Month: January 2026

January 16, 2026 – Mere Christianity, Conclusion

January 16, 2026 /

We have made it to the end once again. I have to apologize that my focus has not been nearly as good as it should have been. This is only a 220 page book that took me over four months to read. On one hand, when something is dense and thought provoking, speed is not a good metric. But, my plan was not to read and ponder each word but to read a reasonable length block a week. This should have been approximately one short chapter a day.

I think what is pretty telling is that I read about a third of the book before I even started writing. I had a huge jump start at the beginning of fall which lagged and lagged. On both fronts it is telling about how I approached things. One being how late I am and the other about what I thought about the book.

I started out with pretty high hopes. Not only did Lewis attempt to do something nobody else has ever done, but he went about it in a way that was disciplined and secularly approachable. After a quick and spectacular start, the book and the argument got bogged down. That is as good a place to start as any.

In the introduction to this book, it was stated that this was originally a radio broadcast to the British people during World War II. The stated purpose of the broadcast was to provide hope to a nation under a looming cloud of war, specifically the early German bombing London. I think that it is a pretty good strategy to reassure everyone that there is something better than this life if things don’t go well.

I think where I got stuck on a hump is after book one, it is pretty much assumed that the point was sufficiently made. From Book 2 forward, it is all about doctrine. I suppose that if you were a brand new convert you might be at that point of tell me more, tell me more. It is probably a pretty good bet that this radio broadcast landed best with the non-believers followed by the conservative Protestant denominations. That more than likely is the majority of the British citizenry.

I definitely don’t want to argue theology. One, I could get my behind whipped by someone educated and prepared. And two, I don’t really care. I might not agree with doctrine such as the trinity but you can be darn sure that I am open to it and I respect your right to believe differently. I also strongly agree with the better good position rather than pick at nuance.

Despite what I said above, the rest of the book didn’t do that much for me. I am aware of biblical virtues and the supposed way to eternal salvation. I am aware of theology and beliefs and where they differ from mine. I think also that we have to look at mindset. Because I am already a believer and this does not reinforce my beliefs already, the whole things kind of fall flat.

The way that Lewis presented his case, he of course took from his own line of belief as defacto truth. Sitting from where I am, I would have been more interested in going deeper into the justification for those items. I am not opposed to challenging my own beliefs, in fact I would welcome that. But, then again I guess this is not the intent of the work in the first place.

OK then, who is this book for? I would say that it would appeal to Lewis fans, historical fans and people questioning the existence of God but are open for the possibility. I am not going to say that I didn’t get anything out of it but where it started and where it ended were disappointing for me. In that vein, I am glad to say I read it and I can recommend it circumstantially.

End Your Programming Routine: This is one of those books that I should come back to in a couple of years. Now that I know what to expect, it is likely that I will come back to a different opinion. It is short enough to read pretty quickly and I wouldn’t be surprised to have a more favorable outcome or at least new perspective. When something is labeled one of the greatest at anything, it is only an opinion. Just like this.

January 15, 2026 – Good Things

January 15, 2026 /

Good Things by Samin Nosrat is the January selection of the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. I have to admit that I groaned slightly on the inside when it was decided that this was the book that we were going to pursue. I guess for me I much more enjoy culinary fiction more so than another cookbook. I also kind of get a little of worn out of celebrity cooking personalities that put out cookbooks frequently

Several years ago, we covered Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. In fact, we did a month on each subject. I have to say that if there was one thing I took away from that was to salt beef early. But, I really did not put too much stock in the book. We also watched the Netflix series. But, after reading this book, I wonder if I got it all wrong.

Yes, I would call Nosrat a celebrity chef. I have seen her on Anthony Bordain’s No Reservations as well as well as other places. That being said, I do not see her putting out content like The Pioneer Woman, Bobby Flay or Emeril. This is her first book that she has published since Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. When starting this book, she admits that this is a very different book in that her first one was all about how to create something using what she calls the key elements with no recipes. Now that you have all of the tools you should need to be successful, this seems counterintuitive.

This one starts off with building some fundamental sauces or condiments or what have you. It then moves into techniques for cooking ingredients and then you would layer those sauces into the recipes. This book builds on dishes using a matrix. So, you can pick one or two or three vegetables that you have and then the sauce and a few sprinkles or spritzes and you have a finished product.

It is kind of a ground up approach or a reverse recipe. While most recipes show a picture and then a list of ingredients to make it, this book starts with an ingredient and then it provides three to ten recipes that can be made with that ingredient. Typically, you kind of look a category and then try to pick something that is appealing or read to see if you have everything. Whereas this book, you pick a vegetable and see what options you have to make something appealing.

This is the way that I cook and I suspect that this is the way many of us approach meals, especially for people with gardens or deep pantries. “I have a lot of such and such, what can I do with it”? It is so revolutionary, that it made me consider going back to Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat because I suspect that I missed the significance of it.

If there is one knock on the book to me, it is that I feel like the book uses a lot of semi-exotic ingredients. Nosrat is middle eastern born and it highly influenced her cooking. As an example I don’t know where I would find a Persian cucumber or labna. I would say that if you are going to use this book then it behooves you to do some research on sourcing middle eastern ingredients. The beauty of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat would be using whatever cucumber you can find.

I will also admit that I haven’t done much cooking from the book either. Part of it is because I have not finished reading it as of the time of writing. I have gotten through 75% which I feel qualifies me to be able to comment at this point. I am also somewhat dubious of grocery store produce and so things like eggplant need to wait until a better time of the year. I did broil some cauliflower the other night because I was feeling the pull of Nosrat.

In my opinion, this isn’t the first cookbook you should buy. I feel like this cookbook is for someone that already has some skills and desires to learn more. From there, you can really elevate things with the knowledge that Nosrat can impart. But, it is not too bad either. I suspect that if you knew nothing, you might come away wondering why they all are not organized this way.

End Your Programming Routine: Before Christmas, my son sent me a picture from Barnes and Noble. Good Things was the 2025 gift book of the year. He knew that it was on my bookshelf to read. It very well could be, it is that good.

January 14, 2026 – One For the Road

January 14, 2026 /

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. The original plan in mid-December was to go to the Portland Boat Show with an eye toward trying to find a boat for my birthday. But, due to things changing with our real estate transaction, things are pretty tight financially right now. As much as I would like to go to the boat show, I didn’t think that made a lot of sense for the cost and use of time.

My wife said, what do you want to do instead? I thought about it and I said, I want to go to the range one more time. I had already squirreled away one more range trip’s worth of ammunition for a December visit that I never got to. My annual renewal is due already and I am in the 30 day grace period. So, I am planning on not renewing my membership due to the distance of my potential new home and my current range.

Looking at the activity calendar, I almost panicked. Nearly half of the range was booked for events. Usually that is bad news for the guy that wants to pull up and get a space. I almost cancelled but then I remembered that almost nobody shoots at the shotgun range and we were arriving after the scheduled 4H practice. One of the things on my agenda was to shoot 410 bore out of the new 20 gauge chamber adapter. And, I had a box of targets that I had stacked up to move. If we shoot them all, I wont have to worry about moving them.

I probably should do an after action report now that I have shot all the chamber adapters I talked about in the early Fall time. But, I can say that they do make things go bang. I had zero failures when I pulled the trigger. Whether you can hit anything is another question. From an accuracy standpoint, they all resulted in less than ideal results. Thinking about things, probably a lot of it is that a shotgun is a poor rifle, due to the sights. I tried to use Kentucky windage as my aiming method and was semi successful.

First, we went to the shotgun range. My son is a much better shooter than I am due to his significant more time behind the trigger doing trap for years. He was the first to hit a target albeit it took us probably twenty attempts in order to do it. We found that you really had to jump the target or you had no chance.

My ‘expert’ analysis is that a chamber adapter has no choke on it. For that reason it is considered a ‘cylinder bore’ or no choke whatsoever. This means that the only real shot pattern is what the wad is providing. The closer the shot, the more likely of a hit because once the shot leaves the wad, it is going to spread out tremendously.

Another thing that makes a difference is that in trap, my son was shooting 1 1/8 oz of #8 shot. In this 410 shell, there is only 1/2 oz of #8. This means that there is less than half of the shot then he is used to. A poor pattern with half as much shot means that chances of target breakage is significantly reduced.

Despite all of that, we had fun. I had 50 rounds if 410 and half was 2 1/2″ shells and the other were 3″ shells. We both shot about half of each. I missed every single shot until the very last two. He hit three of them toward the end. Like I said, he is typically an 80% shooter with 12 gauge whereas I am more like a 40-50% shooter. My analysis of the situation is that if you really ‘needed’ a 410 like this, it might cost much more than it was worth to get that rabbit or quail. When you only have one shot, it is low odds that this will be it.

I suspect that if this were a proper 410 shotgun, things would be different. I don’t know if we would have been in the 80% success range but I bet we would have hit more than 10%. Regardless, I enjoyed the time, there was very little recoil so if you could afford to shoot all day, you could do it without bruising. It definitely got me thinking that maybe I should add a 410 to the fleet.

After we got done at the shotgun range, most of the open bays were open. I find that later in the day it is always easier to get a space regardless of the day. People want to be home and winding down at 4pm rather than dealing with the elements. We switched over to shooting pistol rounds rather than shotgun shells and we lucked out that the bay we were in had lights. I didn’t even know that they had them other than one bay.

Wrapping up the day, we chatted in the truck on the way home about his carburetor problems and tools that he was looking to buy. It was the father/son time that I never really experienced. Maybe I was too busy to take notice or maybe we are both changing. But, despite the fact that it was kind of a risky, make-shift plan it turned out perfectly.

End Your Programming Routine: I shed a silent tear as we drove away. I guess that if there was a way to go out, this should be the way. It’s not like I couldn’t become a member again if for some reason we move back but time also has a way of moving on. It is just going to cost double to start over again. Maybe even bigger, we have turned the corner on something my son and I have never had, an admirable relationship rather than an hierarchical one. That is worth the price.

January 13, 2026 – How Wearables Have Changed My Life

January 13, 2026 /

I am not a fan boy or gym rat or even a fitness fanatic. I am just a guy that looks at data and makes observations. I got this GPS watch to help with my training for my PCT hike and it has slowly made an impression on me. It is the kind of impression that puts conscious decisions to the forefront. Before I knew it, I was making health improving decisions that I didn’t even know were issues.

Years ago when I was leading a 24×7 tech support group, I found out about this feature that buzzed your wrist when the phone rang. As a pretty heavy sleeper, I was curious how that might affect my ability to catch some of the calls that I missed because I was sleeping and the ringer was not waking me up. Some of the guys in my group were wearing them and swearing that this was the difference maker when they were on call.

I shared this with my wife and she was interested too for different reasons. For her, my excuse of not hearing or feeling the phone ring while I was working around the house was coming to an end. She seems to have this incessant need to feel like she can get ahold of me at any moment. It is a feeling driven out of fear that I have fallen off the roof or something.

I downplayed the risks but when it came to tracking my training, I changed my tune. I looked at the top of the line and double the price watches but I decided that it wasn’t worth the price. I was not planning on using my watch to navigate and I didn’t need a color screen. I picked the Garmin Instinct Solar Tactical II. I am not sure what makes it tactical other than it is brown. It was the watch that fit the price and had the features that I wanted, particularly the run time.

This is actually my second Garmin watch. My first one was a much simpler watch called the Forerunner. I used it when I was training for my half marathon. I became battery sensitive because after two years, it wouldn’t run long enough to complete at two plus hour run. But, it was pretty cool because I could see a map of what I did plus pace. Battery life became the reason I quickly ruled out the Apple watch nearly immediately. I don’t want another thing that I have to charge everyday.

Yes, I do use it to track my hikes and walking. I look at steps and time for pace as well as distance. But what I really found is valuable is the other data it provides. When I sync my watch on the Garmin Connect application, the very first graphic it provides is a ‘body battery’ image. It takes the activity and rest for the day and comes up with some sort of point in time calculation of what my body battery value is. I have to say that when I feel run down, the body battery validates that either I did not get enough rest or I have been busier than I realized.

Another thing I look at is my sleep score. I typically only look at it when I feel like I slept poorly. But I have to say that I feel pretty validated about how I am feeling and the relative score that is presented. A general trend is that I start the week high and my battery declines as the week moves on. On some Fridays, my battery is a quarter of what it was Sunday morning.

A lot of the day is out of my control. But, there are occasions when it is a Wednesday and I am feeling low energy and I make the conscious decision to go to bet at 8:30 rather that trying to make it to 10pm. This is particularly true when it has been a hard weekend without a lot of rest. Looking at the data is changing my behaviors. I am making decisions to act on the data in the interest of feeling better tomorrow.

I have had a scientific interest in the data as well. I have observed that on days where there is a fair amount of drinking that my sleep is garbage. It didn’t matter if I slept 10 hours on New Years Eve, the result was that it was of poor quality and my body battery started off significantly lower than where it should have been. I have used the data to decline that second drink.

I have to say that the solar component does almost nothing that I can see. I have yet to see an increase in the battery life on a sunny day. But, supposedly after a full charge, there is 40 days of GPS free operation. I have yet to see the battery get low because I charge it when I take a shower. The watch will gain four days in thirty minutes.

I can also say that I only feel the ringer function about 2/3 of the time. I often find when I am being very active, it is very noisy or some amount of vibration I often do not feel the ring. Maybe it is just my choice in wearable, I don’t know but I thought that I would share that this may not be a panacea if you are looking for that function specifically.

End Your Programming Routine: This body battery function is one of the unknown gems of a wearable. I always knew that I felt run down as the week moves on but now I have proof. And because I can conduct empirical experiments, I can actively do things so that I feel better tomorrow. I don’t believe that it is all mental, because I usually check to validate my feeling and not look before I decide.

January 12, 2025 – A Starter Mechanic’s Tool Set

January 12, 2026 /

Today’s podcast was born out of some question my son was asking me. Today I talk about things to consider when starting out buying tools. It is really hard to recommend brands especially when things change over the years so I focus more on the what to do versus what not to do. Hopefully, I impart some wisdom so that you can do your own analysis and make your own decisions. There probably are some buy or do not buy recommendations but it all depends on what you are doing and want to do in the future.

January 9, 2026 – Mere Christianity, Book Four: Chapters 7-11

January 9, 2026 /

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

This section concludes “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. Next week I will do a complete review of the book per my usual methodologies. I also want to introduce that the next book is going to be “Then Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle if you want to get a jump start on reading that book. I am doing my best to keep up considering all of my free time is directed toward packing and moving.

In case you weren’t reading along, below is a one bullet summary of each chapter.

  • The Lords Prayer is to be spoken by the son of god.
  • Following Christian rules is not good enough because we will never be able to execute perfectly. Only once we accept that will Christianity work and we will be on our way to perfection.
  • People would prefer to be good enough rather than perfect. Perfect is only achieved through strict adherence to Christianity, see above.
  • If Christians are supposed to be nice than why aren’t all equally perceived as that? Think of where they would be without Christianity. All traits are gifts regardless of believer status or not.
  • Evolution can only take us so far and it is God’s plan to evolve us into better humans

The thing that I found interesting in this week’s reading was Lewis’ argument using evolution. In fact, I find Christianity’s general stance on evolution just plain wrong. It seems like it has been positioned so that you can only be on one side or the other. While I absolutely do not believe that humanity came from an amoeba or something, I see no reason why all life has not adapted to the environment. We even apply the same principles to livestock, pets and food with selective breeding. We even see the results in our lifetime.

The fact that Lewis acknowledges evolution at all seems novel. Not only that, by his writing he has accepted evolution as scientifically viable and uses it in a debate about Christianity is certainly unique. The idea that if we pick a point in time and think about evolution was an astute point. His point was that if we were guessing what evolution would lead to in dinosaur times is bigger, stronger and better dinosaurs. Nobody saw that the brain would be the better weapon then claws and spikes.

Lewis is a proponent of humanity evolving more toward godliness. I think my view is a little myopic but it seems like it is a hard stretch to say the Hitler is an evolution of Ceaser. I am more than sure that Ceaser was racist as he was brutal, making him and Hitler pretty much on par, just with different body counts and abilities to execute their vision at scale. The difference I see is that Ceaser was a product of his culture which was universally racist and brutal where as Hitler rose to that position.

I think that if we buy the evolution argument, it didn’t start at the birth of Christ. It should have started with creation. As a matter of fact, we started with near perfect beings that were of God. All the Moses, Solomon, David or pick your old testament hero had some character faults as we all do. But my point is that we should be much closer to the evolvement into Godly beings and I just don’t see it.

Another point that I mostly agree with was Lewis’ evolution of species argument. I think where this works is the time frame of the human life. He states that no matter low long we wait, a field of grass will not evolve into a field of wheat. The only way to get wheat is to plow up the field to start over. The point being is that we need to make drastic changes when we want drastic results.

My problem with that argument is the actual comparison. I think a more effective argument would have been you can’t get wheat from an apple orchard. Because both grass and wheat are grasses and I suspect that they diverged from one another at some long, distant point. But, the message is still clear and said by Einstein in a little more effective way. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

End Your Programming Routine: Many of those other points I didn’t talk about today are standard Christian doctrine. Maybe if you are Atheist or Agnostic then discussing those items might do more than the impact on me. However, subverting a dyed in the wool non-Christian argument to support your argument is brilliant. Finding common ground is a surefire way to persuade someone to your argument.

January 8, 2026 – Is An Inspection Necessary?

January 8, 2026 /

We are getting to the point in the process where it is starting to get real. There is an offer on our house and we are already renting the new house. The devil is in all of the details for financing but we need to decide what inspections that we want to have on the house. I personally feel like I am pretty knowledgeable in the process and I am more likely to be more nonchalant about things. This is not to mention that the house is less than ten years old.

In the picture below, you can see our new kitchen. It is both cluttered because we have nothing in the cupboards or drawers and sparse because what you see is what we have. It looks nice and this is the view that you get when you tour the house to decide if you want to proceed. It has stainless appliances, quartz counter tops, contemporary finishes and a nice island.

I want to make it clear that I am not nitpicking anything. I know exactly where the faults are in my house. I know where the exterior paint is spattered on the interior wall because I didn’t realize there was wet paint on the bucket when I roughly set the bucket down and it is hard to reach but can only be seen at a certain angle. I see the door trim that does not reach the floor (not my work). I do my best to try and make it at least good enough and I never intend on leaving things done incorrectly to the point it is detrimental to life or safety.

Because we are renting the house until we can close on the current house, we have spent six nights at the place spread out since early December. This is a highly educational process. I talked about the heating earlier in the week, now let’s look at the kitchen.

In the upper left, the backsplash spans the entire length of the counter. This prevents the range from being pushed all the way to the wall, where it belongs. It is not terribly noticeable nor is it problematic, it is just not how things should be done. Our future plans include installing a larger gas range so we will live with that until such time.

The window trim has a wonky corner. From my brief look at it, I would say that the wood is warped and not nailed well to a solid surface. These are the kind of things that potentially turn out to be devastating. A small cosmetic detail that is hiding a much larger problem. However, this is an exterior wall and I see no problems on the other side.

The tile on the far west side of the the kitchen has a different color grout along with some small gaps. I am not sure what is going on there, but I would be willing to bet that this is a DIY faux pas. Something was changed from what it was originally or it was estimated incorrectly or this was a retrofit application that just wasn’t quite right. This is a cosmetic issue that is barely noticeable unless you are taking pictures like I am doing.

Finally, I took a picture of the drawer slides. I have used many of these in my shop projects. But what I am pointing out is that using this style of slide versus ball bearing slides is an indicator of the quality of the cabinet. I suspect like all decisions, there was an economic component. My mind goes to why would you spend money on the counter tops and have inexpensive cabinets? At this point, it is what it is but it goes to today’s HGTV culture. It looks good from a distance but might not be what it seems.

I want to reiterate that I am not nitpicking but that a person cannot possibly make a value proposition with a 30 minute breeze through. I saw the first picture the first couple of times I was in the house. All of those things I can live with or modify over time if it gets to that point. What I think is the problem is most people cannot look at a drawer slide and determine the value of a kitchen. That speaks to the cost of a house being appropriate or potentially other more devious problems.

The value of an inspector is that in theory, they should be able to go straight to the soft and vulnerable spots. While doing that, other observations are made. But, that is it. It is then up to the uneducated buyer who couldn’t do their own inspection to translate observations into deficiencies to then ask from the seller. This is at least my analysis of why our first deal fell through. The buyer wanted things that were actually wrong from a code standpoint based on observations.

Despite the fact that I am very knowledgeable about things, I do believe that we are going to have a septic inspection. That is something that I cannot see myself and admittedly I am weak on this new technology installed in this house. It is not just a gravity fed tank but it has pumps and other things I have never seen.

End Your Programming Routine: We very well might have a whole home inspection, I need to do some looking first. I am not so arrogant as to believe that I couldn’t learn something from an inspection. I could miss things and this is a whole new area and climate that might have nuances that I am not familiar. But, I am pretty confident that this is an appropriate deal for the price. I am not expecting any real problems to be found.

January 7, 2026 – So Much Change, It Hasn’t Sunk In

January 7, 2026 /

Believe or not, my life has changed significantly this week from last week. In fact, it is so significant and so new, I haven’t really internalized it. No, I am not talking about moving to the beach again. That is certainly adds a dimension but that has not materially happened yet. I am talking about being an honest to goodness empty nester.

It is well known that we sent my youngest son off to college in September. My oldest son remained at home. In October, when we started talking about moving, I posed the situation to my older son. Stay in the area or move with use. Either way, it was more than likely that things were going to change drastically.

He has a full time job and is attending community college. We are moving about an hour to the west and while not ideal, we know people that commute for work purposes from the coast to the capitol city. Staying with us was possible but it would be much better to find some place closer to school and work. Still the option was his.

My son developed a plan to move in with our niece who was moving from the ADU to somewhere locally. Her decision was driven by work as well as having a child in grade school. That seemed like a good fit for both of them. But, the funny thing is that I felt like this was a step that was potentially too far, too fast for my son.

They got a ‘move-in special’. Get all the paperwork completed before the first of December and get two months free rent. My niece took until mid-December to get everything moved but my son kept coming home every night. It fact, it wasn’t until the weekend after Christmas that he finally got everything moved. That came after a lot of very strong prodding from Mom to finish what was started.

I don’t think he liked it but to his credit, he moved most of it without me having to help. That is to say that there was a whole bunch of stuff still left in the garage that was going with his car which is at another location then his apartment. But again, he took initiative the next weekend and moved half of that stuff. I speculate that once he mentally accepted the fact that he was moving, he finally got in gear.

Right now, we are only ten minutes apart. I have already gone over to do networking work because it is a skill I have that he does not. I would say that we have seen him half of the nights since he moved for dinner, but I don’t plan on it. If we have stuff to share, no problem. We have had several invites specifically for dinner. Remember that this was still the holiday period.

For the last four weeks, my younger son has been home for Christmas break. He took a load of his stuff to college and I already packed most of his room. But the fact that he was home for Thanksgiving which was only two weeks between Christmas break made it seem like things were pretty normal. Even while my older son was moving out, I still had loads of dishes each day because he hasn’t quite got the idea of clean-up after use.

I haven’t completely counted my chickens yet. I mean, he is in college with strong talk of a Spring Break trip and internship over the summer. However, those have yet to finalize. For all I know, this is his last long term stint at home but I haven’t quite conceded yet. We just have to assume that nothing is set in stone until it is but that he might have a few more trips home in the next couple of years. Due to his independent streak, I have my doubts that there will be many more extended trips home.

We dropped him off at the airport in the early morning of Sunday, January 4. When we got home the house was quiet and I mean really quiet. No more smashing down the stairs or un-expected blender noises at midnight. I went upstairs and boxed up his remining items as it is a better bet that we will move than it is he is coming home in the near future.

It hit me like a linebacker, this is it. This is the moment that this property went from a high of seven last spring to two. No longer is there two people living in the backyard apartment that I have to watch and make sure the driveway is clear. I don’t have to plan for a main meal for four with a vegetarian variation or will anyone even eat at home. I know that when I lock the door for the night, I don’t have to check it three or four times a night before I go to bed. I don’t have to sleep with one eye open that somebody is leaving at two in the morning or wonder if should go to sleep at my normal bedtime. After years of gradual change, it is so abrupt. It is jarring, almost disturbing.

Once I finished his room, I went down to the basement again. I started looking at the stacks of empty, quart canning jars. I don’t need those things. Between my wife and I, pints are the most appropriate size. I still have 15 quarts of applesauce that I made from my tree, am I really going to eat all of that? Not without deliberate action.

My wife went to Costco last Saturday with my older son so he could get his first shopping trip in. We haven’t gotten out of there without a $600 tab since I was not working and doing all the cooking and shopping. I don’t know the financial bill but two packages of paper products, two flats of drinks and one miscellaneous box was shocking. I am used to spending hours unloading, rotating and facing the pantry items once she got home.

End Your Programming Routine: If you would have asked me in September if I was happy for some space from my kids, I would have said absolutely accepting natural progression. There was a lot of attitude and entitlement that I shipped off as well. But, I saw a lot of growth at the end of December from both of my boys. It was so much more pleasant than it has been in recent years. They actually made a point to spend family time rather than arguing about it. For a moment, it almost makes me nostalgic to go back to the way things were last week. For now, I am going to try and figure out what new normal is.

January 6, 2026 – The Oregon Coast is a Heating Climate

January 6, 2026 /

This is one of those gems that gets found when you rent before you buy. As an aspiring coastal dweller, I know that it rarely gets above the mid-seventies in the summer. There are often times that when it is near 100 in the valley where I currently live, it can be in the 60s and sometimes even raining at the coast. I have no qualms about what the cooling capacity is needed for comfort at the coast and I would have expected that the heating question is solved in spades.

After we made our offer and toured a second time, I discovered that our new house really has inadequate heat. The picture above is one of two units in the living space on the main floor. The problem that I have observed is that it takes up to 24 hours to get the living space comfortable and that is because a lot of the heat goes up the stairs (mind you, this is with all of the doors closed).

It has been almost thirty years since I have lived in a unit with electrical resistance heating. They are pretty common in rental units, I put them in my own ADU. In fact, I used a double sized unit in the living area of my 650 square foot space. You can see why I am skeptical that two of these will be enough for 1200 square feet.

It will make a difference when we are living there and not trying to heat a space from 45 to 70 in a couple of hours for a quick overnighter. Our New Years stay was our first multiple night stay and we installed one of those weather stations to try and get a handle on how long it actually takes. I would say a good day to get comfortable.

I won’t say that we cannot live with it, because we can and we will. As long as things keep up, it will be alright. The worst case scenario is I have propane, kerosene and space heaters if needed. My wife won’t like it and those will mess with the Feng Sui of the home but we won’t have to be cold. Adding mass such as furniture will make a difference in the operational duration of the heaters. I have observed that they pretty much run from the time they are turned on until we shut off the lights to leave in an overnight stay in an empty house.

Let’s not get too rash until we move in and see how it goes. While the climate is always cool, fortunately it is rarely severely cold. It will occasionally snow and by that I mean once every couple of years. Temperatures below freezing is a couple of times per year but not extended days on end. I am looking at my temperature while I am writing this and it is 32 degrees here and 40 degrees at the lake.

Electrical resistance heating is cheap to install but very expensive to operate. Hence why it is seen so often in rental units. The landlord never has to reap the consequences of the installation decision. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work. I do think it is ideal in small spaces particularly interior ones. Those would be things like bathrooms, laundry rooms and occasional bedrooms. I don’t love them for bedrooms because of the potential fire hazards and they are a poor substitute for a furnace. They just don’t have the power to heat things quickly and have to run a long time, think spinning dollar signs as they operate.

Think about it this way, two of those heaters can be put on one standard 20 amp 110v circuit (yes, there are lots of different models this is one example). That is 2000 watts of of electrical consumption. Our heat pump is on a 60 amp 220 volt circuit. Whether it uses all that power or not it has a potential to consume 13,200 watts of power. Doing that math, that is 13 individual resistance heaters. The unit cost of those heaters are currently $167 each meaning the overall materials cost is roughly $2,200 whereas a full size heat pump furnace is at least $10.000, not counting duct work.

I don’t have time to go into all of the technical details today however heat pumps pull heat out of the air and into a carrier fluid over a coil to be blown throughout the house. Only when the outside temperature is cold (less than 35) does a resistance coil kick in to add supplemental heat. This is why operating a heat pump is significantly more efficient than electrical resistance heating because you are mostly using electricity for a fluid pump and two fans.

Heat pumps are not the only technology choice. The advantage of heat pumps over furnaces is that they offer cooling in the warmer months with the same technology. In our case, an all electric home, it seems like an obvious choice without having to connect gas or find a place to put a wood/pellet stove. To further subdivide the category, a mini-split is a certain type of heat pump that doesn’t use ducts (think hotel room). They also tend to be at least half the cost of a traditional heat pump without the footprint or infrastructure.

End Your Programming Routine: In our future, I actually see two things, one is propane and the other is a mini-split. I will talk about the reasons why in some future post. I know that electricity is going to be expensive but so is retrofitting this house and we are tapping pretty hard on reserves to do all of the inspection items like replacing the sewer line and new porch railings. All told, we are about $15,000 in repairs to date and we haven’t sold the house yet. Wait and see is not just practical, it is also necessary.

January 5, 2026 – Is Goal a Dirty Word?

January 5, 2026 /

We are in that time of year where a lot of people are thinking about ways to become a different person. You might call it a resolution or just a goal but despite the fact that our culture highly regards goals, I tend to think that they are not all they are cracked up to be. Goals have their place but what are they going to do for you and your future? Today I talk about the traps of goals and how to incorporate them into becoming the real person you want to be.