I realize that I came back for a week in early May and then all of a sudden went silent again. The truth is that I simply have too many things going on at the moment. Work is busy and we are in preparation to move. It is work from wake until I go to sleep. If all goes well I will have a new mailing address in a week from today.
I plan on bringing AltF4.co back when things get settled. Fair warning that may be a while. Not only do we have to unpack and get settled but I also need to finish up landlord duties. More on that some other day. Suffice to say that it is going to be a while before the dust is completely settled on this move.
I won’t promise that I will wait until everything is completely done. What I can say is that I have no time right now nor do I foresee having time in the near future. For that reason, I have decided to officially declare suspension until some undecided time in the future. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say late summer might be when my new life is under control.
A sabbatical is probably a good idea anyway because I feel like I need to refresh what I have been doing. I have had some ideas about changes that I would implement but I have been in such a rut that I actually haven’t done them. In the mean time, go ahead and read “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. I am not sure that I will come back to a week over week post on the book.
My wife was looking up Gen Z vocabulary last night. In that spirit… See you on the flip side.
Part of why this is so late is that I have been dragging my feet on wrapping this book up. Trust me, I am ready to skip this all together and get started into “Fountainhead”. But, sometimes we must do what we must. I must put everything aside and give my honest opinion.
I remember reading “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” in 6th Grade Language Arts. I was a big fantasy reader as a youth at least through high school. It was part of my Dungeons and Dragons phase. I read “Lord of the Rings” as well as the “Hobbit” as well as some pretty weird stuff as well. My favorite fantasy series was actually written by Terry Brooks call “The Elfstones of Shannara”.
Narnia was definitely not my favorite fantasy series. I found it a little tame in that I wanted sword fighting and fireball spells. I don’t think I read any farther than “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” from Lewis but at least it was adjacent to the subject matter I was interested in. It was certainly better that reading Tom Sawyer again.
A large part of why I stopped reading fantasy was because I was so tired of poor writing. That includes names that you couldn’t recognize talking about events that had no context and seemingly disconnected story lines. I know that elves are not real but come on, what is with the rites of the fourteen moons of Fortuna? Maybe I am just dense.
Getting back to Narnia, it was well established that C.S. Lewis was a literature powerhouse in the 1980s. Of course when he has something to say, it might be worth trying to figure out if it was of some value. It was many, many years later that I realized Lewis was more than a fantasy writer. In fact, for me it was the fact that he was a recognized author that made me investigate his theory on religion in the first place.
OK, enough beating around the bush with Lewis related items. My take on the on the book is forthcoming. Nothing real earth shattering here, it is a biography about Lewis’s early life. I think what he was trying to portray was that it seems logical that when bad things happen to you, your outlook darkens. The surprised part of the title has to do with his dark outlook seemed to self heal.
I will try not to sound too boorish but I really didn’t enjoy the book at all. It was a gift, from my son for Christmas. I am pretty sure that he saw me reading “Mere Christianity” and then saw this. I had higher hopes about this book based on my previous reading but what I am trying to say is that I didn’t seek this out.
There were a couple of things that I found interesting even if I did not care for the book. The first was the whole culture of being a student in Britain. I went down a complete rabbit hole trying to understand what in the world Lewis was talking about when he talked about that stuff mid-book. I really had no concept how ridiculous the rigid social boundaries were in that environment.
The second thing I found interesting how many classic works of literature were referenced and how many I have actually read. I have to say that most of them I did not care for so it was no form of validation for me. I guess what I thought was the interesting part was that it seems like Lewis did enjoy reading most of those works. It could be possible I am just too dense to get it. I have also mentioned in the past when I was reading Dante that it is possible that there were so many less choices back then that whatever survived was considered a classic. It does make me do a double take on whether I am in a right frame of mind.
I said that I didn’t care for this book, but why? If you were interested in reading a biography of C.S. Lewis, then I would say this fits the bill. But, if you were looking for some epiphany moment or even something to look for or work to go from Atheist to Christian you are going to be out of luck. I would go as far as saying Lewis used his status as a Christian to sell a biography, It is good business but really sets the wrong expectations. It could also be that Lewis was badgered to tell his story and so he reluctantly did. But then what is the point?
End Your Programming Routine: Look, not all of them can be winners. I feel like I have had more losers than winners over the last couple of years. That is not all bad because discriminating taste has to be critical to be of any value and not simply like or approve everything. I still respect Lewis as an author, but I am pretty sure that I am done with him now.
A couple of years ago, I did what I always do. I waited around until the last minute to start Christmas shopping. My dad is not too hard to shop for, he is pretty predictable in that he is using the same fishing rod and reel that he had when I was born. That being said I still need to feel like I need to put out some effort. I was browsing through the fishing isles and I saw these woven rod covers. I had never seen anything like this before.
As I often do, I will go back to my childhood again. I would say that we probably took at least one fishing trip a year. Some years it was four or five and some later years none. But, I will never forget the sound of clinking willow leaf spinning lures as the poles are propped up in the boat as my dad is pulling the boat out of the water. In all those years, I will never say that I remember any rod damage but these things are inexpensive and they couldn’t hurt.
I had kind of forgotten about those rod covers until I was pricing out heavier weights for my ocean going gear and I saw the display. I remembered that I had bought some of those for my dad and that I was interested in how they worked. Now that we spend a couple of days a week at the lake house, I am routinely taking different rods back and forth. I don’t make a habit of leaving my more expensive setup at the house considering the owners still have the right to show and sell until we actually close the deal.
I don’t feel like I need a cover for every rod that I own. Really, I only want a cover for rods that I am taking back and forth. So, I got a couple of the to try out myself. One thing that I learned is to buy them on Amazon. At Sportsman’s Warehouse, one cover costs $12 whereas on Amazon I paid $7 for two. They also come as six and twelve packs (or something like that) at even more of a discount. I just didn’t want that many.
What is the criteria for success? Clearly that is the lack of broken poles and to a lesser degree scratches. They also advertise that you can leave your pole rigged up so the lack of hooks and closures snagging on anything else could be a perceived benefit. As I stated earlier, I have never had a broken pole as a result of transportation. These are items that are mostly about making you feel better about using.
When I started researching the options, I soon discovered that while the combinations seemed vast, actually there really were not that many choices besides color and package quantity. The primary choice is between casting rod or spinning rod. Then, most of them are for rods that are between 6 1/2’ and 7 1/2’. Those are common, safe choices.
When I look at my fleet of rods, I have a 4 1/2’ and a 9’ rod as well as sizes in-between. I would say that the majority of my inexpensive rods fall in the 6’ category making them too short for these cover technically. The other thing I would say is that all of my spinning rods are two pieces. I nearly always break them down for transport. The only time that I don’t is when I am being lazy.
The verdict? I think that if you have a one piece rod that fits the length criteria, this is a good idea. I do worry about the load shifting and breaking the tip off with a well placed force. But, if I had a two piece rod, I would break it down and not worry about it. The only other caveat would be if I left my two piece rod assembled all the time like when rods are stored in pole holders on a boat. That doesn’t match my scenario.
End Your Programming Routine: It’s good to try things out that are inexpensive. Since I am going to use two for sure, this really only cost me an additional $7. I won’t say that I will never use the others, I simply don’t see the value. That being said, I will keep them for some potential use in the future. I have other rods on the wish list.
If you are anything like me, you are regretting that last margarita from last night. Five AM comes awfully early and I have to hit the ground running. I am kidding, I regret nothing and I am old enough to respect my limits and take my lumps if that it what it comes to. What I am dancing about is that my wife and I went out last night to see how our new town throws down for Cinco de Mayo.
If you are truly like me, then you don’t have a lot of desire to jump into another culturally appropriated holiday like St Patrick’s Day as another example. That being said, I am all gung ho to explore my new home town even if that means I need to have multiple margaritas to do it.
Last week, I agreed to go out to a Mexican restaurant because I wanted to know if it was any good. I was actually pleasantly surprised because my expectation levels are pretty low when it comes to Mexican/American restaurants. So, when I come away thinking not too bad, it is a huge win. That doesn’t mean that I am going to crave this place but it does mean that I am not going to wish I would have stayed home and made peanut butter and jelly if we do choose to go there.
I ran across something pretty neat a few months ago. It is called the Central Coast Food Trail. Take it with a little bit of a grain of salt, I am pretty sure the list is sponsored and not necessarily awarded. Nevertheless it is a good start on getting a bead on some quality food.
As a kid, my family came to the beach for two things. The first was camping but the second was fishing. Grade school and middle schools we typically made a trip to go salmon fishing and consequently we camped the weekend. When the salmon regulations were changed so that there was not a concentrated couple of weeks in late August, we stopped coming to the coast.
On my mom’s side of the family they were fairly smitten with the coast. So much so that several of them had beach houses. They were never fisherman and from the 1990s onward my trips to the coast were almost strictly leisure. They involved going out to eat and shopping. I am aware of some good restaurants in the area but I have a pretty limited experience level with what it offered.
I actually got to the point that I would prefer to stay home as to go to the coast. Many times my wife would spend the weekend with her friends and I would stay home with the kids. I have nothing personal against the coast, it was more a function having no desire to live a life of consumerism. I start to get board going too long into stores that I like, a whole day is dreadful.
I wrote the above to say that connecting with my future community in that way is revolutionary. It is a completely different way to see this area. It is not simply a collection of restaurants that primarily service the weekenders and the spring breaker families but people that are growing and harvesting with the same amount of passion that anyone, anywhere would exhibit.
It is not just restaurants either. I learned that there is actually a culinary teaching center here in our town. I don’t know much about it at this point but I am definitely going to look into it. That sounds like a good date night idea.
I think that it goes without saying but that the ocean translates into seafood. There are opportunities to get salmon, rock fish, halibut, Dungeonous crab, bay shrimp, clams and oysters. Depending of the season, there is also tuna out there. You just have to go way out. Seafood is great, but it definitely needs to be paired with other items. Finding out about local produce and seasonal fair is critical for top notch meals at home.
End Your Programing Routine: I am getting to the age that I don’t need an excuse to drink or eat enchiladas. I like to go to bed at 9:30 after I have made and eaten my enchiladas. That being said, it is kind of fun to open the doors to someplace I have seen my whole life but never stepped inside. While I don’t really want to spend my time frequenting these places but I would like to be somewhat of an authority of my new home town. Last night I sucked up my preferences and hit the town with my wife. You just have to do that sometimes, even if the reason is flimsy.
This is the second time this YouTube video has made an appearance on AltF4. If you want to reference the first time see here. Often on Fridays I have caught up with all of my podcasts for the week and I like to crank up some music while I finish off the work day. It often starts off angry with bands like System of the Down, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, Rage Against the Machine. After I get that all out of my system, I start to mellow out to songs that are much more sentimental.
I keep coming back to this song because I identify so strongly with the issues, it almost hurts. All week long, I have been procrastinating hole filling and touch up paint because I was planning on tackling it on the weekend. I am doing this as a ‘show ready’ mechanism because as we have taken stuff off the walls and packed all the anchors and hangers remained. When everything was on the wall, it looked fine but all the holes and adhesives remained.
On Saturday morning, my Dad called me and said that he had tickets to the OSU baseball game. I declined because I was planning on filling holes and painting and I hadn’t done anything all week. Realistically, I could have spent a couple of hours working and then went to the baseball game. But, then I thought about all the wasted evenings that I had not used and the what if’s about a potential house showing.
It would be one thing if this was the only time I had ever done this. I remember that we drew deer tags in 2019 when I wasn’t working and I thought I was going to go all season, a first for me. But, then we got audited and I felt guilty about spending money when I didn’t have an income and we owed an additional $10,000. So, I didn’t go because I needed to ‘support the audit effort’.
I think about my son’s 1969 Mercury Cougar. It was my idea to buy a car and work on it. But, we couldn’t get on the same plane about how to go about it. I wanted to spend Saturdays and he wanted to start work at 10PM, my bedtime. I wanted him to put together a plan about how he would like to go about it and he wanted to just take parts off. So, I have hardly helped him a lick.
There is definitely an advantage to being a planner. It has served me well in a lot of the aspects in my life. But, like all personalities it is not all good. It ruins the spontaneity of things. Part of why I coasted all the evenings was that I have taken to sitting down with my wife after dinner. She watches whatever and I read or scroll through the news and blogs that I follow. I read somewhere that couples that are together regardless of whether they are doing the same activities have stronger relationships.
Make no mistake I could probably work from wakeup to bedtime. I always have things the I want to do or need to do. Even the other night I was dozing off to sleep and I was thinking, I should get that pork roast out of the freezer before I fall asleep but I was too tired to move. Guess what didn’t happen? Dinner preparation for the next night and then I was scrambling like crazy to get it all ready in a reasonable hour.
Periodically, my wife reminds me that I have a 100 year old, living Grandmother. Then she uses the the guilt trip on me on how she would love to have living grandparents still. And then, every couple of times I make arrangements to take her out to dinner and spend time with her.
Maybe you are thinking that I am douche or something but this is the way that it was supposed to be. Her end of life plan was to spend her last years at an assisted living facility. Not necessarily to be ignored, but because she is going to handle things the way that she feels is best. For the record, I don’t think that I am completely ignoring her but I will admit that I could do a better job at scheduling time.
I can’t tell you the huge disparity between what my family expects and what my wife’s does. For instance, when my sister in law got married 30 years ago, my in-laws actually went to the hotel to check on them while they were on the their honeymoon. Talk about boundary issues. That is just one example of many times where I couldn’t condone family closeness.
End Your Programming Routine: I know that we don’t live forever. That day is coming for my Grandmother and my Father sooner than I wish to think about. I also know that I could do better and living in the moment. I don’t really know how to and it is a struggle everyday. So, I listen to this song over and over to remind myself that sometimes I need to skip the paining and go to the baseball game.
After putting out a podcast week after week and then all of a sudden to go silent, it is strange. I will admit that I think about it a lot, but time, time, time. And even then, what to say? If there was something important to say, I would probably make the time. With me trying to stay out of politics and living in boxes, what the most important thing to do is actually survival to the next phase.
I know that it hasn’t been the most direct path, however we have gotten to the end. This week I have finished Surprised by Joy. That means if you are reading along, then you are done as well. The plan is to cover the last five chapters this week and then go over a total review next week.
If I could say anything about this week, I would say that this is my favorite third of the book. Not only did we get the details of Lewis’s conversion but the subject manner was more than dry, ancient authors, titles and fantasy land. You have a bit of a war story, introductions to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien and the final, happy conclusion.
I will save my overall opinion for next week. We will focus on the subject matter on hand. Here is a brief summary of the final five chapters. Last week we ended in what I would call high school in today’s parlance. We begin there again. There is one thing that I noticed in chapter 11 and that is kind of a change in tone. It is still primarily reading literature and poetry but an internal struggle seems to crop up. That struggle is the difference between fate and faith.
I think many non-Christians can relate to this. How can God be good and all powerful and yet bad things happen especially to good and faithful people? You hear that as a criticism to faith. That is a question that everyone has to wrestle with but I tend to side on the side of fatalism. I cannot diagnose any situation other than my own but I tend to look at it more like ‘your mission is done’. We cant see the future and only the individuals knows all of the details about their past. What may appear to be upstanding could only be a shell. I simply do not know.
Of course there are all kinds of nuances. Babies cannot be shells, right? Agreed, but it could be that death of an infant spurs some kind of reaction like starting a foundation or a sibling becomes a doctor or researcher. I simply cannot say the impact outside of the obvious ones.
From there, Lewis enlists in the Army and is eventually shipped off to the front in World War I. There is surprisingly little written about this time. It seems that this experience is so polarizing in those that have survived but it really does not seem to make much of an impact in Lewis’s life. I would characterize his attitude as ambivalent and certainly not galvanizing.
After getting wounded and subsequently discharged from the army he starts his life again, now at Oxford. The next chapters cover his life and changing attitudes as they are shaped by that experience. For example, Lewis starts to notice that Christian authors have more depth to their stories. And for that reason it starts to persuade Lewis that he needs to change his path.
I find this a little strange actually. I am not aware of many author’s religion but I cannot say that Lewis or Tolkien stories are any deeper than a lot of the fantasy I have read in my life. One reason that I stopped reading that genre is that I found it incredibly convoluted and nonsensical. Sure, I can suspend belief that magic can happen but when it comes to names, characters and events without definition or context, I simply kind of glaze over.
Another strange behavior is that Lewis admits to attending church without actually believing. I think in most cases, people lose their faith while attending church but never have I heard the other direction. The sensibility of it all is irrational. I shouldn’t have to explain that but dedicating time to something that has no significance is simply not what people do.
In the last chapter, Lewis describes that he doesn’t really know how it happened. Somehow throughout this process he became a Christian. Lewis’s description is Atheist to Theist to Christian. As a result, here is my synopsis of the book title. Joy is a synonym for faith and belief. The whole title is about being surprised to find faith despite the path to get there.
End Your Programming Routine: I would say the ending is a bit of a letdown. Based on how I started this post and where I am at, I bet that you can guess how I am going to come down next week. As evangelists, it makes no matter on how you come to faith but I find it hard to believe that reading literature written by Christians that would make it so. In fact, this might be the only documented case. Then again, people emulate those that they admire. Does that make genuine faith? I am not here to tear down Lewis. He most likely has done more good in his work. It is just that the story seems so improbable.
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