Category: Opinion

November 22, 2023 – Let Us Give Thanks

November 22, 2023 /

I will not have much to say tomorrow. In fact, it is only a post wishing you Happy Thanksgiving. I don’t think that it is right to not acknowledge the things that happened over the last year. Part of humility needs say thanks to the good things in life. I want to do that today.

  1. Adults that mentor and volunteer their time. I have so many examples of this year. It is humbling that others would take interest in my kids and provide a leg up. Mr. Moore the middle school teacher who stepped in as the adult for this year’s Chess In the Park. Mr. Mosier who worked with my son to achieve his Life Scout rank (currently the highest in the troop) so that he would be in good position to obtain Eagle rank when he gets back from Taiwan next year. The many Rotarians to make exchange possible for my kids this year. Ms. Graham that donated airfare funds to allow my son’s FBLA trip to Atlanta this year. The list goes on to teachers and counselors and doctors.
  2. It has been quite a year on the career front. My former co-workers were so kind when I announced that I was leaving my job in August. I got emails and thanks and even job offers. It is nice to know that integrity and honesty is valued and recognized even if I had to leave to hear it. I have really tried hard to deliver my opinion more tactfully even when I thought that things were going in the wrong direction. Truth is not always welcome, how it is delivered matters. I hope that I am making strides to improve that.
  3. Parenting has been really hard on my marital relationship. I do mean really hard. Other that our agreement on the expected outcome, nothing is smooth or easy. We don’t agree on our approaches and I certainly don’t agree that I should have to defend my actions when I have the best intent. That never give up attitude is a double edged sword and my wife doesn’t give up on us either. I am thankful that she keeps fighting for us because I don’t know that I would.
  4. I am thankful that people cared enough for us to help pull off my re-proposal. My niece Jasmine was the mastermind and to be honest, without her it probably wouldn’t have happened. She coordinated with my nephew on how to spring the event and worked with a designer on making the moment special. A romantic deficient could have never pulled off such a special moment alone.
  5. I was listening to a podcast recently that was titled “Learn to Love Where you Live”. Talk about first world problems… With all the chaos in Gaza and so many other parts of the world, how can it possibly matter whether we have a local Starbucks? For all of the things I wish were different, I am thankful for relative stability and prosperity compared to what it could be.
  6. I don’t want to sound cliche but I am thankful for redemption and salvation. It takes the pressure off of guilt. As long as I continue to do my part in trying and asking for forgiveness, life should take care of itself. There is nothing more to worry about when eternity is handled.

That completes my list for the year but I have one more thing to say. As I write this, my maternal grandmother is dying. I don’t really feel much about it to be honest. It is a complicated situation. Not so much for me but for her.

My grandparents divorced in the late 1960s. The kids were nearly grown. My uncle graduated, my mom and sister were in high school and the youngest was in grade school. My grandfather was a devout Catholic and it took 40 years before he forgave himself for the divorce, it crushed him. But, my grandmother was a lesbian.

Because of the era, it drove her into seclusion and isolation. We have always had a cordial and pleasant relationship but it has always been at arms length. I suspect that she has carried shame and regret her whole life. In this modern era, her and her partner haven’t married. As far as I remember they have ‘separate’ bedrooms and I don’t even want to go any farther.

My grandmother worked for the school district at least long enough to get a retirement. Her partner worked for the US Forest Service. They have been retired almost as long as I can remember. Certainly, I was living as a ward of my parents when they moved three hours away. That made routine visits extremely infrequent. I think that they lived at the Oregon Coast for twenty years before moving closer. By that point, we (the kids) had moved on in life. We have a grandmother that we rarely see and don’t know.

My grandfather wanted to know us. This is why he paid us to spend time with him ‘working’. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything because it had such an influence, it made me who I am. My grandmother I suspect struggled with her own regret and demons. She has stories, no doubt about it. I know from my mom that there is some mystery and intrigue. She is a Gamble a generation removed from Proctor & Gamble but I don’t know the schism.

This relates to being thankful because I am thankful that people can be more accepted for who they are. Her partner was never married and has always been exceptionally nice. I wish that my grandmother had embraced who she was and who she is. She might have led herself astray trying to be ‘normal’, but that isn’t a reason to never have a relationship. Honestly, I hope this is peace.

End Your Programming Routine: Thankfulness is a habit that I should practice more frequently. The antithesis of thankfulness is pride. Pride sparks fear which prevents us from being more open. Fear keeps us from developing and fostering relationships and puts us at distance from people that we care about. I see that and identify with it, don’t be me. I am who I am; I am also a product of biology and experience. Let us learn from this and strive to do better.

November 9, 2023 – The Role of ‘Less Than Lethal’

November 9, 2023 /

I have finished my analysis of the Crossman 760. If you recall, this is my son’s BB gun that is multi-pump. Since you already know that I hate pumping, then you know that I don’t have a ton of interest in this platform. That being said, I got curious in the difference between this rifle and my Crossman Legacy when shooting BBs.

I am going to skip a lot of the technical information about this test and the results. But I will give you the bottom line. My initial hypothesis was that it took a certain velocity to stabilize BBs and therefore be more accurate. Unfortunately, even at the maximum number of pumps on the 760, the BB did not reach the same velocity as the most accurate number of pumps on the Legacy.

It does appear to me that there is one target slightly more accurate that the others. In this case it is the four pumps target. That correlates to an average velocity of 391 fps and energy of 0.7 ft/lbs. That is a far cry of difference from the Legacy that was most accurate at 608 fps and energy of 4.3 ft/lbs.

There are however many factors that impact the analysis of the results. The first is that I couldn’t validate my hypothesis in the first place. The max velocity of the 760 was 514 fps versus the most accurate level of pumping on the Legacy was 608 fps. Second and possibly more vital was that I have a scope on the Legacy and only have the open sights on the 760. It is entirely possible that the inaccuracy was due to the sight picture. I was hoping that I would be good enough the way things were to get comparable results. I have to say that is a variable that should be considered.

This post is more focused on what to do with this information. Since I have already announced that I hate to pump and the number of pumps for follow-up is what drove me to purchase another rifle the Optimus, is there any place for the Crossman 760 at home or homestead? The answer is yes.

First of all, never have a BB gun fight with something that is really going to hurt you. If you can’t tell, that was very strong sarcasm, don’t ever do that. But, thinking along those lines, maybe you want to discourage uninvited visitors. When we were kids, we used to shoot deer with our Daisy 840s that hopped into the garden and wrecked havoc on beans and everything else. I also know from hearsay that pellet rifle can kill a deer.

Other animals may be either pets or fall under the furbearing game regulations. Killing animals just might be a crime, not to mention many municipalities prohibit discharge of air rifles and bows. That being said, I think that a stinging BB is a perfectly acceptable deterrent in the right circumstances. Even though that cat pooping in your yard drives you crazy, just wait until you have to face them when you have shot and killed beloved ‘Fluffy’.

This is a very contentions subject in rural America. As we have a right to property, if someone’s pet is causing or potentially causing harm particularly to livestock, then we have a right to defend our property. Lethal force is permitted in those cases. All that is a subject for another day. My point is that you might want to have less than lethal options to avoid unwanted drama, legalities and other situations that may be uncomfortable at the least.

I do not know the exact energy that it takes to kill animals so it should be said that using a BB gun may also be risky if you are looking at non-lethal deterrents. I shot a lot of birds as a youth with my Daisy 840 which I calculate around 0.6 ft/lbs. That same rifle had no penetration on deer and racoons. Possibly better options include pepper spray works well for dogs or something like Airsoft that shoots a larger projectile at lower velocity.

End Your Programming Routine: Adding a scope ($12) to my son’s BB gun is certainly a strong possibility. I have half a notion to move the scope that is on my Legacy over to my son’s 760 and upgrading my own rifle. It is really a terrible piece of kit but it just may be slightly better than open sights, I don’t know. For now, I am going with four pumps is the optimum accuracy with that rifle. That makes my new hypothesis something like pump rifles are most accurate at pumping slightly less than half the total of pump capacity.

October 31, 2023 – Reigning Horror King

October 31, 2023 /

Before there was binge watching TV shows, there was binge reading of authors. I guess that was always something that I have done. My earliest reading accomplishment was finishing the Hardy Boys series. In middle school, the author Dean Koontz came into fashion.

At one point, I had read every book that he had published. That count was fifty some odd books. When you read these serial authors, I find that the books are pretty easy, quick reads. Another author I have read a lot is James Patterson. An average is 300 – 400 pages and these are things that can be read in hours. I could often finish a book in an out and back plane ride (hence why I read so many).

I wouldn’t say that the books are formulaic exactly, it is just that the story line is simple. There isn’t a lot of thinking that is required to follow along. Reading those kind of stories is pleasurable but it starts to lose it zeal if that is all you ever do. Then you start to look around for what can last longer, has more pages or is more complicated. This leads to other authors.

Authors like Koontz and Patterson I would say write in the thriller genre. Thrillers involve action like murder and then all of a sudden murder kind of borders on horror. So what is the difference? In a lot of ways, not much. I would say the primary difference involves supernatural or urban legend aspects aside from just a lot of crime (and blood).

In my opinion, the king (sic) of horror today is Steven King. King’s career started in horror that lead into a more diverse body of work. I started to read King as a supplement to the quick reads of Koontz. One of the first books that I read was “It” and I did so because it was over 1000 pages.

The first published work from King was Carrie. But the 1970s and 1980s was a solid string of novels that really hit the bestsellers list: “Salem’s Lot, Pet Cemetery, Cujo, The Dead Zone, Christine” and probably his biggest hit “The Shining”. He also wrote and directed his own movie called “Maximum Overdrive” featuring a soundtrack exclusively from AC/DC, now that is cool.

I realize that King has ventured out of the horror genre exclusively and into his seventies now, his work is evolving. Yes, he is still putting out fiction but the burning drive has quelled somewhat. That being said, he is still active and has created a number persistent pop culture classics. I think that you would be hard pressed to meet someone older than 30 that doesn’t know “The Shining”.

I think that King has mastered creepy. Most of what he does is not gore like slasher films. This makes his movies a good choice to watch as a family for Halloween. We watched the movie “Misery” a couple months back and this is another good choice. There have been so many books adapted to movies, including non-horror movies like “Stand By Me” and “Shawshank Redemption”. For his classy and proliferation of content as well as versatility I have nominated him Today’s Horror King.

End Your Programming Routine: My favorite book from Steven King is actually “The Stand”. If you haven’t read it, this is a dystopian story more along the lines of “The Walking Dead”. Admittedly while that book makes my recommended reading list, horror is not really my favorite genre and by proxy, I do not really relish most of King’s work. I simply respect the quality and the uniqueness.

October 25, 2023 – I Used to Be a Watch Guy

October 25, 2023 /

I think that I was about 6 years old when I got my first watch. I am pretty sure it was inexpensive and you had to wind it every couple of days. Like many things a grade schooler possesed, it was not treated that well and was often dead. I wore it until the band broke and then it ended up in my junk box for many years.

Believe it or not, this was before digital watches were popular. When I was in fourth grade, the calculator watch came out. Oh man, that was the coolest ticket for a Christmas present, but good luck at $50. A few of the predictable people got one, then there was the concern about cheating on math test. My brother and I knew that we were never going to get one of those, so we coveted the Iron Man Casio watch. Never got one of those either.

The calculator watch fad was short-lived and then the Swatch watch was now in vogue in 6th grade. I did have one of those. Once again, the battery died or the band broke, I am not sure which. They were all plastic and really didn’t hold up well to pre-teen boy’s life.

I am not sure that I remember every watch I have ever owned, but I certainly have my adult ones. One of them (not pictured) my wife bought for me in 1994, I put a new battery in the watch and added a new band and gave to my son a few years ago. That one seems to be lost to time. But other than that, below is my current selection. Each one of them, a certain state of disrepair.

From the left, that is a 1992 vintage, department store “Guess” brand watch. It had a dead battery and a broken band. I think that it has always been a black band, because the other one I gave to my son had a brown band. I alternated between the two in college. I have to say, I like the look of a leather band, but I am sure that I am on my fourth or fifth band on that watch and I stopped wearing it (both black and brown) when I got the second watch.

The second from the left is also a “Guess’ watch that I got in 1998ish. It had a metal band in an attempt to combat the six month, leather swap. That watch got some abuse. It was covered in polymer multiple times and you can see that crystal is even damaged at about one o’clock. I stopped wearing it when I got the third watch in about 2001. Also, a pin was raided from it to keep the third watch going at some point. Recently, I added the web band to get it up and going again. This is going to be my work watch.

The third watch is a Bulova. It was expensive. It is made of Titanium so it is light and smooth. I wore that watch until February 2019 when it stopped working. I sent it in through the jeweler and they said that the gears have worn to the point that it is not keeping time. They can be replaced at a cost of $200. Of course, I got that news the week after I left my job and I did not think it was prudent to spend money on such a luxury item. To this day, it sits broken.

The last watch got lots of use in 2015-2017. It is a Garmin GPS watch that tracks where you have been. I used it mostly for timing when I was training for my half-marathon. I actually wore it as a watch some too, But, two things were wrong, when the GPS is active, it eats the battery and by the end of my half marathon, it would die and the second was the silicone band started disintegrating.

There I was jobless and watchless. That was when I started just using my phone. I really didn’t have anywhere to be so why not? A few weeks ago, several things started to come together. My wife was doing Christmas shopping (and she is dying to buy me a smart watch so I am less likely to miss calls and text messages) as well as me cleaning up old phones and tablets and junk. She said “you used to wear watches” and in my zest to purge junk, I wondered if any of these watches were viable still or can I get rid of them, win either way.

I bought some batteries to see if the first two had the same fate as my Bulova. So far, so good. Then I put my Garmin on the charger. Sure enough it has been going for three weeks on that first charge. It used to be, I would buy my replacement bands at the department store that the watch came from (that doesn’t exist anymore). Now, with the world of Amazon, a whole world of generic or off-brand bands are available, including even the Garmin.

I am going to be a watchman again. Albeit they are inexpensive or outdated watches, I like the idea of looking at my wrist again instead of digging out my phone. My work day consists of rolling out of bed and having a clock constantly in front of me but it is so much more convenient when I am travelling or not working to look at a watch rather than a phone. I also think that watches dress up or down situations as well.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe ‘The Art of Manliness’ is rubbing off on me too much with style topics? But, it seems to make sense to me to either use the items or get rid of them. Hanging on to non-functional is the opposite of logical. Now that I am not leaving the house everyday, I really have less use for a watch but I am looking forward to putting these things into service again.

September 28, 2023 – They Did It… Gun Shows Are Dead in Oregon

September 28, 2023 /

The gun range that I belong to hosts two gun shows a year. By many’s account, this is the best show in the state. I really have nothing to do with it so I cannot claim any credit but it does make me feel good that my peeps know how to do it.

So, why has this been the case? It is really about what is not there as much as what is. I’ve of course been to other shows too. There is the snack man, the Beenie Baby collectors, the Pakistani knife dealer etc. Those have been largely missing from this show.

Today, we had all of those and more. Something new to me, there were at least five custom knife makers there. Don’t get me wrong, they did beautiful work and the prices reflected it at $150-300. I respect that a lot and I am sure the craftsmanship is worth the price, but this is a gun show. I have never seen more than one at this show in the past. The reason to go to gun shows in the past were to 1) find deals 2) see and handle things because of vast selection 3) buy guns. I will address these individually.

There are no deals to be had. This really is nothing new since the proliferation of the internet. Anything can be researched at anytime of the day and everyone knows what the price is. What I actually see is instead of a gun show discount, there is more like a gun show premium. I find things to be significantly more expensive at the show then day to day. Think about it, I pay an entry fee and then I pay a higher price than market.

Speaking of selection, I would estimate that this show only had a third of the tables as firearms dealers. I have never seen this, I would estimate that the last show was 2/3 dealers. It seems like there was table after table of junk. When I say junk, I mean that it looked the tables were full of parts that were removed from personal firearms.

I have plenty of firearms so I don’t really need any old gun. In fact, I should probably focus on upgrading rather than adding. But, because of that I am looking for some niche items like a Savage 99 in 300 Savage from the 1950s. If I do end up buying one, I want it to be in original configuration. I want the steel butt plate and the rear sight intact. It is not a rare firearm but the options are extremely limited when there are half the normal number of dealers. Add to that the gun show premium and I am not really interested in the ones I saw.

Last and certainly not least to buy guns. Since the passage of Measure 114, everyone is holding their breath for the results of litigation (which is happening while I type). Background check results are not less than three days. Under federal law, if you are not approved or denied after 72 hours, the dealer can release the firearm to you. That means that you are not walking away from a gun show with a firearm. If you are lucky, the dealer you are purchasing from is reasonably local. In three days (best case scenario) you can drive to the dealer you paid for your firearm and pick it up.

What has happened? To me, I think that all of the uncertainly around what will happen with Measure 114 has driven dealers out. The buying frenzy that resulted consumed inventory, low margin or small dealers folded. Others decided not to release firearms after the 72 hour hold. When the red flag laws were implemented a couple of years ago, private sales disappeared and now dealers have given in.

They won; we should not kid ourselves anyway. To think that law abiding and freedom loving people are going to withstand a barrage against our rights over generations is a fools errand. The ocean wears down rock, it seems improbable and incomprehensible but it happens. Consequently, I say that the gun show is dead. Yes, it is still physically there, but it has terminal cancer and it is only a matter of time before it is gone completely

End Your Programming Routine: Do you know who I don’t meet? I don’t meet the person that says ‘I am not a gun owner, never will be but I understand and support your right to do so’. I am more likely to meet ‘I am a gun owner and I believe that only these guns should be permitted’. They tend to side with the anti-gunners because they are not going to ban their guns (yet). To be honest, the only reason I went in the first place is that I get in for free and I was already in town for trap. When it is time for the spring show, I am not planning on going unless all the factors align again like this one.

September 20, 2023 – Better… For Who?

September 20, 2023 /

This year, my wife has been pushing for attending more sporting events. She has often said that ‘if I had girls, they would be in travelling sports.’ Fortunately for me, we have boys, which ironically are not really into sports at all. I say that because my wife and I are both fans, I just like it to be on in the background rather than spending my time at the events.

As we are nearing the end of September, eventually the good weather is going to run out. That wasn’t so last weekend as we went to the OSU Beaver’s football game with a sunny high of 82 degrees. I haven’t been to a lot of games, but there has been at least two with torrential downpours. I have to say that even winning both of those games, it was pretty miserable. That being said, we already have tickets to the Friday night game against Utah.

We are novices at this. I have been around long enough to know that season tickets are a commitment. Not only are you paying face value for the tickets but also the university wants a $5000 donation. That is pretty much a no go for us. Not only are we taxpayers but it isn’t even our alma mater. So, we are buying tickets on the open market. The university has affiliated with a company called SeatGeek. This is where I become a boomer.

Remember when you had cash and you bought a ticket? The price didn’t really change and you got what was available. I will say that the best part of today’s world is that you can filter by the number of seats that you want, see what options are available and pay anytime of the day. But, that is where the good parts end.

Despite the last game having the cheapest possible ticket prices at $15/each, the best possible weather for football in Oregon, a team worth watching and a projected lopsided victory, the stadium was still about half full by my estimation. It is true that school is not in session until the next home game, but the student section was nearly full. It wasn’t the lack of students that didn’t fill the stadium, I have to believe that it is the complications on how to do it playing a factor.

To be fully transparent, our tickets were not $15 but $30. The next game against Utah in the very same seats are now $70. They say that they are $70 but that is actually before the 50% handling fee which you find out about at check-out. I know that it is peeing into the wind, but SeatGeek is just another account that you have to create login credentials and manage. Such is life.

Once you pay for the tickets, they have to be moved to Google Wallet to be presented at the stadium. In my case as a Apple user, I have to download another app. That is to say that fortunately, I already have a Gmail account. But, searching through the Apple app store, there is no such thing as Google Wallet. It turns out that it is actually named Google Pay.

Before I could send them to my Google account, I had to login on my own computer. It seems like everyone else at this house has done this type of thing before but me. That was fine, but each ticket that you wanted to send to a wallet defaulted to the first user so I sent one ticket to my son in Taiwan first. Fortunately, I was also able to revoke it from the screen and select myself as a user. To verify, even finding them in Google Pay is buried under the menu structure. It is no wonder that people don’t want to mess with this stuff.

End Your Programming Routine: In the old days of general admissions, you might end up with the only seats behind the structural pole (ask me how I know). But it was cash, ticket, entry. This system markets to us that it is better because we can choose our seats any time of day. This also gives them the ability to price games by the market demand and because a third party is involved, the prices become higher because of handling and their margins. Then, you have to deal with the technological hassle. I will struggle through it, but you can’t convince me it is better.

August 31, 2023 – Rich Men North of Richmond

August 31, 2023 /

In case you have been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, this song has gone viral. In two weeks, it went to #1 on the Billboard top 100 and Oliver Anthony has ten more songs on the top 100 at the time of writing. YouTube has 46 million views in the last two weeks. Read the comments, people from all over the world are resonating with the lyrics.

Politicians are trying to co-opt it into their own camps. The left is saying that this is the alt-right, hate speech while the right is trying to hitch their wagon to the popularity. What both groups are missing is that they are both the rich men, north of Richmond. They are the cause and the subject of the lyrics.

(lyrics)

I’ve been selling my soul, working all day. Overtime hours, bullshit pay so I can sit out here and waste my life away.

Drag back home and drown my troubles away, its a damn shame. What the worlds gotten to for people like me and people like you. Wish I could just wake up and it not be true, but it is, oh it is.

Living in a new world with an old soul. Rich men north or Richmond Lord knows they want to have total control. Want to know what you think, want to know what you do and they don’t think that you know and I know that you do. But your dollar ain’t shit and its taxed to no end cause the rich men north of Richmond.

Wish politicians look our for miners, not just minors on an island somewhere. Lord, we got folks in the street ain’t got nothing to eat and the obese bilking welfare. God if your 5’3″ and your 300lbs taxes ought not pay for your bags of fudge rounds. Young men are putting themselves six feet underground cause all this damn country does is keep kicking them down.

Lord its a damn shame what the world’s gotten to. People like me and people like you. Wish I could just wake up and it not be true but it is, oh it is.

Living in the new world, with an old soul. Rich men north or Richmond. Lord knows they want to have total control. Want to know what you think, want to know what you do and they don’t think that you know and I know that you do. But your dollar ain’t shit and its taxed to no end cause the rich men north of Richmond.

I’ve been selling my soul, working all day. Overtime hours, bullshit pay.

There are a lot of subtle gems in the lyrics but I think the two are not as straight forward. The first is working class wages and the inflation of the dollar. I don’t see a lot of pride in working hard because you made poorer life decisions and limited your options, but at least you are doing what needs to be done.

That being said, wealth is stolen not just with taxes but also devaluing the dollar with inflation. That tactic is the pyramid scheme to pay off old debt with less valuable new money. While that works for national debt, the real losers are the people earning $30K/year. This is being done by people who make money lending it and collecting it at the same time or the rich men north of Richmond.

The second subtle reference is caring about minors on an island somewhere. This is a nod to Epstein and a class generally above the law. I don’t think the song is saying that they are condoning the behavior but acknowledging that the class exists in the first place.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to say much more today. Watch the video and read the lyrics. Think about what is going on in life. Think about what is going on and you decide if this is hate speech or just the life-size mirror being held up on both sides of the dichotomy. The people are speaking, they just need the vehicle to get their voice heard. You go Oliver Anthony.

August 30, 2023 – Gradually, Then Suddenly

August 30, 2023 /

I love this quote from Ernst Hemmingway. It describes major events so succinctly. I promise that this will be the last time that I wax emotionally about my summer of exchange. But first I have to use this quote the way it has impacted my life.

Sunday morning, my wife and I were eating breakfast. We were at the darkest hour of this whole program. My youngest son had just landed in Taiwan in the middle of the night. My older son was on the airplane on his way back home. We had to leave back to the airport in three hours to pick him up.

I think that I dealt with my emotions last week. That is what translated into the last couple of posts. I am now starting to see the bright side of things, not what has changed. Something I rarely do, I was talking about the things that were in the near future to my wife. “I am planning on going to the range on Friday. I want to go on a weeknight ahead of hunting season. The range is bound to be crawling with people on the weekend.”

Usually I wait to see if there is something on the calendar and strike at the last minute. “There is nothing going on tomorrow (or this afternoon), I think I will go to the range.” On top of that, I said that I was planning on going to central Oregon for a weekend of hunting. I might even make it a three day weekend. I am not going to have more than a day or two of PTO now that I have started this new job.

My wife said, “It’s funny. You never talk like this. You never express something that you want to do ahead of time.” She theorized that we haven’t had the luxury of only looking at our own schedule in a long, long time. It’s true. My older son is not nearly as involved in activities and he has his own vehicle if he does choose to do something. I am not saying that we wouldn’t support or watch, but we don’t have to transport and hang around until it is over nor is it in overwhelming quantities.

I turned the oven on to keep the bacon warm. It also tends to really crisp up things as well. I pulled my vegetarian’s skillet out as I do multiple times a week and I realized I do not have to handle this hundreds of times in the next year. I told my wife, I am going to put this skillet away for the next year. All of the sudden our life just became simpler and better.

I support my son’s decisions, including being a vegetarian. But, I didn’t realize the commitment and impact that one decision has on others. It effects how I prep, how I handle ingredients, how I cook and how I store leftovers. It effects what I choose to make for dinner as well as quantities.

For the last five years, every meal has had multiple dimensions. What is my son going to eat? How am I going to make this appeal to both camps? How do I portion this so that it doesn’t contact meat and dirty utensils and serve everything at the same time? To add insult to the situation, many times I take all that care and he schedules something over the top of that. Consequently, all that care I took doesn’t get eaten later in the evening and some vegetarian product is made instead causing more dishes that I wake up to in the morning.

As a parent, I want nothing more than enabling my son to grow up into a empowered adult. I want them to be confident about the decisions that they make; I want them to be able to justify their decisions as thoughtful and considering the upside and downsides of the situation. I think that I am missing something however. I am missing the conscientious part of the equation. How does my decision effect others.

Everyone in the house is acutely aware that he has made a decision to be vegetarian. We all make some sort of accommodations in order to support that decision, some more than others. But, does the vegetarian appreciate the compromises that we have all made to support the decision? Does he know how many times I have to move the skillet out of the oven in a year? Does he know that we check with the event host to let them know that there needs to be a cheese pizza not just one that has the meat picked off?

I started this off with gradually, then suddenly. Supporting a household vegetarian is the same way. All of the sudden it has become an entire way of how I cook and to a larger extent how I live. I want him to play chess and music and participate in sports and Boy Scouts if that is what makes him happy. I didn’t really get that effort was in exchange for my own life force.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that things won’t go back to the way they were before the exchange when he comes back. Again, I support my children. But, it will be under the guise that I understand that I am making a conscious decision to do so. I do hope that this is a growth experience for him and maybe I will share this at some point in the future. For now, we are on a bit of vacation for some of this. At least this is how it feels right now.

August 29, 2023 – Back To Normal… Psyche

August 29, 2023 /

If you are not from the eighties, you may have never heard that phrase before. Middle school is such a great time to make lifelong, meaningless memories. The last week was the second whirlwind of the summer. We spent the last week burning the midnight oil getting my son ready for his trip to Taiwan.

July was all about hosting an exchange student, getting my older son prepared to go, planning a proposal for my anniversary, executing and cleaning up from our party. Fortunately, my younger son is a mixture of ultra responsible and wildly ignorant. It lulls me into a false sense that everything is alright and under control. You just have to look under the surface a little more.

The phrase ‘are you ready?’ was uttered many, many times this year. Me: “Is all the paperwork together for your visa?” My son: “Yes, it is.” Consulate: “This form is missing a signature.” The net result is visa arrived 13 days before departure and that means a $3100 plane ticket. The Rotary keeps insisting that this is their exchange so I did my best to absorb all the punches as they come.

My son had a number of to-dos to get done. What wasn’t planned was a stomach flu. That compressed everything into four remaining days. Also included in those days were Boy Scouts Court of Honor, Oregon State Fair and the final sendoff with his friends. My wife accused me of not using my previous time wisely. I didn’t know that he needed new shoes, shorts, shirts etc. Remember, ‘are you ready?’

My son wanted to get a computer, I think that is pretty appropriate. All summer long Me: “I need some quotes on what you think you want.” My son: “OK, I am busy with (insert activity). I will do it this week.” We found one at Costco but I gave my Costco credit card to my son in Germany, we will have to wait until mom gets back from France. Mom: “The one you want is no longer in stock. What about this one?” Me: “OK, if my son wants that one”.

Literally, the day before he is leaving the computer shows up. I came upstairs from a work break and the opened box was on the table with the still wrapped computer setting on table. I knew that he was at the fair all day, so I plugged it in to make sure there was a full battery charge. But, you don’t just pick up a new laptop and go. There are updates, profile transfers, software installations that need to be done before it is ready to go. Talk about taking it to the wire.

The flight was at 6AM. Rotary said repeatedly be at the airport 3 hours early. For most people that is good advice. But, I travel a lot, including internationally. The only thing that they do differently is check passport and visa at the counter. Otherwise, it is just like any other plane ticket. Part of the reason for planning to get to the airport early is to accommodate for traffic, running late and those types of variables. Nevertheless, we went with the advice.

In order to get to the airport at 3AM, we had to leave the house at 1:30AM. This is the absolute best time to drive through a metropolitan area since traffic is little to none. It was a very short night getting back from the fair and 10:30PM. We powered through as we do but I will say that I crashed at 7PM. That was the longest I could go.

There is my son about to board the plane. You may wonder why there are no faces shown? I have pictures, but in this case, I don’t have permission to show others. He is travelling with another student to Taiwan as well. So, at least there is safety in numbers.

End Your Programming Routine: I did find out that he arrived safely. Also as I am writing, my older son is on the plane back home and we will be picking him up in a few hours. If you listened to the podcast, you would know that there was some emotion in this overall event. I have largely come to terms with that. So, back to normal? Back to the new, normal.

August 16, 2023 – They May Be the Devil But Boy, is Customer Service Good

August 16, 2023 /

We have had two pedestrians hit in the crosswalk in the last couple of months. Both of them were not caught on the doorbell camera. So, we have decided to expand our camera network. I want the doorbell camera to really be focus at someone at the door, not every motion on the street.

We are also trying two different technologies. One is solar and the other is has a hardwired kit. The trick will really be if our wi-fi will be able to reach the location that I want to put the cameras. The solar powered one I put up, the battery died after the first day. I think that it is the wi-fi and not the solar charger, but we will see. I just ordered a wifi extender today. I suppose that I should check the output of the panel as well.

Hanging the camera, I was trying to screw in the wire management clips and I knocked the camera off the mount. It fell about 12 feet into the plants and dirt. I climbed down the ladder picked it up and re-attached it to the hangar. I then went about trying to get the right angle on the camera.

Only, the app said that the camera was offline. I checked and it was connected to the Ring network. This is a wi-fi extender that we had to purchase so that our back door camera would work. If the signal is weak, the battery winds down constantly trying to connect (even when it is connected to power). But, the extender is father away than the wi-fi router so I wanted to change networks. In order to do that, I need to access the camera and hit a button.

No connection. I thought I would take the battery out (re-boot) and again, no connection. I gave up for the day and I did some research online. I couldn’t figure anything out but that they had a technical service number. I decided to give it a try, expecting the worst.

Someone answered on the third ring, not a phone tree or anything. I know a little about support and the first answer (tier 1) is usually all the triage level activities. I was asked if I had a second battery, which I have with the other camera that I have not installed yet. I tried that and no connection. The next thing she did was ask me where I purchased it and whether I wanted to return the camera or have Ring provide a replacement.

They emailed me a return label for the non-functioning camera and I had the replacement in a couple of days. Now, I did not try to hoodwink them or anything like that. I told them that I set it up and it was working until I knocked it off the mount. I wanted them to know that I caused the problem. I could have had a replacement the next day from Amazon. That being said, I did not want this camera ending up in someone else’s hands if there really was something wrong with it. I have little faith that it wouldn’t end up in the ‘warehouse’.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose that it is a sad state of affairs when things go the way that they are supposed to go but yet pleasantly surprised. I neither like nor trust that all my data is going into Amazon’s cloud. That being said, they sure are making it easy to give it to them.