Category: Leisure

February 5, 2026 – I Am Warming Up To This

February 5, 2026 /

It should be no surprise that I am not an early adopter. I am not opposed to change if there is a valid reason for it. I guess what I find acceptable is different then a lot of people. In most cases, I don’t need to change anything. I am happy with me, I am happy with what I have and I am happy to live within my means. That being said, not everyone feels the same. My wife for instance wanted to move to the water.

Here I have a shop, a garage, a large lot and even a second house. Why would I want to leave somewhere that I am comfortable and setup? Even more so, why would I want to sell my woodworking pile of wood, spend every weekend going through all of our things and totally disrupt my life when I am already happy? I was looking forward to having a lot of shop time now that my kids have moved out.

Despite the fact that there is only one (personal) reason I would want to move, I have been going into this with the best possible attitude. I want to make sure my kids don’t have to deal with my woodpile and all of that outgrown ski wear. But, if I am going to move, I want to make sure that it works financially and it works for my life. One of those things is deeply re-connecting with fishing.

I have been patiently waiting to try my luck at fishing on the lake. I have fished the lake before, but it has been nearly twenty years ago. My brother’s bachelor party was here, on the north end of the lake. Our house is a couple of miles south of that rental house so long ago. I have always assumed like so many bodies of water that not everywhere is equal habitat. It was no barnburner when I fished it last time.

I did find my pole and tackle amongst all the packed boxes. The forecast was great, it was going to be dry and warm and we were planning to stay over until Saturday. Since I get up so much earlier than everyone else in the house, I pinned Saturday morning as my inaugural attempt to see how lucky I was.

When I got up, I kind of drug my feet. What if the neighbors see me and question whether I belong or not. We are renting the house and I have only met one neighbor so far. What if it is all weedy and I am wasting my time? I finally got over my nerves and rigged up my pole. I also put on the hot water so that I could make some instant coffee. Once everything was done up, I opened the door and headed to the dock.

It was a beautiful morning. The eventual forecast was a high in the lower sixties but it was a bit brisk at 8AM. We are about a mile from the ocean, I could hear it in the background. A blue heron was annoyed by my coming down to the dock and flew off in disgust. The perpetual Canadian geese started swimming away honking. I assume that was their warning noises that something is not right here. I carefully stepped around all of the goose poop in the grass and the dock and started to cast.

It was my plan to only spend about thirty minutes fishing. I wasn’t going to re-rig to try different lures or spend the whole day doing this to get a limit. This is how I intend on fishing when I live here, a few minutes during lunch time or a few minutes before dusk. I am not opposed to taking fish and eating them but I am more interested in the fact that I can catch them or not. Especially now, I am not setup to clean, save or preserve fish. I would have to eat it now.

I did my 270 degree pass around the dock and nothing was doing. My stomach was growling and I started dreaming of heading back to the house and starting breakfast. This wouldn’t be the first trip that I didn’t catch anything. In fact, I didn’t actually expect to catch anything. I didn’t have any sort of vessel to put fish in if I did catch something. I told myself a few more casts and then I would head back to the house when I felt a tug.

It was a lazy tug. I thought that maybe I snagged something. But as I was reeling up I saw that there was a fish on the other end. It was a nice fish too. I would estimate that it was probably twelve inches long and around a pound. It was a rainbow trout, which means that it was put there as a hatchery fish. Now that I had it, what to do?

I really wanted to put it back for another day. The treble hook on my Panther-Martin spinner bait is not easy to remove with a flopping fish. I eventually got it on the dock and was able to get the hook out. I crossed my fingers that the fish would swim away because I had no net if it started floating after I tossed the fish back in the lake. It swam away and my heart was floating. It worked, this is exactly how I wanted this morning to start.

End Your Programming Routine: This is what I talk about when I say do things that matter. Maybe fishing isn’t your cup of tea but I wasn’t thinking about the ridiculousness of the world or what I might write about next or even the things that I wanted to do later in the day, including packing up and travelling home. It was no traffic and no boats on the lake just me and the geese and the heron and the fish. Even though I have most everything I want, maybe this is what I need and moving just gets me closer to that.

February 3, 2026 – The Cure That Ails You

February 3, 2026 /

I went to the neurosurgeon last week to talk about addressing my pain. Granted, it is almost gone, even the numbness in my index finger is barely there. But, there is something like anything aging, it probably isn’t going to get any better. I figured that given this is not debilitating, the fix was going to be routine and somewhat easy. What I heard from the doctor left my mouth agape.

First of all, the recovery time for this surgery is three to six months. There is at least an overnight stay in the hospital and expect to be out of commission for at least two weeks. In that three to six month period, it is light duty only with lifting and moving restrictions. Uh… I am in the middle of moving.

The picture below illustrates some of what is to be done. They bolt a plate between the two vertebrate. Then they scoop out all of the padding between the vertebrate and slip a disc in between the two. It essentially immobilizes the problem disk from moving and pressing on the nerves. Hence, pain is gone.

I will be honest, I am not sure that my pain currently warrants that. There was a time around Thanksgiving where I would have said, ‘lets do it’. But, as it slowly and steadily gets better so does my urgency to do anything. You might even say that I am a little scared. Not to mention, the would finally end my run of never being in the hospital for any procedural reason, no surgeries and I would have to answer yes to having metal in the body. Not to say that this is the best reason, but I have dealt enough with my wife’s situation to know that it is a pain to fill out these questionnaires at the doctor.

Even if I say yes, the lead time on the surgery is about a month and a half. Honestly, this puts me smack dab in the moving period. I cannot afford to be an invalid, bed ridden and high on pills while this is going on. Even if we pay movers and the intent is to not lift a finger, it inevitably will not work out that way. Unless this is desperately needed, I don’t think the timing is good at all.

If I think about it deeper, this also puts the crush on any future summer plans this year. I know that I have talked a good game about hiking again but I have been so consumed with moving and packing, not to mention pain that my training has yet to get started. That doesn’t mean that I couldn’t do some overnighters or something this year. Definitely not if I elect to get the surgery.

They say that the cause is a herniated disk. This means that one of my spinal disks is moving out of place and pushing on the nerve. The cause might be the injury that I had in early June, incorrectly moving the table for my son’s graduation party. Or, that might have just been the trigger for genetic weakness to finally show. I know that my aunt had many back problems and surgeries early in her life. And my father has always had back problems. That is probably not keeping the odds on my side.

I accept that this is probably inevitable. So, I wrestle with timing. Sure, if now is not good timing, then when? I kind of think late fall would be the best. I will have the most accumulated time off and we should be settled by then. I won’t have to give up another summer for medical reasons as well. But, I guess that we will have to see how it goes. As long as I am feeling good now, I can afford to take a little time and schedule in my favor.

End Your Programming Routine: This is pretty silly, but sometimes I like to think about where I would be without modern medicine. Who knows, maybe I would have caught small pox or something. But, the fact that I have had no severe medical issues in my life pretty much suggest that I could be exactly where I am in the 1700s. Of course that is all circumstantial. I could have been shipped off to war or gotten my arm caught in the thresher or kicked by livestock. So that is probably just fantasy. It is a sign that age catches us all. I am realizing that now.

January 14, 2026 – One For the Road

January 14, 2026 /

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. The original plan in mid-December was to go to the Portland Boat Show with an eye toward trying to find a boat for my birthday. But, due to things changing with our real estate transaction, things are pretty tight financially right now. As much as I would like to go to the boat show, I didn’t think that made a lot of sense for the cost and use of time.

My wife said, what do you want to do instead? I thought about it and I said, I want to go to the range one more time. I had already squirreled away one more range trip’s worth of ammunition for a December visit that I never got to. My annual renewal is due already and I am in the 30 day grace period. So, I am planning on not renewing my membership due to the distance of my potential new home and my current range.

Looking at the activity calendar, I almost panicked. Nearly half of the range was booked for events. Usually that is bad news for the guy that wants to pull up and get a space. I almost cancelled but then I remembered that almost nobody shoots at the shotgun range and we were arriving after the scheduled 4H practice. One of the things on my agenda was to shoot 410 bore out of the new 20 gauge chamber adapter. And, I had a box of targets that I had stacked up to move. If we shoot them all, I wont have to worry about moving them.

I probably should do an after action report now that I have shot all the chamber adapters I talked about in the early Fall time. But, I can say that they do make things go bang. I had zero failures when I pulled the trigger. Whether you can hit anything is another question. From an accuracy standpoint, they all resulted in less than ideal results. Thinking about things, probably a lot of it is that a shotgun is a poor rifle, due to the sights. I tried to use Kentucky windage as my aiming method and was semi successful.

First, we went to the shotgun range. My son is a much better shooter than I am due to his significant more time behind the trigger doing trap for years. He was the first to hit a target albeit it took us probably twenty attempts in order to do it. We found that you really had to jump the target or you had no chance.

My ‘expert’ analysis is that a chamber adapter has no choke on it. For that reason it is considered a ‘cylinder bore’ or no choke whatsoever. This means that the only real shot pattern is what the wad is providing. The closer the shot, the more likely of a hit because once the shot leaves the wad, it is going to spread out tremendously.

Another thing that makes a difference is that in trap, my son was shooting 1 1/8 oz of #8 shot. In this 410 shell, there is only 1/2 oz of #8. This means that there is less than half of the shot then he is used to. A poor pattern with half as much shot means that chances of target breakage is significantly reduced.

Despite all of that, we had fun. I had 50 rounds if 410 and half was 2 1/2″ shells and the other were 3″ shells. We both shot about half of each. I missed every single shot until the very last two. He hit three of them toward the end. Like I said, he is typically an 80% shooter with 12 gauge whereas I am more like a 40-50% shooter. My analysis of the situation is that if you really ‘needed’ a 410 like this, it might cost much more than it was worth to get that rabbit or quail. When you only have one shot, it is low odds that this will be it.

I suspect that if this were a proper 410 shotgun, things would be different. I don’t know if we would have been in the 80% success range but I bet we would have hit more than 10%. Regardless, I enjoyed the time, there was very little recoil so if you could afford to shoot all day, you could do it without bruising. It definitely got me thinking that maybe I should add a 410 to the fleet.

After we got done at the shotgun range, most of the open bays were open. I find that later in the day it is always easier to get a space regardless of the day. People want to be home and winding down at 4pm rather than dealing with the elements. We switched over to shooting pistol rounds rather than shotgun shells and we lucked out that the bay we were in had lights. I didn’t even know that they had them other than one bay.

Wrapping up the day, we chatted in the truck on the way home about his carburetor problems and tools that he was looking to buy. It was the father/son time that I never really experienced. Maybe I was too busy to take notice or maybe we are both changing. But, despite the fact that it was kind of a risky, make-shift plan it turned out perfectly.

End Your Programming Routine: I shed a silent tear as we drove away. I guess that if there was a way to go out, this should be the way. It’s not like I couldn’t become a member again if for some reason we move back but time also has a way of moving on. It is just going to cost double to start over again. Maybe even bigger, we have turned the corner on something my son and I have never had, an admirable relationship rather than an hierarchical one. That is worth the price.

December 24, 2025 – Good Times

December 24, 2025 /

Tomorrow is Christmas. For kids and some, it is a good time. I don’t particularly like it and I sort grit my teeth to get through it. There will be no AltF4.co tomorrow, but I wanted to leave on a high note. I am recapping a little bit of some of the finds I stumbled upon while I was on my hunting trip. This was in my plans for October but got buried under all the things that I didn’t get to. When I look at these pictures, I have a good feeling and so I thought that I would share.

Starting with the upper left, I had some kind of giant bird fly into a nearby tree. I think it was a Peregrine falcon but I am not 100% certain which is why I took the picture in the first place. Strange things sometimes happen in the woods, I have had owls fly around as if they are protecting something that I never saw. Sometimes there are occurrences that I have never experienced just by proximity to new or unusual circumstances. It was odd to have a giant bird land so close to a tree that I was next too.

To the right of that picture is a clear sign of predator activity. It was getting late in the week and the weather had finally changed from Indian summer to wet and freezing in the morning. I was walking a clear area and I stumbled upon some rib bones that were still bright red. If I had to guess, this was a remnant from a hunter’s recent butcher job that got carried away by a coyote. It was the only bones in the immediate vicinity but not the only bones in the area. It reminds us that this is a wild area with real, wild activity, even if it is not seen.

The picture on the farthest left is another thing I ran across in the woods. It is hard to say how old that can actually is. But I will say this, I have never seen a can like that before. This tells me that it was probably in the 1950-60 range. My guess is that this is a remnant from the original timber cutting of the area. Not only that, but I have never eaten canned potatoes. It makes me wonder what life was like back then. Is the person that left the can still alive? What were they actually doing in the woods? I see a lot of trash in the woods, but something vintage has a nice pedigree to it.

The last picture is some kind of plot marker. I spent some time looking at the sign because it was fascinating. First, it was made with super tight growth ring timber, likely ponderosa pine. It had both embossed and painted information on it. I don’t know if the marker was embossed first and then painted or repurposed by the painting. The sign was clearly hand painted and had some kind of cartographic information on it. Finally, it was nailed to the tree. Once again, I would guess that this hails from the 1950-60s.

Last week, I showed a picture of me standing in front of a defunct fire tower. That tower was build in the mid-1990s and taken out of service in 2023 because it was deemed unsafe. It looked pretty good to me but if I had to speculate, I would guess that the galvanized hardware had started to corrode. It is too bad because fire watch today is predominantly done by satellite, airplane and cameras.

There are still a few active fire towers in Oregon. It used to be that people like teachers would camp out during the summer months to keep an eye out for smoke, likely after lightning storms during the summer months. These things would dot the forests from line of sight to line of sight and were crucial on getting the jump on fire response. Some of them are available to stay overnight as a sort of weekend getaway. I helped myself to use of the vault toilet. It was very clean and private and it sure beats digging a hole. It also helped that the best cell phone reception in the area was at the tower. I actually conducted some business up there.

End Your Programing Routine: A hunting trip is a lot more than shooting an animal to me. It’s a good thing too because I haven’t shot any animal in ten years. It was camaraderie that doesn’t exist in the in-between years. It is the treasures that are found, some of which I documented. It is the wonder and mystery of man kind and nature. This is why I look forward to a hunting trip every couple of years. Merry Christmas everyone.

September 18, 2025 – Really… Is It Worth It?

September 18, 2025 /

This is the post that derailed the train. I had penciled this in to come out in mid-July. I moved it to late July and then late August and then I gave up. These were all range trips scheduled that got superseded by something more important. While it is not critical for me to go to the range and certainly not for the purposes of taking pictures and gathering information to write here about it, it has been rather frustrating to plan on doing something and to get overridden by someone else’s poor planning agenda.

I am leaving that all behind now. What are we looking at? It is effectively a 20 gauge shotgun firing 9mm ammunition. This is accomplished by the device in the middle called a barrel adapter. The basic idea is that the adapter fits into the shotgun chamber and that has it’s own chamber for some smaller caliber.

Barrel adapters are not new but they are unique. There are several boutique manufacturers that seem to machining operations at their core. The biggest knock is that they are expensive and made to order. It tends to be $200 per adapter. That is actually double what I paid for the shotgun and so I have held off for a long time. It wasn’t until I discovered this four pack of adapters for a little over $200 that I made the decision to buy.

I have one break action shotgun. It happens to be a single barrel but these things do work in doubles. In theory, you could have one barrel loaded with shot and one barrel loaded with a pistol caliber. Assuming the premise of all of this is good, that is a pretty compelling amount of versatility for situations like small game hunting.

The devil is in the details here. Barrel adapters come in different lengths and you can even get them rifled and unrifled. It would be much better to have a rifled adapter from an accuracy and repeatability standpoint. Mine are 8″ long and rifled. I think it is ideal for the situation, not too long but yet some of the benefits of a longer barrel, kind of like shooting a long pistol. Considering that the chamber is included in the overall length, it effectively makes it a 7-7 1/2″ barrel.

The big thing to consider is that barrel adapters are an ad-hoc situation. I found it helpful to have a prying tool to remove the spent casing. The shotgun shell ejector/extractor will not reach the smaller diameter pistol casing. I imagine that a finger nail would work but you also risk putting you fingers into sharp, hot metal.

Just for benchmark purposes, I shot 115gr 9mm at about a 10 yard target. I found it to shoot about 6″ higher than the aiming point. There are of course many variables that could change all of that. Would a different brand perform differently? What about 124gr or 147gr bullets instead of 115gr? Given that kind of discrepancy, it seems like a 50 yard shot might be closer to dead on. That is good news from a hunting standpoint but this is a shotgun and lacks rifle sights which would make a big difference in accuracy as well.

This kit came with adapters for 9mm, 357 magnum, 45acp and 45 colt. Most shooters know that 45 colt is the same diameter as the 410 bore shotgun, so in this case the chamber is actually 3″ to accommodate for the shot shell. Believe it or not, I do not own a 9mm pistol and so the rest of the calibers I will be interested in comparing velocity data between effectively a 7″ pistol (the adapter) and a regular handgun. That is future work to do.

The first thing a new firearm gets from me is a function test. Does it actually work? I know that this is not a firearm but essentially it is. In fact it is a non-branded use and so function testing is definitely more important. I am happy to report that everything worked like it was supposed to. I am now going to go on the process of testing all the calibers an permutations for future range trips.

This shotgun is part of a set that is no longer made. I originally purchased it to haul around in a survival kit. It is a youth model and I was originally going to start my kids on it but I had several very unpleasant recoil experiences that I would not let them use it as it was too light. That being said, I kind of wish that I did not own it. It was so inexpensive that it really is effectively worthless. Hence the desire to seek more utility from the setup.

End Your Programming Routine: Let me bottom line it. I would not go out and purchase a break-open shotgun to then buy adapters for versatility. I still have a lot of testing to do but I don’t see the accuracy with the sights and the difficulty to reload as better than a 9mm handgun. It will also never replace my 870 as a shotgun. But, since I already own it I might as well have some fun and try something different.

September 16, 2025 – What My Bookshelf Says About Me

September 16, 2025 /

In the picture below, you see all the books that are on my to be read list. One month ago, I was laying in bed and looking at the titles when I had a thought. What if an alien came to earth and entered my room and looked at what was on that shelf? What kind of conclusion about the kind of person that I am and what I am all about would they make?

In case you cannot read everything I will give you a quick run-down. On the top shelf, there are two items. I actually will talk about the recipe card tomorrow so hold on for that. The book below it I have also read. It is called “Where the Wild Dads Went”. A father’s day gift and it is a fifteen minute read so that is an unofficial entry. It is really what is on the second shelf that is on my to be read.

Going from top left to bottom right, the first book is “Atlas of the Heart” by Brene Brown. I have not read that because my wife forbid me from reading it without her. I tried to read some when she was in the hospital last year but it was not the time or place. At some point, I will probably read it anyway because at this rate we will never get through it.

Beneath that, there is a couple of magazines. They are not actually periodicals but the hunting and fishing synopsis published by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. They contain things like law changes for the new year, unit boundaries, season start dates and bag limits. I pick these up at the end of each year and reference them periodically throughout the year. One is for big game hunting, one is for fishing and the third is game birds.

Beneath that is a book that I actually purchased for my wife. It is a idea book for home dates that include recipes to make for dinner. I imagined that we would start at the beginning and work our way through. I think that she thought it was better for me to take the initiative on that front since I tend to be the cook and have zero romance naturally.

The last book is called “Steak”. It was a Christmas present that I will eventually get around to. You see how thick it is, who knew that there was that much to actually write about steak? I have thumbed through it and there are some recipes so that takes up some space. A lot of it is about the cuts and the handling etc. I will likely read this maybe this winter and like many cookbooks, I will probably not read it cover to cover.

The middle stack is mine. I will definitely read “Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. I wanted to put some space in-between this book and “Anthem” since what I know about it so far is that it is going to be a very similar tone as her other work. The next book was recommended by a former co-worker. I think it is going to be a short read and up my alley in personal business development. The last one on that stack is “Deadly Force” by Massad Ayoob. This is an update to “In the Gravest Extreme” that I went through earlier this year.

The stack on the right is a little bit deceiving. The top book is “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis. I am currently reading this book and I am about half way through it. This will be my next book review in series after I finish “Boundaries” this week so I won’t say too much more on that.

The book below that is my weekly journal. In it I sort of summarize the previous week and look forward to the things I need to do in the next week. I use this book as an organizational tool to plan on what things I need/want to do as well as track progress. It also captures a few personal things usually as they pertain to social activities and how they effect my time and attitude. I have been writing in it on Sunday Nights since probably 2012.

Finally, there is the Bible. This is the same one that I received at my Baptism in second grade. To be honest, I will probably never read it completely but I do keep going back to it. It is the translation that I read Revelations earlier this year as an example. I do really prefer the NIV translation because it is so much easier to understand but this one is not too bad, it is much more modern than King James.

And so I ask again, what does my bookshelf say about me?

End Your Programming Routine: While possibly not perfect, I think that my bookshelf represents me exactly. It is complicated and diverse: Christianity, libertarianism, self defense, personal and relational development as well as food. It is mostly non-fiction but not completely. They are all my interests and so they are me.

August 6, 2025 – What Everyone Tells You To Do But Never Does

August 6, 2025 /

Imagine that you want to buy a new car. It is easy and smart to go to various websites and look at specs of your short list of cars. After you narrow down the options, there is likely a list of two to four cars that meet the specs but you still want more. So, you go to the dealer and they say ‘these are the cars that you can look at’. The key word is look. I one time looked at a Porsche 911 but the salesman said that I could not drive it unless I made an offer to purchase. How would I know I want to make an offer if I cannot drive it and see it is for me?

As a high school trap coach, I see plenty of new shooters. They may not be new to shooting but most are definitely new to the game of trap. Most of them fit into two categories. There are those that fall into the camp that they purchased a shotgun to participate which is almost always inadequate and those that upgrade their shotgun within a year. The latter group is often the ones shooting dad’s or older brother’s shotgun.

What I can say from experience is that fit is king. I don’t care if you are shooting 20 gauge as opposed to 12 gauge, if the gun does not fit you are going to struggle. A few years ago a kid on the team was shooting a beat up Remington 870 pretty well. He purchased a semi-automatic Tri-star and could not hit the broad side of a barn. After struggling six out of eight weeks with his newer and fancier shotgun he switched back only to shoot season high scores. Neither gun was wrong but the simpler 870 fit him much better and so he scored better.

I recently attended an event that my range put on. This is a new thing; they used to host a fully automatic shoot that was a real hoot. This was intended to bring back a fraction of that fun that no longer can happen due to insurance costs. But the premise was to bring in a number of manufacturers and a whole lot of guns to shoot. Ideally, that would lead to purchases from the sponsor of the event.

What you can see in the picture is about a third of firearms that Sig Sauer brought to the event. There were a number of other vendors there as well. The idea was that participants would purchase tickets that would be presented to vendors for ammunition. Depending on what caliber you chose to shot, a ticket was worth 10 22LR, 8 9mm, 6 45 ACP etc.

In today’s world, semi-automatic handguns are king. In my day growing up, 38 special was the same price as 9mm ammunition. Not so today, 38 special is three times the cost as 9mm. This event was almost exclusively 9mm pistols which is too bad because I don’t own any. On top of that, my tastes are pretty eclectic. For instance when I visited the Taurus bay, I really wanted to shoot a Judge (45LC/410 revolver) but no such luck.

I have heard over and over from multiple sources that first time, gun owners should try a bunch of different firearms before just buying one. But how, where? This event was awesome for handling and shooting a large number of the most popular firearms in the market. In fact, the majority of firearms I have purchase were a surprise in how I shot with them until I purchased them and went to the range for the first time.

I could have shot different exotic things but I did not. I tried three different 22LR, a 9mm and a 45acp pistol. I tried some shotguns that were way out of my price range and also a 6.5 Creedmoor rifle. The pistols were things that I have considered over the years. The shotguns and rifle was just for fun. Nothing I tried is on my next to purchase list but then again they didn’t really have what I wanted to shoot to begin with.

I definitely learned some things. I learned which 22 pistol I liked over the others. I learned that I really liked the 9mm and I learned that I didn’t like how the 45 felt in the hand. The one overall lesson I learned was with the 6.5 Creedmoor. This has become an extremely popular cartridge in the last ten years. I wanted to shoot a rifle that I considered affordable and without a silencer. This particular rifle had a muzzle brake on it.

After firing the first round, it blasted my ears causing them to ring even with ear plugs in. I have heard about this phenomenon before but never personally witnessed it. I found myself closing my eyes on the remaining two rounds which I am sure that effected my marksmanship. If this is how all brakes work, this is a definite no-no for me.

End Your Programming Routine: I am fifty years old and have been in the scene most of my life. There are two places that I can think of that actually rent firearms but you are limited to what they have on hand and the disciplines that they offer. This was a very unique experience to get a large swath of manufacturers of similar firearms together. This is something that you really cannot reasonably do, try before you buy.

July 31, 2025 – Rip It Up

July 31, 2025 /

One of the things that I take for granted living in Oregon is the coastal, sand dunes. As I understand it, it is not the only sand dunes in the United States. Apparently, there are dunes in Utah, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, California and North Carolina at least. When I was doing a quick check on where the others were located, I was also checking to see if off-roading was allowed; that is not universal.

In Oregon at least, the dunes are off-roading heaven. They also go on for miles and miles down the central and south central coast line. All my life I have known people that aspire to spend their weekends jumping humps and drag racing up extremely steep hills. This is what my son wanted to do for his 19th birthday.

If you watch the video, you can see that he got a four wheeler. I ended up renting a Honda Talon side by side for various reasons. One of which is that my arm is still bothering me some and I thought it would be a little smoother (which I believe that it was). I felt no pain or soreness after riding around for three hours. I know that my son wanted to rent something bigger and faster but you had to be over 25 to rent and drive this vehicle.

We had a lot of fun for the majority of the time. Unfortunately, there was a small accident that cut our time short. It was no big deal but it did break the flag pole off and we were instructed to call the shop if a roll occurred. They wanted us to nurse the thing back which is why we went so slow in the video.

Right before we left, I packed my Baofeng GMRS radios. I have never used them before and I thought this might be a good place to test them. It turns out it was the perfect place to test the radios. When the accident occurred, we of course did not have any reception. So, I went down the hill to get cell signal. Once I got the instructions from the shop, I radioed to my son. We would have never been able to do that without the radios.

I would estimate that we got about 3 miles maximum of reception. It seemed 1.5 miles was reliable but beyond that things got spotty. I heard him at 3 miles but he did not hear my response. When we got back home, I realized that I actually have a longer set of antennas also in the box. It would be interesting to switch and see what the difference is. I also had a set of Midland walkie talkies that are lower power, but we didn’t really have enough time to mess with those as well.

We call it Sand Duning. It is one of those things that it seems like many out of state visitors are drawn to. Many people that I have met seem to bee-line to the sand dunes and rent a ATV. This is why I started out today saying that I just don’t think about it much. I guess it is been there, done that.

That being said, it is one of those activities that seems approachable. If you watch the video carefully, you can see the RVs on the left hand side at points. People trailer their vehicles and camp out on the sand. Then, they can just leave from their camp sites and go play. Four new quads is certainly cheaper than one new boat. I could see really getting into it. But then again, I don’t need anything else to take my time and money.

End Your Programming Routine: I think that it has been ten years or so since the last time we went Sand Duning. That was also for my son’s birthday. My wife was jealous, she wanted to go as well but she was out with her girlfriends for her birthday. I guess that is the way the cookies crumble. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if we have another trip in out near future.

July 30, 2025 – Getting In the Mood

July 30, 2025 /

Believe it or not, I had a free Saturday not too long ago. I was free of any obligations because everybody was working or doing things that they deemed more important. I didn’t have to wait around for somebody to pick-up something or deliver something or babysit or host a party and I have literally been waiting weeks to try out my recrafted Danner boots as well as jump start my return to hiking.

I put on my boots and only packed a day pack. I put up water and a couple of snacks because the focus was the boots and it was only going to be a five mile loop. Using the All Trails app I found a pretty close trail that I never knew about and set off.

I am happy to report that my toe no longer rubbed on the plastic toe cap. This would become raw in a day or so and my enthusiasm to put on the boots rapidly diminished each day to the point where I would rather take other shoes even if that meant wet or cold feet. One other side benefit I noticed immediately that I didn’t realize was a problem was the constant squeaking with each step.

Apparently, the heel supports had detached from the sidewalls, that is what the cobbler said. With each step it would rub on the leather and cause a very slight squeaking. It was definitely annoying and not the kind of thing you really want while out trying to sneak up on game. There were two, new kind of minor issues I noticed.

The most pressing was that the tongue was biting into my ankle. I tried to adjust it a couple of times but I cannot see anything unusual. I don’t know if it was the socks I was wearing or I just laced them up in a weird way. More to report some other time but I never had that problem before. The second was that the boots left a black ring around my socks. I think this must have come from the re-dying of the leather. I assume that will resolve itself.

I took a number of photos when I was out. Most of them were from animals that I ran across as I was out and about. The one that I chose spoke to me because if you change the sky and the temperature, it could easily have been deer hunting season. I saw four different deer after all.

Now that I have finished my kick, my mind is drifting to the fall. I realize that we are a week or so away from the technical, mid-summer point. Traditionally our whether starts to turn in a couple of weeks. The sun looks different, it is more muted and by the end of August it is setting by eight o’clock. The overall humidity often goes down and so it feels cooler that it actually is. This becomes harvest season.

Coincidentally, harvest season is also hunting season. The official start of Dove season is September 1. If I was an archery hunter, my big game season would also begin. But a short and pleasant month leads to the real, big game seasons. As I have stated previously, we won our tag draw this year and so I am planning on doing Mule deer hunting rather that Blacktail deer hunting this year. Maybe this is the year I finally go for coastal elk, I have seen plenty of them this year. It all depends on how things go with medical appointments and things as we move past summer.

I am adding some new gear this year (surprise, surprise). I have heard over and over on Meateater how the binocular harness is the number one piece of gear that they use. I will write more about that later. But I just got my base part and so I am anxious to get that tested out before the season. It seems like a good idea to put on my boots again and get out there just to feel things out a bit. The season is barreling towards us faster than I can imagine.

End Your Programming Routine: We are getting to my favorite time of year for many reasons but chief among them is anticipation of hunting season. I can say that the money was worth Danner boot recrafting if for anything than removing the squeak, I am sure that I will work out the ankle pressure thing next time I put the boots on. Yeah, I could have paid less and gotten new boots that would possibly work better than these. But, this is why I believe in buy once, cry once.

July 1, 2025 – To Be a Kid Again

July 1, 2025 /

When I was a kid, I loved Legos. Between my brother and I, we didn’t have a ton of them but certainly enough to be creative. There wasn’t the plethora of different lines that they have today but I was partial to the ‘Space’ series. A couple of those kinds of sets along with a good foundation of basic blocks gave us enough to build lots of things.

The pinnacle of what we built was a clipper, sailing ship complete with cloth sails and rigging. My only regret is that we didn’t have enough of the same colors to make the ship really look proper. I was pretty proud of that back then and if they had allowed Legos in the state fair then, I think we could have won. I have a picture of it somewhere, maybe I will try to find it some day.

The Legos of today seem to have tons of specialty parts. I feel like that takes some of the creativity out of the process. For one thing, after I built the model and threw away the instructions, that was the one and only time the actual structure was built as intended. Everything else was improvised.

I know that when I built my Ford GT500, all I did was follow the instructions. Everything was in unit bags and all you had to do was open the unit bag and follow the instructions sequentially. It certainly took several hours but honestly it was easy. I see no reason why the most advanced kits are labelled for ages 18+. Honestly, a determined 12 year old should be able to follow directions and complete the model without breaking a sweat.

My wife bought me this set for Father’s Day. It is from the ‘Botanical’ line. I am taking my time building one type of flower a day. This is just to extend the enjoyment that I am getting from doing this. I don’t think it will ever get disassembled and my wife wants to display them where we currently have a Lego cityscape.

There are certain pastimes that I did as a youth that I honestly believe were highly influential as an adult. Those things would be reading, Legos, G.I. Joes, Dungeons and Dragons and drawing. Some of things I have written or spoken about before and some I have not. I am pretty sure this is the first time I have written about Legos at least.

We had this old, brown fleece covered bean bag. That thing became army base, moon scape, race track etc. I remember times when it would be all setup and then it was time to put stuff away for the night. I instructed everyone in the family not to touch the bean bag because it would then ruin the scenario that was setup for future play. You know what? It worked more often than it did not.

Not having a build plan, not having a bunch of specialty parts, not having access to mind numbing TV is what made this so beneficial. I had to look for pieces, I had to estimate scale from a picture, I had to figure out how a bunch of squared off blocks could make a curve of a hull. I think that another thing I learned was that if I didn’t have the exact part, it was going to be OK.

We like puzzles in this house. I think puzzles and Legos share some common elements. But more so than that, I believe that puzzles are good for the brain. This is especially true for analytical skills. There is pattern searching and recognition as well as visualization involved.

One other thing I notice with puzzles as well is that the efficacy diminishes over time. I attribute that to brain fatigue. I think that awareness with puzzles can help you become cognizant of when you are starting to see brain fatigue.

End Your Programming Routine: We often do a puzzle during a break time like Thanksgiving or Christmas. That has become a mixture of Legos or a puzzle over the last ten years. As I stated above, I think that they provide similar kinds of benefits albeit puzzles are significantly more difficult and cheaper. The next time you are wanting to go back in time a little bit, try building a Lego set.