We all have limited time and ability. I think what most employees get wrong is that they look at the engagement as what do I have to do and not what can I do. Even in the former case, entrepreneurs know that the buck ultimately stops with them. You have to be in the mindset to think creatively.
Author: bhayes952
May 10, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Canto XXII – XXIV
We are on cornice six in Purgatory. That is one cornice or ledge or terrace from being truly in Heaven proper. The is the stop for gluttony. Of course the punishment for gluttony is starvation. Every other sin has the opposite action, why not this one?
I have often wondered about the deal with Gluttony. I mean, it is kind of grotesque when people cannot control themselves and wreck their bodies. But, I have often wondered there has to be something more. The more that I wondered, it finally came to me what the significance is.
Gluttony is about self control. Yes, there is a lot about moderation in many different contexts it in the Bible. But, here we need to go all the way back to Genesis and the origin story. After God created the world, he created Adam. Because Adam was lonely, he created Eve. For some reason, even the biblically created humans were still tempted and ate the forbidden fruit.
Moderation and self control is the antithesis of the original sin. It would seem that gluttony is the representation of that. Now, at least I get why it is an issue. I am not sure that I totally agree about the severity but I suppose this is why we are almost at the end of purgatory.
I didn’t totally map all of this out but from my recollection that the sins of hell seem to mirror Purgatory. That is to say that the first levels of Hell are actually the last levels of Purgatory. So, at least that makes sense from a logical and organizational standpoint.
I guess the other significant thing that I disagree with was Dante’s interaction with the character Forese Donati. His claim was that as soon as he died, his wife prayed so hard that he ended up at the sixth level of purgatory. That really violates the integrity of Christianity. We are responsible for our salvation, not anyone else.
Next week will be the last cornice of purgatory. That doesn’t finish the section but that is Cantos XXV – XXVII. The final study we will do is something about ‘Earthly Paradise’. I guess we will see all about that when we get there.
End Your Programming Routine: I know that I only touched on moderation and it can be a tricky subject because it is subjective. It’s OK to drink some but not too much and not too often. It is OK to eat cake but not too much and not too often. Who says when is too much, I don’t know. Maybe you know it when you see it?
May 9, 2024 – Don’t Blink, Summer is Coming
This is going to be an unprecedented summer for me. Of course, it is going to be centered around my wife’s treatment. We are going to have to temporarily move to Portland to be near hospital. It is looking that is going to be mid-July and run through mid-August to be optimistic. I knew this in general terms which is why I haven’t even tried to do any sort of gardening this year.
If I look at it objectively, it is no different than me travelling for work. I have been gone for nearly months at a time many times in the summer. Not only will I have to be working but I will also have to be a health-care support person as well. I am going to do my best to keep doing what I am doing now, We’ll see if AltF4 has to go on hiatus, kind of like last year.
One of the options to stay in Portland is to park an RV. We have battered the idea around a little bit. I grew up around RVs and I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I hate camping in an RV park. I don’t like the proximity to people. To me RVs shine when you want to do something else. When hunting or fishing, it is sure nice to pull in and not have to setup camp. Indoor lighting makes it much easier to get the most out of your day outside. It sure beats a tent when the weather turns sour as well.
For me, I think the ideal setup would be a class B RV. This is essentially a converted van. I feel like this would allow me to reasonably get off the pavement. I could see weekend excursions to fish coastal steelhead or a week long deer hunt. Add a trailer hitch bike rack and figure out a place to stow the Kayaks and this is pre-canned adventure. This really is not the vehicle to park for a month and work and heal. It is too small to really live in, we would need to live out of.
I would like to hold off a little bit. I don’t think it is the right fit for spending a month. I also feel like we don’t need extra expenses nor do we have a place to park it. That being said, this is my third reminder that life is fleeting. Once we get through this business in Portland, it may be a good idea to make some changes regardless of prognosis.
The primary downside of class B RVs are they are expensive. The one I really want costs around $200,000. Even used ones are running $40K on up. The more ubiquitous class Cs can be found much cheaper used but that is not really the format I want for the type of recreation I want to do. These are the perfect pull into the RV park for a couple of days. They may be much more suitable for parking for a month as well.
The truth is, we probably need new cars much more. My pick-up is 21 years old and my SUV is 14 years old. So, it is hard to justify an occasional vehicle when we really depend on a reliable vehicle. But, this is the same story that has held me back for years on looking at boats too. Once again, I am going to defer this.
End Your Programming Routine: The reason I titled this the way that I did was that if you want to make reservations somewhere you are running out of time. Memorial Day is right around the corner. I was thinking about it in context to RVs so if that is your jam you better get on it. It is hard for a fiscally conservative with an uncertain economic future to pull the trigger. That being said, we only have one life to live and sometimes it changes without our input.
May 8, 2024 – It’s Not the Time…
In December, one of my culinary book club peers gave me a sourdough starter. He is a tremendous bread maker and everything that he has shared seems nearly perfect. He says that the starter is over forty years old. Clearly, his efforts are the result of years of effort.
I didn’t ask for it, so I suspect that my wife did. Because as far as I knew, it was unsolicited and therefore I felt a sense of duty to keep it alive. Since December, I have made probably ten or so loaves of bread. All of them pretty marginal if I say so myself.
Like many of the things I do, I push the boundaries. I also don’t like waste. About a year or so ago, I accidently purchased some whole wheat flour. People in my house refuse to use it for anything, so I have been doing a half bread flour and half whole wheat flour loaves. The thing about whole wheat is that it does not develop the same gluten reaction and it comes out dense.
As a result, I have been messing around with the rise variables. The problem with sourdough is that left too long, it becomes gummy and thin, not bread at all but pancake batter. If not allowed to rise enough, it is a rock. Neither are desired results.
Ideally, this loaf would be 50% larger. I didn’t have time to let it sit for extra days nor did I actually have time to bake it properly. Hence, chock it up to another failure. But for every failure knowledge is gained. In this case, I used the oven off function because we had a doctor’s appointment to go to. All the while, the oven wasn’t on it continued to slowly dry out. It wasn’t a total puck but a 1/4″, rock hard crust all the way around.
Now to my point about time. Looking at the recipe, the only time listed as the bake time. It needs to bake at 400 degrees for approximately an hour. But, bread by its nature is way more complicated than that. Let us look at the variables and conditions.
First there is proofing time. This has been what has mostly been burning me. I find that in the winter, the kitchen temperature is not warm enough for dough to rise properly over night. This in turn puts it in jeopardy before I get started with meal planning. I think commercial operations use a proofing device or room for more consistent results.
Baking time is pretty straight forward. Some variability is expected but it is more or less along the time of the recipe. Another thing that burns me is bread needs to be done at least an hour before dinner. You cant just take it straight out of the oven to the table. I think if you are planning to eat by 6:00, bread should be done by 4:30.
Working backward, to be done by 4:30 it needs to be in the oven by 3:30. And don forget that the oven needs time to heat, so that means the oven needs to be turned on by 3. This means that the bread has to be risen by 3. If you check your progress at 12:00 and you don’t have the proper proofing, you are likely out of time to make perfect bread. So, you need to know whether you are going to gamble or throw in the towel for another day.
End Your Programming Routine: Now that I have written this all down, it seems simple. Hopefully, I can get my timing down such that all I really need to be concerned about is the proof. I am still working on that too. It is a good thing that I have to waste sourdough starter every week and I still have five pounds of wheat flour. Maybe I will get this figured out.
May 7, 2024 – Will It Juice?
When you start to get some age on you, unfortunately some people we once new are no longer with us. Also some people that we know are also survivors. In this case, one of my wife’s friends is a cancer survivor and she said that juicing was a key part of her treatment process. The first couple of weeks she brought some juice by and then she bought my wife her own juicer.
This is a nice piece of equipment. It is Breville which means that it is pretty high dollar (and well made). My first thought is where is this going to be stored? Then looking at it a little more, how much of a pain in the butt is this going to be to clean? It is my opinion that a healthy life tips the balance more towards a diet of whole foods. I think juicing is a short cut in a sense, but it certainly must be better drinking things that came from a can or bottle.
Putting my reservations aside, my wife wanted to use it so I set out to find some recipes to try. I found two that were advertised as ‘Energy’ and ‘Anti-Cancer’ so that is what I set about to do. Will it juice?
These recipes are for one batch which seems to produce about a cup worth of juice. The first one is Energy.
- 1 stalk celery
- 1 apple
- 1 lemon
- 4 leaves of kale
- 1/2 cucumber
- 1 inch of peeled ginger
The second one is cancer fighting.
- 2 carrots
- 4 stalks celery
- 1 lemon
- 1/4 head of cabbage
This is the output of the second one. Once everything is stirred together it is a very vibrant orange. Left to its own devices, it will separate again in about a day. It appears that a very fine degree of solids is allowed to pass through the screen and those solids float to the top.
I tasted both of them. Neither were bad. I have to say that the green grass taste of the ‘Energy’ was less appealing, but not horrible. I could see having a glass of this every breakfast or something like that. I would probably want to try some other recipes to find what I really like. There were some recipes that contained rhubarb and that stuff grows like a weed from my plants. It seems like a good strategy when gardens start to become prolific.
I made a couple of batches with the thought that they might last the week. I have to say committing to this uses a lot of produce. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some might say it is the point of juicing. Just be prepared that finding a steady stream of vegetables are going to have a financial impact.
After trying things, there are still two downsides. The first is to find a home for this machine. I don’t want it living on the counter for the rest of my life. The second is cleaning. The catch barely holds a double batch and there are a lot of parts to wash. The filter screen has to be scrubbed because the fine fiber tends to plug the screen with each use. It definitely takes more time to clean than to use. Not ideal. There is a fair amount of waste generated. This makes excellent compost fodder or even chicken food. Since I have neither at the moment, I feel bad about throwing it out. But beware, you will have to deal with that as well.
End Your Programming Routine: Will I ever become a juicer? Probably not. I could definitely see making some custom Bloody Mary mix though. Think about it, the possibilities are almost endless. I am committed to making juice while my wife goes through treatment. I am going to sneak in a few things that I want to try while I am going through the effort to do this. I have to say that it is kind of fun and amazing to see the amount of water in celery.
May 3, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Purgatory, Canto XX – XXI
In all of my years of reading, I have never seen this word before. The word is avarice. Apparently, it first appeared in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I guess I missed that in high school because I had to look up the definition. According to Webster’s in the intense desire for wealth. If you are not used to reading the word like I am, I will call it greed from this point forward.
Another quasi difference I see with my version of the book is that it calls these levels of Purgatory as Cornices where everywhere else I read them as Terraces. Along with the names and mythology, this book has some of the most challenging vocabulary in any book I have ever read. It is modern English, but it is very highbrow. There are a lot of esoteric words that I have to look up if it is not noted in the footnotes. I don’t know if that is because this is a poem and the word is used for meter or not. I don’t recognize it as such, but the formatting is certainly grouped as poetry.
The big todo in these two Cantos is the earthquake that happens in Canto XX. It is not totally clear what the significance really means but it seems like the consensus is more along the lines of a soul leaving purgatory and heading into heaven proper. Another interesting debate in my noted section of the book was that when souls leave this Cornice, they start to gain some freedom.
This freedom means that the purification process is succeeding. Thus, souls are allowed some more self governance when it comes to sentence and repentance in Purgatory suggesting that they can ascend at their own rate. This all goes back to what I was saying about how sin is organized last week. The next three levels (including this one) belong to loving too much.
We cannot get by without discussing the sin and the atonement of greed. On this level, it was jam packed with souls. So much so that there was really no room to maneuver. I am speculating that this represents greed where the only thing left in their heart was the pursuit of wealth. I haven’t really seen it discussed anywhere but that seems intuitive to me.
There is supposedly one significant interaction here to. They meet someone called Statius. Apparently, he will be with Dante and Virgil until Dante moves to Heaven. Statius is a Roman Poet who wrote several classics which makes him a minor celebrity. As the legend goes, Statius is a converted Christian and represents redemption. So now we have Virgil as logic (and free will) Dante as humanity and Statius as redemption.
End Your Programming Routine: We are getting very close to closing out Purgatory. There are two levels left, gluttony and lust. Next week will be covering Cantos XX – XXIV. Just as promised, things have lightened up quite a bit since the beginning. This is good because I don’t want to read and write a downer for a whole year. I think that I am also expanding my vocabulary too.
May 2, 2024 – What Is the Source Of My Recent Unholy Radio Obsession
In 2015, I got voluntold that I would be on a walking relay called Portland to Coast. The idea was that twelve of us would walk continuously from Portland to Seaside on the beach (128 miles). I was already training for the half marathon anyway so I did it. It was actually pretty fun.
Each leg was about 3-5 miles and there would be an exchange point. There would be bathrooms and refreshment at a minimum. Some of the major exchange points would also have food, showers a place to sleep and a radio operator. When you get into the mountains here there is no such thing as cellular service.
I thought that it was pretty cool that people would do all the work of setting up antennas and things and volunteer their time for something like this. What I didn’t really understand was that this was their time to compete as well. They were policing the course for the lost, stragglers and medical emergencies. The only way to get effective, real time communication was radio. I have now observed that many races have radio operators.
Going back a further, to about 2006 my current neighbors moved in. He is a former sheriff’s deputy and runs a police scanner. Since I live on Main St., I can hear all of the sirens when the when the vehicles turn west leaving the station (the siren sound is directional). Some times when there are a lot of vehicles I will go over and ask what is going on.
Next, came my techno-junk pursuit. I talk frequently about it, so I won’t go deeply into it. But, I was trying to figure out how to buy/build antennas for AM reception. I ran across an antenna advertised for short-wave usage. It was at that time that I realized that short-wave frequencies also included AM radio. So, I started to research this further.
I was actually reading the comments and reviews for the antenna that I purchased. One of the comments said something to the effect of ‘watch where you put that thing or you will end up with an Rocket Propelled Grenade in your window’. It was at that moment that I realized radio is a weapon. It is not the kind of weapon that hurts people, but it is communication that prevents friendly fire, a weapon of information.
Radio is a force multiplier, not a missile. Think of it like a shotgun choke. While one pellet might be effective, more would be better. So if the shot is concentrated on the target the more likely it will be lethal. On the other hand, sometimes having a more open choke is better, you have a better chance of hitting with a wider pattern. Radio frequencies are the same way. They have their advantages and disadvantages but make no mistake firing without a choke causes the shot to spray everywhere quickly.
Aside from being regulated by the FCC, no other outside infrastructure is necessary. Strictly speaking, it can be used without licensing either. In times of natural disaster, radio will be there regardless of internet, phone lines or cellular service. My wife even mentioned that we should get our own scanner. This is what spurned me to try out Software Defined Radio (SDR). As you know, I am still working on that but I can tune in a channel on the SDR and hear when I talk on GMRS channels. So, I am close, I just need to get the right configuration setup to listen to emergency broadcasts.
End Your Programming Routine: I don’t know if I will ever be a guy that sits in front of a radio talking to strangers at night. One video I watched recently said that developing scanning channels requires time. That is one thing that I feel like I have little of. But, radio does appeal to my technical, scientific and preparedness side. I definitely want to work on going a little deeper just for the ability to say that I know how to do it and can do it competently.
May 1, 2024 – Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking
Ratio by Michael Ruhlman is the Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection for May. How about that, it is the first of the month and I am already done? Well, you can guess that I have had a lot of reading time lately. It is waiting in the waiting room for doctor’s appointments or sitting by while my wife watches TV or is sleeping. Consequently I finished this month’s book and I am way ahead on Dante’s Divine Comedy.
I didn’t know it at the time, but growing up I was spoiled. My Grandmother was the best pie maker that I knew. The truth is, everybody on that side of my family made good pies. It was only when I got exposed to store made pies that I realized not all pies were equal.
One day I asked my Grandmother what the secret was and she said that my Great Grandmother was a pie maker for a diner and she said that the ratio of the crust was not only easy but also the secret. It was 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup shorting and 1/4 cup water. That turns out to be 4:2;1 in terms of ratios.
Not long after that, I assumed the role of process chemist. I spent a lot of my time scaling batches between the lab, the pilot reactor and full scale batches. I soon learned that it wasn’t the units of things that made a difference but the ratios of ingredients. Once I had the ratios figured out, I could convert to the exact units of measure to my hearts content.
I was excited to read this book. I intuitively knew that ratios were the secret but I had never given much thought to it other than the pie crust. After reading it, I have more mixed feelings about it. Here are some of my thoughts.
First, I would say that probably half of the book was about baking. While I don’t want to split hairs, typically baking and cooking are different disciplines. Certainly at home, it is often the cook is also baking but it set some different expectations from the title and the content. To cement matters, I am not much of a baker nor do I have a ton of interest in it. That is not to say I don’t enjoy a good desert, but I just don’t crave them much along with the clean-up that goes with it.
Of some of the items in the cooking one example was stock making. I find it a stretch that there is a proper proportion of bones to water. This is especially true when Ruhlman agrees with Samin Nosrat that if you cannot use homemade stock, you are better off using water than store purchased stock. I use what I have on hand and that is just fine with me.
Many of the final items were pretty highbrow. There were more French dishes in this book than I have ever read. Many of them I had never heard of either. The final chapter was about custards and he goes on to describe a smoked salmon custard with shrimp halves. Additionally, he talks about making crème brulee. I am not saying home cooks shouldn’t attempt this but it after you make your shrimp custard to top steak, who is making crème brulee?
Finally, I disagreed with some of the ratios. I tend to think that ratios are a starting point in cooking. If you don’t have 2:1:1 ratio of onion, carrots and celery, is it still mirepoix? I think so. Sometimes I use the half of onion that is already cut rather than a whole one. Sometimes I want to finish off the old bag of carrots or celery that is long in the tooth.
Lest you think that I am totally down on this book, I would suggest that for people that are clueless in the kitchen this is a good resource. He does freely state that ratios can be modified in most cases. But, if people do not know how to start, this is a gateway to the science of cooking. There is freedom in not being a slave to a recipe. You can’t get the freedom until you understand each ingredient’s place in the dish.
End Your Programming Routine: As a former chemist doing chemical engineering work, I see ratios in recipes. I find myself scaling for the ingredients on hand or eaters. So, maybe this book isn’t for me necessarily but it might be for you. Especially if you are struggling in the baking department or fine French food. It may change your perspective from a mystery to an art.
April 30, 2024 – My Life As a Country Song
No, my wife didn’t run off and my dog didn’t die. But, last week was a different kind of tough. The week before, I was dealing with the side effects of chemo and being a full time caretaker. But, we were mostly at home and sheltering in place. Last week as there was more getting out and about, it seemed like everything was going wrong.
My wife likes to say that I am ‘a glass half empty’ person. I don’t really think so. I like to think of myself as analytical and balanced. I like to see the full spectrum both good and bad. I suppose that to people who don’t like to see both sides, that is construed as negative. I fail to see how always being positive even when the odds seem low is a better trait that viewing the whole picture optimistically.
I say that because I am not complaining. I am going to get to a point by the end today. I think helpful advice is that we cannot change or dwell in the facts. My wife has cancer and we are doing what we can to combat it. All the ‘why me?’ in the world isn’t going to change a thing. It does however make life much more complicated.
This process is moving at an extremely disjointed manner. One day chemo is scheduled every other Thursday, then it is every other Friday. Take this medication before chemo, no don’t take it at all. Come in for this reason, no see this specialist. They are still doing diagnostic testing for goodness sake to determine if they are proceeding in the correct direction. Every conversation is musical chairs in who is running this process and is this information actually correct. This is the background for what I am dealing with.
Then, my son calls and says ‘my car has a problem’. He is about 45 minutes away. So, I have to drop what I am doing to go get him at 10pm. Due to a large coolant leak, I decide the best coarse of action is to have it towed home rather than risk a warped cylinder head. Imagine that I am trying to get my wife ready for an all day procedure that she is extremely nervous about while dealing with the tow truck driver at the same time because the car is locked and twenty minutes from the hospital.
The next day, my SSL certificate updates for altf4.co. Every 60 days this happens. But, it also follows with calamity. It seems like every time I go in there the user interface changes and I struggle with this process. I have come to anticipate the suck, but it does make it frustrating. This time I could not get the DNS provider to recognize my security documents. I tried and tried until I finally broke down and reached out to support. The problem was technical, I am not sure that there was anything I could do.
I was trying to setup my walkie talkies so that I could give one to my wife and I could hold onto one. This would give me some freedom to be out and about the house but still be in communication. This was the whole reason why I went through the licensing requirements that I talked about last week. One of them I couldn’t get to work. I bought new battery packs, I swapped batteries, no go. Finally, I took it apart to find some of the internal components fried.
No problem, I will break out my second set. They are not doing any good squirreled away in my emergency box for years anyway. One battery was dying, so I ordered new battery packs. Low and behold, there are a lot of aftermarket batteries that are similar but not the same on Amazon (even with the same battery model number). So, now I have two new batteries that don’t charge in my radios since I already opened them and threw away the packaging.
Last week it felt like everything was an obstacle. Everything I did had unintended consequences and nothing worked as planned. But, I want to go back to the beginning here. First, I don’t know what God has planned. I also know that I am handed scenarios that I can handle and learn from. As I am writing, things are getting better. My website is running, the batteries are cleared up, the problem is diagnosed with my son’s car and I think we have all the testing done and the path is clear on chemo.
More so than that, when things are not working right we just have to compartmentalize and be objective. Most of these things were not life altering problems. Take the problems and triage, then prioritize the work to solutions. The list might get longer before it gets shorter but we have to focus on the important things first.
End Your Programming Routine: To be truthful, I wasn’t exactly happy while all of these things were going on at the same time. But, being able to step back, it wasn’t huge problems. I suppose it is fortunate that more bad things didn’t keep happening at the same time. Mostly, step back and analyze the problems to the best of your ability. I am no electronics expert but I can see and understand burnt capacitors, Time to cut your losses and move on.
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