Month: October 2023

October 31, 2023 – Reigning Horror King

October 31, 2023 /

Before there was binge watching TV shows, there was binge reading of authors. I guess that was always something that I have done. My earliest reading accomplishment was finishing the Hardy Boys series. In middle school, the author Dean Koontz came into fashion.

At one point, I had read every book that he had published. That count was fifty some odd books. When you read these serial authors, I find that the books are pretty easy, quick reads. Another author I have read a lot is James Patterson. An average is 300 – 400 pages and these are things that can be read in hours. I could often finish a book in an out and back plane ride (hence why I read so many).

I wouldn’t say that the books are formulaic exactly, it is just that the story line is simple. There isn’t a lot of thinking that is required to follow along. Reading those kind of stories is pleasurable but it starts to lose it zeal if that is all you ever do. Then you start to look around for what can last longer, has more pages or is more complicated. This leads to other authors.

Authors like Koontz and Patterson I would say write in the thriller genre. Thrillers involve action like murder and then all of a sudden murder kind of borders on horror. So what is the difference? In a lot of ways, not much. I would say the primary difference involves supernatural or urban legend aspects aside from just a lot of crime (and blood).

In my opinion, the king (sic) of horror today is Steven King. King’s career started in horror that lead into a more diverse body of work. I started to read King as a supplement to the quick reads of Koontz. One of the first books that I read was “It” and I did so because it was over 1000 pages.

The first published work from King was Carrie. But the 1970s and 1980s was a solid string of novels that really hit the bestsellers list: “Salem’s Lot, Pet Cemetery, Cujo, The Dead Zone, Christine” and probably his biggest hit “The Shining”. He also wrote and directed his own movie called “Maximum Overdrive” featuring a soundtrack exclusively from AC/DC, now that is cool.

I realize that King has ventured out of the horror genre exclusively and into his seventies now, his work is evolving. Yes, he is still putting out fiction but the burning drive has quelled somewhat. That being said, he is still active and has created a number persistent pop culture classics. I think that you would be hard pressed to meet someone older than 30 that doesn’t know “The Shining”.

I think that King has mastered creepy. Most of what he does is not gore like slasher films. This makes his movies a good choice to watch as a family for Halloween. We watched the movie “Misery” a couple months back and this is another good choice. There have been so many books adapted to movies, including non-horror movies like “Stand By Me” and “Shawshank Redemption”. For his classy and proliferation of content as well as versatility I have nominated him Today’s Horror King.

End Your Programming Routine: My favorite book from Steven King is actually “The Stand”. If you haven’t read it, this is a dystopian story more along the lines of “The Walking Dead”. Admittedly while that book makes my recommended reading list, horror is not really my favorite genre and by proxy, I do not really relish most of King’s work. I simply respect the quality and the uniqueness.

October 30, 2023 – Trick Or Treat 2023

October 30, 2023 /

This week is a grab back of various topics. I did have one thing to say that I determined wasn’t enough duration for one podcast and so I just kept adding topics until the episode was too long. When you ring the doorbell and say trick-or-treat in theory, you could get either. I will let you decide what you are getting with each topic.

October 27, 2023 – Anthem, Introduction

October 27, 2023 /

And we are back to an old friend. We have now moved on to Anthem by Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged and Anthem cannot be more different from an outward appearance. Anthem is described as a novella. My copy is barely over 100 pages and I was planning on breaking it up into four groups. The first three chapters are going to be almost half the book (and about one chapter in Atlas Shrugged).

I got to thinking that it is interesting that both Rand and Zamyatin were Russian ex-pats writing at the same time on very similar subjects. Maybe, just maybe there is something to the similarities, just saying. It seems like people experiencing the same situation and writing their thoughts have come to very similar conclusions.

Sometimes I have read the book, sometimes I haven’t before I start writing the introduction. In this case I read the first chapter to get a sense of what is going on. I don’t like to be influenced by what others think it is about or concepts but it is also hard to introduce the book without having any prior knowledge.

I plan on breaking the book into four segments plus a conclusion. That means that we will finish this series in the beginning of December. Not to spill the beans but the next author will be a new one for me. I have a reserve of books that I have not yet read and I am trying to vary the authors a little bit even though there is more Rand in the future (already have the book).

This is another dystopian, science fiction story. We will talk all about what is in the book from a concept and a story line next week. I didn’t know this, but when I was reading the plot summary in Wikipedia, there is reference to We as the only related work. I suspect that it may be because the main character’s name is a number sequence. It also takes place in a dystopian future, etc.

The story was originally conceived as a play, then it was going to put in a periodical. Finally, it was published in the United States after the success of Fountainhead. Reading the history in Wikipedia, Rand tried to persuade Disney to make an animated film using stick figures. That would have been really interesting.

I am leaning more and more on moving away from the dystopian genre exclusively. Maybe, I will move from Friday book reviews even. I really enjoyed 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Atlas Shrugged. But, it started to slip with Lord of the Flies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy checking these things off of my list but it is starting to feel like a chore trying to extract things week over week. I will leave it open for now. I do want to get through this one and the next one before I make the decision. For sure, I will continue to read and review books, it just may not be in one genre and chapter a week.

End Your Programming Routine: I am even struggling to get through the introduction. It has taken me three days to write this. But what do you write about a book that you don’t know anything about? Maybe I shouldn’t do these series before I have actually read the book? You get the point. Next week I will have more substance.

October 26, 2023 – How Many Pumps for Accuracy

October 26, 2023 /

Hopefully, my zeal for experimentation and data translates into interest. I know that not everybody is like me. But, I get excited when people are excited about what they are doing. It really doesn’t matter what the topic is, I find it fascinating when people are into their thing. I may not want to do it, but I enjoy the enthusiasm.

The truth is, I wrote the article “I Hate Pumping” a few weeks ago prematurely. It was always my plan to test accuracy of BBs based on the number of pumps. I should have written after I collected all of the data first but I was in a little bit of a funk. I was getting ready to hunting and was suffering a little bit of brain fatigue. I needed something on the spot and I didn’t have time to do all the work.

My creativity seems to go in spurts. Right now, I am flush with ideas and time is getting a little less constraining. Now that the sun is going down with some evening left, I have time to read, think and tinker in the evening whereas in the summer it seems like it is go until you drop. I have several weeks of topics (that I think are good) in the queue. So, I want to close the loop on this testing for you.

Let me start with what I was trying to accomplish. Using the Crossman 1000 and shooting BBs, what does the number of pumps do to velocity? I did a series on pellets many months ago but I wanted to use BB’s this time because my preferred rifle, the Crossman Optimus only shoots pellets and I have a whole bunch of BBs. After understanding the pump to energy curve and knowing how many pumps would be adequate energy to dispatch pests, I wondered if this was even an accurate platform with BBs.

I found out that pumping the maximum twelve pumps is a chore but it was also pretty wild after the initial five attempts. To boil it all down, is it even worth it to shoot BBs? Looking at the picture, I think that you can see nine pumps is a significant improvement in accuracy over 12, it looks like seven is slightly better, five looks pretty dialed in and three starts to wander again.

This is good news. If the results would have all been like twelve pumps, I would have given up. Five is also a far cry from twelve pumps in the effort department. Looking at the energy data, I am not sure the energy is adequate for pests at five pumps, but that is OK, BBs are far cheaper to shoot if we are just talking about practice and trigger control and I have a lot of them around. The most important thing for practice is that it will hit where you aim.

Of course, now I will not leave things here. I am going to try a new series with my son’s Crossman 760. I did a baseline test months ago with pellets and found that rifle to be vastly inferior to the potential velocity. Ten pumps (the max) was equal to about four pumps on the Crossman 1000. What I am now trying to establish is that is it the velocity that stabilized the BB or is it rifle specific?

That being said, expect another one of these with a new set of data. This time, I promise that I will wait until I have everything completed. But like I said above, I need to do a better job closing the loop with subjects that I introduce. Maybe I should introduce a new category like ‘Results’ to share my conclusion. That will keep me more honest when using it and then I can write the post in a more scientific fashion. I will think on that.

End Your Programming Routine: Based on my results, BBs can be accurate without needing Popeye’s arms. That being said, not all tools are best suited for every job. Where I have settled is that I should be able to adequately shoot BBs with five pumps for practice. Stayed tuned for another analysis on potentially why five pumps is the best.

October 25, 2023 – I Used to Be a Watch Guy

October 25, 2023 /

I think that I was about 6 years old when I got my first watch. I am pretty sure it was inexpensive and you had to wind it every couple of days. Like many things a grade schooler possesed, it was not treated that well and was often dead. I wore it until the band broke and then it ended up in my junk box for many years.

Believe it or not, this was before digital watches were popular. When I was in fourth grade, the calculator watch came out. Oh man, that was the coolest ticket for a Christmas present, but good luck at $50. A few of the predictable people got one, then there was the concern about cheating on math test. My brother and I knew that we were never going to get one of those, so we coveted the Iron Man Casio watch. Never got one of those either.

The calculator watch fad was short-lived and then the Swatch watch was now in vogue in 6th grade. I did have one of those. Once again, the battery died or the band broke, I am not sure which. They were all plastic and really didn’t hold up well to pre-teen boy’s life.

I am not sure that I remember every watch I have ever owned, but I certainly have my adult ones. One of them (not pictured) my wife bought for me in 1994, I put a new battery in the watch and added a new band and gave to my son a few years ago. That one seems to be lost to time. But other than that, below is my current selection. Each one of them, a certain state of disrepair.

From the left, that is a 1992 vintage, department store “Guess” brand watch. It had a dead battery and a broken band. I think that it has always been a black band, because the other one I gave to my son had a brown band. I alternated between the two in college. I have to say, I like the look of a leather band, but I am sure that I am on my fourth or fifth band on that watch and I stopped wearing it (both black and brown) when I got the second watch.

The second from the left is also a “Guess’ watch that I got in 1998ish. It had a metal band in an attempt to combat the six month, leather swap. That watch got some abuse. It was covered in polymer multiple times and you can see that crystal is even damaged at about one o’clock. I stopped wearing it when I got the third watch in about 2001. Also, a pin was raided from it to keep the third watch going at some point. Recently, I added the web band to get it up and going again. This is going to be my work watch.

The third watch is a Bulova. It was expensive. It is made of Titanium so it is light and smooth. I wore that watch until February 2019 when it stopped working. I sent it in through the jeweler and they said that the gears have worn to the point that it is not keeping time. They can be replaced at a cost of $200. Of course, I got that news the week after I left my job and I did not think it was prudent to spend money on such a luxury item. To this day, it sits broken.

The last watch got lots of use in 2015-2017. It is a Garmin GPS watch that tracks where you have been. I used it mostly for timing when I was training for my half-marathon. I actually wore it as a watch some too, But, two things were wrong, when the GPS is active, it eats the battery and by the end of my half marathon, it would die and the second was the silicone band started disintegrating.

There I was jobless and watchless. That was when I started just using my phone. I really didn’t have anywhere to be so why not? A few weeks ago, several things started to come together. My wife was doing Christmas shopping (and she is dying to buy me a smart watch so I am less likely to miss calls and text messages) as well as me cleaning up old phones and tablets and junk. She said “you used to wear watches” and in my zest to purge junk, I wondered if any of these watches were viable still or can I get rid of them, win either way.

I bought some batteries to see if the first two had the same fate as my Bulova. So far, so good. Then I put my Garmin on the charger. Sure enough it has been going for three weeks on that first charge. It used to be, I would buy my replacement bands at the department store that the watch came from (that doesn’t exist anymore). Now, with the world of Amazon, a whole world of generic or off-brand bands are available, including even the Garmin.

I am going to be a watchman again. Albeit they are inexpensive or outdated watches, I like the idea of looking at my wrist again instead of digging out my phone. My work day consists of rolling out of bed and having a clock constantly in front of me but it is so much more convenient when I am travelling or not working to look at a watch rather than a phone. I also think that watches dress up or down situations as well.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe ‘The Art of Manliness’ is rubbing off on me too much with style topics? But, it seems to make sense to me to either use the items or get rid of them. Hanging on to non-functional is the opposite of logical. Now that I am not leaving the house everyday, I really have less use for a watch but I am looking forward to putting these things into service again.

October 24, 2023 – Game Over

October 24, 2023 /

Just like I said in the podcast yesterday, I got pretty ahead of posts so I could take time off and go hunting. Consequently, I have stuff piling up behind me that I want to write about. Today is really more of an update than anything earth shattering. I feel like I need to get better at following up on things that I have previously stated.

A picture is worth 1000 words. As you can see from the photo on the left, I got my target. I think that it does a good job illustrating the final state without getting too graphic. As it turns out, it was a rat. I kind of feel bad for the guy because I saw very little evidence of the creature other than something was trying to get into pantry items. Usually I can at least identify the species by to poop it leaves behind. Not this guy, he was pretty tidy about his invasion.

In fact, the first couple of days that I had set the traps out, I put them next to the flour that he had spilled by getting into the package. I was going to get around to cleaning it up with the vacuum but I figured in the meantime, he might come back to it. In about two days, the flour was all gone without me having to clean it up.

After I threw away the punctured bag and he cleaned up the mess, he moved on to some sleeves of crackers. I moved the traps in and within three days it was over. I was pretty surprised at how big it was. And fortunately, it was trash night so disposal was pretty fast and easy.

Two days later was the anticipated solar eclipse. You can see from my picture on the right what we had. The forecast was already iffy, it rained most of Friday and it was going to rain at some point on Saturday. My picture was taken at totality, but with the fog and the clouds, no chance. I tried really hard to see if I could even notice a difference with the amount of daylight, but I could not.

I knew it was a risk, the weather that is. In fact, the forecast for the day that I am writing is clear in the low seventies. That is pretty unusual for mid-October, but the reality is that to get that temperature, the wind is from the southeast and with that is also moisture (or humidity). It has been at 100% all morning. Even more so than that, we have thick fog just like on the day of the eclipse.

I haven’t spoken with my dad yet. They were still hunting on the central part of the state during the eclipse. I had even purchased some special glasses to give to them so that they could view the eclipse. But, I forgot to leave them. When I do find out if it was possible, I don’t think that I will update you on that conversation. My point with that is re-enforcing what I was saying in the last post. If it isn’t a lot of effort to see an eclipse, you should do it. But, if it requires a three hour drive for a maybe, then I probably wouldn’t.

End Your Programming Routine: Part of my point today was to say that patience is a virtue. I think that we all hope that pest don’t do a whole bunch of damage. But when they do, we have to deal with it. Funny thing, our pest guy came by before I started going after the rat. He asked “any problems?” and I said no without a thought in my mind. I could have called the service, it is part of what I pay for. That being said, the best person and tactic for the job is me because I am in the basement five days a week. I can observe and react and ultimately get my target.

October 20, 2023 – We, Conclusion

October 20, 2023 /

As I like to say, this is the end friend. As a quick synopsis we have D-503 as the main character and builder of the Invictus a rocket ship to move people to other planets as the savior of humanity via sponsorship of United State. He meets I-330 who effectively tries to recruit him to sabotage the Invictus by seducing him. Ultimately, D-503 fails to prevent the launch of the Invictus and I-330 is caught to be executed. As well, D-503 gives up his imagination because he feels as though he cannot control his thoughts between his internal conflict and his infatuation with I-330 which is illegal.

So, not a very happy story. Going in, I really didn’t know what to expect. I certainly echo the criticism that I think 1984 is a highly similar story. Given that Orwell wrote 1984 shortly after he read We, I can not in good conscious say that it wasn’t a direct rip off. That being said, I found 1984 easier to read and more relatable. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

As to the broader concepts of the book, I think that is what we should focus on. Does humanity require free will to thrive? Of course, I think the answer is yes. But it really does boil down to a philosophical argument. For instance, can we say that any other animal species is not thriving despite not having an imagination?

Maybe what we can say is that for a species to live up to it’s potential it needs as much free will as biologically possible. You can say that all critters have free will of sorts but they do not have a conscious to evaluate and learn from those decisions after they have happened. If that is our premise, then we can certainly say that humanity is at risk in We.

The greatest danger is not to have free will but to assume you have free will that has been programmed or manipulated without cognition. There is a saying that even a stopped clock is right twice a day. This saying is to validate that there is always some good with the bad. I think most people assume that this is the worse case scenario. Actually, what is worse than a stopped clock is a clock that is 15 minutes off. Because if you believe that this is the right time, you are going to be wrong every time. A stopped clock would be right more often than a clock that is off.

I think that the other major theme is that you cannot beat the system. That is definitely something I can identify with. Why do you think that we try so hard to stop it before it becomes what it is? Once in place, it is nearly impossible to change it as individuals. Pick your pet issue, did heath care get repealed when Republicans were completely in charge? No, of course not.

Merging the two themes together, lets take one other look at things. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Everybody has heard and remembers this statement. But what about this one? “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

If we subscribe to our very own tenants, then what do we have to say about something like the Patriot Act? We have been convinced that it is necessary for our safety to give up privacy and have virtually obliterated the fourth and fifth amendments. Yes a warrant is required to tap our land line phones (Olhmstead v. United States) but we have accepted that all other electronic communication is monitored and saved. Nobody is even talking about repealing such anti-American spirit law. I wont even go into the moral paradox of waterboarding being legal based on the fact that the Constitution does not apply to non-US citizens.

I liked the book. I think that it is the right order to read We after 1984. I suspect that I need to read it again to get the subtlety of some of the concepts. I did have difficulty sometimes bridging the gaps between what was written and what was the meaning. Like much science fiction, the story is not always congruent and leaves gaps that the reader has to speculate on how or what one event leads to another. I say this because I think 1984 conveys the same concepts in a much easier way to interpret as well as a host of a whole lot more concepts.

End Your Programming Routine: We have a new book next week. It will be a familiar author with a new book. Given Zamyatin’s station in life, exiled from his home country, I suspect that this book was driven by his observation of this situation more so than some sort of freedom savant. Given the gift of time, I think that it was Orwell who codified Zamyatin’s observation into the theory of tyranny. Both are going to be on the AltF4 reading list.

October 19, 2023 – Review: Hauppage 1196 PCIe Tuner Card

October 19, 2023 /

Here is something that I haven’t done in a while and that is an honest to goodness product review. I have had on my list to try out a tuner card for several years, since I built my office. A large part of that is that I want to have live TV in the basement when I was doing the things I do down there. It is particularly true when football season is on.

To be fair, it is hard to review something without comparing the item to something else. This is a pretty niche market, computer hardware that broadcast TV. From my research, there are several variations, but let’s start with the two basic categories. There is an expansion card option and a USB option. I chose the expansion card because I had an empty PCIe slot and all of my USB ports are full.

I will say that if you are shy about getting into computer hardware or don’t even know what a PCIe slot looks like, it is probably best to stick to the USB model unless you are going to get some help. It is a more invasive and permanent installation. But, I think that you can find a lot of deals on used or old hardware, like I did.

These things were really intended to build ‘media computers’ that managed your live TV, recorded TV, movies, music, etc. That idea has become passé with the takeover of mobile devices and cloud services. No longer is absolute quality of picture and sound the driver of media but portability.

I haven’t spent a lot of time with the software, but I like the concept. I turn on the morning news with the sound off and the Closed Captioning on. That way it is not really disturbing me but is on in the background. I catch the weather and traffic while I go about my work.

I mention it briefly below but the programming guide seems to be the driver of functionality. This does cause some problems when it doesn’t have data or update like it should. But, it also nice to see the spectrum of what is on, I rarely watch TV just to watch it. I really miss the old days of TV guide because now I just don’t turn on the TV.

One of the reasons I drug my feet on this was because I was going to add a TV as a second monitor. In that case, I could take my antenna connection and plug it into the TV instead of adding another card. But, that is really not a priority. It will happen, but I am going to buy it used and cheap and I wanted the capability to watch football now if I happened to be in the basement.

It is also hard to argue with the price. New, these things are around $70-80 on Amazon. I paid $19 off of e-Bay. Sure, I didn’t get the remote control or the software included in purchase. I had to buy the software separately which cost me $13. But, I don’t really need the remote and so all in it was $32. A serviceable, used TV is going to cost $25-50 likely. But now, I won’t have to mess with input switching.

I call this technojunk because it gives new life an purpose to old hardware. Yes, it is a computer that I use every day but it is supposedly supported on Windows 7, 8 and Linux as well. I debated setting it up on my Linux computer but that is going to be my Software Defined Radio and other things machine. Plus, I prefer the main interface to the remote one and I am in my office five days a week.

ScoreAdvantagesDisadvantages
Value4/5I paid less than half of the list price by buying usedBe aware that if you buy used that you will also need to buy a software license
Other devices on your network can access live TV through the softwareI did not get a remote control that comes with the full package
Works with ATSC (antenna) and NTSC signals (cable)Requires some computer knowledge to install card. Installation instructions can be cryptic and dated
Quality3/5 A lot of flexibility to record to specific directory or NASThe software relies highly on the electronic programming guide. Not all stations provide data.
Channels can be configured in the order you would like to viewIn full screen mode, controls disappear, requires remote to operate properly
Full screen mode has a fuzzy picture
Performance 4/5Extends TV to all devices connected to the same network as computer This is a single tuner, it means that you can only record one program at a time
You can finally record live broadcast TV again without paying a serviceThis is old technology without modern inputs/outputs
Runs all day without impacting internet bandwidthWatching TV on extended devices has less control than the base software

End Your Programming Routine: This wasn’t necessary, just fun. I spend very little time watching TV, but when I see Walker, Texas Ranger on it brings back memories. I used to record and watch This Old House before digital TV, but now I can stream it if I really want to follow along. I do like the ability to see the local news while I am going about my day. So, why not?

October 18, 2023 – Origins of Technical Gear

October 18, 2023 /

We all know the brand names like North Face, Columbia and Patagonia. Today, they are as much a fashion brand as they are/were technical gear manufacturers. But, what is the origin of those brands? They started out as somebody trying to do something better. And when I say somebody, I really mean a person making or modifying a piece of gear to suit their needs. When I was on my hunting trip, I saw this sleeping bag that my dad was using and it triggered me to memories from the late 1970s.

I don’t think that it is a secret that I grew up in a family of traditional values. That also include stereotypical roles and interest as well. My mom was a sewer, she still dabbles a little today but nothing like back then. Somewhere, somehow she ran across this company called Frostline. The premise was that a consumer could purchase a kit and sew their own technical gear.

I was pretty young, but I remember taking a trip to Spokane to pick up this kit. Spokane was about eight hours away. I am pretty sure my dad was working there as well. We picked up a pair of cowboy boots that he had made out of elk hide and went to the Frostline store. We also went and saw where he traditionally elk hunts along the way. It was a long, three day weekend of driving basically.

Frostline offered kits to make sleeping bags, tents, parkas and other things. This was the days where the transition was being made for wool and canvas to nylon and Gore-Tex. This sleeping bag wasn’t the only thing my mom made. She made rain gear for my dad, vests (I still have mine, but my 2nd grade me quickly outgrew it) and sleeping pads that I used my entire youth in Boy Scouts.

By today’s standards the gear was heavy and maybe even sub-standard in performance. It was however revolutionary for the time. Obviously, it was good enough to still be around today. I was surprised at how many recent articles were around praising the kits. I think it is pretty niche subject but there was certainly staying power in people’s minds.

There are two primary motivators to make your own gear. One would be to save money and the other would be to have something unique or custom. Of course, our side of the fence was to save money. But, the truth is some of this stuff was stuff I had never seen. We had one sporting goods store in town and this was my first synthetic, mummy bag.

That’s not to say that if we lived in Jackson Hole or Vail or some other outdoor oriented town that type of stuff wouldn’t be so unique but I think that this was a way to get stuff that really wasn’t on the market. You have realize that before the internet, if you didn’t know something existed and where to get it, it wasn’t exactly easy to find.

Today, I am not sure people would put that much effort into building their own gear. $150 might seem like a lot of money to pay for a sleeping bag, but the truth is by the time you put 20 – 30 hours into it, it doesn’t seem that insane to pay that amount of money.

There are definitely parts of me that wishes this company was still around. I think that it would be cool to go on a trip with a backpack that you have made. I still occasionally noodle the idea of what it would cost to build my own gear brand since I can never find exactly what I want. Like, I want a backpack that holds my laptop, fits under the airplane seat, has a sunglasses pouch and holds a water bottle with full access to the bag interior and not a lot of extra pockets and zippers that add bulk, cost and little functionality.

My current bag has most of that, it doesn’t fit under the seat well and it has tot many small pockets. It seems like the more pockets you can claim, the more the price goes up but the less value that they have. All of those protrusions and separations diminish the overall capacity of the bag itself and then it turns out you can add much less stuff then the size would indicate. I have other thoughts on other items like range bags and such, but that’s a topic for another day.

End Your Programming Routine: This is a little known piece of Americana that I thought would be fun to share. It is neat that it is still getting used today. This country was built by people wanting to build the better mousetrap and this is one example. Why do you think I have a sewing machine in the first place? It gives me ability to do some of my own modifications if I ever spend the time to figure out how it works.