Month: April 2021

April 30, 2021 -1984 1:8

April 30, 2021 /

The road to hell is paved with good intentions… is that how the saying goes? Anyway, I read this chapter three weeks ago with the intent on writing about it immediately. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out that way.

This was one of the longer chapters in the book to date. Despite the length, it is also one of the lighter chapters in terms of heavy hitting content. This chapter has Winston out and about in the ‘forbidden’ world. The sights are the everyday life of the Proles; from the constant danger of errant explosions to the daily routine of the pub. As Winston said, it is not expressly prohibited to walk amongst the Proles, but highly suspicious.

History is Grounding- Let it be said that history is an interpretation of the facts from the perspective of the person writing it. It is no different than today’s news or this blog. That means that there is an inherent bias but that is not really important. Just like adopted people search for their real parents or siblings, there is something to knowing where you came from. It gives us perspective on why we are who we are, why we look and act the way that we do. Once we can reconcile our history to our current position, there is a certain inner peace.

Tokens Complete Our Picture- Trinkets sometimes bridge the gap between our history and the present. In the case of Winston, he become infatuated with a glass ball. His speculation was that it was paper weight but regardless, Winston was infatuated with it. So much so, that he would risk his safety to buy it and take it home. We all have those items that usually have sentimental value or for some reason we are drawn to it. Fortunately, in most cases we are not risking our lives to hold on to such things.

This is the final setup into Winston’s life changing decisions. Using the English term it is foreshadowing. The urgency to discover the historical truth has been growing in frequency and importance over the last couple of chapters. I tried to relate the role of history to our understanding above. The fundamental questions of Who are we, How did we get here, What are we supposed to be doing require context to satisfactorily answer.

I am developing a different opinion of this book than I had after the first time I read it. My plan is cover that more in-depth at the end when I summarize all of these entries in the final closure. When you look at the book from different perspectives, it may be this chapter is more important depending on the lense the reader is viewing the story.

April 29, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

April 29, 2021 /

Today is going to be a serious topic. This one was supposed to follow the April Fools podcast but you know, stuff got in the way. Today we are going to talk about firearm safety.

I the firearm circles, anytime a firearm accident occurs, the term usually used is ‘negligent discharge’. The reason it is negligent is because one of the primary rules of gun safety has to be violated in order for it to occur in the first place.

Various organizations have three to ten rules that essentially represent the same principals. I will write the version that I use below.

  1. Treat every firearm as it is loaded all the time
  2. Never point the barrel at something you are not willing to shoot
  3. Know what is behind your target
  4. Keep your finger off of the trigger until ready to shoot

https://www.military.com/video/guns/gunfire/firearm-negligence/1676955087001 I tried to get this to work as an embed, clearly I need to spend some more time trying to figure out the actual code to do it as it wouldn’t natively convert. But this is a short video on some examples of stuff that can happen.

I once had a negligent discharge and fortunately there was no serious consequences. It was definitely a life altering experience and made me completely re-evaluate safety and my approach. So what happened?

I once owned a pistol and periodically the trigger did not reset when I was shooting. The first time it occurred, I pulled the trigger back for a second shot and no action. I was messing around with the firearm trying to figure out what was wrong while it was still loaded and cocked and the gun fired in the air. In that case, I violated rules one, three and four and arguably all of them.

If you are around gun culture long enough, most people have a similar story. I know for me, it made me take safety much more seriously. If that were to happen now I would stop, unload and then try to figure out the problem. Most accidents occur because of carelessness or ignorance. In my case, I would say both were true.

I am so thankful that I was lucky the pistol was pointed in a safe direction for me. I cant say that I know what was behind my target but I was in the woods so the probability was extremely small. That could have easily been deadly because I was seriously not paying attention to the risks. It is one of the reasons that I advocate for a ‘Range Safety Officer’ with even informal settings because they can intervene when not everyone is paying attention.

In case you are wondering, I don’t own that pistol anymore because I couldn’t trust it to fire reliably.

April 28, 2021- Floor is done, can I afford the rest?

April 28, 2021 /

I am not going to go on about the cost of materials. I will say that plywood has gone up 20% in the last month; other building materials as well. I found a good deal at the local ‘discount’ building materials location. This is 3/4″ MDO overlay plywood. It couldn’t be more perfect for my application since I am not planning on putting a finished floor, I am running out of headroom.

I have a few things I can do before buying materials again but my next major move is to buy framing lumber. I can start prepping my door for painting and cutting to size. I am also planning on removing the insulation around the duct work in favor of a more attractive solution like rigid foam. I can also start working on the rough wiring as well.

Today is going to be quick with some pictures of progress. I am moving slowly because I am trying to buy materials as I need them. I am also spending one to two hours a day working on the project, as soon as work ends usually.

April 27, 2021- Beer Can Science

April 27, 2021 /

Today we have some science you can get in to. My wife recently purchased the Brumate can cooler. The nice thing about this product is that it can hold either a 12oz or 16oz can. She already had the Yeti and we know that it works pretty well.

My problem is that I never have a drink that sits around long enough to get warm, but that is OK because we are doing this for science. How did they work? The initial check was straight out of the refrigerator.

Immediately, the uninsulated can was 45 degrees while the other two were 43 degrees F. After thirty minutes, the temperature was measured again.

This time, the uninsulated can was 49, the Yeti was still 43 and the Brumate was 46 degreed F. Clearly the Yeti was the winner of this quick test.

There are a few discussion points with my ‘science’. The first being why was the uninsulated can warmer than the other two? Could it be that it initially started out warmer and that not everything was in equilibrium in the refrigerator? That was a point that was not controlled or measured.

Second, what makes the Yeti better? I am not totally sure, but in order to allow the Brumate to hold both 12oz and 16oz cans there is a spacer that is inserted into the vessel. The spacer is filled with water and during this test the spacer was at room temperature. Therefore, there is a warmer mass inside the vessel potentially causing the can to warm faster. To be fair, I read on the website this morning that spacer can be frozen, which may make it perform the same or better over a longer duration.

The science is not settled, but the results were enjoyable. A Prost!

April 26, 2021- Good Things to Come

April 26, 2021 /

After a brief hiatus, I am trying to piece time together where I can. I am working more than full time, and my wife was gone over half of last week. In addition, I am trying to build an office so I can keep my feet warm while I work on this project (not to mention work). I had to spend a number of hours this last weekend gathering tax information as well as working but I cleared some of the fog out to come up with some ideas that I want to get out there.

I can feel some of my determination slipping. It is hard to work all day in front of a computer and then dedicate another hour or more to do this. My mental clarity starts to wane as I get into early afternoon and I want to do something physical after work.

An interesting thing happened yesterday. I was watching the piano player play at Worship and I was thinking about how much it appears that he enjoys playing the piano. My mind wandered a bit and I was thinking about how someone turns passion into a career. I was thinking about the local high school drama teacher and how he plays piano and sings and so forth. Since a career in music is a tough go, people that have a particular interest that career field find outlets that may be paying (or not) an related pursuit. At the very least, performing weekly is that sort of outlet.

For me, some of my passions could be money making while others seem to be money burning. But, it shook me back to looking for a way to convert my interests into a career. I have been so focused on making a good impression in my new job and focusing on everything that goes along with that that I forgot where I want to go. Don’t get me wrong, this job is fine but in my heart of hearts I wouldn’t be doing it if I had another option.

It sort of goes hand in hand with this week’s message; focusing on pleasing people instead of pleasing the Lord. I hope that I am right that I think our individual purpose will go hand in hand with God’s will. I believe that it is a test in keeping the mind and ears open. From what I have seen, when people find their purpose, they are happy and at peace with all that entails. Maybe I need to find my outlets outside of work and change my outlook or maybe I need to keep trying? I don’t know. But that stemmed a bunch of new ideas here, so stay tuned.

April 13, 2021- Tuesday Quickie

April 13, 2021 /

Today I am had some technical as well as time issues. I ran across a couple of interesting articles that might be fun and maybe interesting.

This article compares the risk of sanitizer versus the catching Covid. https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/another-covid-myth-dies-death

And, this article makes an argument that drinking a bottle of wine a day may not be that bad for you.

Is Drinking a Bottle of Wine a Day Bad for You?

Finally, I am making a little progress on my project.

April 12, 2021- The Great House Controversy

April 12, 2021 /

I have talked about my home some over the years. But, I don’t think that I have talked about the controversy. Within the county, the date built is listed as 1893. However, talking with a previous home owner it was his belief that it was built in 1873. The theory to the age discrepancy was that was when the first record was recorded with the county. It was his belief that this house was the original structure on the NE corner of the city and that all of the lumber was milled from the site. There is an older house on the block (1846) but it was moved from a different location in the city I was told.

What I do know is that this house has been extensively remodeled and almost none of the original detail remains. Both the exterior and the interior have been removed and replaced. The major model occurred in the late 70s. The original lap was replaced with T111, the windows were replaced, the plaster was removed, knob and tube wire was replaced with Romex and insulation was put in the walls. All changes that improved the livability and moved this house into the next century.

In 2016, we needed to paint the house. There was some rot in existing T111 and today’s building practice (and code) would not allow for replacement so we chose to add Hardi-plank on top of the T111. Subsequently, people started coming out of the woodwork that had a history with this house. We heard it was a boarding house in the 1950s and college apartments in the 1960-70s. One of them was the previous homeowner who brought us a whole stack of photos from before, during and after the remodel in the 1970s.

Because of the photos, I can see that the house is balloon framed. That is where the structural members span from ground to roof. That was a common practice late 1800s. There are two reasons why that practice has fallen out of favor. One is the quality of lumber is not the same as it was one hundred years ago. The second and bigger reason is that in case of fire, there is nothing (what is called blocking) to prevent the fire to spread between floors at a rapid rate.

Another potential clue I have seen is that the framing lumber is true to dimension and often rough sawn. Rough sawn means that it came from the mill without running through a planer. But, true to dimension is a bigger clue. I ran across this document while I was doing some quick research on the subject about the history of the lumber industry. It appears that lumber standards were adopted in 1902 for the west coast. Interesting, but not helpful if trying to figure out the year built before the standard or even milled on site.

I am still looking for the smoking gun. One thing I found while cleaning up under the house was this ‘Halls Catarrh Cure’ bottle. It definitely has an interesting story, if you are interested. My research indicated that it was from the was the 1890s period, but still not conclusive.

Maybe the best piece of evidence I have to date is this floor covering scrap. When we removed the carpet for my wife’s office space last fall, it exposed a jute backed linoleum.

I forgot that I took this picture until yesterday when I was chatting with my son about what I was going to do for a floor in the new office. He was telling me that a local lady was giving away used linoleum and I was trying to understand what he was saying. Strangely enough, I realized that we didn’t have any linoleum in our house and neither do a lot of people we know currently. Again, this is not conclusive, however I do believe that I could date the pattern, it would be a more solid indicator of age.

Finally, the county historical society does have a collection of photos. I have casually looked and have not found a photo of my particular house. I do believe that I can make an appointment and dig in more seriously, but I haven’t prioritized it over the other many other things I have to do. It might be as simple as just asking the question and having one of the curators point me in the right direction.

And so the controversy continues. Will it ever be resolved? Who knows, but I enjoy finding little things like this.

April 10, 2021 – Surprised…

April 10, 2021 /

Good Saturday Night. I don’t normally write during this time, it tends to be family or spouse time. But, my son told me that he was using a laser pointer with the dog (acting like a cat). Since I missed Thursday and Friday, I thought I could sneak a little time on Saturday Night

To share video, it is easier to post it to YouTube and share the link; it is faster and more succinct. My wife is out of the house and I thought that she would like to see this.

But, the video is not the point of this post. I haven’t done this a bunch and when I look back on things it has been more than half a year since I posted to YouTube. When I was trying to shake the cobwebs off to figure out how to post a video, I went to my channel. I was looking at the stats and I have a video that has almost 10,000 views. I was fumbling around and my ‘About’ page has over 15,000 views.

That is astounding. Considering that I figured out that posting to YouTube makes the import to this blog very fast is the reason I put anything on there in the first place. My very first serious post was repairing a pneumatic nail gun. I did it on a whim, trying to figure out the best way to get content on this site. The first month that YouTube sent me an e-mail that nearly 1000 people had watched my video, I was shocked.

Sometimes, I get notification that there are comments. I try to respond to those. It is said that audience engagement is the number one way to build a following, and therefore monetization. However, I have never claimed to wanting to build a YouTube channel. I do however want to build something here. I don’t live or die on what happens there. But, when I went there tonight, I was shocked that over 15,000 people have looked at my ‘About’ page.

Since there is a link to my site on the ‘About’ page, I tested it and it works. My most popular videos are my repair videos (not surprising since those are the real non-personal ones). Those are the videos that run-away with the views at 100:1. The whole point of this is that I am shocked so many people have watched what I have put out there because it doesn’t seem to have translated here.

Nevertheless, I want to build sustainable content and YouTube is not the place to do that. See https://odysee.com/ for that. I haven’t bothered to setup an account yet because I haven’t produced anything recently, but it is on my short term list to do so. In fact, uploading to YouTube will also import to Odysee at the same time if you are setup to do so.

I am humbled and shocked to see the numbers. Despite the fact that I have had little interaction with the viewers of my videos I hope that I have helped people with the small issues that I have posted. That was the point of me posting this tonight and I hope that you enjoy Raya.

April 7, 2021- 1984 1:7

April 7, 2021 /

I am running late today, so trying to get this in before the day ends. Last night I read chapter seven so hopefully it is fresh in my mind.

This chapter is a trip into Winston’s thoughts and he is having an awakening. Intertwined in his inner dialogue, it is implied that he is writing in his diary. It seems that the process of writing is having a stimulating effect on his self analysis.

This chapter is deep as there are more than one line, vocabulary concepts. There is a good quote and some hard philosophical analysis. So, let’s tackle the quote first.

And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus on petty grievances. The ‘they’ in this context is the ‘Proles’. Winston is talking about the differences between life in the Party versus being on the outside and how the party is outnumbered by a four to one ratio. If they really wanted to rise up, they could easily overtake the government. This sentence validates one of the things I have been saying about politics. People that are focused on the left/right dichotomy are too busy fighting for their side and against the other that the politicians are robbing them blind.

Seeing is believing- Winston starts to realize that no matter how much someone can say something that is not true if you are seeing yourself, you can figure out someone is lying. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall to the earth’s center. All of those things are verifiable without too much effort an no one can convince otherwise.

Need to corroborate- Toward the end of the chapter, Winston states that he is writing this for O’brien. Despite his inherent distrust of O’brien, for some reason Winston is being drawn towards him. I think that this validates the point that we need people to socialize and empathize our situation. We will see if this is happens later in the book

There were other things of interest going on like the portrayed image of capitalist, the fate of some of the revolutionary founders and a little bit more about the life of the proles. There is one more chapter left in this section and then the book is going to make a turn.

April 6, 2021- Maintenance Today

April 6, 2021 /

One thing that people who don’t run a website might not know is that it actually requires active effort. Everyday when I login to the dashboard to begin writing, there is a Health summary on issues that are outstanding. Some are warnings and some are actual issues.

Today, I wasn’t able to login to the dashboard to write. I had some issues with the SSL certificate. It seems like every two months, there is some kind of problem with SSL. I suspect that if I ponied up some money, that I wouldn’t have this problem and probably wouldn’t have to make changes.

I bumbled my way through fixing the problem. I also found some suggested improvements, which I also made. One nice thing is that even though I know very little about Linux, I can usually search and find some answers on the internet. Even platform and provider issues there is usually some help.

Since I dont have time to generate a more material today, you will have to settle for a picture of my progress on the office project. It is slow, but moving one small piece at a time.

The next step is to remove the drywall to the right of the desk. I am going to frame around the block so that I can insulate properly because believe me, it is cold down here. More on that later.