Month: August 2024

August 7, 2024 – I Am Being Censored

August 7, 2024 /

I didn’t make this very clear in my podcast. I after I mentioned that I was going to talk about censorship, I meant to follow up later and say that I was going to write about it later in the week. This is what you get when I don’t finish my notes is that I don’t get things wrapped up real neatly. We are here now.

I have been waiting for this moment. I have known for months now, going all the way back to December when I was trying to work while waiting for some sort of diagnosis about my wife’s fatigue that I was on the black list. My work has me working for a tobacco company and the doctor’s office blocked my computer from accessing the wi-if.

I combat that by carrying my own hotspot. As long as I can get cell service it works pretty well. Unfortunately, as the local hospital cell service is a black hole so with Wi-Fi blocked and no cell service, it is impossible for me to work at the doctors or the hospital.

When we came up to Portland, I thought I would try it. I had Wi-Fi access for several days on my work computer. But, then I got to a point where my work computer seemed to connect to the Wi-Fi but not work. Back to the hotspot. Fortunately, the cell phone service is good, even in the depths of the hospital.

What I didn’t expect is that they blocked access to some of the blogs I check on a daily basis. nearly everyday I check ammoland and the outdoor wire. It is part industry news and part politics and opinion. I tried to check several times and several days always with the same result. Finally, I tried my phone off of Wi-Fi and it worked. So, I know that they are blocking websites.

I don’t know what comparable left wing websites are out there. My personal opinion is a lot of most major news outlets are propaganda for the left. As a result, I pretty much find anti god and anti constitutional ideals as offensive. I am not quite sure why they censor legal and right leaning sites while allowing others to proliferate.

I can understand to a point why my work laptop is banned. I work for a sworn enemy of the medical establishment. I just can’t get over the hypocrisy of my drug company over the hidden evils of their drug companies. It is all about what propaganda channel you swallow. And while the prescriptions are not in my name, I am looking at some of the most addictive drugs known to man right in front of me.

End Your Programming Routine: I figured that this was a question of when not if. I can even understand the reason why they think it is necessary to ban firearms on the premises. But, to ban what I am reading goes a step too far for me. This is a government institution, not a private entity. To be clear, they are violating my first and second amendment rights. Welcome to your future.

August 6, 2024 – Living In a Foreign Language

August 6, 2024 /

Living in a Foreign Language by Micheal Tucker is the Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection for July. I am not just the a member but the President. Remember that one? Unfortunately, I am keeping up with the reading but I have been missing the gatherings. Fortunately, the group is doing a good job carrying on without me.

This book is an easy read by an actor that had his heyday in the 1990s. Tucker was the star of a TV show called LA Law and when the show ended he kind of checked out according to the book. The book is about what happened next which seems to be a shift toward spending more time in Italy.

As many Mediterranean cultures go, there is a heavy influence of food and leisure in their lifestyle. This story is no exception. There is a lot of talk about pasta and meals take a heavy role in the story. The search for the best butcher or cheese monger or fruit vendor. Then there is the ever present garden of peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. A giant bread oven sits dormant in the back yard and looms foreboding to be used.

As much as food plays a role in this book, the real star is the is the house. There is the torrid love affair on first meeting. After it has been secured, there is a major remodeling project to double the size of the structure. Each time there is a separation, Tucker longs to come back again.

The story is set in Umbria. I would say that is the lesser known Tuscany. What I mean is that it is rolling hills, picturesque and is mostly rural. The region is commonly referred to as the breadbasket of Italy. At least that is what I learned when I watched the Stanley Tucci Netflix series on Italy.

The book is light. There were elements of humor throughout the book. I liked that. It was one of the nicer memoirs that I have read about people that I don’t really care about. The self deprecating approach that Tucker takes is much preferable to the smugness of Tucci. As you know, I like to work on houses as well as cook.

While I have been to Italy, I am not drawn to Italian cuisine. I certainly appreciate their love and appreciation of food culture, I could care less about pasta. I guess that I hail from butter culture and not olive oil culture. I keep thinking that if I admire the culture enough, I will eventually like it. So far, it is not true.

End Your Programming Routine: Would I recommend this book? No, not necessarily. If you are a Tucker fan or can’t get enough of Under the Tuscan Sun then I think the imagery would be appealing. I can’t necessarily get behind a celebrity buying his second home in Europe and in the process having to give up his personal assistant in the process. Especially when he hasn’t worked in several years. I am not bitter, I just can’t relate. To each his own.

August 5, 2024 – True Humanity

August 5, 2024 /

If you want to see a true and honest slice of humanity, there are a couple of places that I would recommend. You will have to listen to find out, but I reveal pretty early on. We all like to put on heirs about how good and nice we are but there are places where the charade is revealed.

August 2, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Paradise, Canto XXVIII – XXIX

August 2, 2024 /

This is the last level of paradise so to speak. Of course, there is one more and that is true heaven. The Primum Mobile as it is called are groups of Angels. Apparently, they revolve around the Empyrean (or true Heaven). As it is described, the mobile is comprised of nine rings. The closer the rings to Empyrean, the more godlike the angel.

If you think about it a little bit, this all kind of makes spatial sense. There is Earth with the mortals, the underworld of Hell, the mountain of Purgatory and then each planet or star then represents some pint in the after world. I have to imagine that Saturn was probably the extent of the known solar system in the early 1300s so how do you really explain the rest.

I my view, not a whole lot of significance really happens in this level. I guess I get the theory that the best angels are closer to god but ultimately, I have never subscribed to this lasagna theory of heaven. It is really hard for me to imagine based on my own faith that you follow as best a mortal can on earth only to have your final destination be assigned based an accepted sinful nature of man. I think what I am saying will be more clear in the final weeks of this review.

To add to that, I never thought of angels having levels either. We are familiar with the fallen angel Satan. But in the Christian sense, angels predate creation. So I guess that they really didn’t have a chance to earn their spot by earthly deeds? To me, it is confusing theology. The Bible says very little about angels so I suppose that it could be true with different levels.

We get another chance to knock the church and preachers specifically from no less than Beatrice. I am honestly not sure about the context of this other than I feel like it is Dante’s parting blows. He will take one more shot next week. Beatrice finally takes her place in the rose (more about that next week) to replaced with Bernard or St Bernard. He puts in his two cents on the church as well.

Maybe I missed this part but apparently Dante only has a limited amount of time in the afterworld. The more time he spends on the lesser levels the less he has at the end. One of the reasons this level is so short is because Dante is running out of time. So it is on to the final state, Empyrean.

End Your Programming Routine: Unfortunately, I started writing this a week ago and it lost some of its mojo. I had a plan, now I don’t remember if I accomplished it or not. Due to my fatigue on this project, I am kind of phoning in the remainder. By that, I mean that I don’t have the book with me to double check if I am getting everything that I thought I was. So, I am just getting the summary from different websites as a reference. Next week we finish the book.

August 1, 2024 – End of an Era

August 1, 2024 /

About two months ago, we turned off the home phone service. The picture in the box below is the old phone equipment that used to be around our house. It has been cluttering up my reloading bench all this time. That is OK since I haven’t been home much anyway.

I will let you in on a little secret. It wasn’t a true land line. It was actually a cell phone that had a cable connection to hook up to the old phone line system. We added this line in the late 2000s. This was long before fifth graders had cell phones. The main purpose was provide phone service for baby sitters and later our kids to get ahold of us, if necessary.

In the last couple of years, we go really no calls on the line and it sometimes lead to confusion. Old contacts (like doctor’s offices) would sometimes call and leave messages on the line. We never checked it because 99% of the calls were junk. We would have to weed through satellite TV offers and car warranties on the voicemail every couple of months just to clear it out.

I would have kept the line except for the fact that it was costing $360/year. I was under the impression that it was only costing $10/mo for many years. This is one of those vampire costs that made little sense. My in-laws would call when the kids were young but since they have both died, nobody calls the number.

At one time, I had an extension in the shop. I liked it because I could more easily hear the ringer and see the light than the phone in my pocket. But then again, my wife would not call the line anyway so I would have to listen to the ‘I couldn’t get ahold of you’ speech each time. This was one of the reasons she bought me the smart watch.

In the true spirit of redundancy, I like the idea of having redundant communications. The idea however is that you would have a different provider or a different technology. A landline or a different carrier even is a much more robust strategy for that. Adding another line does very little unless you are using the phone for a specific purpose, like a business.

End Your Programming Routine: I remember the day you would schedule the service and wait for the phone to be hooked up. It was the same era that if you didn’t have a phone book, you lacked fundamental knowledge for navigating the world. I would like to just give away this techno junk if someone wanted it. Unfortunately, it has very little value to anyone. I may give it a try, but most likely it is going to the electronic recycler. It is not worthless, just not practical. That makes me sad.