Month: October 2024

October 31, 2024 – So Long, Old Friend

October 31, 2024 /

It was on my recent fishing trip that I found out about the permanent draining of a reservoir of my youth. It was where we water skied and fished. It was where we tubed and it was the first place I took my boat. I knew that I wanted to go see it for old times sake.

It was a 2023 court decision that finally put an end to the reservoir. Basically, this is a last ditch effort to save the spring Chinook salmon run. The plan is to let the river flow unless there is a major water event in which case they will use the dam to mitigate extraneous flooding. The dam was put in in 1967. My dad grew up along the river (below the dam) and he said that it flooded every year before the dam. It has done it’s job as well as providing a lot of memories for me.

The way that deer hunting goes around here, I don’t hold my breath. I threw my rifle in the car, but the real plan was to go explore. I wanted to validate what I had heard and reminisce about what was lost. If I happened to run across a good spot to hunt, I might want to come back. That is a good way to get my wife to go along as well.

At the beginning of the journey, we stopped at the dam. In all of my years and all of my trips, I have never looked over the edge. We walked about halfway across the dam and I never realized that there was a road on the other side. We didn’t go on it because we had a mission to follow the river up.

This picture shows the exact spot on the reservoir that we used to ski. It is called the Quartzville arm of Green Peter. If you follow this road beyond this point, it turns into a picturesque western stream. I had only gone beyond this point once in my life. At that point, I was probably in middle school so it was really new to me.

A couple of miles up the road, it turns into a dispersed camping area. It really means that there are no services, but it also means that there is no cost. All of the spots are along side the river and include a fire ring. Bring your own water and expect that the nearest toilet might be a couple of miles away. Other than that, it seems like a perfect place to spend a hot summer weekend or a quiet fall hunting trip.

After we stopped multiple times to look at potential camping spots, it was time to complete the journey. We followed the forest service road all the way through. We ended up on the the next east/west highway to the north. We headed west and home just in time to avert a major rainstorm.

End Your Programming Routine: These are difficult and complicated situations. I don’t want to see major flooding or the demise of the native salmon or the loss of excellent recreation. You might call what I was doing was deer hunting but really it was a Sunday drive with my wife. I will miss the reservoir but I have a new appreciation for the area.

October 30, 2024 – A Chance Encounter

October 30, 2024 /

Sometimes things happen by chance. I don’t know why we meet the people we do and even more than that, hit it off. You should know by now, this episode is not necessarily about that but a couple of movie reviews that I ran into by chance. One is about who we were in the past and one is about who we are about to be in the future.

Mentioned Podcast: https://castbox.fm/episode/Exploring-Life-Saving-AI-Tech-with-T-Mobile-for-Business-id4916553-id748574063?country=us

October 25, 2024 – The Art of War, Nine Changes

October 25, 2024 /

As luck would have it this week, I was listening to a podcast called The Essential Framework to Understanding the Art of War. After listening to it, then reading the transcripts I am sure that I didn’t get a lot out of it. I would say that there are two sort of contradictory things. One is that you cant just read a little bit and get the whole concept. On the other hand, while reading pick one thing that resonates and pursue it (kind of what I tend to do).

To begin to understand it, we really need to have a grasp of the Chinese philosophy and its foundations (see Chapter One). Really though, I should be talking about Chapter eight, not some podcast. I just thought that maybe this tip might be helpful if you are struggling through this like I am.

I feel like it is a little disingenuous to take a two page chapter and copy a two lists out of it, so I wont. But, I do have to talk about them. The first list is the nine items that a leader must act upon (or potentially change). This is the namesake of the chapter. The second list are five items that can cause a leader to fail. It could also be construed as weaknesses or vulnerabilities of a leader.

An excerpt from list one

  1. There are roads that are not followed
  2. There are armies that are not attacked
  3. There are fortified cities that are not assaulted
  4. There are commands from the ruler that are not accepted.

You would think that as book smart as the US military is, they would have read and studied Sun Tzu. That being said, the first problem is accepting all commands from the ruler. As a result, they will go down any road, attack any army and siege any fortress.

I wholeheartedly believe that the US military is the best trained, the best equipped and willing to do anything. We can subjugate any population as long as we are actively involved. The problem being is that I don’t believe that our moral values permit this type of ‘victory’. We want to go in, kick butt and then have them thank us for the pleasure.

Obviously, you can tell from my tone that there is more to this than what I am saying. I agree with Sun Tzu that some wars are not winnable. This is the very reason that Israel is going to spend all this blood and treasure to be in the same position when it is finally over that it is when it starts. I am not being over dramatic about my hope that this battle will be over and the world is still intact.

Vietnam, the Middle East, Afghanistan these are all unwinnable because when the people don’t want intervention, it is futile. We just cant seem to understand that. I completely get the desire for vengeance for 9/11 but twenty years of war for what? The official statistics are 2448 US casualties from 2001 to 2021 to their 243,000. But, what the conflict did to the ones that came home. I personally have observed more than one veteran that took their own lives as a result. I kind of think this is a nod to Sun Tzu and his teachings. Some battles should not be fought.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not a pacifist nor am I a conscientious objector. I am fully in agreement with defending life, liberty and property. This is where I differ philosophically from our current view of freedom. You don’t find threats to that in Afghanistan or Vietnam. All you really find is a war machine, death and destruction of both guilty and innocent parties. Don’t we believe in letting ten guilty people go at the expense of convicting one innocent person?

October 24, 2024 – Another Grape Juice Method

October 24, 2024 /

This is another thing that I have been procrastinating this year. I cannot believe the yield of grapes this year. Now, I am almost at the end of the season. I should have done something with the grapes a month ago. The same malaise that is effecting my writing is also afflicting my chores around the house.

It gets to be after dinner time and I have lost motivation to do anything. Part of it is I know that I should be training but it is dark or cold or raining and so I sit on the bed and scroll through the news while my wife watches TV. It is ‘just a break’ that turns into ‘too late to start anything’. I know some of it is seasonal, I also take it as a sign that I need some rest. But really, I can’t afford to check out after dinner.

This is the forth different iteration of juicing hat I have tried. Year one I used inexpensive crank juicer. It worked well but it plugged up the screen something fierce. I would take hours of trying to get all of the fibers out the screen. The next year I tried the cider press. That worked pretty well but it required hours of machinery cleanup. The third year, I tried steaming. This was OK, but I really didn’t want to cook the grapes. This year, I thought I would try the juicer.

I know that wineries just crush the grapes, stems, good and bad ones. The fermentation process is a preservative method. I don’t like the thought of raw bird poop in my juice. I pick out the bad ones and wash the clusters. Then I destem all of the good ones to put in the juicer. Washing the grapes is a step that I do for all of my juicing by the way. In fact, this is the amount of prep I would do for the old juicer too but not for pressing or steaming. Get settled in for a long evening.

I found the Breville juicer to be the easiest to clean up of the methods that I have tried. Nothing got plugged. It was like washing a food processor, lots of plastic parts and some sharp ones. My observation of the leftover pulp was that it wasn’t very effective. It is amazing that two sticks of celery can yield half a cup of juice but a gallon of grapes was about 16oz.

The juice itself was probably the lightest I have tasted. I suspect that has to do with the overall yield plus the amount of air that is whipped into the process as the liquid is centrifuged from the solids. There was a fair amount of striation of the resultant liquid. This indicates that for pure juice, you would want to let things separate and skim the lighter level off.

Based on the four methods I have tried, the one that has the least amount of prep as well as best yield is the steam method. You cannot underestimate how much effort is required to prep and clean. The product was so-so by comparison, but it beats going to waste because you don’t want to deal with it. I would use the Breville if I was dealing with a small amount of grapes, like making a daily juice due to easiest cleanup. Ultimately, it is too much work and too much loss to make this a primary method.

End Your Programming Routine: Experimenting is in my nature. It is why I studied science in the first place. It is a real shame that I am going to let so much of a bounteous crop go to waste. But, we have plenty of grape jelly and it doesn’t make good wine even though I have made plenty of it. I guess that is why our modern food system is kind of marvelous. It takes hours of work and distills the result down to a couple of dollars. It doesn’t pay for my efforts, only as a labor of love.

October 23, 2024 – Foreshadowing

October 23, 2024 /

I started this endeavor for a number of reasons. I wanted to create a lifestyle business where my life was my work and vice versa. I have been a long time listener of The Survival Podcast and this is one of the things the host encourages for personal freedom. Another tenant is that is one or more people can do something and be successful then there is certainly a market and likely I can do it too.

When I quit my job in April 2019, it was not to explicitly do this but that it was a perfect opportunity to have the time to figure it out. The truth is, I didn’t use my time effectively and I didn’t get moving until December. I got behind the gun in 2020 and I had this huge project of remodeling my little house and then I had to go back to work. In that time, I created a formula to test whether I could actually do this.

I actually got my domain name in the fall of 2020. That is where I switched from Floricane on free WordPress to AltF4.co. I guess this is where today’s story starts. I got my renewal notice a couple of weeks ago. Hosting is now over $400 a year. When I first started, it was around $200 per year. I started asking myself, do I want this bad enough to keep paying hosting fees?

I think where I have started breaking down was this summer. I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep cranking out daily posts. The combination of what was happening in my life as well as my fatigue for reading the same book for nine months. I started to realize that I was doing this to myself. As a result, I wanted to make some tweaks, which I did. I dropped the hard daily requirement.

I have talked about needing a vacation, and I took that a couple of weeks ago. This was right around the time that I was enacting my reduced expectations. As a short amount of time has elapsed, my enthusiasm is continuing to wain. Part of it is that I have painted myself into a corner. Now that I have read half of it, I want to be done with the Art of War. I am doing stuff, but it is more of the same. There is only so many times I can write about another way of making Grape Juice.

What is really holding me back is my extremely stiff counter culture streak. I have written over 1000 articles, most of which nobody has read. Why is that, I hate social media. I have realized that I am never going to market my work in a way that I will be successful. Take that to the extreme, if I am not going to be successful, then why am I doing this in the first place? That sounds like insanity.

It is not all negative. I am proud of what I have done. Unfortunately, that doesn’t pay the bills or become a career. I find it useful too. I search my site to jog my memory on things that I have done over the years. Sometimes I am looking for a certain recipe or thing I did and this helps a lot in keeping track of those things.

As a reminder, I started writing as a way to build discipline for podcasting. As a working person, I simply do not have time to do a daily podcast. It typically takes three days for me to get each podcast done. I could do a lot better with time if I didn’t spend so much time writing my outline. That is pretty risky (for me) though. The more prepared I am, the better I deliver. I really do not need a website to continue to podcast. It will still go out on Apple and Spotify and be available at Castbox.

Spoiler alert: I did renew for another year. I will be honest though, I am starting to fade from futility. I don’t mind doing all of this for myself, but I don’t see the point of paying for it too. Maybe I just need to shop the price, if it was more reasonable then I wouldn’t feel like a big waste.

In year’s past, it was a no brainer that I was going to keep going. I think that I am going to set a line in the sand this year. I will probably make the decision by mid- September next year. I definitely want to take what I have done if if the site goes down and that will require some time to prepare. I say all of this because I don’t want to disappear someday without knowing what is going on.

My criteria is yet to be determined. Certainly, if I could find a way that doesn’t violate my being to make some money would be a good start. I don’t need to replace my income to keep this viable. If I had the ability to offset expenses with income, like buying tools and giving reviews as an example, then it would definitely be worth the effort. More on this as the year goes on.

End Your Programming Routine: Don’t just keep doing things for no reason, this would be programming. My reason has been because I like doing it, I still do. But, do I like spending most of my free time doing it? Not as much this year as year’s past. For another year, I will finish out The Art of War and keep working to put up content as time and desire permits.

October 21, 2024 – Trick or Treat 2024

October 21, 2024 /

I sure had a lot to say for not know what to talk about. I had forgot that I had a Trick or Treat 2023 until I was checking to see if I had used that title already. So, I thought I would do it again after I check in on how those little treats played out from last year. I go of in a new direction this year primarily relating Halloween symbols to current events. That is all I am going to say, tune in for more.

October 18, 2024 – The Art of War, Military Combat

October 18, 2024 /

This is week eight of the reading of the Art of War. I have to admit that this book is so short that I have read ahead a bunch and then forgot anything that I read. I then have to go back and re-read the chapter so that I have any semblance of something to write about. Fortunately at only two pages, I can even reread a couple of times a night.

I hate to admit this but I can reread these chapters and not get that much from it. I have already talked in the past weeks about Yin and Yang and eastern philosophy and this week is really no different. Most of what each one of these points are contains a strong undercurrent of Yin and Yang.

The following are the major points in this chapter.

  • Make the best of a bad opportunity
  • Balance the drive to attack with the fatigue of battle
  • The mind and mindset is as important as the physical in battle
  • Do not over extend your forces in exuberance

Once again, there is also a strong implication on the importance of leadership. Realize that this chapter opens up with the general getting orders from the ruler. That means that the general has a degree of latitude to operate but the objective is set.

I was listening to an interview this week with the daughter of Steven Covey (author of “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”). After that, my mind wandered how these popular thought leaders were influenced or directed to their ideas. It kind of strikes me that many ‘celebrity’ authors were highly motivated by people that I have never heard from or about.

This then me to think about who we consider ‘leaders’ today. I am primarily speaking about politicians now. They are nothing like Sun Tsu or Steven Covey. By that I mean there is no Yin and Yang and very little wisdom that come from our politicians. I have to categorically say that is because politicians are not actually leaders. I think that they are more aptly named actors or maybe control freaks.

We want to believe that there is self reflection and accountability but being a not-leader shouldn’t surprise us that there is not. If you are not a leader you don’t have to do those things to get re-elected. Leaders move a group of people from one position to another. This could be physical or ethereal.

In my observation, leaders are people that apply or document good advice and tactics regardless of the source. The reason that I know people are influenced by people I have never heard of is that Covey credits these people in his work. Unless an actor is receiving an award, how often are they crediting others for the influence or beliefs? Based on what I have seen, never.

Our ‘leaders’ are sending troops to the middle east as I write. Can someone please explain to me why this is in the best interest of the United States of America? I can no longer buy into the 1960s domino theory anymore. If I had to speculate, it is that unnamed individuals are influencing foreign policy for personal or financial gain. Politicians use mask of freedom to start another war. Are you enjoying the show?

End Your Programming Routine: It is the generals who will be tasked with operating within Sun Tsu’s guidelines in the middle east. Our leaders are actually the rulers, get that paradigm straight. If we did a better job of adequately overlaying descriptions should wake us up to what is actually happening. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to vote our way out of this. But, I do think that we have a better chance of doing less harm and getting what we want when we are aware of the actors versus the leaders.

October 17, 2024 – The Escoffier: Cookbook and Guide to the Fine Art of Cookery

October 17, 2024 /

October is a different month. The Escoffier by Auguste Escoffier is a suggested book of the month for for the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. I say suggested because technically there is no selected book but the theme is Escoffier himself. This is also a different kind of month because this is going to be the first time ever that I will not read the book.

According to what I have heard so far, Escoffier was the first celebrity chef. Born in 1846, he was a restaurant rock star by the turn of the century. Unfortunately, that came to a crashing end when he was fired for skimming at his flagship London restaurant. While formally accepting the charges and partially paying the losses, he never publicly admitted to guilt. This was the pinnacle of his career which continued on but in a much subdued fashion.

This book (pictured), is sort of the codification of French cooking. He took what people knew and did and put it into a formal reference. This was the revolution that he brought to the food scene, particularly in areas of Europe outside of France.

Let me speak to the elephant in the room. For someone that reads almost everything that I run across, why am I not reading this? I have skimmed through the book and it is a cookbook. It is a cookbook that is in the style of “The Joy of Cooking” meaning that that it is almost 1000 pages of words. It is more important to contain the information than actually making it useable.

I will use an example. I was looking up fish recipes and I go to the one that I want. It then refers to another section of the book for the foundation technique/sauce. This is also something that is done in the “Joy of Cooking”. While this is a good way to re-enforce consistency, it is very hard on the user.

The book is also written in a dialect of English that is not familiar. I believe that it is a direct printing from the original. As a result, I believe that it is dated with colloquial phrases and words that are just difficult to read. You add to that French words and page flipping to get the whole picture and you can see that reading is going to be difficult.

I bought the book even though I was not planning on reading it, it seems like the authority of cooking seemed appropriate. To be honest, there are very few books that I buy with the intent of never reading. I probably should have purchased a biography or something that would have been more interesting than another cookbook but the decision was made.

Can I recommend the book aside from my hesitations? Generally speaking I would say no. There is always someone outside with the perfect puzzle piece fit. I cant think of any in this canned, mushroom soup era. You would have to be a dedicated fan or historian or something of that nature to really get energized about this book. I know, it is a little disingenuous to poo poo something that I have not fully given it a shot. I didn’t really know anything until I ordered it.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t really mean to be negative, I just don’t see myself using this book. I barely open the “Joy of Cooking” for the same reasons. I don’t like turning the page to continue the recipe or to refer back to previous recipes. It doesn’t mean that it is a bad reference, it is about the spatial relationship and organization of information which we have much better mechanisms through technology today. By all means, feel free to disagree.

October 16, 2024 – Taking Care of Business

October 16, 2024 /

This is a takeoff from yesterday. If you didn’t listen to the podcast, then you will miss a little bit. Back when we would have those successful fishing trips, after eating a dinner or two, the rest was up to my dad. Smoked fish is one of those things that he has always had a passion for and still guards to this day.

I have heard it said that fish is best eaten fresh. To that end, I have even heard that they continue to degrade in the freezer. That is bad news because I have a salmon in the freezer that is dated 2019 that came from my in-laws freezer. The point being is that even the fish eaten two days after catch seemed to be developing some ammonia flavor, so unless we were going to eat them for four days straight, I needed to get on to some preservation mechanism. I chose smoking.

I can get the smoking down, what was scaring me was the fillet process. I know that I can learn that too, but I also know that I need practice. Unfortunately, seven fish is not enough. But, once I got over the hump of I have to do it now or it will be too late, I hacked away. I am not proud of the results, but I think I made some technique observations that will be helpful for next time.

The carcasses went into the stock pot. I have always wanted to make some fish broth. If it is anything like other stocks, this is a key component to moving dishes from OK to great. I will be working with that some other time, it was still time as the key component to what I was doing now.

I chose a dry brine. That is covering the flesh with a sugar/salt and other spices for a period of time (like overnight). That covering is to be rinsed off before smoking. I chose that because that is what my dad has always done. I also preferred the dry brine to a liquid, it seems more right to me for smoking.

The flesh was almost goopy while I was filleting. After the brining, things firmed up quite a bit. This re-enforced my decision on the technique. I made another questionable decision when the smoking was happening. The only charcoal I had was mesquite. I added some cherry for smoke, but I think a better choice would be apple or alder with plain charcoal. These heavier woods are better for almost all meats besides fish.

The smoking process took about three hours. I know that my dad uses a dedicated smoker and those fish get a lot more time under controlled conditions. But, as you can see from the picture that the fish look like leather at this point. Any more time would serve no purpose, probably they were over cooked.

The taste… I will temper this a bit by saying that I have only tried one piece to date. It was salty and dirty. Clearly, I did not rinse the brine off well enough. Dirty, I don’t know if it was my charcoal or my fish handling or the fish itself. I didn’t taste dirty when I ate the fish plain, so I have to believe that it is something that I did. Don’t worry, I am going to eat it all no matter how bad it tastes. But there is clearly room for improvement.

End Your Programming Routine: It was probably the last glorious day of the season. There is nothing better than sitting next to the smoker, in the sunshine, scrolling through the football scores. I was just pleasant and seemed like the perfect cap of a great couple of days off. Regardless of the outcome, I am looking forward to the next fishing trip and trying this all over again.

October 15, 2024 – Fishing the West

October 15, 2024 /

Hot off of my vacation, I have fishing on the mind. I talk a little about what we did, the politics and some of the current status of fishing near me. This is a topic that could literally go on for hours there is so much to talk about. I keep it to the basics today.