Author: bhayes952

December 9, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:3

December 9, 2022 /

I suppose that you could say that we are becoming fast friends: Friday’s with Ayn Rand. We started this journey July 8 so that makes us five months in with still nearly two months to go. Crazy because on one hand, it seems like it is just wizzing by but on the other hand, it seems like this had been going on forever.

I am not sure why Rand does this. Within this chapter, there are three distinct things going on and really could have been three chapters. At least the second sequence leads to the third and is loosely associated, but they really are three separate happenings. Once again, I am not going to give a plot synopsis but talk about it.

This chapter is titled ‘Anti-Greed’ which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for once. I think I would have titled it ‘Truth is a Choice’ or maybe ‘Choices have Consequences’. At the beginning of the chapter, Dr. Robert Stadler is whisked away for a demonstration. It turns out the demonstration is a new weapon. A weapon to end all wars and bring peace forever (sound familiar?). It is Stadler’s science and experimentation that provided the basis of this new weapon even though the research was allegedly unrelated.

The weasel that is Dr. Floyd Ferris has been working with the government to create this new weapon without the knowledge of Sadler. When it comes time to do the Public Relations after the demonstration, Ferris essentially blackmails Sadler to either stand for the new weapon as a show of unity or face the consequences. Sadler, being a prototypical liberal turns out to be spineless and goes with the flow.

Later in the same chapter, James Taggart informs Dabny that she is booked on the Bertram Scudder radio program. Her survival for over a month is cause for national celebration and an event to promote unity. Dabny refuses to do it until she is called on by Lillian Reardon. At such time Mrs Reardon threatens Dabny with blackmail about her affair with Hank Reardon unless she goes on the radio show. Dabny does go on, but it is not a repeat of the Sadler affair.

I am a believer in Social morals and codes. I think they are necessary for well functioning society. I guess to me that those are really derived from a higher power and not necessarily an obligation to a peer. For instance, do not lie is not in the 10 commandments.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Notice that this is not written as Thou shalt not lie, it is more circumstantial than that. Do not lie at the expense of someone else. When it comes to the truth, some truth’s are not earned when they are purely for someone else’s gain. As an example “Do you own firearms?” Now, I ask you what business is it of yours? What are you going to do with this information? Who really wants to know? To me, this is baseless questioning where the worthiness of the truth is subjective.

I am not naïve. The fact of the matter is that most lies do harm someone else. I am merely pointing out that we are not biblically commanded to always tell the truth. Ironically, when I read the biblical analysis this is all in reference to business type proceedings be court or trade. I think that if we look at the other related commandments.

2. Thou shalt not have any other gods before me

4. Honor thy mother and father

10. Though shalt not covet

These are all directing us to remain faithful and have a form of lying associated. I do find it interesting that they are directed at specific people God, parents and peers. There really is no code of conduct for spouses, children, slaves or extended family. If you are taking the Christian approach, extended family could be neighbors but I certainly don’t see people within the nuclear family impacted by these commandments. My wife is not my neighbor – you get the point.

How did we get here you ask? If I quote Hank Reardon from the chapter “People think that a liar gains victory over his victim. What I have learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself to then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked.” From a biblical lie, even in the case where someone ‘gets away with lying’, they are still trapped in that alternate reality.

End Your Programming Routine: This chapter actually had another theme in it that I completely ignored. But what I wrote about was so much bigger. Tom Gresham is famous for saying ‘a lie is only a lie if you deserve the truth’. Sometimes, it takes guts to tell the truth and sometimes a lie is completely justified. You just have to know when is the right time for either.

December 8, 2022 – D-Day is Here and We Are on the Ledge

December 8, 2022 /

Today is the day that Oregon Measure 114 is supposed to go into effect. Boy, has it been a ride. Most of this I have written as time elapsed through this process. As the calendar neared the end of November, the instant background checks were backed up as high as a 20,000 person waiting list. Things were so congested that gun stores started crumbling by mid-November. I saw posts as early as November 17 that stores were no longer accepting orders as they had more than they could fill before this date.

In my local store, there are no firearms for sale. Everything that was on the walls and in the display cabinet is gone. They also are not taking online orders due to volume at this time. Some stores are choosing to follow the letter of the law and release firearms after three days of back-up. That is assuming that they have inventory to sell.

On December 5, we now have 42,000 background checks waiting with Oregon State Police (OSP). They are predicting that many of these will not be cleared before December 8. Once the measure goes into effect, applicants will have to start over with the new process. This means that any person wishing to purchase a firearm will have to be licensed by the county sheriff.

There are at least four lawsuits filed waiting to be heard The first one that had an initial hearing December 2 was sponsored by Oregon Firearms Federation (OFF). National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) along with National Rifle Association – Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) has filed another. The 2nd Amendment Foundation in conjunction with two county Sheriffs have filed a third. Even Sportsman’s Warehouse and Yamhill County Sheriff have filed a lawsuit.

Each lawsuit has a different bend to it. We have the constitutionality of the premise in the first place, questions about magazine capacity being banned while in ‘common use’ and effectively a defacto ban on firearms because there is no such permitting process in place. We are waiting to see if a temporary injunction will be issued by December 8 until a full hearing is in place.

I am going to make a prediction here. I think that the law is eventually going to stand. As long as the criteria is uniformly understood and applied, it is going to hold up. The reason that Bruen lost in the supreme court was that there was no practical way of exercising 2nd amendment rights. I don’t see regulating to a large extent as removing the right. I hope I am wrong, but that is my prediction.

I have been taking some temperatures on local forums. The overwhelming attitude (90%) is non-compliance. Or said another way, most people are not standing in line to get training to purchase another firearm. This is one slice and one look, but I really don’t see how this is going to work out for them. The talk has been get what you can get now and forget the rest. I am not going to share much in the way of strategy because people can look that up for themselves. I am not going to be the one that spoils the dish so to speak.

Given that most of the forum members are not signing up for ‘training’ there have been several discussions about moving. Again, the prevailing opinion is that this is going to go everywhere. I am afraid that they are right. While I do believe that the ‘Red’ states are going to be the last to fall, the overall trend is freedom is not valued. If it were, how could we even have half of the national debates that we actually have?

To make matters more complicated, the Secretary of State is saying that Measure 114 is legitimate from a vote count an legal standpoint while the Attorney General is saying that the measure is currently unenforceable. The Secretary of State is asking for a two month extension while all signs point to the measure going into effect.

As of December 7, at least two preliminary injections have been ruled. The first was dismissed; this was the lawsuit brought by OFF. The second was approved for a one month stay. The purpose of this delay is because the state is not ready to enact the measure at this point. Once again, we are marching toward enactment.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe I should have read the measure more closely. I have now come to realize that there is no provision for confiscation or outright barring of magazines which I previously believed (this is akin to bumpstocks, once deemed illegal they were forbidden, period). That being said, I have plenty of range work to do in the next couple of years where I don’t have the desire to purchase a new firearm until I get done gathering data with what I currently have. I do have some desires to trade up but that can also wait. This leaves me in a position that I can probably wait out my kids final couple years in school before moving. So, I am taking everything day by day at this point.

December 7, 2022 – Are Two Things Worth It?

December 7, 2022 /

It is not everyday that I actually learn something. Most of the non-fiction type entertainment ends up being a perspective rather than actually something new. I can’t say that I actually know everything, that would be ridiculous but I do get surprised when I come across something that is new.

As I continue to evaluate the Backwoods Home universe, I keep getting surprised on what I learn. Since this issue was dubbed the ‘potato issue’ I knew that it was going to be pretty spud heavy. My dad quit growing potatoes in the early 1980s as a result of blight in the soil. To be frank, potatoes were cheap and readily available.

I guess in my head, I thought that growing potatoes was really impossible as a result of my upbringing. But, from this issue I learned that there are many (possibly 1000’s) of different varieties, some much more resistant than others. Unless I move somewhere more rural, I doubt that I will dedicate space to grow potatoes, so this was interesting but didn’t really change my perspective.

The first thing that I really learned was that there are two types of potatoes waxy and starchy. I guess I always knew that there was such a thing as boiling potatoes but I had never considered that there were two distinct categories. From this I also learned that there are some in-betweens like Yukon Gold that share properties of both (must be why it is so popular).

Of course, I have cooked with both but to me a potato was a potato. It is 95% likely that we would have a Russet (or starchy) potato on hand rather than a waxy variety. Now that distinction is clearly made, it is much more likely that I will consider the variety for the recipe. It would seem like the in-between varieties would be the best to keep in the pantry.

The second article in this issue that really opened my eyes was about coffee. I have always prided myself on not being a coffee snob. I don’t like cream or sugar and am not big on ‘mixed’ drinks. The fanciest I usually go is Americano – black.

But, the truth is that I think a fresh cup of Folgers can be quite good. I have ran a pot of Folgers after a Starbucks French Roast and found it just as appealing. I am not a rube when it comes to coffee, but I would say that I am ignorant. Let us get a little technical.

Green coffee beans need to be roasted to be brewed. The amount of roasting determine the darkness of the bean and therefore the coffee. Green beans hold freshness for a long time (I would say years, but I don’t know for sure). It is oxidation that effects the flavor. Apparently, oxidation doesn’t occur until after roasting and is significantly increased after grinding because of the exponential increase of surface area.

Long story short, for the best coffee leave your beans green until ready to be used. Here is my ignorance kicking in. I thought roasting coffee was an exotic process requiring expensive equipment. It turns out that this can be done on a skillet over the stove or even in a hot air popcorn popper. This is where my revelation began.

I just did a quick check at it seems like 3 lbs of raw coffee can be purchased for $21 from Amazon. I have no idea whether this is a good price or not, but it definitely seems like a price that can justify trying it. I can’t speak to quality of outcome but generally speaking, it is a pretty inexpensive experiment.

End Your Programming Routine: It does seem like I am getting value out of these magazines. I am leaning more strongly each episode to subscribing. It is nice to be pleasantly surprised. I think what else makes a difference is that I can see myself doing these things. Don’t get me wrong I love Fine Woodworking, but most of those projects I will never attempt. It is mostly inspiration (and desire) when I read it. Hence, I stopped subscribing years ago (but I do read it at the library every time I go).

December 6, 2022 – It Is Good To Have Stuff

December 6, 2022 /

Have you heard that you can be owned by your stuff? As a preparedness minded person, I definitely have more stuff than I need because I have duplicates of a lot of tools and an inventory of supplies and consumables. That being said, I am also frugal when it comes to many things.

So for instance both of my vehicles have been paid off for five years. I am not looking forward to another car payment. Just looking, it seems like we will have significant payments for a reasonably new car ($800/mo). I am delaying as long as possible. But, my Lincoln Navigator is showing some problems. There is some sort of electric draw that is killing the battery overnight.

As a good preparedness person, I have a battery jumper, jumper cables, battery chargers etc. My first go to is the jumper. It requires the least amount of effort to start the car. But, my jumper is anemic. I think I looked up and it only has 300 cold cranking amps. My car battery is 700 cold cranking amps, so a true dead battery isn’t touched by the jump pack. Having dawdled around with this for a number of situations, I really need to get a bigger jump pack.

When I went to go plug this unit back in to keep the battery charged, the cord arced. Upon closer inspection, the molded plug was severed nearly in half. On closer inspection, both sides had visible wire when the cord was bend ninety degrees to the attached end.. This wasn’t sabotage, but cheap materials. I think in the cold shop, the plastic insulation on the outside of the wire cracked to the point that the wires were exposed. In the photo below, if you look carefully you can see the exposed wires on the male end of the plug.

Now what? Good luck finding a replacement cord for a no-name jump pack that is 8-10 years old. I know, I will repair it if I can. Fortunately, I found the right male/female replacement ends for a total of $7. Incidentally, while browsing for an upgraded jump pack, I found a replacement cord for $10. The advantage to my strategy (repair) is that I know these parts will fit because I have already tested them.

This is not a hard process but there are a couple of tricks. The hardest part is figuring out how to disassemble the replacement plugs. But the first thing is to keep the polarity of the plug on the right (or same) side. Some cords have a stripe down one of the wires, this one has a rib. Said another way, in this cable one wire is ribbed the other is smooth.

It doesn’t matter which side you pick but stay consistent, especially if you are only replacing one plug. The neutral on a two wire setup is the bigger of the two prongs (or holes). The neutral on the male end should end up as the neutral on the female end of the plug.

There is a saying in electrical ‘Black on Brass’. Black is the typical color of the hot wire. White is the typical color of the neutral. If there is a choice of materials, the hot wire should land on the brass connector. I don’t know this as a fact but I think that brass probably has better heat resistance and therefore resists a screw backing out better than aluminum or steel.

With these particular replacements, they came with two different colored connectors. So, I chose the ribbed wire as the neutral and connected each end to the silver side. The other side were connected to the brass terminals. That is it, the cord is repaired.

End Your Programming Routine: Since this unit has proven nearly useless as a jumper (on my vehicles), it doesn’t mean it can’t be useful. For instance, it makes a hell of a phone/tablet/computer charger. So, I am in the market for a more appropriately sized jumper but now that this is going again I am going to keep it around as two are one.

December 5, 2022 – A Podcast About Nothing

December 5, 2022 /

It is sometimes the little things that move us from one thing to another. I walk through Black Friday to spending some time in the shop. I started work on my sofa table to ultimately hold my Hi-Fi system. This is the final piece in my office setup, but it is a big one.

End Your Programming Routine: Ultimately, we will see if I am right or feel the same way later in life. There a lot of philosophical choices I discuss in this episode. My biggest thing to battle is going to be maintaining progress. Unfortunately, this is a difficult time of year to really do that But, I need to keep pushing every day/week even if it is only 30 minutes a day.

December 2, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:2

December 2, 2022 /

I think I can see the end is near, at least I think I can. Have you ever ran a long race? I did a half marathon one time and you could see the mile markers. At mile 10, you didn’t know quite what the finish line would look like but you knew that if you kept going you would make it. That is kind of how this feels.

As books go, this chapter was a long one. At almost 60 pages and tiny font, it feels like I could have read a book just in this chapter. I am going to try and not spoil the plot by talking around what is going on. I will let you infer what happens without me outright saying it.

The citizens of Galt’s Gulch give Dabny thirty days to choose to stay or to leave. It is their hope that they can prove life is superior here to the outside world. I would say that Dabny takes advantage of her time and waits to the last minute to make her decision.

While there are so many parallels to real life in this book, there are just as many results of fiction as well. The book would have you believe that a small group of doers could disappear and put the foundations of a modern society together by chance. Somehow, it would all work out because every person would fill that exact niche in an economy.

Someone would grow all the wheat needed, someone would mill it and package it and someone would sell it. Someone would make the machinery to harvest and process. Someone would make the packaging. Someone would mine the ore to refine to metal, and someone would take that metal and make equipment with it to harvest the grain, even if it is just a scythe. And this is one food item.

I will say, ‘in the real world’ I will talk about two types of people in this category. There are the citizens of Galt’s Gulch and those that haven’t yet given up or seen the light. Within that latter group, there are some that simply won’t give up. I think that this is what makes society work. Just like the song says, the world needs ‘All Kinds of Kinds‘.

There is some advice that I wish I could more easily follow. To find your passion or maybe better, to truly be happy you need to quit. You need to quit doing the things that make you miserable be it a job, an education, a habit or a relationship. As I have eluded to in the course of my writing, the only major thing I have ever quit was my job in 2019. Even then, I only did it because my wife forced me to choose my job or my marriage.

I never give up or surrender if there is a chance that I can still persevere. I was always taught that this quality was admirable so it is ingrained in me. But, it also lacks the true secret to happiness because you spend all your time fighting to win and when you do, it is hollow and empty.

I would wager that a higher percentage of rich people are high school/college dropouts. Why is this? Because they didn’t waste their time, marking time, getting programmed. It is us that followed the path all the way through to start a new journey of someone else’s vision for our lives that didn’t get it. They quit because the status quo didn’t work for where they wanted to go.

I am not convinced that every successful person followed their dreams to what they are doing. I think that their true dreams were to be free and independent whatever business endeavor that manifest itself in. And even then, the creative types try new things, sell their endeavors and try to start over.

Think about Elon Musk for a moment. He was set for life when he sold PayPal. But, then he started Tesla and SpaceX and bought Twitter. I can’t speak for the financial state of the sum of the businesses. But, he didn’t sell PayPal to buy Twitter. He sold PayPal because he was ready to do something else. That is quitting something (like running a company – forever) to try and develop new interests.

To me success is not achieving a goal, it is enjoying the journey. By that definition, there is no possible way to be successful when the journey is miserable. There is a commonly held belief in business that if the business is not growing, it is dying. Why is this? There is no number that a business can achieve that is definitive because it is almost a living entity itself. A business is measured against it’s continual advancement, not what it did, once. So should we behave as people.

End Your Programming Routine: I knew that I would not be successful when I took a job in 2021. The reason being is that nothing changed, only the nameplate on my LinkedIn account. It wasn’t who I was working for that made the difference, it was the fact that I went back to doing the same things as before I quit. The one thing that did was that I started Altf4. The smart person would quit because it hasn’t made a dime. But, you know me: I won’t quit.

December 1, 2022 – My Seed Saving Experiment

December 1, 2022 /

I am very disappointed. I have been anticipating saving seeds from one tomato plant that survived under the lights from my seed starting. I have been waiting for months (since March when I had this idea). I waited for the plant to fruit and mature. I resisted eating the couple ripe ones that made it so that I could do this experiment.

I left the tomato on the vine until it froze. Then I picked it and set it on the counter till I got around to it. It really didn’t look bad when I picked it, but after it sat around for a week, I figured I better get on this project before it is too late.

After reading the article in Self-Reliance Magazine, I was supposed to scoop out the seeds and place them in a vessel containing water. This container would stay in the refrigerator until the gelatinous coating around the seeds decomposed or separated. Viable seeds were supposed to sink to the bottom. All the gunk would be decanted off the top and the seeds could be dried with a paper towel. The dry seeds would be put in a cool and dry location, like in an envelope.

This technique is supposed to work with open pollenated varieties (also known as heirloom). I thought this was, but I could not find any seeds to remove. It is possible that I waited too long and the seeds were buried in the rotting flesh? I don’t know but I searched through this mess. This was the primary reason that I failed.

Back to the drawing board. My gardening success is directly proportional to how much effort I have put in. In the last couple years it has been very little to almost none. But, that is OK because my experiments are really an attempt to align how I want to garden with actual results. So, I will continue low effort type attempts in hopes that I will learn something valuable.

End Your Programming Routine: It has never been intent my to only show successes. In fact, I want to be real with what I do. Of course it wounds my pride to fail at this endeavor. I believe in my heart that I should be able to do anything that I set my mind to. That being said, I am a strong believer of failure as a teacher and the only way to learn is to fail. To be honest, I only selected this tomato because it was the one that ripened. Maybe, if I pay more attention to variety, growing and harvest, I can accomplish this experiment next year.

November 30, 2022 – The Case For an Outdoor Cat

November 30, 2022 /

I have written about the fact that I grew up rurally. It was also the case that no animals lived inside the house. We had a dog that we would let in on a rug by the door, but she went back outside before bed. All cats were outside cats. They were kind of pets and mostly feral.

I am a big believer that cats have a job around the home. Their job is to keep vermin at bay outside the house. In the picture above, you can see Leo got himself a rat.

Growing up, we had mice and moles. I never remember having them inside the house. Here is seems like we have rats and squirrels (as well as skunks, possum and raccoon). Both like to think that they have the right to come in from time to time. I can say that our one outside cat is a pathetic excuse for a hunter. In the ten years that we have had her, we have had very little production like maybe 5 mice total. I have eliminated more than that myself.

Leo is about a year and a half. He has recently decided that he would like to spend more time outside than inside, which is fine by me. Our only true worry is that we live on a very busy road and we have had more than one cat hit by a car. At this point, it is very difficult to stop him from going out, so I guess we will leave things up to fate.

When we first got married, we got a kitten we named Spunky. Spunky was one tough dude. I one time observed him chasing a fox when we lived in South Carolina. He was a true defender of the home and he saw snakes, lizards, rabbits and bugs as well as mice as his prey. Unfortunately, he got hit by a car about fifteen years ago. Every since then, we have been searching for a cat that would take his job seriously.

I don’t know how to pick them and I don’t know the secret to getting a good cat. I will say both Spunky and Leo were obtained as kittens. But so were others that have done little to nothing. Our one shelter cat was a wreck that peed everywhere and ran off and died after about six months. He had some serious disease issues as we spent hundreds trying to get him right. I guess the secret is to keep trying.

We pay for pest service. I have followed all the advice including eliminating the compost pile. The experts say that vermin can get into a building with a whole the size of a quarter. Part of the problem is animals like squirrels create their own holes. I don’t believe that a cat is going to kill a squirrel, but I do believe that they will chase and hunt them and reduce their presence.

The best cats are the ones that go in and out in my opinion. They have confidence to have some affection like a pet and security that they are going to be OK around humans. The feral cats tend to be extremely skittish around people and will never allow themselves to be caught for things like vet care. They also seem to be relatively low on the pest elimination scale. I don’t know if it is the desire to please the owner or survival instinct that makes them behave that way.

End Your Programming Routine: I have heard that cats outside devastate the bird population as the prime argument for keeping them inside. I have seen birds killed, but I find that to be rare compared to the other animals. Around my house, there are a lot of starlings that I would also like to see killed so I am hoping to see more birds quite frankly. I guess I am not saying that they don’t have a negative impact but I think their overall good outweighs the bad. I am all for keeping the pest control outside, that is worth having a good cat.

November 29, 2022 – Learning New Things From Self Reliance Magazine

November 29, 2022 /

I have written about my interest in the Self-Reliance/Backwoods Home publishing universe. Currently, I am buying them as add-on’s when I go buy pet food at the local farm store. I very well may end up subscribing but I am still evaluating the situation because no one wants a magazine subscription where you know all the content. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but I was when I read the Fall issue of Self-Reliance magazine I found some things that I didn’t know or wanted to pursue.

The second article was about how to save seeds from tomatoes. I literally have tomato setting on my desk that I am going to attempt to do this. If you remember from the spring, I had one plant that survived under the lights of my starting. I have planned all along trying to propagate this plant because maybe it has the secret sauce to withstand my abuse.

The fourth article was about building rain barrels. This is another thing that I want to do in the late winter or early spring next year. The reason that I want to do this is to have a water source near my greenhouse. I am hoping that by making things more convenient, it will empower these endeavors to be more productive.

About 2/3’s of the way through, there was an article about using scraps. What they were advocating were making jelly from peach or pear peels. The article also claimed that tomato paste could be made from the skins of tomatoes (after juicing or saucing). There is something called watermelon pickles where you pickle the white part of the watermelon. I had no idea, and I thought that I knew all the frugal tips.

Finally, there is an article on learning how to arc weld. I literally have my dad’s welder in my shop. It is the same model as the article and it is something that I have wanted to learn. We borrowed it work on my son’s projects and kind of muddled through it. But still, talk about being on the same page.

There were some other interesting and useful things in this issue but not to the same scale of symbiosis. So, if you recall from my last review, I was less enamored with Self-Reliance than I was with Backwoods Home. For some reason, the Fall issue of Backwoods Home never made it to the news stands. I have the Winter one that I am waiting to read in a break from Atlas Shrugged. But, this reinforced my thoughts that subscribing in a bundle is the right way to go.

End Your Programming Routine: I am really glad that I gave this title a second chance. I don’t think the information is as comprehensive as I would like, but I get it. You are probably not going to want to read a ten page article on saving tomato seeds. The basic technique is conveyed in one page. I am OK with it having a little gray area because that is how we learn. We take what we know and think about what we don’t to come up with a method that works for us.

November 28, 2022 – What Does Freedom Look Like?

November 28, 2022 /

I am taking a look at some data from the Cato Institute of Freedom‘s index. There is a state by state comparison of many different categories to make up an ultimate ranking. I found the recent decline of own state very validating.

End Your Programming Routine: This is just the beginning for this journey. I don’t really need to make a move but I definitely want to . This gives me the time to do my due diligence before just making a leap. It is hard to say where this will truly lead but I need to spend some time if it is ever going to happen.