Month: March 2026

March 31, 2026 – Could This Be the Best Reel Ever?

March 31, 2026 /

I told you I had fishing on the brain. I am actually at the lake house right now and every time I am there, I try to go to the dock for 20 minutes and try my hand. This is one of those things that is necessary for me to accept moving and downsizing. I have significant access to another hobby that has taken a back seat to others over the years.

In the picture below is my first fishing reel. I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I got it from my grandparents for Christmas but I would guess 12. This was paired for quite a few years with the fishing pole that was given to me by my great grandfather that I never met. I used that setup until my mid twenties when I finally retired that pole because I broke the tip off of it several times.

I replaced that setup with a Shimano Carbomax/Sedona combo that I purchased at a local sporting goods tent sale. It was a carbon fiber rod and sleek, modern looking reel. I thought in my head that my gear needed to match a look as much as perform. The Mitchell reel went on my wife’s super inexpensive fishing pole. I think that we paid $10 for the pole/reel combo that already had line on it.

We still have my wife’s pole, but the reel was junk. I think it lasted a couple of years and something broke. So, my old trusty Mitchell found a new home. Some number of years ago, we went on a camping trip to the beach. If the camping trip is long enough, I find it worthy of packing the fishing poles.

We fished, I caught some bull heads but there was nothing to write home about. This reel has taken some abuse and it happened to get a bunch of sand in it. So I took it apart and when I put it back together, it did not work. That should have been my first clue. A few years later, I was talking to my dad about it and I thought that maybe I should take another look at things. So I did and I found that I had put a compression gasket in upside down. The reel was back in service but I had already replaced the reel on my wife’s pole.

This reel has kind of bounced around homeless since it’s initial pole. I had it on my Shimano pole for several years because I moved that reel to a tiny, gimmicky pole that my wife bought me a number of years ago. I would have put the Mitchell reel on that pole, but it was too big. That finally brings us to today.

This may become fishing week because I have been making a lot of changes in my inventory of fishing gear. But, one of the changes I made was taking the reel off of my backup pole and moving it to another super cheap pole that we purchased for my nephew. When my kids were young (and before I knew that my son was going to be a vegetarian), I purchased some extra gear so that we could go out as a family.

The backup pole happens to be an Ugly Stick when that brand was owned by Shakespeare. I was reading the specs on the pole and it said that it was rated for 6-15lb line. I think I had the original line on the reel so I am guessing it was 8lb line. But the fact that it could hold 15lb line got me thinking that I could set this up as a salmon or steelhead pole.

I had some extra paypal money that came out of some class action settlement that I thought I would find a suitable reel for salmon fishing. I ordered the reel and then about ten minutes later, I thought that I bet the Mitchell reel would be a good fit on that rod. I started looking at the markings on it and it said that it could hold 120 yards of 30 lb mono. That is when it hit me that this could be the greatest reel of all time.

Today’s reels are sized. To get 120 yards of 30lb mono it would have to be at least a 5000 or 6000 series reel. This Mitchell is rated from 8-30 lb line capacity. I looked up the drag specs and this reel is rated for 14lbs. This means that with the drag cranked all the way down, it can stop a 14lb fish. That is definitely salmon sized.

With my primary pursuits being trout and such, I have definitely trended toward the lighter side. I have been lining my reels with either 4 or 6 lb line. But, with my recent goal of moving to the coast, I have started thinking about bigger. That means bigger poles, bigger lines and bigger reels. A reel like this Mitchell is so versatile, it can fill the bill in so many applications, unlike today’s reels that are so specific. I can’t believe that I thought it was outdated and no longer had value.

End Your Programming Routine: Not only did I not appreciate what I had, but I also took a look on e-Bay as well. There are plenty of affordable Mitchell 300s out there. I mean under $30 for functional reels. From what I see, that is half price of almost any other modern option out there. Not only is it flexible but affordable as well. That is what makes it possibly the best.

March 30, 2026 – It’s Easter Week

March 30, 2026 /

In case you are wondering, it is not a coincidence that our current book is Surprised By Joy by C.S. Lewis. That is because it is the holy season. I was hoping to end it here but clearly I got hung up in my own life and so we just got started. Nevertheless, today I make an argument for the true Christian holiday and the hope of eternal salvation.

March 27, 2026 – Surprised By Joy, Chapter 1-5

March 27, 2026 /

Long time coming, I know. It seems like I have been talking about this book forever. That is what it feels like to me anyway and I wouldn’t be surprised if you feel the same way. “Surprised by Joy” is a memoir of sorts. It is self described by Lewis as his life journey that made him a unwavering Christian.

I wouldn’t have gotten here if my moving plans hadn’t changed. While not fully packed, I am as packed as I am going to get until we get some more certainty. You can listen to Monday’s podcast for more information on that subject. But the new found free time gave me the chance to spend a couple of evenings reading.

Lewis didn’t start out without faith. His grandfather was even a clergy man. But, like so many, the parents didn’t take to religion and it lost its place in their family. It probably didn’t help that they were academics and therefore preoccupied by their own interests and pursuits. It has been my observation that academics are the least likely to have deep faith.

There isn’t a ton of context in the book but by Lewis’s description, it seemed like he grew up a little feral. It could be that he was pre-school age, I don’t know. But he also goes onto relay that he was home schooled by his mom. While at the same time, they sent his older brother away to school. Maybe it was a money thing? Maybe they saw something in one and not the other? Maybe that was just the culture of the time?

That only lasted a couple of years until his mom developed cancer. When she eventually succumbed, it broke his dad. It also changed Lewis’s life from an academic standpoint. He was now shipped off to boarding school, just like his brother. Because faith was not a strong component, it really was neither here nor there related to his mother’s death. It just wasn’t a thing.

The first school that Lewis went to went kaput in a couple of years. It was no wonder because from his description, they were mercilessly beaten for no real reason. They also got no real education. He said that his day consists of doing math problems while the other students were grilled over subjects that they had no instruction and subsequent beatings. He brother said that he just kept doing the same math problems every day. Thus, he always got the right answer and no beating.

Numbers of students kept dwindling for obvious reasons causing the school to close. It was off to a new school. Once again, the experience was agnostic as it relates to faith. The second school was a short stint and so I will dismiss it completely here. It was the third school that really made it’s mark. It was here where Lewis proclaims that he lost his faith.

It seems like the turn of events was related to sexual abuse at school. I can see that, it seems like traumatic events can be galvanizing. How can God allow this? Conversely, I would have never made it through this without faith. But, when you start from a weak position to begin with, it is not surprising that Lewis turned away from God. It takes a pretty firm grasp of faith to go the other direction because it just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

I have to admit that in my own life, I have had similar questions. Thankfully, I really haven’t had anything that I would consider traumatic happen. But, the fact remains is how can a good and loving God permit such things as the Holocaust? At the same time, how could there be such rampant abuse by priests themselves?

What it really comes down to for me is that following strict doctrine, you cannot have good without bad. You should recognize that from “Mere Christianity” that we covered last year. I have always intuitively known that, but reading it codified it for me. It is also one of the best philosophical arguments that could be made.

End Your Programming Routine: Right now, we know the trigger of the loss of faith, we will have to see what the trigger is to solidify it. The plan is to read another five chapters for next week. With my newfound free time, I should be able to keep things on track.

March 26, 2026 – You Know What You Value By How You Spend Your Time

March 26, 2026 /

As predicted, the hangover is on from my vacation week. Since I am always thinking a week out, I didn’t do that planning while I was off and packing. This is a picture of my partially disassembled office while I was packing to move. It actually took me a couple of days to pack up my office.

Now, to be fair it wasn’t a couple of days but a couple of days at a couple of hours each. By the time I started packing, it was already known that there is no deal in place. I didn’t really feel the urgency to be solely focused on packing. But, the amount of time I spent was quite eye opening.

The picture represents my life over the last couple of years. First of all, you are looking at the back wall of my office. I worked on it from about February 2022 to my moving in in August 2022. But, even more so than that I see how I planned the outlets, the speaker wire for the preplanned surround sound. The antenna wire for the FM antenna that I built in previous years. What you cannot see is the later added wiring for the AM antenna.

All the AV is sitting on the table that I built. This was built with the tree that I milled in 2005. It dried for almost 20 years before I built the table. I custom sized it to fit in the space. It would accommodate all of the techno-junk that I had accumulated perfectly. Not just that but it also perfectly allowed for the placement of the lamp in the corner.

You see the roll of cables on top of the box? Those were all custom sized to fit the room or custom built to fit the components. As I was unplugging everything I realized how many cables I had built over the years. All of those end plugs were ordered, waited for in anticipation and then satisfactorily put into service.

Honestly, I thought that I would spend even more time in my office enjoying surround sound or reading on the book. I should have known that this is the room I spend the majority of my waking days, I probably wasn’t going to get away with more time holed up in the basement. It wasn’t the enjoyment of the room that drove me, it was the building it.

As a youth, I spent a lot of time playing role playing games. These were primarily kids that were in my Boy Scout troop and so I saw them a lot. However, I remember getting bored after playing a couple of hours. I would start building a new character that I thought was perfect for the current game that we were playing. I have thought a lot about this over the years, its not the act of doing/using/participating that moves my wheels, it is the act of building or the thought of potential that does.

I suppose this is what has invested me into preparation. I have no desire to turn my home into a compound and patrol the perimeter for zombies. But, the idea of building the perfect pantry, shop, parts inventory is exciting. I am building for the potential of the future, not hoping to spring into action.

This process has been cathartic for me. I have made numerous trips to the donation centers for all manner of things. Tools, hardware, material of all kinds have left to hopefully find new and better homes. All that has brought countless memories for me about when and where I was when I purchased it. The funny thing is the least sentimental items were the ones that I acquired via inheritance. It was the ones that I remember getting as a present to our very first home or purchasing when we lived in South Carolina. Never mind the fact I haven’t used it in over twenty years.

My wife says that I am a hoarder. I disagree. To me, a hoarder might have good stuff but it is also surrounded by garbage. I had very little garbage, just stuff that has been sitting around and not used. It had a time and place and that has come and gone. Most of it was there, just in case.

End Your Programming Routine: I know that I am more interested in building than doing. If we do end up moving, my techno junk is going somewhere. If we don’t move, it is probably coming back into my office. That is one example of my madness. What I will say is that this is exactly why I look forward to settling again. The rebuilding cannot occur until that happens. That is what really drives me forward.

March 25, 2026 – It Is Forever

March 25, 2026 /

Last week was an emotional one. We were supposed to be moving and then we weren’t. I have to admit that I have no idea what to do. The safest thing is to continue preparing to move without any real guarantee that it is going to happen. I am taking you down with me this week.

March 20, 2026 – Surprised By Joy

March 20, 2026 /

A quick note today. I am not reviewing C.S. Lewis’ “Surprised By Joy” today. I have not had time to read recently and the time I have had, I was reading “The Whole Fish Cookbook”.

I have also decided that instead of covering three chapters a week, I want to do five. That puts this series at a month instead of six weeks. I feel like three chapters a week for a memoir is probably too long and I am going to have a difficult time mining the AltF4.co type content.

Consider this a day off. Hopefully I can find the time to get caught up so that next week we can get back on track. If not, I probably won’t mention that I am busy moving again next week. This is my warning.

March 19, 2026 – The Whole Fish Cookbook

March 19, 2026 /

This is a book that I have had on my list for a long time. I heard about Josh Niland on the Anchored Podcast four or five years ago. Actually, looking at the podcast publish date it was more like seven years ago. I put it on my Christmas List for a few years and then finally I cashed in my hotel points that were about to expire for a Barnes and Noble gift card.

A month ago, I went to the Barnes and Noble store because I wanted to spend the gift card before we moved. Yes, it could also be used online but there is something about going to an actual bookstore. The store is a couple of years old and I had never been in it. I figured that as soon as we moved, the likelihood that I would ever go would be slim to none since I hadn’t gone in when it was much more convenient.

I had no plans on what I was going to purchase. Because of our budget constraints, I certainly couldn’t get crazy. I picked up a copy of Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” which I also want to read. But, I kind of ho hummed because I didn’t want to pay $20 for something I could certainly purchase used for $5 or potentially even get at the library. Then my eye caught “The Whole Fish Cookbook”.

I figure that with our move to the beach comes a large probability that our seafood consumption is going to increase due to proximity to the source. In fact, I have made the mental switch that this is going to happen and besides packing, I have had fishing on the brain. I have been searching real thoroughly for a surf fishing setup. In addition, I have purchased a bait casting rig as well as a new reel for one of my backup poles.

Since it has been so long since the podcast, I really didn’t remember a single thing other than aging fish is a thing. It wasn’t explained and I was very intrigued. The number one thing that I learned about this book is that fish and water do not mix. I suppose that if you were a fisherman, then images of the cleaning station come to mind. Gut or fillet and rinse. That is a no, no.

According to Niland, adding water to the flesh of the fish is an accelerant to decomposition. The fresh off the boat mildness is the result of minimum decomposition. Aging however in fish is as complementary as beef but the fish has to be handled correctly. That means no water.

I will admit that I have not tried it yet but I certainly have plans to. The other thing that Niland promotes is using the whole fish. That means heads, eyes, bones, liver and even scales. I will admit that I am a little less gung ho about some of that but I am willing to try something like a fish liver pate or making a fish sausage. The trick is getting enough livers at any one time to satisfy the recipe requirements.

I just finished the book and so I really haven’t had a chance to try anything yet. I will give some commentary on what I read however. Niland is an Australian so this book is written in the perspective of what is local to him. That also means that this cookbook is addressing saltwater species and not freshwater. I would say that the handling instructions are much less accessible unless you are buying fish off of the boat, not always possible for most.

I suspect that this can somewhat translate from saltwater to freshwater species, it just requires a little more research. It is just that I am not aware of a freshwater tuna as an example. But, certainly a trout versus salmon or panfish versus snapper is possible.

End Your Programming Routine: Because I haven’t tried anything yet, I cannot yet recommend this book. What I can say is that this book opened my mind to new ideas, particularly things that go against traditional preparations and handling. For that, it is worthy of considering. The cooking follows traditional French and British flavorings and the pictures are very appealing. I am ready to try.

March 18, 2026 – The Cat’s In the Cradle

March 18, 2026 /

I was born in 1975. The era of folk songs was wrapping up. The Vietnam war was over, the youngest hippies were starting to grow up and become adults. The age of the Baby Boomer was accelerating at a rapid pace. Modern folk music was born out of political rebellion of the 1960s. It included artist such as Bob Dylan, The Beetles, Peter, Paul and Mary and many, many others.

It was melodically slower, much different than be-bop and the Elvis inspired Rock and Roll of the 1950s. It contained hard hitting messages about politics and culture of the time. Just because I missed it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t aware, it was all around me. My parents radio station was perennially tuned to what I would have called ‘soft rock’ of the era. We were not allowed to touch it without consequences.

I have heard this song a million times on the radio. In fact, when I was in grade school our music teacher even made us learn the lyrics during music class. It’s funny, you can know something and pay no attention at the same time. It wasn’t until much later that I actually realized that this was actually a song about my life.

I was in my second professional posting. I was actually working at the same company and building as my Dad. Even so, it could be weeks in-between seeing each other. I remember talking with my uncle one time and he was saying how nice it was that we could have lunch. I played it off by saying something like “yeah’ however I was kind embarrassed inside. We never had lunch together, let alone barely see each other.

My Dad invited me to join his elk hunting party and I made some excuse about how I didn’t have the time off accumulated. The group was primarily all people that worked in that office. That was the one and only time I got invited. The truth is, I thought that I would get invited again in the future since we were all peers of sorts. It was only this year that was the problem.

I moved on to another job the following year and got even more involved in my career. Now, I didn’t just not have time to go elk hunting but it seemed like I was barely home. Not only was I not spending time with my parents but I was also too busy working for my own wife and kids.

I didn’t just come across being a work first, father by accident. I had a good example. He was travelling for work a lot when we were kids. Occasionally, when he was home my brother and I would ask him to play catch with us. I remember how special I felt that he would actually do it. It was so rare that he would stop doing things that he was doing and just spend time with us.

The other day, my parents came by and helped us take a load to the beach. Really, they wanted to see this place that we were about to purchase. But, that is OK. He left a tarp behind by accident and I made a plan to drop it off with other errands that I needed to run. I really had a full day of packing planned but I ended up sitting down for almost two hours talking about computer problems and other things because Mom was gone.

The song Cat’s in the Cradle played in my head as I was sitting on the couch. I don’t know what it is with my drive to do things but it is very difficult for me to stop or postpone what I had planned to spend time with other people. It is not just my Dad but my Wife and kids and anyone else for that matter.

My wife is very fond of saying that I will never say on my death bed that I wished I had spent some more of my life working. That is probably true. In the same turn, I am not sure that I am going to say that I regret doing what I thought was the right thing to do. It has provided the life that we live and giving my family an opportunity to be who they want to be, not stuck in limited options. That being said, I do recognize that I need to be a more attentive and flexible.

One of my days off my wife insisted that I make a dinner date with my grandmother. This is another one of those times where I have been stressed about packing and the move. It turned out to be a really nice visit. I am pretty sure that there are not going to be too many more of those, especially when I don’t make the time. No promises but I am going to work on that.

End Your Programming Routine:

March 17, 2026 – Forgotten In Time

March 17, 2026 /

If you were listening yesterday, then you will know that my life is in limbo. What was supposed to be the final push and a move to the new house turned into more uncertainty. Because we are renting the new house, we certainly could have moved anyway however I made the call that we were not ready. Truth be told is that we were not.

A huge effort has been made, my shed, shop and garage are 100% ready. Most of the rooms that we live in are somewhere between zero and 75% ready. I am still selling things and 100% focused on getting ready. So, it is not all a bad thing that we didn’t just jump off of the cliff.

In my shed, there was a bucket. It was full of chain and garden stakes. This was all stuff left when we moved in or I picked up in the yard. I put the chain the bucket and it was shoved in the back of the shed. When it came to packing, I decided to take the steel over to the neighbors for scrap purposes. At the bottom of the bucket, but above all of this chain was these old advertisements.

One is a monthly mailer from a regional chain and the other is the weekly Sears advertisement from the Sunday paper. I had known that they were there there. It is one of those things that I saw once every couple of years. I don’t know why I never threw them out. I know that I have thought several times that they didn’t belong in the bucket, but I never did.

While packing, I finally got to the point that I was no longer going to store this trash. Before I threw it out, I decided that I would check the date for fun. The best that I can surmise is that this is from mid-September 2005. I know this because the coupon book below, the prices would run for a month. So, because it says that it is valid through October 9, it had to be September 6. They run their prices Tuesday through Monday.

I know what was happening in my life at that time. That was immediately following Labor Day. That particular Labor Day Sunday, we had returned from Hawaii because my brother had just gotten married. I picked up some kind of crud and I ended up spending three more days in bed following a week of vacation on Oahu and Maui. This was the beginning of life as I know it now. We had only lived in that house nine months and we had yet to learn that our first son would be delivered the following July.

I thought it would be interesting to see how time has changed. First of all, Sears no longer exists for all practical purposes. The one page that I thought would be illustrative was the electronics page. A 30″ ‘widescreen’ was $800 on sale! I have a slightly newer 32″ that I paid $12 for two years ago. New TVs of that size are $99 all day long, granted they are Toshiba but even those I see are going for $109 on Amazon.

The past was certainly the golden age of ammunition. I see that 12 gauge game loads are $3.29 a box. That very same load is $10.99 at Sportsman’s Warehouse. OK, that hurts but nowhere near the price of 38 special. I see that same box going for $35.99. If you are doing the math, that is over a four times price increase in twenty years. Things aren’t so bad if you are a 9mm shooter. The sale price of $5.99 is today $14.99.

That is comparing apples to apples, if I just want to compare cost, I can see CCI brass 9mm at $9.99 on sale. So that is less than double what it was. I will also admit that Sportsman’s Warehouse will never compete dollar for dollar against Bi-mart but it is a place that I can go locally and purchase the same brands and they have a website that I can reference prices. What is more lost in time is not the prices but what was on sale.

When is the last time you saw 25 Auto on sale? That is something I never paid any attention to in the first place. But what I will comment on is when was the last time I saw 38 special on sale. I have to say that it was probably pre-Obama 2012.

End Your Programming Routine: Times change, I get that. I still wish that there was a Sears and TVs were more than disposable item. Sure, image quality is better today but they certainly don’t function as well or last as long. If we are judging our society, the metric I would not pick is TV prices. A proliferation of TVs really has not helped our society become better. It has just helped us surrender to the tech giants. We have given our privacy, our data and with it a part of our souls.

March 16, 2026 – Oceana Has Always Been at War With Eastasia

March 16, 2026 /

You have believe that Orwell was going to come up again, how could it not? There is just so much always related to what is going on with current events and our government. This seems to be the ‘Newspeak’ that obfuscates our judgement, numbs our senses and polarizes our positions. Tune in today to hear Orwell’s words come back from the past.