Category: Leisure

January 21, 2025 – Two Scanners Scanning

January 21, 2025 /

Six months ago, I had zero scanners and now I have two. Most work days I will have both of them on because I have a lot to learn still. I figured out a couple of channels by using Radio Reference. The real reason that I have two is that I would like to have one not just in my office but also upstairs, where we live.

My newest scanner (the handheld) has a neat, preprogrammed set of frequencies that are commonly used by emergency services. I have learned at least three new channels that I didn’t see on the Radio Reference database. Eventually, I am going to add them to my stationary scanner so that I get a more comprehensive listen to what is going on.

The thing about the pre-programmed scan list is that there are so many channels that it takes it takes about 5 seconds to scan through and I am pretty sure I am missing most of the conversations that are taking place. I think this because sometime I catch the tail end of the conversation on the handheld that I have been hearing on the larger scanner. This means that there is a meaningful limit to the number of channels to put into a scan group.

Another cool thing with the handheld is that is have several built in scan-lists. For instance there is a CB list. So I could run the scanner to determine a good channel to talk on. It also has a VHF channel list. This would be more helpful in a marine environment where I could listen to Coast Guard radio. Most of those channels are reserved for certain purposes like ships and harbors.

Do I need to have two scanners running? I don’t think so but once again there does seem to be a practical limit to the number of channels that effectively are scanned in any one group. I am doing it to collectively build a better list of channels. I cant say if the ones on Radio Reference are old or out of date or what. I could imagine a situation where you might not want the scanner to jump to public works while things were getting hot.

Currently, of the two I am liking the handheld better. It has an electric plug as well as batteries making it portable. It seems to get decent reception despite the fact I have the desktop version plugged into an exterior antenna. My only knock is the programming and use seems to be more complicated and less intuitive than the desktop. Actually, I have to read the manual each time I want to do anything for either. So, that is not saying too much.

Both of these I purchased from eBay for about $50 each. Don’t be surprised to find them for a significantly higher price though. You just have to keep an eye out and jump on the opportunity for lower price. What you might find for higher priced models is more accessories or possibly better condition. Then again, just keep watching for a good one.

I have yet to figure out how to handle trunking (or digital channel skipping) and that may be why I have not really figured out the Law Enforcement frequencies. Be aware that technology moves on and buying used may not get you what you want to hear. Do the best you can to research what technology your local agencies are using and compare that to the used models out there. Both of mine support dual trunking but not triple trunking. Fire, medical, public works are all using standard radio.

What I am saying is be wary of paying too much for something that might not meet your needs. You might end up disappointed. On the other hand, sometimes an out of date scanner for $20 may be exactly the entry point you want without breaking the bank.

End Your Programming Routine: Don’t be surprised if I end up with three scanners. I would love to own the Uniden Home Patrol for the very reason that it would shortcut a lot of the trial and error that I have been doing. Basically, you put in your zip code and a database with all of the active frequencies are ready to go. These are things that often come with subscription services and other costs (which is why I don’t have any now).

January 16, 2025 – A New Year, New Gear Part 2

January 16, 2025 /

Meet my new pack. A brand new, 65L pack made by Gregory. As far as I am concerned, I am pretty brand agnostic. I guess to be totally truthful, I would prefer to support brands and companies that reflect my values and I bought this one without any research because it was the right size and fit the load the best of the ones I tried.

What I want you to know about packs is to go somewhere where people know what they are talking about. Yes, I bought a pack from a box store in the past without any sort of sales help. And if you are already an expert then that is fine. But this time, I went to a specialty store. I am not going to lie, it was REI and they do not generally reflect my values. That being said, they offer options and they provide help by people that actually do the work.

The first thing that they asked was have I been measured? Of course, the answer was no. I don’t remember the exact numbers but the results were the top end of medium and the bottom end of large. The reason this is important is that packs are sized both in what they can hold and the structure on how they fit on the body. Not only that, but different brands interpret S/M/L as exactly the same. Hence, go to a store that is knowledgeable about the product.

Another service that I got was having the pack roughly adjusted and a load added for each of the potential options. I was able have the pack optimized and walk around the store, including flights of stairs and see which one worked the best. You don’t get that from a box store or the internet for sure. Most of the other gear can be coped with but a pack is critical to be right. Hopefully, I made my point.

Another major difference between my 1990s, external frame pack and my new one is that the old one was designed to lash gear to the outside. That is where I put my sleeping bag, tent and pad. All bulky and heavy. For that reason, new gear needs to be considered to be put inside of my new pack. Everything, including sleeping bags are smaller today because they need to fit inside the zippers. So, the gear strategy is different than it used to be requiring evaluation of all of my old stuff.

A general rule of thumb is bags up to 25L are considered day packs. 30-50L packs are a couple of days and 50-70L are the week long size. Any larger than that and things are too heavy to reasonably pack. My current training pack is a 40L pack. I put some weight in it to give me something to lug around. I bought this pack with the idea that I would use it for weekend trips. Truthfully, I have used it very little since I bought it so it was almost new when I started training.

Incidentally, I was looking at the tag on my 40L pack and it was marked S/M. I have been having some problems with straps staying tight as I walk, While not completely uncomfortable, I wonder if that pack is actually too small for me. I thought the size denoted the capacity not knowing that they were built for body types.

One last thing to consider on packs. My two older packs are top loading. The advantage of that is that everything is well contained and they are considered to be able to hold more. Packs that can access the contents from the front are significantly easier to use. You do not have to dump everything to get to the bottom. I found with top loading options that the pack needed to be repacked every day.

I have tried to pack strategically but inevitably you should only be packing the things that you need. Therefore, everything needs to be accessed. This leads to dumping the pack every day and repacking. That is kind of a pain, I am hoping that this new, front loading pack is much more user friendly, but I will have to use it to be sure.

End Your Programming Routine: I have one more major piece of gear that I need to get and that is a tent. I am researching that now so more on that later. My plan is to keep using my training setup on a daily basis and to take my new pack out on some weekend testing. That probably wont happen until I have the tent however. Right now, I am just filling the new pack up with new stuff. That is my specialty.

January 14, 2025 – I Have GPS, Why Would I Need a Compass?

January 14, 2025 /

When I was a Boy Scout, it was a troop requirement to have a whistle and compass if you were going to leave camp. The theory was that you weren’t going to get lost but if you did, the compass was going to get you home and if that failed, blow your whistle until you were found. Keep reading to find out that was partially hooey.

My new compass

A GPS is an incredibly useful device. You can set a pin for your vehicle or camp and in theory, all you have to do to get back is keep walking to the pin. Rather an absolute navigation tool, the best use for GPS is actually relative data like how far or how fast it has been because strictly speaking it is not a perfect navigation signal.

While GPS can be pretty basic, it can also be much more interactive. In the simplest terms, The world have been mapped as a grid. A connection between you and the satellite just says where you are in that grid. Without a map, the context of that number is almost meaningless. It is possible to get coordinates to a destination and then you can simply navigate between where you are at to that coordinate destination.

The more sophisticated devices have an internal memory or at least a way to insert a micro SD card. That is where you would put your map which then gives context to the screen. Today’s younger generation has bypassed those devices in favor of the mobile phone which already has a GPS built in and plenty of memory. Services such as On-X provide detailed maps as a subscription service making the old GPS devices seem like dinosaurs.

Great… so why would we need a compass if this gizmo does everything that I want? First of all, if you don’t know how to use a compass it does you no good at all. Second, without a map even knowing how to use a compass has very little value. Sure, you should be able to find North pretty easily, but I would expect even a novice outdoors person to be able to do that by the sky. This is why carrying a compass in Boy Scouts was little more than mental dissidence.

I have found two significant problems with GPS devices. The first is terrain and vegetation will block satellite signals. This makes these expensive gizmos useless. The second is that they all run on batteries, so unless you are going to have a way to power them, they are going to stop working (relatively quickly). This is not to say that I am not going to continue to use them, but I recognize the limitations and they may not make the final gear list.

I will carry a map, so I might as well also have a compass. I should also point out that the map should preferably be a topographic map. You are going to use the highest points as targets to try and figure out where you are on the map with lines called azimuths. Once you know where you are, then you can figure out how to get where you are going to go. A compass will provide the bearing as you continue to walk in the direction of your target.

I will likely not use orienteering for navigation. The trail will be relatively well marked and the map will likely come out with signage and other landmarks. People do say that at times the trail is not well marked or covered with snow so it is possible to get off course. I have learned ‘Be Prepared’ even if it comes with a weight penalty. I will also have my watch (GPS) and likely my phone another GPS. All of these things need practice for proficiency.

End Your Programming Routine: I should probably write another article that talks about orienteering strictly because there is more to know as well as some other issues. But I think that you can tell I am advocating for map and compass. The National Geographic map of the PCT is larger than pocket sized but very detailed. You can’t go wrong with learning another practical skill especially one that doesn’t need batteries or a satellite signal. It might even save your life.

January 9, 2025 – A New Year, New Gear Part 1

January 9, 2025 /

When I first announced that I was going to do this, I had over a year. Now I am looking at six months. I am no where near prepared with my biggest worry is my fitness. The bad weather, low daylight, holiday pre-occupation along with my summer interruption last year has really cut into time I feel like I need. This has to become the primary focus as I prepare.

I don’t really want to dwell too much that aspect here. I don’t find it that interesting to write or read. Even though I have a version of most of the gear from the early 1990s, I have a list of gear to get for my modern challenge. All told, I expect the gear-up to cost around $2000. While I could probably get-by, borrow or skip a lot of it. $2000 for a week’s worth of vacation doesn’t seem that unreasonable.

On the scale of continuity, safety follows comfort and then enjoyment. I do plan on getting a satellite beacon for emergency communications. Being of questionable fitness, you never know if I end up rolling my ankle or god forbid some sort of heart attack or even a snake bite. I definitely plan on doing what I can to shore up my fitness, but stuff happens like lightning strikes.

I know from my half marathon days that shoes are important. Recently, I have been getting pain in my hip and knee after my training walks. That is the tell-tale sign that my shoes have broken down. I not only need shoes now, but I need to find the shoe that I don’t want to throw off the cliff (you knew that was coming…). Conventional running wisdom says that shoes are good for about 300 miles before they start breaking down. This also means I will likely go through at least two pairs of shoes before this hike is in the books.

I have loved the heck out of Keens that I bought. I wanted durable, water proof shoes when I was delivering for Amazon. I wanted to step in puddles and not care. They have done that for years. I also like that I don’t have to untie them to get my foot securely in the shoe. But, I don’t like the sole construction. I have had to repair the soles multiple times and I certainly don’t want to have that worry on the trail.

While very comfortable, they also feel heavy and clunky. I tried on a new pair Keens at REI and they felt like an old friend. So, that brand is still on the list due to my four years of heavy use and comfort. I opted to try the Merrill Moab 3 instead. These are still waterproof but the sole looks like it has a propensity to stay stuck on the shoe. I just started breaking these in, so the jury is still out.

I definitely like the water proof aspect for my current training but that is a property that I probably wont need on the trail. Another thing that I like about the Merrill is that they make the same shoe without Gore Tex. So I could have summer and winter shoes that basically fit the same without the extra sweatiness and bulk.

I am not totally in the tank for a light hiker either. I tried on some trail running shoes in this session. Part of me thinks that I want more of a running shoe as I practice around the city and on pavement. The hikers seem to be more rugged but that comes at bulk and weight. Besides durability, I don’t think that hikers are necessarily better shoes for safety or stability. I do think they will provide more miles before breakdown. Soles aside from my Keens, I get no pain from walking in them all day long.

At my wife’s urging, I also picked up a couple pairs of socks. One is a synthetic and the other is a Merino wool. The added advantage of technical socks is that they wick moisture away from your feet. This would be from sweat or puddles. This makes for more comfortable feet and a must for an enjoyable hike. Given that I am going to have a limited wardrobe, probably two pairs of socks, Merino wool had the added advantage of extended odor resistance. This is less muss and fuss about that gear component.

End Your Programming Routine: I had actually planned on talking about all of my new gear but it turns out I had more to say about shoes than I thought I did. Next week, I will discuss my new pack and what I have learned about packs. Because of the pain I have been experiencing after my walks, I have been holding back on my walks recently. I have to correct that first if I am going to get my fitness ready in time. Very important when it is my first worry.

December 11, 2024 – Can’t Stop Genetics

December 11, 2024 /

I have always admired people that have a dog that will stay with their owner and act under complete control. I suppose that there is an element of trust that the owner and the dog need to have with each other. I have never had that either or maybe I haven’t had the nerve to try.

It has been a few months since I have written about my dog Raya. I wrote all of this and I was going through my pictures and I saw one from August. So I had to come in and edit today’s. See https://altf4.co/september-4-2024-something-about-a-dog/ She is a Covid dog. After our beloved Snowflake tragically died we had to give it a break. That was all pre-Covid so once we had been homebound for several months we changed our minds about getting another dog. It seemed like we were always home with nowhere planned to go, so might as well.

Unlike Snow, Ray is not a pure breed. She is a mix between Golden Retriever and Burmese Mountain Dog. This makes for some interesting characteristics. I used to believe that she was mostly Golden with the look of Burmese but now I think it is the other way around.

When Snow was young (about a year) and I was training for the half marathon, I would run with her. As she got older, she would just flop on the floor after a short walk. I attributed it to being out of shape but I think that it was more than that. Because Snow died from overheating on a very mild late summer day and Raya comes from the same blood line, I keep a wary eye on Raya for the same thing.

But, Raya has become my training partner of sorts. Sometimes I take a short loop and drop her off before I go out for longer. That way I don’t feel guilty about leaving her at home all the time as I put on the miles for my future hike. My plan is to slowly work her up in fitness level.

Raya has some of the exuberance of a Golden, but you have to get past the Burmese first. She has a very instinctual protection trigger. Anytime someone comes to the door she barks ferociously. She barks when she can see people outside the window. She will growl or bark when we are outside and anyone walks by.

Snow used to lay in the driveway as the school kids would walk by and they would come up and pet her. Raya will leap off the deck eight steps up, barking and snarling. I keep her inside for the expected thirty minutes of school traffic now because there is no reason to subject kids to that. She have never been violent and I don’t think she would but she is going to let you know that this is her territory.

However aside from the barking, I have never seen her act aggressive. If people ignore her, she will eventually start warming up to them. Pretty soon, she will not leave them alone. With me and others in my family she is always underfoot. The picture was taken next to the bed where she lays until I kick her out before I go to sleep. Often times, I find her against the door in the morning. I have actually come to appreciate that she can seem aggressive but really isn’t. It makes me feel like she can play a role in defense of the home without me having to worry about unwanted attacks.

The reason that I am writing today is that we took Raya to Montana. Sometimes she can be a real pain. When she excited, she can pull like a sled dog so I let her off the leash even though you are not supposed to in a national park. But there were very few people at the park anyway.

We took a short walk in the snow and Raya was herding us. She would run to the back person and then up to the front person. She was keeping us in line. I have never seen that before. Dogs were bred to have a job and she was having the time of her life doing hers.

End Your Programming Routine: A boy and his dog. I sure miss Snow because she was so loveable. But Raya is her own kind of special. She is protective, loyal and loving to her pack. My wife actually trained Snow to go get the paper every morning. She lived for that. Raya has her own job, I am just looking at how to harness it.

December 5, 2024 – Not Even Close

December 5, 2024 /

The first thing that we did on the day of our arrival was to go on a hike. This is called the ‘M-trail’ at the University of Montana. It is essentially a mile up a very steep hill. I was interested to test my readiness and progression. Plus, it is like a bonus training exercise which I have been pretty lax about lately with lack of daylight and poor weather.

The M-trail goes to a giant letter M on the hillside. You get a complete look at the college as well as most of Missoula. It was very popular as we probably encountered at least fifty people going up, down and waiting at the top. Some were running, some were dogs, some were students and others were families clearly visiting for the holiday.

I did it. I wasn’t wearing a pack and I did have to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. I am not claiming to be in good shape but I think some of the strain was that we started at 3500 feet to begin with. Then we went straight up. I felt OK and maybe a little tired by the time that we were done.

The way that I looked at it though, is that I need to be able to do this ten more times with a loaded pack. The section that I am planning on hiking has some 20 mile stints between water sources. Granted, it probably won’t be this steep but the starting elevation is close.

I definitely felt it in my shins, they were sore the next day. I am not sure why exactly but I think that it has to do with rotating the foot, toes up and heel down. I am thinking that stretching movement was the cause. I am not too worried about the temporary pain but it does make me wonder if I can keep that level of strain for a week.

Clearly, I need to push myself more. It is difficult because we have no elevation to speak of. I walk the dog with a weighted pack but even then, I am only going an hour or hour and a half at a time. When I was younger, I would have dealt with it. But, at my age I don’t recover as quickly. I also noticed that I have been having some arch pain. My wife thinks that it could be the beginnings of plantar fasciitis. That is also something that you don’t want to come up on the trail, miles from anything.

It was a good check to see where I was at with readiness. Clearly I need to do more and fortunately, I have time to keep at it. It those days that the weather is nasty and I didn’t get out early enough that I need to not lose because I don’t have much time to waste.

End Your Programming Routine: You cannot tell from the picture, but my wife is in it. I was kind of torn between staying with her and pushing myself. Ultimately, I decided to continue on and wait at the top if she was going to make it. Believe it or not, the trail does continue to go up. We stopped at the official terminus but multiple people we met kept going up. It makes me wish I had something like this for my training purposes.

November 14, 2024 – What Is New?

November 14, 2024 /

Is there any news on the cancer front? No news is good news.

Am I reading anything else? No. I just finished reading the ‘Art of War’ this week and I still need to finish the Greek cookbook. It has been a slow grind this fall.

How about some exotic or fine cooking? No. Actually my wife has been doing a lot of the cooking lately. I figure that if she wants too, why not.

Did I start selling junk like I intended in the late summer? No, I took the pictures but have been lazy and not done anything.

Any big projects coming up? Nothing new. I want to get back to the wine cellar but it has been kind of out of sight, out of mind.

So really, my life has kind of stalled? In a way, yes.

If this was a job interview, you would have no choice but to take me at face value. And I admit, I wouldn’t hire myself based on those answers. I would argue that not all is as it seems. I want to be open about my humanity but I don’t want to leave myself appearing as a slug either.

Currently, I am waiting for the CB base station pictured below. I bought it on Ebay and the seller is taking his sweet time shipping it. I imagine that there is some kind of health problem because the date keeps getting pushed out. So I will patiently wait. The truth is I don’t have a suitable antenna anyway. I am just going to test mobile to mobile while I decide what direction I exactly want to go.

I mean, lets get real. CB is a low powered, very short range pursuit. We are talking about a couple of miles at best. However, this unit was cheap at $35. As I plan on gearing up with radios, why not learn and play in the cheap space. This had lead me to consider my workspace, battery back-ups and related topics.

I can’t express how the impact of training has on life. It becomes the number one optional priority. I realized this when I was training for my half marathon. It seemed like the only thing I ever did. If I wasn’t actually training, I was scheduling around it or scheduling training around other things.

This week has been miserably rainy. For that reason I haven’t done a lot of training. But, I am currently waiting for a reflective poncho so I can go out at night, in the rain. Once again, training has come top of mind.

Way too late in the election cycle, I realized that the future is uncertain. Right now, ammunition and reloading components are about 80% of pre-covid availability. I started building up my supply again. I pretty much stopped shooting regularly since Covid and what shooting I have done has been out of my inventory.

Fortunately, with the election results being what they are I anticipate at least four years of good fortune on that front. But as all good preppers should behave, it is the time of plenty that is the proper time to stock up. I have been inventorying and organizing trying to figure out where the gaps are and working to fill those gaps before the next shortage.

Now that my wife is back in action, the calendar has far fewer gaps than it did earlier in the year. Also with school in session, there have been a lot of activities. Trap finished up mid-October, trap fundraiser, the last weeks of my son’s cross country season and other family affairs.

Last week, we did something that we have done once before. It was the pumpkin shoot. We took our surviving jack-o-lanterns out as well as other decorative pumpkins and blasted them. We also shot hand thrown clays in a family friendly competition. If I had taken any pictures, I would have been writing about that exclusively, not just a paragraph.

We are going to Montana for Thanksgiving. I am not loathe to get too involved in anything until we get back. There are also some things that I need to finish up in the mean time. I would call that preparing for the trip and then there is the holiday season. Another dead spot in productivity.

End Your Programming Routine: It’s going to be OK. This has been a tough year and by all accounts I think I made it through pretty well all things considered. I wish that I could just go all the time, but there is a reason that nature has a season of rest. Consider that now as the time.

November 13, 2024 – Sometimes You Run Across the Darndest Things

November 13, 2024 /

I haven’t talked about this much, but at my age and fitness level I see my upcoming Pacific Crest Trail hike barreling at me. My wife tries to convince me that I have six months and plenty of time. But I see the evening darkness and prevalent rain kind of crimping my style. Living in the elements is part of the deal but I sure don’t want to get hit by a car because it is dark and cars can’t see me.

I am trying to get my walks in during the daylight. In order to do what I can, I am packing weight. I need to be able to pack a full load up to twenty miles. This is between water sources on the trail so it is pretty much a necessity. Anyway, I am worried that I am not doing enough, fast enough.

The bike in the picture below used to belong to my eldest son. He was in sixth grade when we bought it for him for Christmas. It was replaced by an e-bike three years ago. So then, this bike went to my younger son. Despite constant cajoling about locking the bike up, one day it was not in the bike rack after school.

How do I know that it was son’s bike? Well, there are quite a few things. First, it was the bike that my son was using when he was hit by a car. We replaced the petals. One crank was worn out so we bought a mis-matched crank that was used. The most telling part is the last time my son put on tires, we put road tires on a mountain bike. It meant that they didn’t wear out so fast.

Part of me was kind of glad the bike got stolen. I was hoping that the lesson would sink in about our guidance was for a reason. It was also hoping that walking to school the rest of the year would be payment enough. As a result, no police report was filed. No record of the crime exists.

One day I was walking and I saw the bike. There it was sitting in front of a house. I don’t know them though I am pretty sure the house has kids. I never expected to see the bike in one hundred years. When my locked bike was stolen in college, I never saw it again and I lived there three more years. I always looked for it.

My walks are part of my mechanisms to keep an eye on what is happening around town. I check on the progress of the new sidewalk work happening on my street. I walk into the new neighborhood to see what lots are starting to get built and what houses are finished and no longer empty. I see the new places homeless people hide their tents. And apparently, I see where my son’s stolen bike ended up.

End Your Programming Routine: There was a small part of me that wanted to get on the bike and ride off. There was another part of me that wanted to confront these people. But then, I have no proof that we ever owned the bike and no record it was taken. It has been gone years now, my guess it that they probably need it more that we do at this point. Keep your eyes open, you never know what you will see.

October 31, 2024 – So Long, Old Friend

October 31, 2024 /

It was on my recent fishing trip that I found out about the permanent draining of a reservoir of my youth. It was where we water skied and fished. It was where we tubed and it was the first place I took my boat. I knew that I wanted to go see it for old times sake.

It was a 2023 court decision that finally put an end to the reservoir. Basically, this is a last ditch effort to save the spring Chinook salmon run. The plan is to let the river flow unless there is a major water event in which case they will use the dam to mitigate extraneous flooding. The dam was put in in 1967. My dad grew up along the river (below the dam) and he said that it flooded every year before the dam. It has done it’s job as well as providing a lot of memories for me.

The way that deer hunting goes around here, I don’t hold my breath. I threw my rifle in the car, but the real plan was to go explore. I wanted to validate what I had heard and reminisce about what was lost. If I happened to run across a good spot to hunt, I might want to come back. That is a good way to get my wife to go along as well.

At the beginning of the journey, we stopped at the dam. In all of my years and all of my trips, I have never looked over the edge. We walked about halfway across the dam and I never realized that there was a road on the other side. We didn’t go on it because we had a mission to follow the river up.

This picture shows the exact spot on the reservoir that we used to ski. It is called the Quartzville arm of Green Peter. If you follow this road beyond this point, it turns into a picturesque western stream. I had only gone beyond this point once in my life. At that point, I was probably in middle school so it was really new to me.

A couple of miles up the road, it turns into a dispersed camping area. It really means that there are no services, but it also means that there is no cost. All of the spots are along side the river and include a fire ring. Bring your own water and expect that the nearest toilet might be a couple of miles away. Other than that, it seems like a perfect place to spend a hot summer weekend or a quiet fall hunting trip.

After we stopped multiple times to look at potential camping spots, it was time to complete the journey. We followed the forest service road all the way through. We ended up on the the next east/west highway to the north. We headed west and home just in time to avert a major rainstorm.

End Your Programming Routine: These are difficult and complicated situations. I don’t want to see major flooding or the demise of the native salmon or the loss of excellent recreation. You might call what I was doing was deer hunting but really it was a Sunday drive with my wife. I will miss the reservoir but I have a new appreciation for the area.

August 8, 2024 – Are You Enjoying the Olympics?

August 8, 2024 /

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.