Author: bhayes952

August 12, 2024 – From the Heart

Perspective is always valuable. It is really hard to get perspective alone unless you have a mirror or a camera to see what you are doing. In order for me to get it, I need to get some air, maybe even get out of the pool and watch my video using a swimming analogy. I am not going to spoil the podcast, but I do a little self analysis today. You may be surprised at what I am thinking.

August 9, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Paradise, Canto XXX – XXXIII

We are at the the end. I am not totally sure how this fits into the cosmology scene. Since there was already a level on the sun it is not that. This blazing rose is so bright that Dante cannot see Beatrice’s face. Is this an actual star? Who know.

Empyrean is full of mysteries but also contains some answers. For instance, why does this not merit a level? I suppose that it could be like pre-hell or pre-purgatory but this is a final destination. It is the prize. Unlike the pre stages, those are waiting for entry and will ultimately get the soul’s just desserts.

One thing that is finally solved for me was where were the rock starts of the Old Testament? With the exception of David, we finally get to see some of them here like Moses. There were plenty of very faithful souls that never got a mention like Noah and Jonas. Instead, we got a whole lot of popes and kings that had very little overall influence on Christianity.

Without delving too much into theology, there was a path before the crucifixion to heaven. If I were trying to write a convincing story I would think that it has to include many of the known characters that were extremely faithful and surely I would expect to see before Adam and Eve.

I never gave it much thought. I suppose that Adam and Eve represent the Christian foundation of humanity but they were the origin of sin. They did disobey God so it is hard to me to believe that they deserve higher seats than others. I have to say that I am conflicted on this one.

As the rose is described, God is at the center of it. There are layers of petals that are seats belonging to the ultra faithful. The closer you got to the center the more godlike you were. There were some interesting choices with seats in the rose. One of them was a whole vertical of Hebrew women. Another was unborn children. Of course none of this was really explained or detailed. There you go Catholics. At least all of the aborted fetuses have a seat next to God.

Dante’s time is short here as he must return to earth. He never sees or God or Jesus. Not too much is said about them other than it is too bright to stare into. I find it interesting that the apostles are in the lower levels of heaven and yet Beatrice, Dante’s personal obsession ranks higher than the founders of Christianity.

Finally, there is no doubt that Mary is worthy of being next to God. She was chosen by God. But, since I am not Catholic, I don’t hold the same reverence for the Virgin Mary. In fact, in my book Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin Mary borders on idol worship, the first commandment. I kind of keep my distance from this whole idea but ‘thou shalt not have any idols before me’ is a violation of that. Mary is not one of the Trinity (father, son and Holy Spirit) nor is she in the center. I rest here.

End Your Programming Routine: We have gone through many, many weeks of this tome. Next week I will be talking about Paradise in total. My final thoughts will be the entire work the following week. If we are looking farther than that ahead, the next Brooke is going to be Sun Tsu’s Art of War. Keeping it here one last time, according to Dante the ultimate reward is true love. That is something that modern Christianity can identify with.

August 8, 2024 – Are You Enjoying the Olympics?

The Olympics are almost over for another four years. If there is any silver lining in being cooped up in a hotel/hospital room is that there is not that much to do. I would never sit down and watch hours on hours of TV especially not day after day. But yet here I am with the TV on most days. Sometimes it is background but sometimes I watch glued to the TV.

It should come as no surprise that I am a fan of the Olympics. I wrote about it as I was traveling in 2022. That was another occasion where I didn’t have much to do except flip the TV on at the hotel. This goes all the way back to my first exposure in 1984. While I didn’t see much of it for various reasons it sowed the seeds for a lifetime of fandom.

Here is what I have seen so far. It appears to me that the United States has lost its complete dominance of the summer games. If you go back a few years ago to the golden era of Micheal Phelps who won everything that he entered, it seemed like the US could not lose. These games, I am watching gold medal favorites land Broze medals.

The media likes to skew the overall results by posting the US having the most medals of any country. When you look at the breakdown of medals, the US does not have the the most golds, They have triple the bronze to gold (side note: I am writing this a week before it posts). I see a much more equitable distribution of talent than I have ever have in the past.

Of course I am always going to root for the US first. But, part of what I love about the Olympics is the human interest aspect. There was a story about some divers from Mexico that paid their own way to get there and promised to auction any medals as proceeds to repay debt on the trip. Fortunately, somebody stepped up on their behalf but this is the will and the drive to sacrifice everything for a chance.

I have already watched so much that I have seen events I have never seen before. I caught fencing for the first time. I watched equestrian riding, triathlon, water polo and rugby for the first time. My son played rugby one year. I told my wife that I have forgotten more about rugby that I currently know. I won’t say that I get it totally know but seeing teams that know what they are doing kind of make sense now. It always seemed like sort of senseless melee when middle schoolers were playing.

I don’t know if I have a favorite event. Like a lot of things in my life, I admire people that are passionate about what they do. At this point, I am more than double the age of most of the people that have dedicated their lives to a specific pursuit. That means that I have been out of shape longer than they have been alive. But, perception is reality and to them, this is everything.

I used to have infinite will power. I could set my mind and sacrifice until the end of the earth. Some of that is still buried in my somewhere but unfortunately for me, I have never been much of an athlete no matter how much I willed and sacrificed for it. What that process taught me was that anything reasonably achievable could be accomplished with a plan and work. That part I still have. I just had to go after the right goals that fit my abilities.

As the Olympics wrap up, it seems like our banishment to Portland is going to end as well. The trends and motions that the doctors are making leads me to believe that we are a few days from going home. It may not feel as good as winning a gold medal but I am feeling like a million bucks in anticipation of this experience being over. I will take this change in perspective that is watching the Olympics to pass time to really enjoying it while it lasts.

End Your Programming Routine: I am actually surprised that my wife has had the Olympics on nearly continuously. It certainly is something different than binge watching all the shows that she normally watches. We haven’t talked about it, but I think that we kind of feel the same way about the human interest. We are not 100% different, but pretty close. Finally something that we can agree on.

August 7, 2024 – I Am Being Censored

I didn’t make this very clear in my podcast. I after I mentioned that I was going to talk about censorship, I meant to follow up later and say that I was going to write about it later in the week. This is what you get when I don’t finish my notes is that I don’t get things wrapped up real neatly. We are here now.

I have been waiting for this moment. I have known for months now, going all the way back to December when I was trying to work while waiting for some sort of diagnosis about my wife’s fatigue that I was on the black list. My work has me working for a tobacco company and the doctor’s office blocked my computer from accessing the wi-if.

I combat that by carrying my own hotspot. As long as I can get cell service it works pretty well. Unfortunately, as the local hospital cell service is a black hole so with Wi-Fi blocked and no cell service, it is impossible for me to work at the doctors or the hospital.

When we came up to Portland, I thought I would try it. I had Wi-Fi access for several days on my work computer. But, then I got to a point where my work computer seemed to connect to the Wi-Fi but not work. Back to the hotspot. Fortunately, the cell phone service is good, even in the depths of the hospital.

What I didn’t expect is that they blocked access to some of the blogs I check on a daily basis. nearly everyday I check ammoland and the outdoor wire. It is part industry news and part politics and opinion. I tried to check several times and several days always with the same result. Finally, I tried my phone off of Wi-Fi and it worked. So, I know that they are blocking websites.

I don’t know what comparable left wing websites are out there. My personal opinion is a lot of most major news outlets are propaganda for the left. As a result, I pretty much find anti god and anti constitutional ideals as offensive. I am not quite sure why they censor legal and right leaning sites while allowing others to proliferate.

I can understand to a point why my work laptop is banned. I work for a sworn enemy of the medical establishment. I just can’t get over the hypocrisy of my drug company over the hidden evils of their drug companies. It is all about what propaganda channel you swallow. And while the prescriptions are not in my name, I am looking at some of the most addictive drugs known to man right in front of me.

End Your Programming Routine: I figured that this was a question of when not if. I can even understand the reason why they think it is necessary to ban firearms on the premises. But, to ban what I am reading goes a step too far for me. This is a government institution, not a private entity. To be clear, they are violating my first and second amendment rights. Welcome to your future.

August 6, 2024 – Living In a Foreign Language

Living in a Foreign Language by Micheal Tucker is the Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection for July. I am not just the a member but the President. Remember that one? Unfortunately, I am keeping up with the reading but I have been missing the gatherings. Fortunately, the group is doing a good job carrying on without me.

This book is an easy read by an actor that had his heyday in the 1990s. Tucker was the star of a TV show called LA Law and when the show ended he kind of checked out according to the book. The book is about what happened next which seems to be a shift toward spending more time in Italy.

As many Mediterranean cultures go, there is a heavy influence of food and leisure in their lifestyle. This story is no exception. There is a lot of talk about pasta and meals take a heavy role in the story. The search for the best butcher or cheese monger or fruit vendor. Then there is the ever present garden of peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini. A giant bread oven sits dormant in the back yard and looms foreboding to be used.

As much as food plays a role in this book, the real star is the is the house. There is the torrid love affair on first meeting. After it has been secured, there is a major remodeling project to double the size of the structure. Each time there is a separation, Tucker longs to come back again.

The story is set in Umbria. I would say that is the lesser known Tuscany. What I mean is that it is rolling hills, picturesque and is mostly rural. The region is commonly referred to as the breadbasket of Italy. At least that is what I learned when I watched the Stanley Tucci Netflix series on Italy.

The book is light. There were elements of humor throughout the book. I liked that. It was one of the nicer memoirs that I have read about people that I don’t really care about. The self deprecating approach that Tucker takes is much preferable to the smugness of Tucci. As you know, I like to work on houses as well as cook.

While I have been to Italy, I am not drawn to Italian cuisine. I certainly appreciate their love and appreciation of food culture, I could care less about pasta. I guess that I hail from butter culture and not olive oil culture. I keep thinking that if I admire the culture enough, I will eventually like it. So far, it is not true.

End Your Programming Routine: Would I recommend this book? No, not necessarily. If you are a Tucker fan or can’t get enough of Under the Tuscan Sun then I think the imagery would be appealing. I can’t necessarily get behind a celebrity buying his second home in Europe and in the process having to give up his personal assistant in the process. Especially when he hasn’t worked in several years. I am not bitter, I just can’t relate. To each his own.

August 5, 2024 – True Humanity

If you want to see a true and honest slice of humanity, there are a couple of places that I would recommend. You will have to listen to find out, but I reveal pretty early on. We all like to put on heirs about how good and nice we are but there are places where the charade is revealed.

August 2, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Paradise, Canto XXVIII – XXIX

This is the last level of paradise so to speak. Of course, there is one more and that is true heaven. The Primum Mobile as it is called are groups of Angels. Apparently, they revolve around the Empyrean (or true Heaven). As it is described, the mobile is comprised of nine rings. The closer the rings to Empyrean, the more godlike the angel.

If you think about it a little bit, this all kind of makes spatial sense. There is Earth with the mortals, the underworld of Hell, the mountain of Purgatory and then each planet or star then represents some pint in the after world. I have to imagine that Saturn was probably the extent of the known solar system in the early 1300s so how do you really explain the rest.

I my view, not a whole lot of significance really happens in this level. I guess I get the theory that the best angels are closer to god but ultimately, I have never subscribed to this lasagna theory of heaven. It is really hard for me to imagine based on my own faith that you follow as best a mortal can on earth only to have your final destination be assigned based an accepted sinful nature of man. I think what I am saying will be more clear in the final weeks of this review.

To add to that, I never thought of angels having levels either. We are familiar with the fallen angel Satan. But in the Christian sense, angels predate creation. So I guess that they really didn’t have a chance to earn their spot by earthly deeds? To me, it is confusing theology. The Bible says very little about angels so I suppose that it could be true with different levels.

We get another chance to knock the church and preachers specifically from no less than Beatrice. I am honestly not sure about the context of this other than I feel like it is Dante’s parting blows. He will take one more shot next week. Beatrice finally takes her place in the rose (more about that next week) to replaced with Bernard or St Bernard. He puts in his two cents on the church as well.

Maybe I missed this part but apparently Dante only has a limited amount of time in the afterworld. The more time he spends on the lesser levels the less he has at the end. One of the reasons this level is so short is because Dante is running out of time. So it is on to the final state, Empyrean.

End Your Programming Routine: Unfortunately, I started writing this a week ago and it lost some of its mojo. I had a plan, now I don’t remember if I accomplished it or not. Due to my fatigue on this project, I am kind of phoning in the remainder. By that, I mean that I don’t have the book with me to double check if I am getting everything that I thought I was. So, I am just getting the summary from different websites as a reference. Next week we finish the book.

August 1, 2024 – End of an Era

About two months ago, we turned off the home phone service. The picture in the box below is the old phone equipment that used to be around our house. It has been cluttering up my reloading bench all this time. That is OK since I haven’t been home much anyway.

I will let you in on a little secret. It wasn’t a true land line. It was actually a cell phone that had a cable connection to hook up to the old phone line system. We added this line in the late 2000s. This was long before fifth graders had cell phones. The main purpose was provide phone service for baby sitters and later our kids to get ahold of us, if necessary.

In the last couple of years, we go really no calls on the line and it sometimes lead to confusion. Old contacts (like doctor’s offices) would sometimes call and leave messages on the line. We never checked it because 99% of the calls were junk. We would have to weed through satellite TV offers and car warranties on the voicemail every couple of months just to clear it out.

I would have kept the line except for the fact that it was costing $360/year. I was under the impression that it was only costing $10/mo for many years. This is one of those vampire costs that made little sense. My in-laws would call when the kids were young but since they have both died, nobody calls the number.

At one time, I had an extension in the shop. I liked it because I could more easily hear the ringer and see the light than the phone in my pocket. But then again, my wife would not call the line anyway so I would have to listen to the ‘I couldn’t get ahold of you’ speech each time. This was one of the reasons she bought me the smart watch.

In the true spirit of redundancy, I like the idea of having redundant communications. The idea however is that you would have a different provider or a different technology. A landline or a different carrier even is a much more robust strategy for that. Adding another line does very little unless you are using the phone for a specific purpose, like a business.

End Your Programming Routine: I remember the day you would schedule the service and wait for the phone to be hooked up. It was the same era that if you didn’t have a phone book, you lacked fundamental knowledge for navigating the world. I would like to just give away this techno junk if someone wanted it. Unfortunately, it has very little value to anyone. I may give it a try, but most likely it is going to the electronic recycler. It is not worthless, just not practical. That makes me sad.

July 31, 2024 – I Am Starting To Get Angry

Something has definitely changed. It could be that this company stopped making batteries in the US in 2016. I suspect that the components to make them have gotten cheaper/flimsier/worse. This was a battery that I took out of my weather center next to one of my computers in the basement.

Maybe it just feels good to complain. But this really pisses me off when alkaline batteries do this. It also seems like it is more normal than less at this point. This is the reason I have started switching over to rechargeable batteries. My strategy has been to replace them as the alkalines die. Hopefully, it is not too late.

The failures seem to be more prevalent with batteries in use in the basement. All the remote controls, decorations and things that get cast off or forgotten seem to have a much higher degree of failure than upstairs. It still happens when the climate is more controlled but it also seems to be less frequent. This leads me to believe that the problem is with a seal that contracts too much due to temperature.

As you know, not all of my relationships with alkaline batteries is bad. As I wrote in 2021, I have a working set of batteries from 30 years ago. These batteries are in a bicycle head lamp. The have been in my garage since I moved 20 years ago. So they have been subject to near freezing temperature up to 120 degrees with no ill effect. In true transparency, I dont think that I have checked on them since that article. So, a follow-up is due.

Funny thing, I probably should start checking my topics before I start writing. As I was searching for the link to my 30 year batteries, I ran across something I previously wrote. Turns out, I also wrote about batteries failing in 2021. So, shame on me for not checking previously if you remember that one.

My experiment. With rechargeables has been less than stellar. They are advertised as as holding 90% charge after a year but I have ran into dead batteries in less than six months. The Panasonic Enloops I chose to go with take several hours to charge on my charger. The also don’t seem to last as long. I have gone through multiple sets this year in my remote hygrometer sensor. While less than perfect, I am anticipating that they are not going to ruin my devices.

End Your Programming Routine: No matter what, I am going forward with rechargeable batteries. I can no longer trust the major battery brands for alkaline batteries. Remember when they were $8 for 4 and now they are going for $20 for 48 at Costco. There is no way that cost savings is just in volume.

July 30, 2024 – Terrible Photos, Fun Time

If there is one thing great about a wife with cancer, it is that people invite you to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. Think about it like a less fatalistic ‘Make-a-Wish’. We were invited to go down to the pits and hang out during a race called the ‘Lucky-Dog’. This is an endurance race that spans over two days.

I don’t know a ton about it but from what I was told, it is a step up from 24 hours of Lemons. In that race, you are supposed to run a car that cost less than $500 for a 24 hour race. Lucky Dog had three classes (don’t ask me what they are) and the car has to be older than 15 years. I could use my pickup or my Navigator next year.

Because there were three classes, I saw Corvettes and Mustang GTs but I also saw VW Rabbits, a Sirroco, many Miatas, a Pontiac Fiero, Nissan 240 and many BMW 3 series. My host was running a Mini Cooper. Who doesn’t want to win? But the main object is to have fun.

My son is very into cars and I have been a race fan for a lot of my life. I have been to open wheel races and NASCAR multiple times. These days I am more race adjacent than I am an ardent fan. To really get into it, you need to have a driver to follow and my last driver retired five years ago. Also, without cable or a sports streaming package it is extremely difficult to watch the races. Networks share the season and races jump time and channels depending on how popular they are. What I am saying is there is no consistency so unless you are really following, it is pretty easy to miss.

The truth is, most racing in this country is bootstrap, like the Lucky Dog. This is the passion of everyday guys that wrench on their own cars and trailer their own cars and spend the weekend at the track for no money. Depending on what part of the country you live in, there may be a dirt track in every little town. There sure was in South Carolina.

A friend of my wife’s husband was racing. I have only met him once and that was over a year and a half ago. After my kids met us in the hospital for a visit with mom, we headed to the track. We had the pit number and I had in my head what he looked like. But after wandering around in pit row for a while I didn’t see him.

I had a deadline to be home, someone was bringing us dinner. So we started heading to the car. I told my son that he didn’t have to leave because he had his own vehicle. I was itching to go home. My son said “well you are leaving, I might as well”. I responded with “Do you wan’t me to ask around for you”? He said “I guess”. It is not my strong suit to inject myself into strange social situations but I suspected that he would want more if he could.

We meekly wandered to the pit area again. This time, I asked the first person I saw “Do you know so and so”? The young man responded “No. Never heard of him. What does he drive?”. I said “No Idea”. Then he chimed in with “Check with the next door team, we share a pit space.” So off we went to check with some old guys wearing racing suits. Turns out, our host was on the track (not surprising).

We watched and chatted as long as I could and then I had to leave. I asked my son if he wanted to stay and he said yes. There was only about another hour remaining anyway in the race. He stayed until the end with two guys he didn’t know. I wish to have sat in a chair all day and watched but I was ready to get home after four straight days at the hospital.

I told my son that if he was bold enough, he could probably volunteer to help with the car and races. The guy lives a couple of miles from us and who would turn down help. We will see if he steps out of his shell and that ever comes to fruition. I suspect that he would prefer to be the car owner rather than crew but you have to start somewhere.

End Your Programming Routine: I am glad that I stepped out of my shell and we made that memory. My son asked if I would drive if he put a team together. I said yes. I don’t know exactly where my love of racing came from, it was just something that I got interested in as a teenager. Thanks cancer. I doubt we would have ever done this without you.