Month: February 2026

February 6, 2026 – The Talent Code: Part 2

February 6, 2026 /

OK, so we know that deep practice is the key to building myelin. Myelin is the key to performance. But, what is the trigger for this phenomenon. Yes, I am certain that there are cases where it is just dumb luck. I think about my own situation and areas that I perform and I didn’t get there by reading a book and then putting it into practice or going to elite academies. It was just luck. But then there are simply hotbeds that cannot be ignored.

Coyle uses the example of why there are so many Major League Baseball players from the Dominican Republic. The DR is a hotbed of baseball. I am sure that you can find that some players went to the same school or played in the same leagues. There is a phenomenon called ignition. Certain teachers, coaches possess the ability to get the best out of people. More on ignition next week.

Going back the the nature versus nurture argument, it can be said that there is some of both in high performers. Following the theory, anyone can build myelin, but some build it more intuitively. For instance, there is a high correlation to birth position and performance. The more kids in the family, the more likely the younger ones are going to naturally accelerate.

I think that we can all see why. It is the younger children that are trying to keep up with the older ones. They want to prove that they can do it too. This is the motivation for deep practice. Also a little oddly, children that lost a parent at an impressionable age also accelerate faster. I guess that they are trying finish what was started or prove that they are worthy of head of household status or something.

Hotbeds seem to be more pervasive in underprivileged areas. I suppose maybe we tend to remember them more because they are remarkable. That is really not the reason, the real reason is that people in those socioeconomic demographics tend to be more singly focused. They do not have the distractions of outside influences to take away from the ability to do deep practice.

Something that I believe is that the best primary school students, straight A’s through high school are not generally high performers. They are good citizens, probably good at their careers and probably make good incomes. But, they are not disrupters more so they are good rule followers. If you follow the rules, you will get good grades. Good grades translate into college completion and ultimately professional and monetary success.

To follow that strategy does not take deep practice. Do what you are told, play the game and you will be rewarded. It is that combination of struggle, failure and striving to master that makes up deep practice. Growing up upper middle class like I did has very little struggle. I followed the rules, got good grades and stayed out of trouble. There is nothing wrong with that but I doubt that I am going to be labeled remarkable for those things.

I wouldn’t exactly call my town a hotbed. That being said, there have been several NFL players that came out of our high school. It is a low socioeconomic level, there is relatively nothing to do and football season is anticipated and important in the community. You have all the conditions to meet the definition of hotbed.

Hotbeds of success are born of assimilation. What does the US military do? Assimilate. When you are the coach, you want a team that is selfless and mission oriented. Yes, The Dream Team clobbered the Olympic competition when they first appeared on the scene since there was such a disparity of skill. But a couple of cycles later, they found out that they could be beaten by an average team that didn’t let ego get in the way.

Assimilation breeds an attitude of us versus them. It seems to make the participants care more about the team mates which in turn causes them to put out more effort and sacrifice. Everyone would want a team of LeBron James (at his prime) but only if that means that they all are willing to contribute equally. LeBron 1 could take a contested three point shot or he could pass it to LeBron 2 who is open under the basket and will slam dunk the ball.

Michael Jordan is arguably the best basketball player of all time. He had phenomenal fifty plus point games where it seemed like he was unstoppable. However, without Scotty Pippen feeding him the ball, Jordan’s career wouldn’t be quite as stellar. He still would have been a super star, but at what level? Imagine if there were three other Scotty Pippens on the floor how much better would Jordan have looked? Pippen was no slouch himself but he was the ignition source.

End Your Programming Routine: Hotbeds themselves are born out of chance and the right environmental conditions. There is nothing saying that the source of the best baseball players couldn’t be Indonesia instead of the Dominican Republic except that it isn’t. I think what is more important is to be able to recognize the factors that play into talent. It makes it much easier to make up for those deficiencies with deep practice.

February 5, 2026 – I Am Warming Up To This

February 5, 2026 /

It should be no surprise that I am not an early adopter. I am not opposed to change if there is a valid reason for it. I guess what I find acceptable is different then a lot of people. In most cases, I don’t need to change anything. I am happy with me, I am happy with what I have and I am happy to live within my means. That being said, not everyone feels the same. My wife for instance wanted to move to the water.

Here I have a shop, a garage, a large lot and even a second house. Why would I want to leave somewhere that I am comfortable and setup? Even more so, why would I want to sell my woodworking pile of wood, spend every weekend going through all of our things and totally disrupt my life when I am already happy? I was looking forward to having a lot of shop time now that my kids have moved out.

Despite the fact that there is only one (personal) reason I would want to move, I have been going into this with the best possible attitude. I want to make sure my kids don’t have to deal with my woodpile and all of that outgrown ski wear. But, if I am going to move, I want to make sure that it works financially and it works for my life. One of those things is deeply re-connecting with fishing.

I have been patiently waiting to try my luck at fishing on the lake. I have fished the lake before, but it has been nearly twenty years ago. My brother’s bachelor party was here, on the north end of the lake. Our house is a couple of miles south of that rental house so long ago. I have always assumed like so many bodies of water that not everywhere is equal habitat. It was no barnburner when I fished it last time.

I did find my pole and tackle amongst all the packed boxes. The forecast was great, it was going to be dry and warm and we were planning to stay over until Saturday. Since I get up so much earlier than everyone else in the house, I pinned Saturday morning as my inaugural attempt to see how lucky I was.

When I got up, I kind of drug my feet. What if the neighbors see me and question whether I belong or not. We are renting the house and I have only met one neighbor so far. What if it is all weedy and I am wasting my time? I finally got over my nerves and rigged up my pole. I also put on the hot water so that I could make some instant coffee. Once everything was done up, I opened the door and headed to the dock.

It was a beautiful morning. The eventual forecast was a high in the lower sixties but it was a bit brisk at 8AM. We are about a mile from the ocean, I could hear it in the background. A blue heron was annoyed by my coming down to the dock and flew off in disgust. The perpetual Canadian geese started swimming away honking. I assume that was their warning noises that something is not right here. I carefully stepped around all of the goose poop in the grass and the dock and started to cast.

It was my plan to only spend about thirty minutes fishing. I wasn’t going to re-rig to try different lures or spend the whole day doing this to get a limit. This is how I intend on fishing when I live here, a few minutes during lunch time or a few minutes before dusk. I am not opposed to taking fish and eating them but I am more interested in the fact that I can catch them or not. Especially now, I am not setup to clean, save or preserve fish. I would have to eat it now.

I did my 270 degree pass around the dock and nothing was doing. My stomach was growling and I started dreaming of heading back to the house and starting breakfast. This wouldn’t be the first trip that I didn’t catch anything. In fact, I didn’t actually expect to catch anything. I didn’t have any sort of vessel to put fish in if I did catch something. I told myself a few more casts and then I would head back to the house when I felt a tug.

It was a lazy tug. I thought that maybe I snagged something. But as I was reeling up I saw that there was a fish on the other end. It was a nice fish too. I would estimate that it was probably twelve inches long and around a pound. It was a rainbow trout, which means that it was put there as a hatchery fish. Now that I had it, what to do?

I really wanted to put it back for another day. The treble hook on my Panther-Martin spinner bait is not easy to remove with a flopping fish. I eventually got it on the dock and was able to get the hook out. I crossed my fingers that the fish would swim away because I had no net if it started floating after I tossed the fish back in the lake. It swam away and my heart was floating. It worked, this is exactly how I wanted this morning to start.

End Your Programming Routine: This is what I talk about when I say do things that matter. Maybe fishing isn’t your cup of tea but I wasn’t thinking about the ridiculousness of the world or what I might write about next or even the things that I wanted to do later in the day, including packing up and travelling home. It was no traffic and no boats on the lake just me and the geese and the heron and the fish. Even though I have most everything I want, maybe this is what I need and moving just gets me closer to that.

February 4, 2026 – Just Breathe

February 4, 2026 /

Not two stroke fumes but it has been said that a engine is an air pump. The carburetor is equivalent to the lungs in that pump. I thought that getting the leaf blower started was going to be the easiest of my three gasoline powered machines to start. It is only about four years old, I have always ran good gas and I didn’t leave gas in the tank. I figured a shot of ether in the carburetor would get things going in short order. That would not be the case.

As I stated above, I confidently took the air cover off and opened the choke all the way. I sprayed a heavy shot of engine starting fluid and pulled the cord. The machined choked and sputtered and ran for about 20 seconds like it couldn’t quite get going. That would be with the choke on. Then, it immediately died when I opened up the choke on the carburetor.

I tried this again thinking things just hadn’t gotten up to operating temperature. This time I let the machine run two or three minutes under half choke. As soon as I opened the choke again, it died. This should have been my first clue as to what the problem was. However, I didn’t have any parts. It is not like I keep a bunch of small engine parts around anyway but I certainly was not not expecting to have to work on this machine. It has barely ever been used.

From what I could see, the fuel supply line had air gaps in it. I wondered if there was a break or crack in the fuel supply line. The priming bulb was full so in theory, even if the fuel was struggling to load the line, the delivery to the carburetor for running was adequate. I could obtain fuel line locally so I went about changing the feed and discharge lines.

The fuel line itself was hard and brittle. It did not seem to be broken. Nevertheless, while pulling the lines out of the tank, layers of the line sheathed off. In my mind, changing the line doesn’t hurt anything, it optimally shouldn’t be in the condition it was anyway. I crossed my fingers that it was just a line problem even though in my head, I really didn’t think this was going to work.

Guess what? My head was right. I pulled and pulled and I could only get the engine to run as long as there was starter fluid in the carburetor. I tried until I was getting to the point that my arm (neck) was bothering me, which doesn’t take that long. I resigned to having to do a more extensive rebuild. I wasn’t going to get that done while I was at the lake for a day or so I ordered an aftermarket maintenance kit.

It is tricky to plan delivery sometimes. I want to be home when it comes. I also know that we are not within the prime network at the lake. I have yet to try how delivery works, but it seems like I need to add another day to most deliveries. That is to say that I would not be here at the lake for delivery receipt and I may not be home either.

You can see what is included in the picture above. Since my lines were just changed, the carburetor comes with a new primer bulb attached, the air filter seems fine and I am not going to tear the whole thing apart to replace the spark plug, I am just going to swap carburetors. This cost $15 delivered.

Notice in the picture above, the O-ring fell out. I mention that so that you will be careful while doing this. I saw this too, I looked around and I didn’t see it anywhere so I thought my mind was just playing tricks on me and I put everything back together. Then I took the blower off of the bench and there was the O-ring. That cost me five minutes to take everything back apart and put the O-ring back on.

I gassed the blower up and gave it a shot of ether. It started after three pulls. The problem with the blower was something in the carburetor. If were up to me, I would take the old carburetor and rebuild it and then put it on the shelf for the next time I have these problems. What I am finding is that rebuilding small engine carburetors is a dead art. If you can buy an entire machine rebuild for $15, there is no sense in paying $30 for all of the gaskets.

One thing about living at the coast, small engine shops are not dead. We are far, far away from the logging heyday of the 1970s but there is still active logging in second and third generation forest in the Oregon coastal mountains. There is a saw shop only two miles from our lake house. Eventually when we get settled, I will visit and see if I can get a rebuild kit for the original carburetor. I am not going to pay more than $20 but I would be willing to spend more than an aftermarket carburetor just so that I don’t end up throwing the thing away. That being said, every man has a limit.

End Your Programming Routine: It was pouring down rain when I finally got the machine started. That is difficult conditions when trying to blow loose debris off the ground. Wet ground tends to cause sticks and needles to get stuck on the surface but I did what I could. With a giant fir tree in the front yard, I have a feeling that this blower is going to go from rarely used to most used gas tool in the shed.

February 3, 2026 – The Cure That Ails You

February 3, 2026 /

I went to the neurosurgeon last week to talk about addressing my pain. Granted, it is almost gone, even the numbness in my index finger is barely there. But, there is something like anything aging, it probably isn’t going to get any better. I figured that given this is not debilitating, the fix was going to be routine and somewhat easy. What I heard from the doctor left my mouth agape.

First of all, the recovery time for this surgery is three to six months. There is at least an overnight stay in the hospital and expect to be out of commission for at least two weeks. In that three to six month period, it is light duty only with lifting and moving restrictions. Uh… I am in the middle of moving.

The picture below illustrates some of what is to be done. They bolt a plate between the two vertebrate. Then they scoop out all of the padding between the vertebrate and slip a disc in between the two. It essentially immobilizes the problem disk from moving and pressing on the nerves. Hence, pain is gone.

I will be honest, I am not sure that my pain currently warrants that. There was a time around Thanksgiving where I would have said, ‘lets do it’. But, as it slowly and steadily gets better so does my urgency to do anything. You might even say that I am a little scared. Not to mention, the would finally end my run of never being in the hospital for any procedural reason, no surgeries and I would have to answer yes to having metal in the body. Not to say that this is the best reason, but I have dealt enough with my wife’s situation to know that it is a pain to fill out these questionnaires at the doctor.

Even if I say yes, the lead time on the surgery is about a month and a half. Honestly, this puts me smack dab in the moving period. I cannot afford to be an invalid, bed ridden and high on pills while this is going on. Even if we pay movers and the intent is to not lift a finger, it inevitably will not work out that way. Unless this is desperately needed, I don’t think the timing is good at all.

If I think about it deeper, this also puts the crush on any future summer plans this year. I know that I have talked a good game about hiking again but I have been so consumed with moving and packing, not to mention pain that my training has yet to get started. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t do some overnighters or something this year. Definitely not if I elect to get the surgery.

They say that the cause is a herniated disk. This means that one of my spinal disks is moving out of place and pushing on the nerve. The cause might be the injury that I had in early June, incorrectly moving the table for my son’s graduation party. Or, that might have just been the trigger for genetic weakness to finally show. I know that my aunt had many back problems and surgeries early in her life. And my father has always had back problems. That is probably not keeping the odds on my side.

I accept that this is probably inevitable. So, I wrestle with timing. Sure, if now is not good timing, then when? I kind of think late fall would be the best. I will have the most accumulated time off and we should be settled by then. I won’t have to give up another summer for medical reasons as well. But, I guess that we will have to see how it goes. As long as I am feeling good now, I can afford to take a little time and schedule in my favor.

End Your Programming Routine: This is pretty silly, but sometimes I like to think about where I would be without modern medicine. Who knows, maybe I would have caught small pox or something. But, the fact that I have had no severe medical issues in my life pretty much suggest that I could be exactly where I am in the 1700s. Of course that is all circumstantial. I could have been shipped off to war or gotten my arm caught in the thresher or kicked by livestock. So that is probably just fantasy. It is a sign that age catches us all. I am realizing that now.

February 2, 2026 – Not Tools, But Fishing

February 2, 2026 /

I have fishing on the mind. We are headed out to the lake house again for a couple of days and so I thought that I would throw in on how to get started with fishing. This is not the skills but where to start with the gear. Join me today when I talk about where to start when you don’t know a thing.