Happy Halloween. I thought we would intertwine so fun with some seriousness.
Every podcast I write the notes on the hosting source. I write a similar but more detailed post here. Then when things publish, I also push this out on MeWe with some marketing type comments. Something is not quite right because I should be doing this once rather than three different times. So, I am going to start thinking about ways to streamline this process a little better.
End Your Programming Routine: The programming here is that the Zombie Apocalyse is somehow different than an earthquake or flood. No one is ever going to be prepared for everything in a societal failure. So, we do the best we can and hope for the best.
This is a special Saturday morning edition. I have some quiet time to really go deep into my thoughts. Two days ago, my mother-in-law passed away. It was sudden and it was unexpected although not surprising given that she had terminal cancer and was nearing the end. This event opened the door for people to behave poorly. Out of nowhere, I got a text message.
It is almost like, they bit their lip while she was alive because how they felt about the situation, not necessarily my mother-in-law. The ironic thing is that I prayed for all of those involved shortly before receiving this because I knew that there was hurt and pain.
I am not going to say that I am holier than thou, because I am not. There are certain people that I would like to punch in the face if I saw them on the street right now (figuratively). Then, I push my feelings to god and go about another couple of hours until the next wave comes again.
Yesterday morning, I was reading the news headlines. The implication of the article is that without moderation, there will be a lack of civility on Twitter. And to a large degree I believe that will be true. But, is it right? Do we have the right to be ignorant? Do we have the right to not be offended? Do we have the the responsibility to judge other’s intent simply for civility?
Despite all that has happened, I never have never thought that these people didn’t have the right to feel the way that they do nor speak their mind. I am not a proponent of hate speech but I am also not a proponent of censorship, even when it is threatening.
There is a saying that “your right to free speech ends at my nose”. This implies, say what you want but that doesn’t give you the right to do anything physical. I am self-aware. I already know that they do not want us around. The fact that I am unwilling to engage or give them an audience allows them to invent whatever fantasy fits their narrative.
Listening to the radio a couple of days ago, I was reminded of the nursery rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. We used to say that as kids in the 1980s. The truth is, words do hurt at least a little bit. A build up or barrage leads to self doubt or at the very least. Unfortunately, we have become a fragile society and want someone else to stop or filter what we don’t want to see or deal with.
What is truly sad is that rather than writing a memorial, my mother-in-law’s legacy is hurt, anger and conflict. People that think that they know the situation have no idea about our truth. Many people have done this exercise. It is the picture that either shows a young woman or an old woman (actually it shows both). This is literally the same picture and people immediately see one thing.
History is a set of facts written or interpreted with a biased perspective. It could be pioneers prospered in the west or it could be our society was wrecked and our land taken. Both are interpretations and presentation of the same set of facts. Of course I am upset about what has been said to my wife and her sister (and me). I also have to assume that I also do not know our aggressor’s set of facts or total intent. Just like I don’t appreciate being judged, I will refrain from doing the same thing any further.
I will say this: what I know as ‘facts’ are all first hand information. I was there and I was involved in the situation. That is my solace and truth.
End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to predict that things will not continue to be ugly. What I do believe is that people that react this viscerally to any situation will likely get redirected to the next shiny thing. With time and separation, it won’t be worth their effort. God, give me the strength to act in your image and represent my beliefs.
If you pay attention to the title of each chapter, it kind of gives you insight into what the chapter is going to be about. This one is titled, “The Moratorium On Brains”. More on that in a minute.
The last chapter was titled “Miracle Metal” which was about forcing Reardon to give up his intellectual property. Reardon metal will be renamed Miracle metal. Makes sense. The chapter before that was titled “Account Overdrawn” which was the production threat that lead to the initiation of Directive 10-289. The next chapter is titled “By Our Love”… I wonder what that is going to be about?
As with all chapters in this long book, there are multiple things going on. The title of this chapter refers to the incident in the second half of the chapter. An entitled bureaucrat is travelling on a Taggart train to a political event. The train is stopped at a station in Winston, Colorado because of track conditions and derailment. The bureaucrat insists that this is some kind of political ploy and demands that the train continue.
Taggart employees afraid of changing rules, sliding scales of justice and unclear authority are afraid to do the right thing. Ultimately, the parties involved barrel to their death. Hence, some knew this was going to be the case, the others refused to believe that this was a real problem. Either way, the result was the same.
Normally, I would pick that part of the chapter to draw some analogy to current day issues. But, it is so easy to kill sitting ducks. That is why we have the phrase in the first place. Make no mistake, this is the major theme of the chapter. However, I am going to talk about the first part of the chapter instead.
We have heard a little about Ragnar Danneskjold. Apparently, he was a peer of Francisco D’Aconia in school and a general enigma. The word on the street is that he is also a fearless pirate. In this chapter Henry Reardon meets Danneskjold and it was rather interesting.
We grow up with the paradigm that the story of Robin Hood is just and correct. Danneskjold bills himself as the anti-Robin Hood. And his reason being is that we have our Overton Window in the wrong perspective. It’s not the rich stealing from the poor that is the problem, but the poor stealing from the rich.
Huh. I had never considered to perspective that the fairy tail is actually a classist agenda. I really think that there are points on both sides here. On one hand, there is no doubt that this country has a large welfare state. That is certainly stealing from the rich (the government that is). Does the rich actually steal from the poor?
I would contend, that both sides steal from the middle class. One, the middle class is the largest socioeconomic group. Two, the rich are the ones writing the rules (read loopholes) as well. They can afford to hire attorneys and accountants as well as build tax shelters on a routine basis. The poor of course have nothing to steal. The middle class has no time to fight, not enough assets to protect and not enough insight to know that they are getting screwed.
To make things worse, class warfare works perfectly. By keeping the middle class siding with one side or the other, they are so busy fighting in their hypnotic trance for the side they believe represents them that they are missing the fleecing that is happening.
For instance, the “Trump Tax Cut” that occurred in 2017. Without the SALT deduction (that was the deduction for mortgage interest), I now pay $10,000 a year more in federal income tax. I have heard business owners say that they now have a significant reduction in taxes (35 -> 21% on profits as well as a increased expensing allowances to lower profits). Nothing especially precludes me from becoming a business owner, but that doesn’t pivot on a dime. My point is, business owners are more likely to be high income earners, maybe rich. There are a lot more middle class home owners that fall into the strictly middle class ranges and the burden was shifted with that tax change.
End Your Programming Routine: I cannot be convinced that the rich do not pay their fair share. If we are only talking about income taxes maybe, but all the businesses certainly donate, pay, employ, etc. That is certainly fair share in my book. The truth of the matter is, as long as we all have equal access to take advantage of the rules, then who can really complain? Honestly, what I think the middle class needs to focus on is not getting rooked into picking a side when either choice looses.
Things aren’t always as they seem. I have switched pellets from Gamo to Crossman, most recently to use up a partial container. I sighted in my rifle and then I went on with my day. A couple of days later, I was shooting offhand and I saw that my group was terrible. I had been shooting offhand with the Gamo pellets within a 2 inch group, sometimes even within a quarter.
I am shooting offhand on purpose. This is training for hunting. Sure, if you can have a rest, then it is better, but most deer I have shot have been without any sort of rest. So, this is finding the scope, trigger control and breathing.
At first, I thought it was the pellets, so I shot on a rest again and I was getting quarter sized groups. Then I thought it was possibly my eye sight. The group above had one group (of five) with my glasses off and one group of five with my glasses on. They were not great so I decided to try this experiment again with deliberateness.
This time, whether glasses on or glasses off, the group was all together, so I decided to look deeper. I noticed that the scope had slid all the way back on the rings. When I went to loosen the hex screws, they were already loose.
I have heard that airguns are hell on scopes. Just this week, I also tightened up the metal to the stock. Now, the scope was loose. I am happy to say that things are back where they should be. This is the first ever recoil induced failure I have ever observed.
I am one of those fix it once, right kind of people. So far, I have only just re-set and tightened everything up. But without doing something different, this is going to happen again, so maybe I ought to use some blue Loctite.
End Your Programming Routine: As I said at the beginning, things aren’t always what they seem. I still believe that there is some more variability in the Crossman pellets. They do not seat tightly and my groups are more open than what I have been shooting with the Gamo pellets. That being said, my first clue should have been the adhesive pad backing out from under the scope mount. I didn’t know why that was happening, but now it seems like it was the scope moving.
The Fall has finally arrived. We had an extraordinary extended summer that lasted three weeks into October. I have never seen this before. The truth is I feel I was lucky to get more than the siding done in the first place. But, I had hope that I could squeeze in staining the deck railing in September.
Of course, some choices I made and compromises on other priorities effected my ability to squeeze it in. I choose to go to the range in September and October. My wife wanted new doors and a window installed. A lot got done, just not the railing. It’s one of those things that started with giving the wood a few weeks to dry out that turned into no time left to complete.
But, it’s OK. I don’t regret taking some time for what I want to do. It wasn’t worth arguing with my spouse on what she wanted done. What I am trying to say is that we all have things that didn’t get done. Hopefully, they are things that have justifiable reasons like mine.
I really didn’t think I was going to write this much on that situation. What I had intended to do was talk about water based vs. oil based stains. When it comes to decks or outdoor exposure, there are no winners here. No single coating type can withstand year over year water and traffic and look good. So, we need to accept the limitations and look at the pros and cons.
One choice to make is do nothing at all. In my area of the country, pressure treated wood is made out of hemlock, whereas a large area of the country pressure treated is southern yellow pine. The two are distinctly different in appearance, hemlock pressure treated wood is very rough due to the process. In my opinion, it is best left alone or treated with a solid stain or paint (more on that later). Woods like cedar and redwood weather gracefully and do not need protection to last for years.
Eventually, they will start to get rough as water raises the grain repeatedly. The use of stain will extend the life of the wood for much longer. So let us look at the two choices. Water based uses water as the carrier for the resin. Imagine millions of little balls floating around. As the water evaporates, the balls get closer and closer until they touch and eventually become one. This leads water based coatings to form a film.
With oil based, the resin is dissolved (not really, but close enough). This allows it to penetrate into the wood. As the solvent evaporates the resin sets with contact to oxygen which causes it to ‘harden up’. I am ignoring things like epoxy coatings and water based alkyds (alkyd is the type of polymer that is used in oil based) and all kinds of other technology like silicones (ABC’s Water Seal).
Film forming (water based) versus penetrating (oil based) are the largest performance differentiators. Film forming has the best overall durability and protection. The major downside is that once failed, recoating must be done with water based and my observation is that the films tend to peel. This causes recoating to be less than satisfactory.
Oil based tends to have significantly less durability. Typically I see one to three years maximum. The primary advantage is recoating is significantly easier because there is no peeling. I also think that oil looks the best. So, this is the solution that I chose.
Of course, I would be remised to not mention the clean-up aspect. There is no doubt in my mind that that I would have started and did a couple hours a day if I wasn’t afraid of the pain in the butt it is to clean oil based brushes and supplies. That is how I work primarily, finding full weekends is almost next to impossible. When I go to tackle this next year, I will just have to jump in and deal with the consequences.
I can’t recommend brands because I am not familiar with the choices. I did sit through some marketing oriented reviews and it seemed like there were some repeat brands that showed up. I would recommend seeking advice from a paint store rather than a box store or even contractors. I didn’t buy from my favorite paint store because consumer reports gave it terrible reviews so I went with a brand that came up as best in category in several different reviews.
Remember, price is an indicator of performance. $30/gallon has different expectations than $200/gallon in my book. Lastly, lumber from the lumber yard has about 20% moisture content unless it is pressure treated and then it is significantly more. It needs a few weeks to dry out for a proper application of coatings. Even though most films are breathable, meaning moisture can get out (as well as in; ever seen something painted and rotten at the same time?), you want the best mechanical bond you can get so the film doesn’t flake off. That doesn’t happen when something like water vapor is pushing the opposite direction or moving the grain underneath.
End Your Programming Routine: The solution here is complicated with no good choices. The truth is this is why I chose to use synthetic decking in the first place. I already said that I was going with oil for the railing for looks and future maintenance. That being said, if I was going for a solid stain, I would probably have chosen a water based product.
Did you fill in the blank as soon as you read the headline? And if you did, did you hear the song in your head? I did of course that is why I wrote it in the first place.
Making Jelly/Jam is a gateway into preserving. It is easy and it takes very little raw material to do so. When I was a kid, my mom used to plan for about a jar a week. A jar is subject to what you are using, but somewhere between half pint an pint is about the right size I think. Plus, we like variety so preferably, we would make more, smaller containers for rotation.
There is a difference between Jam and Jelly. Jam contains fruit, not just fruit juice. So, we usually make jam but with some items like grapes, it is juice not grapes you want. So, I made grape jelly. With other fruits, you would want to strain the pulp and bits out for essentially a clear juice if you are making jelly.
The nice thing is that the instructions to do so is in every package of pectin. Pectin is an apple starch that helps the liquid setup to solid. Some fruits like apples and stone fruits contain there own pectin but read the instructions for details. Weirdly, some people even make pepper jelly or mint jelly. To me those are specialty applications, not to be put on a peanut butter sandwich, so I skip that kind of stuff.
Preservation occurs by super concentrating the sugar. As long as you don’t get mold or something in the jelly, I think it will literally last forever. My mom used to poor liquid paraffin on the top of the jelly and that was the seal. That is not a recommended technique anymore. But, the truth is that we never got sick and I wouldn’t hesitate to eat it. So, I water bath can my jars.
Processing time is pretty short compared to peaches, it is 4 mins in a rolling boil. I made this batch of jelly in about two hours. That was after dinner was cleaned up an before bed and I was done with the whole thing.
Despite the fact that we probably ate one jar a week, in my current life there is only so much jelly one can eat. I sometimes will use it to supplement barbecue sauce or compote. But, that is less about needing it in the recipe and taking the opportunity to empty things out of the refrigerator.
To be honest, grape is the least preferable choice in my house. My favorite is actually blackberry. I made this for a couple reasons 1) we are almost out of jam and that would mean buying it to make it through the season 2) I had a few pounds of grapes that I needed to find something to do with 3) I wanted to see if the apple press would press grapes. Check, check and check.
End Your Programming Routine: My wife has said many times that she should carry a container of homemade spread when we go to a restaurant. I skip the industrial jelly altogether because I usually order rye toast and eat only with butter. So, it has been a long time since I have had something other than what I have made. But, give it a try. You will learn something and get a lot more confident with preserving.
I found the book warranted more than a quick review. So, I decided to do a podcast as well. There is almost nothing more important to your health than what you put into your body. If you don’t know how to cook, you are going to be at the mercy of others. I also talk about my history of cooking and go a little deeper with my journey with food.
End Your Programming Routine: We are heavily programmed with food. We have memories tied to it, we are addicted to it and we need food in our lives. What we also need is knowledge base to make educated decisions for our relationship with food. If you are stuck in the food web, pick a few things to change. It may be that one of those build confidence to change others.
As I said last week, it seems now that we have passed the high tide line for hope. In fact, in this chapter Dabny quits her job as Vice President for the railroad. It isn’t written explicitly, but it has to do with the outcome of a special council of industrialists and government have produced. I am going to talk about that today.
By Executive Order and declaring a State of Emergency, it is officially titled directive 10-289. Below is a synopsis of the contents.
No wage earner is allowed to leave their job nor be terminated under penalty of jail.
No business owner is allowed to fail and cease to exist or to transfer the entity in any means.
All patents, trademarks or intellectual property will be surrendered to the government for the free use by all.
Nothing new is to be invented or marketed or even investigated
All manufacturing is to maintain the exact same output year over year.
Prices will remain the same from this point forward.
Wages will remain the same from this point forward.
Any disputes of edge cases will be overseen by an entity called the Unification Board.
To me, this is clearly a larger than life framing of the transition from free market to communism. Not being a total expert, I assume that all of these things are an exaggeration of state controlled economic system. Will prices never change? I don’t think so, but they wouldn’t change without governmental review. Will nothing ever be invented? I doubt that is even desirable. At the very least, new military technology was invented but I think that science was highly valued in the USSR (granted it was probably state generated).
There is nothing like doubling down on failed policy to make things fail harder. If we look at our current financial system we can see the madness of it all. At a high level, this is how it works.
Banks qualify someone for a loan and they create a ledger entry. That loan then creates money into existence because they don’t actually have the cash liquid in the bank. This is the entire concept of fractional reserve banking. The US government borrows that money from the bank (also creates money), which they are charged a fee. They then raise money to cover the debts by issuing the bonds, which largely the banks purchase. So the banks make money ‘selling’ it to the government and they also make money by buying the debt. This is a Ponzi scheme.
When we have inflation, we have too much money in the system. Interest rates are raised to slow down some of the borrowing and additional creation of money. Inflation devalues the currency and while a small amount of continuous inflation is desirable (from a monetary policy standpoint), a large amount is not.
I suppose that you might be asking what does failure and our current financial system have to do with each other? Well, it hasn’t failed yet, but it will because there is no possible way that it will not. We cannot create money from loaning it to someone else and charge for it both ways as any sort of rational logic. The relative strength of the US Dollar is only backed by force.
What is the Petrodollar? Did you know that all oil transactions from everywhere in the world needs to be done with the US Dollar? This means that every country needs to convert their currency into USD to perform the transaction. That activity keeps the value of the dollar relatively high compared to most. This is the activity that requires force to maintain. Why do you think we are in the middle east in the first place? It is certainly not to promote freedom and liberty.
Bringing this all back around now. The central economic control of communism like the USSR, the move to communism in Atlas Shrugged and the US financial policy are all flavors of the same thing. They are all attempts to manipulate a systems for goals. The goals may not all be the same but the results are. There are too many variables and inputs for this to ever work in perpetuity.
End Your Programming Routine: At this point, I am not sure that there is a perfect economic system. I want to say free market is the best, but that has a lot of issues itself. You cannot predict boom/bust risk free. Who knew that Beanie Babies was going to be a thing? So, when you invest your entire retirement in those things and they become worthless on the whim of a trend, things go south in the entire economy. It is looking like an un-manipulatable currency like Bitcoin is looking like the way to go, but it still wont avoid the Beanie Baby crash. So, emulate the people doing well; make money and build wealth within the framework available but keep your eyes and options open.
I am going to opine about the past for a minute. There used to to be a local sporting goods chain called G.I. Joes. To me, this was fantasy land. They had auto parts, electronics (including music), Ticketmaster franchise, army surplus, stick and ball gear and a full marine department. In some ways, this is probably why they went out of business. When the children of the founder wanted to retire, the business was sold to an equity group that quickly ran it into the ground (2009). Dick’s bought the name and you probably know how I feel about that.
They had a going out of business sale. I was in China on business when it started and by the time I got back, most remaining things were 50% off and certainly all of the best stuff was picked over. I did find a Nikon pack that contained a scope, range finder and a coupon for a free fleece jacket, which I bought for $150. I still use all three of those things, so I suppose I did OK.
Enough of that… first I will talk about what is old. My Nikon rangefinder was a pretty simple (to operate) device. Press the button and laser goes out to a pointed distance and measures as long at the distance is less than 1000 yards. You can change between meters and yards and there and the results are displayed on a black LCD readout. It cant be too close either, the distance needs to be longer than 10 yards.
Last week at Trap, we saw a coyote out at some distance. My Nikon is the one I carry in my range bag so I got it out to measure the range. I couldn’t get a distance on it. So, I don’t know if the battery is week, my angle was bad or it is actually farther than 1000 yards. Things have gotten a whole lot more sophisticated in the last 13 years.
My new Leupold rangefinder has a lot going on. First note that it is significantly smaller. The output LED is red instead of black; I assume this is for low light use. It claims that it can read reflective surfaces out to 1400 yards and game out to 1000 yards. But that is not all. This one is also usable for bow hunting, so short range measuring is much improved over my older Nikon.
There are multiple modes: TBR stands for True Ballistic Range. Remember your Pythagorean theorem? On any sort of angle, we are looking at the hypotenuse, not the actual distance. So there is some sort of level sensor inside to compensate for angle (if using that mode). One of the use cases is to take a measurement at the top of a tree to determine the actual height. You can then assess whether it is a risk of the tree damaging something if it were to fall.
And there is more. Using a preset of ballistic groups, the rangefinder will calculate your holdover on targets at distance. Your target is 400 yards, you are sighted in for 200, how many inches do you need to aim higher to make the shot. This also takes the angle into consideration. There is some minimal amount of wind compensation if desired. There is even more, but I worry about needing to read the manual before each use, so I think I will set it up and let it be at least during hunting season.
I have never worried too much about range. The truth is, I have never seen an animal and had my rangefinder handy. I have always figured, if my rangefinder can’t measure it, I am likely way too far away. I mostly use it to gauge distances when I am sitting anyway. I know that if I see something between X and me, then I am good, otherwise I am going to have to get closer.
End Your Programming Routine: This is like having a new car. At first, you think I am going to use this for special occasions. But then, you remember that you like working air conditioning and better fuel mileage plus it is parked in a better spot for that quick run to the store. For now, it is going in my hunting pack but it very well may find my way into my range bag after the season is over.
I will be honest, I have had a long held prejudice against yard tools that are powered with a cord. Things I have used would be things like chainsaws, hedge trimmers, string trimmers and leaf blowers. I can now add rototiller to the list.
It’s not that these items don’t work, they do. And quite frankly they are often times significantly, more inexpensive then the cordless relatives. I guess my opinion stems originally from a Black & Decker hedge trimmer that my dad has owned my entire life. This was something we usually had to deal with once a year as kids. And multiple times the cord was cut because you are thrashing around in the brush and the cord gets tangled in the brush and around other plants.
With the advent of battery powered yard tools and my older age, I am starting to change my opinion. For one, I don’t own enough property or do enough work to justify gas powered tools. The truth is, I don’t do enough yard work to replace my gas tools with battery tools (or even own either type of them). My Stihl chainsaw has been really good but other things like lawnmowers and trimmers gum up, crack up or fail due to lack of use.
The nice thing about electric is that there is very little maintenance required, so it is ready to go when you want it. Whereas, I am often wondering if my gas powered equipment will start or run every time I go to use it.
Last year, when I was cleaning out my father-in-laws stuff, I took his electric cultivator. I forgot that I even had it until I was trying to figure out how to get some ground worked up quickly to do some overseeding. I have to say that I was pretty impressed at how it did. My mom has had Mantis tiller for years and I really thought it was worthless from what I have used.
Yes, the cord was in the way but based on my usage pattern, the small inconvenience is worth not trying to do it by hand. This is definitely not something I would have ever purchased, however maybe this is the kick in the ass to get a proper garden in next year. It is getting my juices going.
End Your Programming Routine: For homeowners or occasional users that are close to a power source, having a corded tool is highly preferential to not having anything at all. For this category of user, I think the battery powered tool is probably the best compromise on most yard tools. Only serious, frequent users would benefit from gas tools. If that is you, then you probably already know all of this. But, reconsider the stigma corded tools, I know that I am.
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