I’ve got a lot of problems with you people. This is my annual airing of grievances. Some of it is pretty serious and some of it was kind of light hearted. But, I like the tradition of Festivus and the airing of grievances. Get ready to get punched in the face if you are taking a stand against me, cause it is on. We will settle this with the feats of strength.
One correction for the OSU Beavers basketball. They won three games, not two. That was my fault for not researching my facts (including my own blog) before speaking. I still contend that this is the worst team in history due to the total number of losses.
End Your Programming Routine: Sometimes there is no changing the programming. Today, I am enjoying some old fashion bitching. That is part of the tradition of Festivus in the first place.
Unless you are taking wasted time and converting it into productivity. I have talked about this before but one hour a day adds up to seven hours a week. All of a sudden, you went from doing nothing in a week to almost one full workday’s worth of productivity. The key is setting goals and making your time productive.
What I mean by that is that if you can break your work up into bitesize chunks, then you can batch similar operations into short bursts. As an example, it takes time to setup the table saw. What you definitely don’t want to do is spend your one hour setting up a particular cut and then changing it as soon as you are complete (unless you are only cutting one of a particular setup). You may spend one hour setting up and then the next hour cutting everything.
I find if you start thinking this way, they your work becomes much more efficient. The added advantage of batching is that you have times between your work where you mind starts playing ‘job Tetris’. What can I do in an hour? What do I want to do to setup for the next session? How many of this operation do I have to do? Am I setup to get make the best use of my time?
A change that I have done to make my life easier is getting my tools on mobile bases. I don’t have the luxury of everything having a dedicated station so I have to move things around. This allows me to setup and clean-up without as much of the excuse of moving things around as a barrier. This has been a problem in the past because I say to myself, ‘I don’t want to start this because I will have to move everything to get the machine setup. I am want to do X and I only have the time to do Y which means it will be in the way until I can get back to it. Who knows when that will be, so some other time.’
Often times I have found that if I start to get project momentum, I start to cheat on my dedicated time and add 15 minutes more. Fifteen becomes thirty sometimes and before you know it, things are done. I would say rarely does one hour become forty-five minutes or less. That only happens when you don’t really have time and you try to push it.
I have started to steal time in the morning. My biological clock is trending toward early to bed and early to rise. On the weekend, if I get up at 5AM I may have three or four hours before anyone even wakes up. This is the perfect stolen time.
Before I had this revelation, I didn’t waste this time. It was time that I spent working on the blog and even doing some extra posting. But there are only so many hours in the day and I already spend a lot of time each week on this endeavor, so I want to use this time in the shop. I have created time in the shop that I didn’t have.
If there is one downside, it is that the shop door faces the bedroom window. That means that a lot of machine noise tends to easily carry toward my sleeping wife. Some operations particularly joining long boards, it is much easier to do with the door open. After confirming that this is an issue, I now try to guard against making a bunch of machine noise before six or seven. With that, I can turn the heater on and do quieter things or not start until a more reasonable time.
Maybe not a downside, but when I first open my eyes and kind of check the clock, I often see that it is time I can get up and I am motivated to get the day going. This sometimes takes a toll on getting a little extra sleep because my mind starts working.
End Your Programming Routine: I don’t have time is a common excuse for me. Sometimes it is true while most of the time it is not. I need to get to point where I am saying ‘How can I’ rather than ‘I can’t because’. You all know that I am not one to sit and watch TV or the phone. I can barely sit through one movie with my wife. That being said, we can all do better with the time that we have so look for that time you can steal.
I am not tying flies yet. Let’s see if I can shake the cobwebs off enough to get started. On my 18th birthday, I got a class where my dad and I went to a fly tying class for a term. That was a few weeks shy of thirty years ago, I think that was close to the last time I did this. The good news is that this is no longer a dark art. With YouTube and websites, the information should be readily available. I still have my old manuals too.
I suppose the good news is that this is not expensive to get into. Some of the introduction kits are around $50 and have everything that you need to start and move on from there. Even the supplies are pretty inexpensive. But a word of warning, as with all fishing tackle, some things are hot at particular location and/or time. It really is best to tie for the situation and not just amass a huge pie of potentially useless flies (unless you just like doing it).
What I am showing in the picture above is the result of two kits plus some additions. Without much ado, here are the required items.
Vise
thread
fish hooks
scissors or X-acto knife
materials appropriate to the pattern.
These are the strongly helpful items
bobbin
hackle pliers
head cement
That is it. It is really not that difficult to get started as long as your dexterity is reasonable, you have an adequate workspace with light and space. Some people use a repurposed desk, I am using a dedicated bench, I have tied plenty of flies at the kitchen table and even a card table in front of the TV.
There is more to know with materials, but I think that I will save that for another day. With that, you cannot really separate flies and fishing because that is the whole point. So, I am going to cover some terms that you will come across.
Wet Fly – This a a whole class of flies that are meant to spend time under the water.
Nymph – this is a type of wet fly that simulates a larva
Emerger – This type of fly is when the larva is changing into an adult
Streamer – This is a flashy wet fly used in steelhead fishing
Dry Fly – This is a whole class of flies that are meant to float on the water. This would be the classic fly.
Popper – these are flies that make noise. They are wet flies but make a sound when you are stripping them back in. Bass plugs do this as well.
The world of fly fishing can be confusing because they use some of the same equipment as conventional angling, but call them different names. For instance conventional fishing would call this item a ‘bobber’ while in fly fishing, it is called an ‘indicator’. I think that this is part of why fly fishing appears pretentious along with the catch and release ethic among other things.
A dry fly traditionally used natural materials like hair and feathers. It seems like the whole movement has loosened up quite a bit with flies called ‘dirty flies’. They might have suggestive names or they may be made of any kind of material. This is things like craft materials or rubber legs and things significantly departing from hair and feathers. I guess what I am trying to say is that what used to be very rigid rules about what to wear, what to use and how to do it seem like it is slowly changing.
I have always liked streamers. These flamboyant flies are imitating baitfish. This is where I am going to start because it uses a big hook. This will give me opportunity to practice technique at the same time I have some room to work.
End Your Programming Routine: Next stop, actually tying flies. Of course as I said at the beginning, these first couple are just to get my head right. I am not going to worry about them actually being fishable. That means the right fly for the fish and environment. I think for 2023, I am going to set a goal of catching a fish on a fly that I have tied. I should say try to catch a fish on a fly that I tied.
I am changing a couple things up in the upcoming weeks. One is that I have Friday and next Monday as holidays. Since I have already queued the Atlas Shrugged review, that will end the week. My normal Monday podcast is moved to Thursday so that I can coincide with the actual date of Festivus.
I will be taking next Monday off as I deserve a little time off too. That makes the next podcast on Tuesday the 27th of December. However, I have decided to move the podcast to later in the week, the exact date is to be determined. Right now, I am up in the air about whether I will post on January 2nd or not. As of now, it would be slated as a podcast day. If I change my mind, the podcast will come out on Tuesday, January 3.
Things are a little crazy lately. My work is getting ready for a big software release so I am way busier than normal at this time. Last week for instance, I spent all week in Indianapolis. Family is still on normal, breakneck speed and I need to finish holiday tasks. Oh, did I mention that my wife is having surgery today and will be out of commission for the next week at least.
I will also likely be away from home the first two weeks in February. Right now, I am queuing evergreen type posts to handle my weeks where my schedule is beyond my control. But, I have only been gone one week at a time up until now. I may do a combination of queued posts and real-time or I may just be skinny for a couple of weeks. I just depends on how things go between now and then.
End Your Programming Routine: There is a colloquial saying that is equated to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “Nothing is constant but change”. In this case, I made changes so that some days line up with the activities that I want to present. I will go back to a more familiar schedule after the holidays are over. I do self identify as a Grinch but I am making an effort to try and be present with my family. Enjoy the run up and whatever traditions you put into effect this season.
I kind of go off today. I sat down and just started writing because what is happening in the book holds such a mirror up to our own society. I guess that I can only say how ironic that the parallels of the 1950s are matching the 2020s so many times. It just has to be that they are not parallels but truths because that is the only justification that would make logical sense.
Jim Taggert’s wife confronts him after listening to the radio program that Dabny spilled the beans on her affair with Hank Reardon. The nature of the conversation was more about who was really in control of Taggert Transportation. This is a night that Jim was supposed to be at a party whereby he was celebrating that he would acquire d’Anconia Copper by government takeover. Incidentally, I thought a person could only own one business? OK, so there is a story gap or things are so broken now that it doesn’t matter.
A series of arguments occur in this chapter. The last one being that Jim has an affair on the very night that all of this takes place with Lillian Reardon. What I really want to talk about is the language that Jim uses during the argument. “Who the hell are you, you cheap little nobody? I’ll do as I please, and you will keep your mouth shut and go through the right tricks in public, like everybody else”.
Here is the mindset of the well healed and better than you liberal. I don’t actually like the term liberal because it does the term injustice. In the days of communism, this is the Politburo. This is the upper class of the party that is not bound by the same rules as the rest of 99.9% party members. While the entire country is standing in soup lines, the party leaders are eating caviar every night.
I don’t usually name drop, but in this case I think that it helps illustrate what I am am saying. You have the Jeffery Epstein/Prince Andrew types that operated above the law for so many years. They must have crossed some unknown line to move from a position of privilege to outcast. These people were born into positions of unknown wealth. But they believed that they could have/do whatever they wanted. In some cases, I guess the consequences are still not realized. I suspect that there are many more of these type people, I just don’t know who they are.
There is a huge list of liberal loudmouths like Whoopi Goldberg/Michael Moore and the likes. These people earned a voice by acquiring wealth and fame. Make no mistake, they are not in the politburo class but they are the useful idiots. By continuing to spout off and act like they represent a class they continue to keep focus on themselves allowing the real puppet masters to continue with the play, unseen and unknown. They are continued access and pretending that they are part of the class as long as they perform their useful activities. I do believe that when the chips are down, we will see them sniveling and begging like the rest of the country.
There are some that have entered the scene by luck like AOC. Again, I would put her into the useful idiot category. She is not there, but may end up in charge by a series of calculating political moves. Everyone knows Gorbachev/Yeltsin/Jung Un. Some on that list left their mark by changing their ways and some never will. These are the public/political figures that enjoyed the life of politburo while the majority of the country was living a different standard.
I am not sure yet how to categorize those that move between the politburo and the spotlight. Maybe they are the true ruling class and I just cant see it. The Bill Gates/Zuckerberg/Bloomberg silicon valley types. These are the ‘do-gooders’. They want to censor your speech because it is potentially harmful. They want you to stop eating meat because of potential links to climate change. They want to limit your portion size for your own good.
I was reading an article when I was working on this post titled ‘How did the Democratic Party become the party of the billionaire?’ It really didn’t answer the question but the answer seemed very clear. It is the party that wants to limit other peoples freedoms so that others can get rich. Using a populist platform i.e. unions and welfare, it is so much easier to dupe people into thinking they are doing the right thing while they are getting screwed. All you have to do is write some entitlements for some while taking more for yourself. All they see is the free pizza for life, meanwhile I am also getting all you can eat salad bar, open bar, chicken wings and you get the point.
As long as this Ponzi scheme will last my useful working life, that is all that matters. It is why communism failed in the USSR, Vietnam, Cuba and China. North Korea only exists at the whim of China because it is another useful idiot in global politics. The brand of socialism that we are building will eventually fail, it has to. But, whether it will ultimately persevere is irrelevant, I only live one life and this is it – minimum viable product of government so that I can get mine.
I probably haven’t done a good job linking my rant to the story here. What got me thinking about all of this was Jim’s behavior. He thinks that he is capable of doing or having whatever he wants. This got me thinking about what I call people in the ruling class doing whatever they wanted despite the laws (i.e. Epstein). Not being a very public figure, I had to link public figures to the ruling class specifically media stars etc. I had to justify the behavior of the other figures in relation to the politburo to be clear in the structure.
The truth is, I don’t know. Every time we find out about living lives above the law, they go just like we expect. The thing is, we don’t know what is happening until after it happens. So, I suppose you can call this accusation, but it is my truth.
End Your Programming Routine: I spoke only about people associated visibly with the democratic party. Make not mistake I think people on the other side are just as vile. I tell myself that George W Bush was a rube. But then, how does an idiot graduate from Yale, own a professional baseball team, become governor and then president? No, pure evil. There is a reason that no-names like myself speak of altruistic principals. We are not getting anything from the system. If I was would I be so cavalier to denounce it? I’d like to think so
Unless you are a coastal steelhead fisherman, the time to tie flies is the winter time. The theory is that you stock up in the down time to get ready for fishing time. At least this is what I hear from the podcasts that I listen to. Fortunately for me, I do live in coastal steelhead country so I really have no excuse to not fish or tie flies.
This is not what I wanted to actually talk about today. I have a secret. My bench in the basement began life as a fly-tying bench. The top was specifically sized so that my vise would be able to clamp onto the top. In fact, I planed down the thickness so that this would work because I had planned on making it thicker. So, this is the story of my bench.
Back in 2011, I started this project of building a bench for my basement. I needed a sturdy space to do stuff. I thought that I would use it to do house projects but also tie flies. I spent a couple weekends milling stock and planning the design. This was an evolutionary effort where I had a rough idea about what my requirements were but the design changed as the wood revealed defects and my mistakes changed things as I went. My progress ended after the first couple of weekends because the cat decided to take up residence with kittens.
That time in my life was a whirlwind. Much of my work week was spent on the road from 2010-2015. I was travelling and working and my woodworking project languished. When you live like that and have toddler aged children, you don’t have the energy or the social capitol to do non-essential things like hobbies. But, I was making some side money in the form of travel bonuses so in 2012, I decided to buy a reloading setup.
The reloading equipment stayed in the box and my bench stayed in parts. When I got my range membership in 2016, then I really started recreationally shooting. I had been carrying empty brass around with me my whole life because my dad was a reloader but it really started piling up when I started shooting monthly. I decided to get back in gear and clean up my shop by finishing this project finally in the summer of 2017.
The reloading press got center stage when I mounted it. My original intention was to remove the press when I wasn’t using it allowing me to tie flies in the center of the bench. I did a lot of reloading but not a lot of fly tying so the press stayed. At this point reloading is here to stay and so is the press. There is room to move the vise somewhere else along the edge.
It was always my plan to have storage underneath the bench. I just didn’t know how I was going to manifest it until I got near the end. The large drawer was re-purposed from a previous workpiece, my home built router table, miter bench that didn’t make the journey back from SC. Before that, the drawer was part of a dog house that I recycled.
This bench is not that old, but it certainly has seen action. Currently, I use it almost daily as the stand for my pellet trap. Guns get cleaned on the bench and a lot of reloading has been done. I have wrapped presents, soldering, chopping and a lot of junk piling too.
I had this vision of using an old computer to stream music and look-up a few things now and then, but I think that machine has entered the end of its life because it doesn’t have the memory to stream larger format items. Right now, it is not really hurting anything where it is, so it will stay there for now. There are other things you cannot see or are not worth much but a mention like a cordless battery charger, a test phone, etc.
End Your Programming Routine: Sometimes things don’t end the way that you expect and sometimes they just take a long time to get there. This has some of both. At this point, I cant really imagine life without this bench, it plays a pivotal role in so many things that I do with content generation and hobbies. I doubt that it will make a move if and when that happens but I guess that is an excuse to build one based on the lessons of this one.
I gave my cider a name. Often times I just use the page number in my brewing logbook. But sometimes, it is fun just to do things for the heck of it. 952 is my street address because this cider is exclusively from apples on my tree (and only apples).
A lot of times in wine there are adjuncts added for various purposes. There is sugar for alcohol, yeast nutrient for successful takeoff and pH buffering for final taste. This is nothing but apple juice and yeast. What I wanted with this was to understand what the component of fruit would do.
The person I purchased the apple press from also gave me a refractometer. This is a device that measures sugar by looking at how much light is bent in the juice. I measured 13 Brix. As a home brewer, I am used to looking at specific gravity so this translates to about 1.059 or more importantly about 7% finished alcohol content. This was the reason that I didn’t add any sugar.
I used a small bit of cider to make my turkey brine for Thanksgiving. It was at that time I noticed some mold growing on the top. Before that point, I was on the fence for whether I would brew it or drink it. Turns out, my mind was made pretty quickly once I realized that I needed to act or lose it all. Maybe in the future, I will freeze gallons to keep some non-alcoholic on hand.
I have one text on cider making. It doesn’t come with a lot of instructions or starter recipes. If I had an actual pH meter, I could figure out whether my actual acid content was where I wanted. For now, I am going to just benchmark with taste. A pH meter is on my list but there are a lot of other things in front of it at this point.
I am also trying something new this time. Another reason why I dislike bottling is that there is a differential between different bottles. My theory is that the density of the bottling sugar causes it to settle to the bottom when added to a minimal stirred and ready to bottle beer. Another thing I got with my cider press were some sugar pellets. The idea is that a pellet is added to each 12oz bottle. This ensures the same amount of sugar is in each bottle. And, that translates into uniform carbonation in each bottle.
I am going to use 22oz bottles so that is two pellets per bottle. I am really interested to see how this is going to work. I find it irritating when one bottle starts bubbling over and another bottle is nearly flat. It also effects taste as well, clearly not my preference.
End Your Programming Routine: I don’t know exactly what the programming is today. Decision is better than analysis paralysis? I am especially prone to that when I invest a significant amount of effort into something. I want to justify that my effort was the best possible outcome or something like that. My prediction is that this effort will be inferior to what you can buy. But, I will learn some things and at least it is going to be saved for consumption.
I know Thanksgiving is over by a long way but Christmas is coming up and this strategy works no matter whether it is a holiday or not. I am talking about repurposing leftovers.
I find it particularly troublesome when there is leftover stuffing/dressing but the turkey is all gone. So, we need a way to get everything over with at the same time. Here is what I did.
Day Zero: After boning out all of the carcass, it went back into the stock pot. This was really just a waste elimination maneuver. I made turkey stock that a portion became Tortilla soup. But ultimately, it can be used interchangeably with chicken stock throughout the year so the balance went into the freezer.
Day One: It was Thanksgiving dinner again for lunch, we had the Tortilla Soup for dinner.
Day Two: Leftover rolls, cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing, etc were turned into Thanksgiving sliders. This was a big day for college football so the sliders accompanied a litany of dips and other appetizers. A key note as well, this wasn’t just a reassembly of Thanksgiving but other flavors were added like mustard mixed into the cranberry sauce and a glaze over the whole thing. I chose not to add cheese but something like Havarti would have been appropriate as well.
Day Four: Cleaning up the rest of things, we were out of Turkey so I made a casserole. I bought a rotisserie chicken at the store, used some frozen green beans and mixed some mushroom soup with the beans and chicken. The whole thing was topped with the remaining stuffing and we were done with leftovers.
For Christmas, we are planning a prime rib. Meat is the easiest thing to reuse because as long as it isn’t overly sauced or seasoned, it can simply be thrown into casserole or sandwich or tacos etc. Who knows how much if any leftover we will have, I will try to be more timely if I have as large of a stack as I did with Thanksgiving.
If you are really stuck on things, I find that you can do an internet search like ‘what to do with…’ or ‘recipe ideas using…’ often times use some sort of stimulating results. You may not want to make the suggestions but from the search you can start getting ideas about where you may want to go instead.
End Your Programming Routine: I heard on the radio that Thanksgiving officially expired on Monday after the holiday. I find this to be bunk to be honest. How old is that turkey really? Use your eyes, nose and common sense here but re-cooking things also extend the shelf life. Of course, you could also just pre-portion meals and freeze for later just like you own hungry man.
I admit, I am bad at this. It is not like I don’t have good ideas but I either I can’t execute or I don’t have time. I talk about the some today, so I will skip this. I guess the main reason that I did this podcast was to provide helpful information on gift buying before it is too late – from a decidedly male standpoint.
Ultimately, I feel like too many people Christmas shop to check the box. That is just as it is written shopping rather than gift giving. Like all things, the value is not in the doing but the intent. If your intent is to finish then you end up justifying to yourself your decisions. Those end up being disappointing gifts.
End Your Programming Routine: In these times, I wish that I was the kind of guy that was into this holiday. Some people think and plan long before the middle of December about how they want to approach things and what they are going to do. I am just not wired that way. Is is selfish. maybe. I don’t know, but I have to work with what I am.
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.
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