasts environment. Rest assured that if SAB Miller thought it would save them money, they would start with malt extract as well. Mind you, I know nothing about their operations and so this is not an accusation. I am simply saying that working with the largest food companies in the world, there is no room for ideals such as starting point conflicts.

For a lot of my career, I have had the distinction of working with and mentoring many younger associates. What I have observed is that school is full of ideals. That could be the ‘best’ way to program or engineering means to do things in this way. This often times leads those associates to end up having a conflict between what they believe to be true and the way that things really are. Academia often is oriented towards research and the purity of the process whereas business is primarily about the bottom line.

I myself have never had these kinds of moral questions mentioned above because I don’t really think that they matter. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have principles it simply is the result of my pragmatism. Does the code do what it is supposed to do? Is it reliable? Is it supportable? After that, technology choices and ways to do it are preferences, not principles.

One last anecdote. I was a year in with a former company and another co-worker of mine was lamenting that every day working here he was losing his programming skills because the technology curve was several years behind. What I said to him was that he would have to make a choice. In our current field, this was cutting edge; not the technology but the application of it. If being at the bleeding edge of technology is important, then it would be best to find someplace better to apply skills.

End Your Programming Routine: I want to make sure that I am not misunderstood, principles are very important. I think that many times people confuse principles with preference. It really depends on how you frame those principles and I am not advocating for justification. That often translated to a failure of leadership but that is a totally different story. Know what you believe and why. Then you can apply what you are doing against that lens.

October 22, 2026 – What Happened to the Garbage?

October 22, 2026 /

Yes, I have lived in an urban environment since the mid-1990s but I grew up in the country. When I did we had the local deer that ate my dad’s garden and my mom’s flowers. There was an occasional possum and some rabbits every now an then. One time my brother actually found a hedgehog (alive) in the pasture. I have no idea where or how that happened since they are not native nor was anyone around missing a pet. My dad said that about ten years ago, there was a cougar down in the pasture but it was a one time event.

Since we have moved to the lake, it has been a stark awakening. I talked to my neighbor as I was cleaning up the trash and he said that his can got hit too. He said that it was a first time even though it has happened on the street before. He has told me a couple of times that we are ‘on the edge of the outback’. I guess so.

I have to admit that as much as I have been at the coast including years and years of deer hunting, I must have been naïve. Not only have I rarely seen deer but never a bear or a cougar. As a local and being more in tune with the chatter, I am realizing that we are surrounded by wildlife including some potentially dangerous ones. I have been reading on Nextdoor about bears getting into the garbage in the community about five miles south but not here.

I am still in the funk of moving and I will be for many months to come. Now that the furnace is installed and the electrical work is almost complete I started working on organizing my outdoor gear last week. Not only is it camping and backpacking but also my hunting and shooting supplies. Everything is cased, boxed or split up in different locations.

Everything? Well, not quite. As a defensively oriented person I still have quick access self-defense. But, this thinking has largely been oriented toward varmints or two legged threats and no where near where I want to be when I am done organizing. For that reason, I have felt ‘safe’ for what I have expected and prepared for.

Given that the likelihood of a dangerous wildlife encounter is extremely small, I feel like this is a wake up call. I don’t know if that bear was male or female. I don’t know if there are cubs around and that takes things to a different level. Heck, I feel like I should possibly be armed if I go outside after dark.

I always wanted to live somewhere that was much closer to nature and particularly animals. I also wanted to live with a little more peace and quiet like out of the city. When we were discussing this move, I kind of saw it as the surrender of that dream. We are not in the city but we are not far either. I saw this property more like a vacation property then in the wilderness. It is kind of seeming more like what I wanted, just without the wide open spaces and ponderosa pine.

You might be wondering if I am scared. No, not really. I will say that my wife is a little freaked out. What I will say is that I am going to be a lot less carefree. It is no longer a slim possibility that something could be happening outside at night. It makes me wonder what things we should change if using the hot tub after dark as an example. What should I do if I let the dog out after dark? It is things like that.

I think the truth is that cougars are more of a threat than bears. Bears can overpower you based on their size and defensive instincts whereas cougars can stalk and attack. Cougars are more likely to run away so as not to be seen but they are also more likely to attack as well. You just don’t really know.

End Your Programming Routine: So now we can say that we lost our cat by a suspected cougar and had a bear in the trash. I think that what I am going to do is keep an eye out for more of this type of activity. Unfortunately, with laws the way that they are, we cant just keep a shotgun propped in the corner, nor would I do that. But, I might just have think about getting stuff organized a little faster than I have been doing.