Month: September 2025

September 26, 2025 – Mere Christianity, Book One

September 26, 2025 /

http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/Mere%20Christianity%20-%20Lewis.pdf

In case you didn’t buy, borrow or check out this book good news, it is in the public domain. I posted the link above for you to read along. I wish that I would have known it before I purchased it. Sure it was cheap, but free is always better.

I will be honest, I didn’t know a stitch about this book before I read it. It was recommended because of some of my other purchases on Amazon. It turns out that this is a compilation of radio broadcasts that CS Lewis did during World War II. It was meant as a morale piece for the British citizens and soldiers who had impending gloom and fear over possible Nazi invasion. I have to admit that I have been enjoying it tremendously because it is a very logical and composed argument for the existence of God.

It’s funny that I get to use my inner scientist and Christian now. They are two things that are not distinctly compatible. But, this Book (1) is all about merging the two. A huge theme is this idea of Natural law and a debatable concept of moral law. Natural law is scientifically provable such as gravity and believe me you can do a lot of math if you want to prove it.

If you need a less technical description, drop something on earth and it will always fall to the ground. There is no choice by the object be it rock or person. Notice I didn’t say if you were in the upper atmosphere or anywhere in the universe and drop something, That is also part of Newton’s Law of gravitation but it puts too many variables into a laymen’s argument. But that makes it absolute, observable proof of natural laws existing and there is no possible, logical argument otherwise.

If we as humans can agree that there are some absolutes, then we can agree on some other things such as morality. Democrats, Republicans, Independents and non-voters alike would agree that you should not walk-up and punch a baby. Before someone says that it happens, I would have to say that those people are not right as in normal. We can fins supporting evidence because the belief is held in China, India, Zimbabwe and everywhere as well.

Humans can agree that there is some universal morality such as don’t steal and don’t hurt other people. So, while I understand the pro abortion argument that a fetus is not a living being, I do believe that it is a warped justification for not taking personal responsibility for the consequences of sex. And this is the counter argument for natural moral law is that it can be argued or debatable.

Despite it’s flaws, the fact that we can acknowledge morality existing without being scientifically provable is a sign of an external force. Why do we agree that stealing is wrong? Animals do not hold such beliefs. This is because they do not hold humanity. Sure, they might be trained not to steal or they might be afraid of the pack leader or whatever analog I am talking about but animal behavior is about instinct. I want food, there is food there, I am going to take it when I get a chance even if it is possibly detrimental to me and my existence. My dog is trained not to eat of the counter and yet if I leave something overnight there is a good chance it is gone in the morning.

Life force is unique to our known world. It is going to be a pretty tough sell to me to say that all rocks will someday be some sort of living entity. I will admit that it’s very existence cannot be measured but on the other hand, we can see the results of when it is destroyed and therefore can empirically see that it exists. I am not completely turned off to evolution theory but I have not seen a link that life consistently strives to improve moving completely from a single celled organism to a human.

If that were true, I don’t believe (and neither does Lewis) that we would have moral law. In that case, people would steal because they can get away with it. Sure, plenty of people do but then what happens when they are stolen from? They don’t like it too much hence they also believe in moral law, just a perverted version of it.

End Your Programming Routine: Pretty cool huh. Next week I will discuss Book 2. It is no wonder this book was popular, it is a well laid out argument without resulting in name calling or condemnation. The book really doesn’t try to justify human existence using the big bang but to use human nature itself to support the existence of God. It is the best argument I have ever heard and the best defense against the lack of hard proof because it is right under our noses.

September 25, 2025 – Experts Say…

September 25, 2025 /

Early June, we started to hear a grinding noise that had the distinct hint of metal on metal. As I have profusely espoused how ridiculously busy the summer was. But, I did find time in late July to have the brakes checked along with an overdue tire rotation. Their report to me was that everything looked fine with the brakes.

The next week after the all clear, my wife was complaining again. I have to be honest, I am very easy on brakes. Many times what she hears and feels It will take me months to hear. On top of that, I trusted that the tire people knew what they were doing. I said that I would take it in again but I kind of deprioritized it to the point that she took it in herself. They said that sound was metal on metal.

Needless to say, she was mad. She was mad at them and she was mad at me for believing them and not acting faster. She has this trait where if there is a perceived safety deficiency then there is going to be some yelling. The tire shop asked if she wanted to schedule a brake job, I said no way. I am not paying $700 for a couple hour job.

If you look at the picture closely, you can see that the pads on the left are bare metal whereas the pad on the right look like they are half used. My theory is that the tire store only looked at one side of the brakes when they declared that everything was good. Clearly, that was a mistake but how did this happen really?

My theory goes back a couple of years to 2023. We had taken the vehicle to a mechanic shop to do a few things. One of them ended up being the front brakes. A couple of months later, I was on a business trip and the rest of the family was on a road trip. My wife called and said that the brakes were making a metal on metal noise. I couldn’t do anything and we couldn’t take the car back to the shop and so we took it to this Northwest tire chain.

I had assumed that when any mechanic did one brake they did both. Since I was not present for the work I kept the same theory until looking at the brake hardware. It was very clear that one side was different then the other and so I think the tire chain only replaced one side. It had only been a few months and so I can’t argue, I think it was the right decision to only do one. That being said the pads were clearly different durability.

We never went back to that shop again. I don’t know if it was faulty work or faulty parts. There were a few other things that they didn’t follow through with and so this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I sent them a copy of the bill as well as well as their bill along with my displeasure about the situation but I never got a response, so I guess that pretty much cemented things. They could have apologized or given me a credit or something if they really cared.

As the title implies, if we always trusted experts then it could be trouble. My wife frequently said that if she had trusted doctors, she would be dead. I can’t say that I disagree. While experts are experts in their field, we are experts in our bodies and our vehicles. We live with them everyday. If something doesn’t look, sound, feel right, it may not be. It takes this type of misdiagnosis to keep teaching the lesson that we should have confidence in what we know.

End Your Programming Routine: The lesson that I learned from this is that I should put more faith in my wife’s observations and complaints. Just because I don’t notice something doesn’t make her wrong. The truth is that I did hear it once, just not repeatedly and so shame on me. I don’t mean anything by it. I think it is the skeptic in me that makes me more of a scientist whereas for her is a matter of respect. That is an expert that I should always listen to.

September 24, 2025 – A Booze Hound’s Guide to Gourmet

September 24, 2025 /

A Booze Hound’s Guide to Gourmet is the September selection for the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. As the president, one of my practices is to let the host select the book/theme for the meal. This one came up in July but we had already set our plans in motion for the month and I try to get things solidified as early as possible so that people have time to find it at the library or order it or whatever the preference for obtaining the book.

I heard that the host selected the book because he was a local author. While trying to substantiate that, I found it rather difficult. I found an Australian, children’s author. I also found drug kingpin as well as the lead singer of Creedence Clearwater Revisited. Who knows.

I suspect that based on the book, this is the author’s seminal work. The website that is attached is still operational albeit very simple and dated. The typeset and formatting of the book looks like it was written in Microsoft Publisher and amateurish. Many of the photos that accompany the recipes have a low resolution and even sometimes un-appetizing look to them.

But let’s not pick at the man, at least he has published a book. To tell you the truth, I look at some of the photos that I take and sort of hold my mouth. Then I rationalize my poor work by saying, ‘hey, it’s free. I am not making a cent on any of this.’ The real truth is that that I get in the heat of the moment and snap a picture. Later when I get ready to write, I look at past history (my pictures) and say to myself that I wish I had done more when I had the chance.

Any man that has fought through formatting hell to get to a publishable book state has my respect. There have been many a document that I have spent thirty minutes to an hour trying to get a page break or text wrap to look correct. I do have to say that technology has come a long way in my career and lifetime since I have been working with it.

The most fascinating part of the book is the backstory. According to McGuiness, he spent twenty years as a charter captain in the Caribbean. While the book doesn’t go into this aspect extensively, I imagine that he is sailing a small group of wealthy people around for a week or more. Part of his duties is to produce the meals and this book is a reflection of what was on the menu as well as meeting expectations by this group of clients.

Informally, I would say that about fifty percent of the recipes contain alcohol. It is not as forward as the title would lead. Alcohol is largely relegated to marinades, sauces and deserts. They are certainly not the featured components of the recipes. The foreword even suggests that they can be omitted if desired.

One interesting thing that McGuiness did was that there was a section of entire meals. In that, he put a Gantt chart for all of the events to plan the meal. If you don’t know what that means it would be like saying twenty minutes in you should be doing x, y and z. That looks like browning the meal, chopping the vegetables and warming the oven. Instead of single recipes that you have to figure out, he has mapped it all out. I like that and I think that restaurants would do better by just telling you how it is going to go rather than the other way around.

I will be honest, I haven’t made anything out of the book. Even for the LCCBC dinner I hadn’t had a chance to finish it or look close enough to make a proper decision on what to make. Now that I have finished the book, I probably will not make anything from it. I just didn’t have a compelling dish that I felt inspired to make. There were a few recipes that peaked my interest, but honestly when would I make a Turducken? Thanksgiving is the only time for the three of us. I asked my wife about risotto and lobster stuffed Cornish game hens, she said too many competing flavors and I have to agree.

End Your Programming Routine: The final verdict on this one is a no. The title is misleading from a novelty standpoint. I am positive that the recipes are fine but I already have a plethora of cookbooks that I could pick out any number of dishes to make a fine meal. It might be worth considering if you timing is terrible and you just want a whole meal already laid out that might be semi-fancy. But that is as far as I can go with this one.

September 23, 2025 – I Owe This Much

September 23, 2025 /

All that work in August and I haven’t even bothered to show it off. This is it. It is not all the pictures that I took but the best ones and it shows the progression of how things went.

I will be honest, my proudest detail is the drain pipe. Everything worked out so perfectly and looks pretty neat too. I have to admit when I was purchasing the pieces, I kept going around in circles about how everything was going to fit together and if I got the right fittings and pieces. I am happy to report that I only missed two 90s and one piece I purchased extra. Not too shabby.

I am happy to have that done and it made me remember how much I enjoy doing productive projects like this. In many ways, that year I spent at home was some of my most enjoyable time ever. Yes, it was sun up to sun down but that was because I couldn’t stop myself.

End Your Programming Routine: My next project is not a project at all but clean-up from this one and all the other stuff I did since the beginning of the year. I am getting ready to button things down for the winter and that means dump runs, donation center runs and breaking down recyclables versus trash. I am going to be a happy man when the eyesore of all the things too big to fit in the garbage can finally go away.

September 22, 2025 – Are We Talking About the Same Person?

September 22, 2025 /

This is the story that never ends, so I thought I would throw in my two cents about it. You know who I am talking about, Charlie Kirk. But, before I get into that I want to talk about the intended subject of the podcast, LBJ. Ultimately you can decide but what I am highlighting is how people can look at the same data and come to two different conclusions. If you are finding that you are getting pushed around between two sides of Kirk’s legacy, then this podcast is for you.

September 19, 2025 – Boundaries, Chapter 17 and Conclusion

September 19, 2025 /

When I was planning on how I was going to break this week out, I really didn’t know what was in chapter 17. The fact that it is a fictional story of the women that previously did not have boundaries and how she was buffered around by life and now she is promoted and in control I find to be a little bit pedantic. With that said, I am not going to address chapter 17 any further.

I won’t say that I did not learn anything from this book because that is not true. But, what I will say is that I found myself annoyed reading it sometimes. The bent toward being too Christian to have boundaries and the anecdotal fiction that ‘read this book and everything is going to be alright’ is problematic. I don’t think that if Dave Ramsey wasn’t constantly pushing it that it would have ever made the sales numbers that it did and for good reason. It just is not that good.

Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater though. I know from personal experience that when you have deficiencies, it is extremely difficult to change even with cognizance. I really appreciated the perspective that you cannot fix it yourself. Even when you read chapter 17, Jean didn’t change her boundary problems alone, she had a therapist and a support group. I think that is what to take out of this book, serious boundary problems need help.

If you think that there might be a problem, reading this book is a good step in sort of getting a baseline. This also requires that you read it with intellectual honesty. It should be read, digested and contemplated. If you do that, then I think you will eventually come to the realization that there are things that can be done but real change cannot be done alone.

What more can I say? I guess that if someone were to ask me what to do about addressing boundary problems, this would be my first suggestion and really because it is the only one that I know. That being said, this is really not a recommendation. I think that if you knew nothing about anything, “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” would be much more valuable even though it is not a one for one subject replacement. It is just that if you think of life holistically, one situation shares many similarities with many others even if they are not related.

Another thing about this subject is that there is only one person that can be changed and that is yourself. It is very difficult to deal with someone that is overbearing, especially if you are a pleaser like myself. They have to have the same realization that they have boundary problems and want to do something about that in order to have a day with boundaries.

As I said in the opening week of this series, I have been wanting to read this book for over ten years. I was married into an entire family of significant boundary problems. Just one example was that when my sister-in-law got married, that night they were paid a visit by the parents at their hotel. Years later, they laughed about it because they intuitively knew how wrong that was and yet they never internalized how damaging their constant inappropriate behavior was.

Quite possibly if I had read the book ten years ago, I would have realized that I should probably done some things differently. That is unfortunate because the primary reason for wanting to read the book is no longer with us. Possibly, I missed an opportunity to be a better person earlier then when I realized I also have boundary problems, just of a different nature.

End Your Programming Routine: Let me bottom line this book. I am glad I read it but I really don’t recommend it. I get it that it is intentionally marketed to Christians but I found the biblical case and support too weak. I also think that waving the Christian flag was a crutch for the not addressing the significant numbers of secular interactions we have every day. As an example, nearly every single person I interact with at work is from India and not Christian. It is just not someone trying to be overly godly that I am interacting with. If you have a problem, seek therapy now, don’t read a book.

September 18, 2025 – Really… Is It Worth It?

September 18, 2025 /

This is the post that derailed the train. I had penciled this in to come out in mid-July. I moved it to late July and then late August and then I gave up. These were all range trips scheduled that got superseded by something more important. While it is not critical for me to go to the range and certainly not for the purposes of taking pictures and gathering information to write here about it, it has been rather frustrating to plan on doing something and to get overridden by someone else’s poor planning agenda.

I am leaving that all behind now. What are we looking at? It is effectively a 20 gauge shotgun firing 9mm ammunition. This is accomplished by the device in the middle called a barrel adapter. The basic idea is that the adapter fits into the shotgun chamber and that has it’s own chamber for some smaller caliber.

Barrel adapters are not new but they are unique. There are several boutique manufacturers that seem to machining operations at their core. The biggest knock is that they are expensive and made to order. It tends to be $200 per adapter. That is actually double what I paid for the shotgun and so I have held off for a long time. It wasn’t until I discovered this four pack of adapters for a little over $200 that I made the decision to buy.

I have one break action shotgun. It happens to be a single barrel but these things do work in doubles. In theory, you could have one barrel loaded with shot and one barrel loaded with a pistol caliber. Assuming the premise of all of this is good, that is a pretty compelling amount of versatility for situations like small game hunting.

The devil is in the details here. Barrel adapters come in different lengths and you can even get them rifled and unrifled. It would be much better to have a rifled adapter from an accuracy and repeatability standpoint. Mine are 8″ long and rifled. I think it is ideal for the situation, not too long but yet some of the benefits of a longer barrel, kind of like shooting a long pistol. Considering that the chamber is included in the overall length, it effectively makes it a 7-7 1/2″ barrel.

The big thing to consider is that barrel adapters are an ad-hoc situation. I found it helpful to have a prying tool to remove the spent casing. The shotgun shell ejector/extractor will not reach the smaller diameter pistol casing. I imagine that a finger nail would work but you also risk putting you fingers into sharp, hot metal.

Just for benchmark purposes, I shot 115gr 9mm at about a 10 yard target. I found it to shoot about 6″ higher than the aiming point. There are of course many variables that could change all of that. Would a different brand perform differently? What about 124gr or 147gr bullets instead of 115gr? Given that kind of discrepancy, it seems like a 50 yard shot might be closer to dead on. That is good news from a hunting standpoint but this is a shotgun and lacks rifle sights which would make a big difference in accuracy as well.

This kit came with adapters for 9mm, 357 magnum, 45acp and 45 colt. Most shooters know that 45 colt is the same diameter as the 410 bore shotgun, so in this case the chamber is actually 3″ to accommodate for the shot shell. Believe it or not, I do not own a 9mm pistol and so the rest of the calibers I will be interested in comparing velocity data between effectively a 7″ pistol (the adapter) and a regular handgun. That is future work to do.

The first thing a new firearm gets from me is a function test. Does it actually work? I know that this is not a firearm but essentially it is. In fact it is a non-branded use and so function testing is definitely more important. I am happy to report that everything worked like it was supposed to. I am now going to go on the process of testing all the calibers an permutations for future range trips.

This shotgun is part of a set that is no longer made. I originally purchased it to haul around in a survival kit. It is a youth model and I was originally going to start my kids on it but I had several very unpleasant recoil experiences that I would not let them use it as it was too light. That being said, I kind of wish that I did not own it. It was so inexpensive that it really is effectively worthless. Hence the desire to seek more utility from the setup.

End Your Programming Routine: Let me bottom line it. I would not go out and purchase a break-open shotgun to then buy adapters for versatility. I still have a lot of testing to do but I don’t see the accuracy with the sights and the difficulty to reload as better than a 9mm handgun. It will also never replace my 870 as a shotgun. But, since I already own it I might as well have some fun and try something different.

September 17, 2025 – For Old Time’s Sake

September 17, 2025 /

I have been waiting to write this one for months. What you are looking at is a sour cream pie made from a recipe that was provided by the Pittock Mansion in Portland Oregon. I will admit that the crust was purchased. I haven’t attempted it a ton of times but the ones that I have have not come out very well and I just didn’t leave myself room for error on this one.

One of the stops on our mid-June summer tour was a day in Portland. We had to do all the usual tourist things like visit the Japanese Garden and the Pittock Mansion (which are all adjacent to each other). At the mansion, you get to tour the house and one of the stops was the kitchen. I picked up this recipe card base on an old family story as something to try.

With the links provided, you can read all the history better than I can summarize in one paragraph. But, just for context I will say that the Pittock mansion was built by the successful owner/promoter of “The Oregonian” (Portland OR) newspaper. He wasn’t the founder but the second owner that made it successful. In the period of the 1880’s Pittock became wildly successful on the domination of the newspaper. As a result, he built his family a home reflective of his success. There is a lot more to the story but this at least sets the stage for why and how so much is known like this recipe and why it is so interesting to see this home.

We have an annual family reunion that follows my paternal, great grandmother’s line. About ten years ago, I heard a story from my great-uncle (grandfather’s brother). He said that one time my great grandmother, his mother had made a sour cream pie and set it on the porch to cool. She was a fabulous pie maker having worked in restaurants making pies for years. This is why I get embarrassed to make pie crusts because I cannot compete. But, what is worse, a crappy crust or one that is purchased?

While the pie was cooling my grandfather was out, probably working. By the time he got home my grandmother and great-aunt had eaten the entire pie. When my grandfather found out, he was mad. The story goes that every time the story came up he got mad. This was all news to me but I remember listening to the story and my great uncle just laughing and laughing. I thought that it would be fun to attempt a sour cream pie for this year’s family reunion as an homage to my grandfather who has been dead over thirty years now.

It turns out that there is more to this story. When the old timers were around at the family reunion, sour cream pie was something somebody always made. I had only heard about the pie and not the tradition, so it must have pre-dated me (fifty-ish years). My aunt asked me if I had put raisins or not. I said raisins and she said that was the best version and had not had it in years.

On the recipe card, there were three different versions of the pie. I happened to get lucky and pick the one that had raisins. The meringue is also optional. Because the pie itself uses egg yolks only, it seems like a no brainer to use the whites in meringue. So, that is why my pie got it as well.

I also want to said that I don’t think that the recipe card is really intended to be used as such. It is really an ingredient card. I had to do some research about how to put the ingredients together and what temperature to bake and so on. This is not to mention that I think the card were provided as momentos and focused on the historical record rather than the practical tradition. Nevertheless, I think it was still pretty cool.

End Your Programming Routine: When my dad was a child, his family used to live close and spend time with many of these people. I on the other hand saw them once a year if they felt like attending the event. I don’t have any sort of real relationship or even name/face recognition. All that being said, it makes me happy to make a link between today and the origins with a recipe. I did enjoy the pie but more because of the story.

September 16, 2025 – What My Bookshelf Says About Me

September 16, 2025 /

In the picture below, you see all the books that are on my to be read list. One month ago, I was laying in bed and looking at the titles when I had a thought. What if an alien came to earth and entered my room and looked at what was on that shelf? What kind of conclusion about the kind of person that I am and what I am all about would they make?

In case you cannot read everything I will give you a quick run-down. On the top shelf, there are two items. I actually will talk about the recipe card tomorrow so hold on for that. The book below it I have also read. It is called “Where the Wild Dads Went”. A father’s day gift and it is a fifteen minute read so that is an unofficial entry. It is really what is on the second shelf that is on my to be read.

Going from top left to bottom right, the first book is “Atlas of the Heart” by Brene Brown. I have not read that because my wife forbid me from reading it without her. I tried to read some when she was in the hospital last year but it was not the time or place. At some point, I will probably read it anyway because at this rate we will never get through it.

Beneath that, there is a couple of magazines. They are not actually periodicals but the hunting and fishing synopsis published by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. They contain things like law changes for the new year, unit boundaries, season start dates and bag limits. I pick these up at the end of each year and reference them periodically throughout the year. One is for big game hunting, one is for fishing and the third is game birds.

Beneath that is a book that I actually purchased for my wife. It is a idea book for home dates that include recipes to make for dinner. I imagined that we would start at the beginning and work our way through. I think that she thought it was better for me to take the initiative on that front since I tend to be the cook and have zero romance naturally.

The last book is called “Steak”. It was a Christmas present that I will eventually get around to. You see how thick it is, who knew that there was that much to actually write about steak? I have thumbed through it and there are some recipes so that takes up some space. A lot of it is about the cuts and the handling etc. I will likely read this maybe this winter and like many cookbooks, I will probably not read it cover to cover.

The middle stack is mine. I will definitely read “Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. I wanted to put some space in-between this book and “Anthem” since what I know about it so far is that it is going to be a very similar tone as her other work. The next book was recommended by a former co-worker. I think it is going to be a short read and up my alley in personal business development. The last one on that stack is “Deadly Force” by Massad Ayoob. This is an update to “In the Gravest Extreme” that I went through earlier this year.

The stack on the right is a little bit deceiving. The top book is “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. I am currently reading this book and I am about half way through it. This will be my next book review in series after I finish “Boundaries” this week so I won’t say too much more on that.

The book below that is my weekly journal. In it I sort of summarize the previous week and look forward to the things I need to do in the next week. I use this book as an organizational tool to plan on what things I need/want to do as well as track progress. It also captures a few personal things usually as they pertain to social activities and how they effect my time and attitude. I have been writing in it on Sunday Nights since probably 2012.

Finally, there is the Bible. This is the same one that I received at my Baptism in second grade. To be honest, I will probably never read it completely but I do keep going back to it. It is the translation that I read Revelations earlier this year as an example. I do really prefer the NIV translation because it is so much easier to understand but this one is not too bad, it is much more modern than King James.

And so I ask again, what does my bookshelf say about me?

End Your Programming Routine: While possibly not perfect, I think that my bookshelf represents me exactly. It is complicated and diverse: Christianity, libertarianism, self defense, personal and relational development as well as food. It is mostly non-fiction but not completely. They are all my interests and so they are me.

September 15, 2025 – The Purple Phase

September 15, 2025 /

I almost disappeared off the face of the earth. I said almost. Today, I talk about what has been going on and the prognosis for the future. The title, my lack of content and all that will be in today’s podcast. Hopefully you will find that it is not just an explanation of nuts and bolts but also an emotional story into a parents journey into a new phase of life for everyone involved.