November 13, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 2, Chapters 1-7

November 13, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Things have settled into a predictable pattern in The Fountainhead. The protagonist is struggling on an upward trajectory. The Antagonist is slipping downward and the world keeps revolving. This week enters into a new part of the book titled Ellsworth Toohey. He is a character that seems to wield undue influence on the story being neither the hero nor the villain. Before we get into all of that, let us do a quick review of the reading.

Seven chapters is quite a bit to cover in such a short bit of writing without going overboard. But here is my best shot. Because Roark has no work as an architect goes to work in a marble quarry to keep his mind clear. By coincidence Dominique goes to the country for the summer and sees Roark for the first time. As a ruse, Dominique destroys her marble fireplace as a ruse to get Roark to fix it to see for herself if he represents what she thinks he is. Eventually, Dominique struggles by admiring Roark, she hates herself.

Ellsworth Toohey is introduced into the story by a sculptor Steven Mallory and an attempted assassination. That event is presented as resentment for mediocracy over excellence. As an example Toohey starts to push mediocrity by introducing Keating to the author Lois Cook. This is among the multiple groups he creates such as Council of American Builders and making Keating is president. Ultimately, Toohey allies with Dominique to destroy Roark.

I have the perfect allegory to Toohey today, that is Donald Trump. A man of seeming significant influence without a track record of actually accomplishing that much (in the realm of politics that is). Both use their pulpits to wield opinion as fact and can be extremely vindictive when scorn.

On the heels of my podcast, “The Most Important Election of Our Lives, 2026 Edition” everything played out exactly as I expected. The only thing I actually got wrong was that in County Commissioner #1, the incumbent lost despite significant advertising effort on the radio. I am also new here so I am not sure whose Cheerios he pissed in during the last term. Every incumbent Democrat won.

It seems like for the first time in several election cycles the polls were actually correct. The senate races in Texas, Michigan and South Carolina switched from Red to Blue. This was a demonstrable rebuke of Trump and his policies. Yet like Toohey, Trump was not on the ballot. It is not a far stretch to understand that people do not like what they got in the last election.

I don’t live in Texas nor do I follow things very closely but from what I had heard leading up to the election, it was inconceivable that Talarico won over Paxton. I was reading that Paxton blamed Trump for his loss despite having more support than a lot of other races. Now, let’s just think about this for a second. It is Trump’s fault that a red blooded, conservative got by Vegan progressive in Texas?

Watch the patterns here. Just two years ago the Democrats were beside themselves and were being counted out by the major media. My personal analysis says that Democrats pushed things way to far on the trans/social justice platform. The 2024 election was a rebuke of those things. It turns out that when you simply just campaign on lies, there are consequences for the next election.

Toohey is written as the personification of mediocrity. If you haven’t read ahead, we will get to some of the backstory and reasons next week. He uses deception and manipulation to get what he wants which also feeds his ego. The more his ego grows, the more of the same that we get. Hmmm… this sounds familiar. Wait, that sounds like Trump.

I wont go too much further into this because it does no good. Despite what happened on election night, it leaves little hope for this country. No longer are we the country that can make it on our bootstraps because just the pendulum swinging back and forth between parties in control is an indicator that we are lost in our direction. I could take some solace that one party or the other continuously won elections because at least then there would be a clear indication of what direction we are trending. Going back and forth means that we as a people are just bamboozled by the latest magician parlor tricks. That by definition is mediocrity.

End Your Programming Routine: I am going to let loose a little secret. I did vote in this election as I have for every one prior. I did it not as a civic duty but as a protest. Every single candidate that I voted for lost. And no I didn’t just write in somebody, it was somebody that had a chance. I have been keeping track in the last three major elections not a single candidate that I voted for has won. Just remember the word ‘mediocrity’ when you are being told that your vote matters.

November 12, 2026 – Anatomy of a Cassette Tape

November 12, 2026 / / 0 Comments

After my recent podcast about music, I got inspired to get my cassette tapes out. Since moving, I really had not even tested my full music setup. I have done a lot of record playing but I have not played any cassettes. I also haven’t used the CD player either. On Friday afternoon, I started organizing my cassettes and cassette organizer, image that.

While I have a lot of commercial albums, I also have a lot of dubbed cassettes. In all but the simplest cassette players, they would have two players. You could load two different cassettes for an extended music readiness, kind of like the 5-disk CD carousel. But the real purpose of having two cassette players in one device was to record while playing. That way you could duplicate one whole album. Or, you could create your own custom playlist i.e. the mix tape.

I many ways, the cassette was the most user friendly media of recent times. It was universal for all players, it was durable and portable. While the Compact Disk later had the ‘better’ cache in most ways it was not. The most prevalent type of CD was CD-R which meant that it was recordable. From that standpoint it could be recorded (or “ripped”) once.

The idea was that there were digital/perfect copies of the source with no audio quality loss. That is if you could get them to work. To this day, I still have my doubts as to the success of a CD recording. My experience has been half or less success factors. I have gone through stacks of blank CDs to get one recording made. Not with cassettes.

When you look at the top of the cassette, there are two tabs. Those tabs are the write protection. If you had a cassette that you were going to commit to, you break the tabs at the top so it would no longer be recordable. Of course, nothing is forever. If you really wanted to record over the top of a cassette, put a piece of scotch tape where the tabs are and it would allow the mechanical trigger to write again. Incidentally, the same was true with VHS tapes as well. A commercially produced cassette would not have tabs of course. But, it turns out that you could record over them by putting tape over the blank holes as well.

The best cassettes came at the peak of popularity. By that point, reliability and durability as well as affordability were completely worked out. They were also a system. If you see above, one cassette came with four labels. There would be a label per side but then the two extras were for when or if you were going to record on top of the first recording.

You can also see that there is a nice empty log so that each track could be written on the order of the cassette. If you were super cool or organized, you could note the song length or maybe the start time of the song for searching purposes. The liner note card were also perforated. A typical 60 minute cassette could hold seven, four minute songs. Clearly, there was plenty of room to document all of the songs on the first sheet. However, if you were to record over a cassette, you could throw out the original sheet and use the second.

On that topic, many high quality tape players offered a length counter. Usually it was simply some kind of meter that could be reset at the beginning. That way, there was some sort of indication of location on the tape. However, there was no standard so a counter reading on one brand had no correlation to a meter of another brand of player. Some of the smartest counters came at the end of a cassette with a time based counter. That was extremely rare because it meant that the gears that drove the counter had to be calibrated to the sped of a tape.

Cassette tapes were not just for copying music. You could record voices as well. People would record interviews, speeches, etc. they were also in answering machines. The advent of the audio book as well as self directed learning became possible. People could make a mixture of songs and music and it was really the first device that you could do your own self distribution for music.

End Your Programming Routine: When I look at my cassette tape collection, it represents a select slice of my life. That would be the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. There are many specific images that come to mind when I see a cover. It takes me back to middle school gym class or weightlifting in my senior year or a Boy Scout camping trip. If you don’t have any cassettes hidden away I wouldn’t go out and buy a whole setup. But, if you do have one go ahead and break it out to go back to a simpler time.

November 11, 2026 – Thank a Vet

November 11, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Just a reminder, Memorial Day is not a day to thank a veteran or first responder. It is the day to honor those lost in combat. The day to thank a vet it today. Enjoy a parade, eat a pancake breakfast or take in a wreath ceremony.

As a way to celebrate the freedom that we have, I have posted this article written by Oregon Firearm’s Federation. It almost worked , if only they would have read what they wrote before posting. I think that you get the gist.

The terrible 2026 election results were a surprise only in their sheer numbers.

While nationally voters dissatisfied with the direction of the country strongly repudiated the Trump administration, voters in Oregon, dissatisfied with the direction of the state, strongly repudiated…the Trump administration. Which had virtually nothing to do with the death spiral of Oregon.

Americans had legitimate gripes with the current administration. When the President spends time building arches and ballrooms and you cannot afford gas and groceries, you are likely to be a bit resentful.  It is, however, a bit odd to replace the people who failed to deliver on their campaign promises with people who have quite literally promised to destroy the American legislative system and impose a Marxist dictatorship.  But why react when you can overreact?

Let’s keep in mind, many of the newly elected legislators both nationally and in Oregon are not “Democrats.”  They are openly communist and have made no secret of their disdain for the Democrat establishment who they view as insufficiently radical. They have made it clear that they see the Democrat Party only as a vehicle to impose complete state control wherever they can.

There is no shortage of Monday morning quarterbacks dissecting the election results and offering you their predictions for what happens next. But in politics, the unexpected is commonplace. Who could imagine the governor of an American state (Tim Waltz) bemoaning the fact that a serial child molester was deported?

So let’s stick to how this affects Oregon’s gun owners. 

Unless Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito retire like right now, the US Supreme Court will almost certainly, in the next year or two, have more female judges who do not know what a woman is.  And while Second Amendment rights have advanced in many ways recently, do not expect that to continue.

The US Supreme Court is due to hear oral arguments on modern firearm bans on December 2nd. A ruling could come in June of 2027. And while given the mood of the current court, a favorable ruling is very possible, Oregonians have another problem: Measure 114.

As of today, the Oregon Supreme Court has not issued a ruling on whether the measure is constitutional. 

Every member of the Oregon Supreme Court was appointed by a Democrat Governor who does not like Oregonians owning firearms, either Kotek or Brown.

None of them were appointed for their commitment to the Constitution or their reserved judicial temperament.

The Oregon Legislature is controlled by Democrats who do not like Americans owning firearms.

The Oregon governor is a Democrat who does not like Oregonians owning firearms.

These people, no matter what they may tell you, talk to each other.

Measure 114, if you believe the conventional narrative, passed by the tiniest of margins.

Even if that is true, it demonstrates that it is hardly a mandate.

But let’s not forget who was counting the votes. The Secretary of State at the time was on the payroll of drug dealers she was supposed to oversee. At least one of them is facing some serious prison time. (But of course, she is still in business. Oregon, my Oregon.) These same folks delivered thousands of dollars in cash to not only the disgraced then-Secretary of State Fagan(who got 45 grand from the drug dealers) but also dropped 10 grand in cash at Tina Kotek’s campaign office.

Fagan, you may recall, declared the measure passed before all the votes were counted.

So it’s up to you to decide whether you believe the vote count was legit. But in any event, the measure became law.  As you know, the measure is not in effect because it has been tied up in the Oregon Courts.  (Our federal case against the measure is languishing in the 9th Circuit.)

We cannot say for certain why the Oregon Supreme Court has not issued a ruling. But given the relative unpopularity of the law, it is not unreasonable to surmise that declaring it constitutional and essentially ending the lawful transfer of firearms in Oregon might have reflected badly on Democrat candidates seeking to tighten their stranglehold on the Oregon Legislature.  That is no longer an issue.

What does this mean for Oregon gun owners or prospective gun owners? 

With the elections behind us, the “Democrats” appear to have (as of right now) increased their death grip on the state. There is no longer any reason for the Democrat Supreme Court to delay a ruling. And there is no reason for them to rule in our favor. And keep in mind, the Oregon Supreme Court is not ruling on whether Measure 114 violates the Second Amendment. They are ruling on whether it violates Oregon’s constitution.

Furthermore, lower courts (like the court who heard our federal case against 114) have demonstrated no reluctance to ignore the plain rulings and instructions from the US Supreme Court.  So if the Oregon Court green lights Measure 114, there will be no easy or fast fix.  Look for many years and millions of dollars before it is even addressed.

The Oregon legislature does have the power to change this. But at this point, there is exactly no reason to think the controlling regime has the slightest desire to do so, and there is no indication that the minority party has any intention to do anything but complain.

So, while we continue to hope for a rational decision from the Oregon Supreme Court, there is, frankly, little reason to expect one.

We very much want to be wrong about this and look forward to being proven so.  But if you stock up on food expecting a hurricane and the storm blows over, you still have food.

There is no telling when the court will issue a ruling, but if they do declare it constitutional, expect a certain amount of chaos even with the delayed implementation date passed in the last session.

It would be wise to prepare now. Keep in mind, even if the Court issues a rational ruling, there will literally be a “communist caucus” in the next legislature in 2027.  And nothing stops them then from going all in on new onerous restrictions.  No preparation now will be wasted effort.

Meanwhile, we will continue to provide you with the most accurate and timely information on threats to your rights and property and will continue to do all we can to persuade the minority party to stand up and fight without compromise or apology.

You can support our efforts here: https://www.oregonfirearms.org/support-the-fight

November 10, 2026 – This Will Never Do, My First Project

November 10, 2026 / / 0 Comments

The picture below is actually two projects. One I am actively working on and the second will start as soon as I finish the first one. I am motivated because I need to finish these two projects before I start working on my shop. I need to finish my shop so I can get the garage cleaned out. So, this is an important log jam in my frustration to finally moving in.

Honestly, if were completely up to me I would do things in the reverse order. I would finish the shop and then start doing projects. But, my wife and I think about things is two opposite ways. There is currently a handyman and interior decorator in the mix so I also need to get my part done.

It may not be abundantly clear from the picture what the projects are. Project two is a wine bottle shelf to the left of wine fridge which also includes finishing the trim and a floating shelf, like a mini bar table. In order to get there, I need to clear the way. That means moving the internet so that it is not sitting on the floor in front of everything.

This is the nerve center of the house. Being that we both work from home, internet is absolutely critical to our lives. I am always amazed at how something so critical gets second fiddle in most households. The router is put wherever there happens to be a jack (typically the easiest place to punch a hole through the wall) and that is where the story ends. . I guess I shouldn’t necessarily be surprise since most people don’t have the tools or the knowledge to do something about it. I would think at the very least people would want a safe, organized and logical place to install the internet nerve center. I professional terms, it is called a ‘Demarc‘.

I am sure based on what I have gone through that this is where the previous owners had their internet. How am I so sure? It is the only place it works. I know they worked from home because they left the desk that that had the computer. I just don’t remember seeing a router when we toured. But then again, I missed the fact that there was no furnace, so I guess that is fair. I think that you get what is wrong, I would like to spend more time on what needs to happen. Here are the requirements.

  1. The demarc needs to be out of the way, I dont want to have to decorate around it.
  2. It needs to be flexible. We are starting with the mesh network that we have been using. I do not expect to have a wired back haul like I did at the old house. I do expect to install the outdoor unit somewhere which requires Power of Ethernet (PoE). Most devices will use wireless but I want Cat6 capability if desired.
  3. My low voltage area will also have a space for a door bell transformer. I am already tired of changing the battery in the Ring doorbell, sometimes after 2 weeks.
  4. I am installing the original Spectrum wireless router again. I want the ability to see what the WAN is doing with the onboard diagnostics which I cannot see with the TPLink Deco system.
  5. I want the ability to reboot the system from a central location.

Installing the demarc in the basement was one of the best things that I did. I spent untold amount of hours running cables and modifying as things evolved. Our primary TV location moved at least four times in 20 plus years. Although we never used it, each location was wired for surround sound. What is old is new again and some locations were used more than once. The advantage was that I could go to the basement and pop a new cable on the main floor in a few hours.

I wish that this was one of those posts that I could show beginning and ending. Instead slow and steady progress is the name of the game. I was waiting for weeks for the electricians to finish power in the garage and the furnace to get installed. Then I had to get up the desire to crawl under the house. Once I cut the internet cable for a splice, I was under the gun to get it running again. That day I had visions of significantly more progress. But I was able to re-plan when things didn’t go quite the way I had expected.

I have my board on the wall, I built the shelf to set the wireless router on. I have the hole in the drywall so I can cut out the low voltage location, I have my supplies in order. It is a matter of mounting hardware on the board, building cables and connecting things together. Because it is in the garage, this is something I can do after work and now in the dark.

End Your Programming Routine: One thing that I am learning is that I am getting old an my eyesight is getting worse. I had to crawl under the house multiple times because my cable splice had bits of shielding touching the copper conductor (The fine wire mesh under the plastic skin of the cable). When I finally tested the line, it was registering ‘short’. I literally could not see it in the low light and confined space. That took several hours to resolve. Live and learn; as soon as you think something is going to take twenty minutes and two hours later it is finally resolved. Look for a follow-up with the finished product.

November 9, 2026 – Seen Anything Good Lately?

November 9, 2026 / / 0 Comments

With the recent fall back of the clock, we have have moved into the darkest and shortest days of the year. It is that ‘nesting’ time of year. I have found that with our new, empty house, I find myself tuning on the TV more than I ever had in my life. Now, I rarely sit down to watch something but I do have something that is at least quasi interesting to me in the background. Today, I am talking about my change in habits.

November 6, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 1, Chapters 13-15

November 6, 2026 /

OK, OK… seems like this is going to happen. We are on a roll now and I am doing my best to stay ahead. So far, all of that I have written about I read before I committed to getting started. So, really that is no feat. Next week will have some new reading involved to make the deadline (which I have already done at this point).

This week we see that Roark has some success, maybe. He designs and builds a gas station that leads another housing commission. Both of them are critically exiled. While the owner of the home approves of the design, his wife does not and refuses to live in it. Instead she moves to Florida.

Meanwhile there is a competition for a movie studio called the Cosmo-Slotnik building. Winning the commission is huge exposure. Roark refuses to enter and ultimately Keating wins but not without the help of Roark. Roark has one last sure thing that only required a few tweaks which he refuses to do and is no longer able to pay his bills.

Due to Keating’s success, he makes partner partially because the former partner Heyer dies due to Keating’s threats of blackmail and ruined reputation. To add insult to injury, the former partner leaves his estate to Keating because at some point he was a ‘nice boy’. Meanwhile, Dominique rebuffs Keating’s offer to marry. Keating makes partner on his ‘merits’ rather than nepotism but the hypocrisy is driving him crazy as well as emboldening his ego.

I was thinking about a time where I stuck my principles to my obvious disadvantage. There was one major life event where I can point to. Although, I cannot say that I handled it as well as Roark did. That was when I quit my job in 2019. I know that I have talked about this quite a bit, but I don’t really think in this context before.

Occasionally, I have the ability to see the outcome of decisions that seem obvious to me but not to others. It all goes back to 2014 when our company merged with a larger Canadian company. Soon after the event, I was offboarded off the project that I was working on due to the extreme amount of time and effort I had put in. It was supposed to be a reward but it turned out that it was worse in so many ways.

The larger company had a major global customer but they also had a huge problem. The mismanagement of project delivery and ineptitude of company leadership to properly address the problem. Since we were new blood, I was moved to this nearly incompetent project team. I was a resource on the project and the tech lead was going to guide us to the finish. It just so happens that this was an ESOP company that paid dividends on the fiscal year which was November. Most of the employees of the old company were large shareholders and would get huge payouts around that time to the tune of $100K or more.

To date, many of the key employees in the account got chewed up and spit out due to the higher level lack of accountability and ineptitude. My tech lead gave the middle finger to the company and I was left holding the bag. I was miserable with four different bosses telling me what to do and what I did wrong every day. I went to every level of the company and finally I realized that no matter what I did, nothing was going to change.

Fortunately my struggles and efforts did not go unnoticed and I was moved to role that had zero to do with Canadian group albeit the same ownership. I was given the opportunity to run the application support group. At first nobody cared what we did. But then, we started running circles around the rest of the company. We believed in listening, owning up to mistakes, working together and continuous improvements. These were all beliefs that I held and it payed huge dividends.

Within my group was named a ‘center of excellence’ and people started to care. They were going to transform my group from application support into managed services and this was going to be the company golden goose. The new president had done this before and went from zero to $100M in revenue in one year. Unfortunately, they hired a consultant to facilitate the transition and no longer was it my methodology.

The consultant was not my adversary nor was he my peer. I began to resent what made us successful they were trying to remove because it wasn’t conventional. Apologizing for errors made made them roll in there graves over liability. The company preferred stone faced and contentious relationships compared to doing the right thing. Because I am not Roark and I was immature in these situations, I started to crack. Ultimately, the only way out was to leave completely. I wasn’t going to be successful knowing that what I did worked and I could no longer operate in that way.

The truth is, I started throwing my success in their faces and I did some things I wouldn’t do again. I looked for opportunities to fight, I felt I was wronged and marginalized for years. In contrast, I offered to anyone including my adversaries to help with what worked. That was met with stone cold antipathy. Like Roark, even a better way is not going to help a non-receptive group.

I guess I should be happy that I got the ultimate revenge. When I quit, half of my group quit as well. The company simply could not sustain business with the staffing level that they had and the company was sold within a year. None of what was planned ever came to fruition because there was not the remaining employee buy in to put profit over people. They had lost the moral and morale war.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that I took down the company or that I am happy it ultimately failed. I had a lot of friends in the local office, I simply saw that what I thought would work worked and the failure to adopt it played a major role in the downfall. Many would say selling is different than failing, but while I worked there, the stated goal was to be the largest integration company in its space, not selling to a competitor. It is a very difficult time for me. Some very high highs and some very low lows.

November 5, 2026 – The First Cook

November 5, 2026 /

Actually, this is not our first new range. Way back in our first house we purchased a new electric range from Sears to replace our aging, decrepit and cheap range that was in the house when we bought it. The burners did not work well, there was no light or window in the oven and it was not self-cleaning. It was a huge upgrade to have a brand new range in our kitchen. Unfortunately, we only got to use it for a couple of months before we moved to South Carolina.

We didn’t have a new range when we moved to SC but it was only six months old. We were not the first owners but the second. They only lived there six months. So, we kind of thought that it was a fair trade pretty new for pretty new. The difference was our Oregon range was a coil burner while our SC range was a glass top. Out went my cast iron.

When we were looking at house to purchase, I thought that this was the time to upgrade from our worn out Jenn-Air to gas. What I mean by that is of course we were moving, but we had loved our old range to death. Even though it was around thirty years old, they stopped making parts for it. We had had the burner cassettes rebuilt several times. The light in the oven started burning out almost immediately after replacement so I stopped replacing it. The controls display had broken plastic that does not have a replacement. Occasionally, a fault would display and you would have to reset the breaker to get the oven to work. Even the auto-lock for self cleaning would get stuck.

I investigated replacing it multiple times but there was some problems. The first of which was that the range was of a non-standard size. Since the cabinets were built around it, that would mean some serious modification like cabinets, counters and tile. Also, the position of the range in the room required another downdraft or building a whole ventilation system. Downdrafts in general run about double what a non-downdraft runs. I really didn’t want a flat top due to the cookware that I own and like. Gas was available but we didn’t have it. So, replacing the range required a serious kitchen model.

A lot of the older houses we looked at had gas in the kitchen. I think because gas was a common heating fuel, it made sense to also have it in the kitchen. As the heating landscape has shifted away from gas to heat pumps, it saved a lot of money to not have two utilities at the time of building. Hence, gas is now a luxury rather than a necessity. And since our house was built in 2018, we fall into the luxury category.

Unfortunately for us (or fortunately), we selected a house that had a completely inadequate heating plan. We didn’t have a heat pump, instead we had inefficient and somewhat ineffective, resistant wall heaters. Had we had proper and efficient heating, we most likely would have elected to stick with an electric range. I would have never spent $10,000 just to have a gas range installed. And yes, the unit cost of installing a heat pump was approximately the same as a gas unit. We did pay more to run a gas line, might as well go all the way to install the gas in the kitchen.

This whole process was quite an ordeal. If I am being honest, I missed the heating situation before we made an offer because I was wearing rose colored glasses. Had I known that we were going to invest $35K right off the bat, I probably would have at least offered less initially. We got the quotes for heating in January. We could take no action until we actually purchased the home, that was August. Then the work had to be scheduled.

In some ways it was ideal in other ways it was not. We had to act like the general contractor in this project. We had to manage the electrician as well as the HVAC. The HVAC had to work with the gas company as well as the city. There was a lot of we are waiting for this or that in the process. What it did do was allow us to develop a separate scope of work with the electrician but it certainly slowed things down with us being the middle man. Because of all of the starts and stops things got missed, like plumbing our range gas line.

Once all of the gas work was done, then we had to switch the electrical for the range. Keep in mind, there is a gap in operation unless you have the new appliance on hand. Electrical ranges use 50A at 240V. But, a gas range (at least this one) only uses a 20A circuit. What surprised me is that 20A at 120V circuit can run two ovens simultaneously. Those counter top, air fryers really are just mini versions of the real thing. I always thought of them as a novelty.

End Your Programming Routine: I didn’t get the maiden voyage of the new range. My wife wanted to make some Mexican comfort food. It has been a very emotional week, we have the highs of the World Series and the very lows of our dog passing on. We also have the stress of all the contractor work that is wrapping up. I am fine with not getting the first crack. I have years of time to enjoy.

November 4, 2026 – The Real OC

November 4, 2026 /

“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 /

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 /

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.