Category: Information

October 23, 2024 – Foreshadowing

October 23, 2024 /

I started this endeavor for a number of reasons. I wanted to create a lifestyle business where my life was my work and vice versa. I have been a long time listener of The Survival Podcast and this is one of the things the host encourages for personal freedom. Another tenant is that is one or more people can do something and be successful then there is certainly a market and likely I can do it too.

When I quit my job in April 2019, it was not to explicitly do this but that it was a perfect opportunity to have the time to figure it out. The truth is, I didn’t use my time effectively and I didn’t get moving until December. I got behind the gun in 2020 and I had this huge project of remodeling my little house and then I had to go back to work. In that time, I created a formula to test whether I could actually do this.

I actually got my domain name in the fall of 2020. That is where I switched from Floricane on free WordPress to AltF4.co. I guess this is where today’s story starts. I got my renewal notice a couple of weeks ago. Hosting is now over $400 a year. When I first started, it was around $200 per year. I started asking myself, do I want this bad enough to keep paying hosting fees?

I think where I have started breaking down was this summer. I put a lot of pressure on myself to keep cranking out daily posts. The combination of what was happening in my life as well as my fatigue for reading the same book for nine months. I started to realize that I was doing this to myself. As a result, I wanted to make some tweaks, which I did. I dropped the hard daily requirement.

I have talked about needing a vacation, and I took that a couple of weeks ago. This was right around the time that I was enacting my reduced expectations. As a short amount of time has elapsed, my enthusiasm is continuing to wain. Part of it is that I have painted myself into a corner. Now that I have read half of it, I want to be done with the Art of War. I am doing stuff, but it is more of the same. There is only so many times I can write about another way of making Grape Juice.

What is really holding me back is my extremely stiff counter culture streak. I have written over 1000 articles, most of which nobody has read. Why is that, I hate social media. I have realized that I am never going to market my work in a way that I will be successful. Take that to the extreme, if I am not going to be successful, then why am I doing this in the first place? That sounds like insanity.

It is not all negative. I am proud of what I have done. Unfortunately, that doesn’t pay the bills or become a career. I find it useful too. I search my site to jog my memory on things that I have done over the years. Sometimes I am looking for a certain recipe or thing I did and this helps a lot in keeping track of those things.

As a reminder, I started writing as a way to build discipline for podcasting. As a working person, I simply do not have time to do a daily podcast. It typically takes three days for me to get each podcast done. I could do a lot better with time if I didn’t spend so much time writing my outline. That is pretty risky (for me) though. The more prepared I am, the better I deliver. I really do not need a website to continue to podcast. It will still go out on Apple and Spotify and be available at Castbox.

Spoiler alert: I did renew for another year. I will be honest though, I am starting to fade from futility. I don’t mind doing all of this for myself, but I don’t see the point of paying for it too. Maybe I just need to shop the price, if it was more reasonable then I wouldn’t feel like a big waste.

In year’s past, it was a no brainer that I was going to keep going. I think that I am going to set a line in the sand this year. I will probably make the decision by mid- September next year. I definitely want to take what I have done if if the site goes down and that will require some time to prepare. I say all of this because I don’t want to disappear someday without knowing what is going on.

My criteria is yet to be determined. Certainly, if I could find a way that doesn’t violate my being to make some money would be a good start. I don’t need to replace my income to keep this viable. If I had the ability to offset expenses with income, like buying tools and giving reviews as an example, then it would definitely be worth the effort. More on this as the year goes on.

End Your Programming Routine: Don’t just keep doing things for no reason, this would be programming. My reason has been because I like doing it, I still do. But, do I like spending most of my free time doing it? Not as much this year as year’s past. For another year, I will finish out The Art of War and keep working to put up content as time and desire permits.

September 9, 2024 – I’m Out

September 9, 2024 /

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am out for an indeterminant time. I currently have technical problems and I am too busy to do anything about them at the moment. Today’s podcast has already been posted at Castbox but I haven’t been able to get the html code necessary to get it posted over here.

So instead of solving the world’s problems, my suggestion is that you take in the last weeks of summer and spend some time enjoying the opening moments of football.

May 30, 2024 – 1000

May 30, 2024 /

Believe it or not, this is post number 1000. Today is not going to be grandiose or spectacular. I am going to talk about what doing this project has meant to me.

I have been a chronic podcast listener since 2008. One of the first podcast I started listening to (and still do) is The Survival Podcast. One of the host’s schticks is starting your own lifestyle business, like he did. I loved that idea and it was my plan to work toward it until life got in the way. Then when I quit my job in 2019 I was going to officially start the process.

My wife finally kicked my butt in to gear in late 2019. I had Toolbox Fallacy about getting started. I needed the right domain name, a good business plan, a way to monetize it and start making a six figure income. I finally realized that the best way to do it was just to start. And I had investigated WordPress four or five years earlier where I opened an account titled Floricane.

You can go back through all the archives if you want to read the actually history of all of this. The point is that I started writing because I hadn’t figured out how to podcast yet. Then I found I liked writing and it was easier to not try to figure out new things. I put another roadblock in the way until I forced myself to learn how to podcast.

I feel like if I took my own advice, I would quit doing this. I am not making money and I probably never will. I know what my problem is, I hate social media. I will never market myself in the fashion that is needed to make it work. I will never build a following because this that is not how I want to spend my time. From the little bit I do, I don’t enjoy it in the least. I don’t even want to do the necessarily evil level of it.

Doing this is not without merit or benefit. This is what keeps me going. First thing’s first, I enjoy doing it. Secondly, I have learned a lot in the process. I think that it keeps me motivated to keeps me thinking and doing. Particularly with podcasts, I keep working on being able to speak with minimal preparation.

I doubt that my reading would be as focused. I don’t see myself reading Dante for fun. Many of the other books I have read recently, I have already read before. This effort has truly made me consider philosophy a fundamental discipline. I used to lump it in with pseudo psychology but now I wish that I had a stronger basis. Philosophy (the love of learning) is the practice of logic, something that is sorely missing these days.

It has not always been easy, particularly recently. It seems like I am always working or working on this. I am doing those things at the exclusion of other things that I want to do or enjoy doing. However, I believe that I am getting dividends as a labor of love. There may come a day that I decide that I would rather put my efforts elsewhere. That day has yet to come.

I am not sure I would have imagined making it to 1000 posts. I guess that I was proceeding without an imagination of what the future would look like in general. Here’s to another 1000.

December 21, 2023 – Winter Break Ahead

December 21, 2023 /

I am going to do something that I haven’t done with AltF4.co, I am taking a break. Tomorrow will be the last four chapters of Slaughterhouse – Five. I will still have my conclusion to the book next week as well because I want to end the book with the year. I have yet to decide, I may do some sort of year in review next week. The truth is I would like to, but it is a matter if I can find the time.

Other than that, I am going to break until January 2, 2024. I am tired and I need a little distance to recharge my batteries. Christmas season is hard because just one more thing is pretty much how it goes with everything. I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will see you next Year.

November 23, 2023 – Happy Thanksgiving

November 23, 2023 /

No opinions, BS or anything else today. There is something to be thankful for. I wish everyone a wonderful holiday. This one by far exceeds Christmas for me and I am enjoying what it is all about: cooking, eating and enjoying the fruits of you labor all year.

Despite the fact that most of my daily’s are queued in advance, you don’t need to be spending your holiday reading this. I will be back tomorrow with more Anthem by Ayn Rand.

October 24, 2023 – Game Over

October 24, 2023 /

Just like I said in the podcast yesterday, I got pretty ahead of posts so I could take time off and go hunting. Consequently, I have stuff piling up behind me that I want to write about. Today is really more of an update than anything earth shattering. I feel like I need to get better at following up on things that I have previously stated.

A picture is worth 1000 words. As you can see from the photo on the left, I got my target. I think that it does a good job illustrating the final state without getting too graphic. As it turns out, it was a rat. I kind of feel bad for the guy because I saw very little evidence of the creature other than something was trying to get into pantry items. Usually I can at least identify the species by to poop it leaves behind. Not this guy, he was pretty tidy about his invasion.

In fact, the first couple of days that I had set the traps out, I put them next to the flour that he had spilled by getting into the package. I was going to get around to cleaning it up with the vacuum but I figured in the meantime, he might come back to it. In about two days, the flour was all gone without me having to clean it up.

After I threw away the punctured bag and he cleaned up the mess, he moved on to some sleeves of crackers. I moved the traps in and within three days it was over. I was pretty surprised at how big it was. And fortunately, it was trash night so disposal was pretty fast and easy.

Two days later was the anticipated solar eclipse. You can see from my picture on the right what we had. The forecast was already iffy, it rained most of Friday and it was going to rain at some point on Saturday. My picture was taken at totality, but with the fog and the clouds, no chance. I tried really hard to see if I could even notice a difference with the amount of daylight, but I could not.

I knew it was a risk, the weather that is. In fact, the forecast for the day that I am writing is clear in the low seventies. That is pretty unusual for mid-October, but the reality is that to get that temperature, the wind is from the southeast and with that is also moisture (or humidity). It has been at 100% all morning. Even more so than that, we have thick fog just like on the day of the eclipse.

I haven’t spoken with my dad yet. They were still hunting on the central part of the state during the eclipse. I had even purchased some special glasses to give to them so that they could view the eclipse. But, I forgot to leave them. When I do find out if it was possible, I don’t think that I will update you on that conversation. My point with that is re-enforcing what I was saying in the last post. If it isn’t a lot of effort to see an eclipse, you should do it. But, if it requires a three hour drive for a maybe, then I probably wouldn’t.

End Your Programming Routine: Part of my point today was to say that patience is a virtue. I think that we all hope that pest don’t do a whole bunch of damage. But when they do, we have to deal with it. Funny thing, our pest guy came by before I started going after the rat. He asked “any problems?” and I said no without a thought in my mind. I could have called the service, it is part of what I pay for. That being said, the best person and tactic for the job is me because I am in the basement five days a week. I can observe and react and ultimately get my target.

July 5, 2023 – Is the Tank Empty?

July 5, 2023 /

Yes and No. I am clearly late today and that is because yesterday was a full-contact holiday and we had to run our former exchange student to the airport this morning. Also true is that I don’t have anything constructive to say at the moment. I saw the cliff coming last Friday and was hoping that I would come up with some magic over the weekend. Then on Monday, I knew I didn’t even have a topic identified but was hoping I could dredge something over the holiday. Hence, I am writing about having nothing to say.

By the end of this week we will have our German exchange student. Next week, I am off to business travel for another week. If I don’t have ideas (with pictures) in the queue, it makes it difficult for me to keep up with. That is where I am at.

Does this mean that I am quitting? Not exactly. But what it does mean is that I cannot sustain daily posting along with maintaining my familial obligations, work commitments and projects that need to get done in this short season. This is especially true when I have to travel.

I haven’t fully decided if I just need to scale back for a period of time or just try to do what I can. At the very least, I am going to finish out Lord of the Flies which will take that series into mid-August. I have finished the book and I have begun working on getting the remaining chapters published. I would like to continue doing podcasts as well. This is assuming that I have topics and show outlines developed.

I haven’t talked a lot about this but podcasts take probably four times as long to produce. I need to get better at speaking to a thinner outline, but usually this takes at least an hour. I always listen to the podcast after I record it. I write notes on Castbox and Altf4.co. Right now, an hour takes 4-6 hours for me whereas a typical blog post is 1-1.5 hours. That being said, I would like to keep doing the podcasts more than writing.

Something I have talked about before, sometimes quitting is necessary. We need to quit things that are not working so that we can retool into things that do. We all have a limited time and there is only so many things we can do in that time. Ideally this is what I would like to do with this site; make changes to this site so that it can become what I want it to be.

I love this endeavor. Why else would I do it daily for years on end for no compensation? I have proved the things that I initially set out to do. I have enough technical capability to do this and I have enough discipline to keep doing it. Those were my two objectives starting with Floricane and then moving to AltF4.co. I have failed at my marketing and monetizing portions of it which were supposed to be the next steps. So while I like doing the content and willing to do it for free, I cant afford to prioritize it over other things that need to get done at this time.

As of this moment, no promises. I can’t say what exactly what I will do other than reserve the right to do what I want and have to do. I think this is enough for today. I thank you for taking the time to read and hope this makes sense.

July 4, 2023 – Happy Fourth of July

July 4, 2023 /

I am taking the day off today. You should too.

I want to believe in the ideals of this country. I wish it were what it promised. Despite that, enjoy your family and friends and forget about it. There is nothing like living life that puts all of the politics and disappointment aside. That’s what I am going to do.

Happy Birthday America.

June 26, 2023 – Technical Issues Resolved, For Now

June 26, 2023 /

It is late, late, late. I actually had my podcast recorded, but I didn’t have time to do the editing and posting. So, podcast for tomorrow.

This is on the technical side, but supposedly my SSL auto renews every 60 days. I think what I have figured out is that it renews but it requires me to manually install it. I keep getting blindsided by my SSL certificate expiring and when I go in to check, there are multiple copies being held.

This is what you get with a ‘free’ SSL certificate. While it works, it does require monitoring and maintenance. I am going to try and monitor this period to see if my theory is correct and hopefully, I will proactively deal with this rather than it happen on my first day of a business trip.