Category: Opinion

June 29, 2022 – Travel Anecdotes

June 29, 2022 /

A lot of my travel information I wrote and talked about was before the trip. Now having gotten back, some things have changed from what I knew (or thought) was true before hand. I thought I would throw some grab bag items out there.

  • Covid tests are no longer required to re-enter the US. This changed June 12, right before we left. After getting advice from other recent travelers, we were making plans on how to accomplish this on our trip.
  • Customs Forms are not used for entry – At least this is true for the US and the EU. This eliminates the ‘need a pen scramble’ on the airplane as you get ready to land. We did have some e-forms filled out for health screening which helped speed the process.
  • Air travel within the EU has pretty much the same restrictions – The only real difference I observed with security was I could leave my shoes on. There were still restrictions on liquids that needed to be in a 1L (1qt) bag. Electronics had to come out of the bag.
  • Security is not Safety- My son went through three different security checks with scissors in his bag before they were identified. Portland to Barcelona, Barcelona to Palma and finally Palma to Barcelona he was stopped in the bag scan. I don’t even know how that is possible to feel like this procedure is adequate.
  • Having friends at the airline has perks – We got priority parking and our own personal check-in when we flew to Mallorca. We also took advantage of sending a bunch of liquids back in order to not loose them.
  • Five fifty a gallon is a bargain- Our rental car was a diesel and the prices were in Euros per liter but the cost was roughly $7.75 a gallon. Fortunately, the cars are small and relatively efficient so it only cost about $30 to return the rental car.
  • Cash is still king- We got a 10% discount on fuel just by paying in cash. I really didn’t know what was going on when the price was different than registered but figured it out as I drove off.
  • Living/Travelling in Europe is expensive – Even thought the Dollar and Euro are near parity I would say items on average are probably 25-33% more. In one example, I paid 25 euros for a tube of sun block. For me, that was worth the price but I can’t imagine paying $25 for that, even if it was from France.
  • Spain is not Italy – I expected the people and experience to be very similar (if not the same). I found Spain to be orderly and law abiding compared to Italy. Traffic was not crazy and nobody got pickpocketed or had someone try to rip the watch off your wrist.
  • The world has become smaller- When I was in Italy in the 1990s, they siesta’d hard. Almost nothing was open between 1 and 6 pm. Siesta is still a practice in Spain, but I hardly noticed a change. Maybe it was where I was at but I think the world has changed to the point where this practice is not nearly as prevalent.
  • English is definitely universal- If my broken Spanish didn’t work there were no problems switching to English anywhere.
  • Spanish is not Catalan – The native language of the northeastern coast of Spain is not Spanish. While I can understand most simple Spanish, I had no idea what was happening when spoken to in Catalan. Many of the spellings are the similar but with the accent it is a different word. The tempo of Catalan sounds more like Italian but the words I could not understand.

I didn’t spend much time in the water. I am very susceptible to the sun and since it was literally 58 degrees as a mid-June high when we left, I didn’t have much time to toughen up. So, I limited my water time until after 6pm just to avoid massive sunburns. The kids went into the water here and it was a summertime high 80s. I wish I could, but the view was amazing.

Does this look like paradise or what?

End Your Programming Routine: I am wrapping up my week on vacation. There will be one more on Friday but I promise I am moving on. You cant exert that much money, time and effort and not have it play a factor in my work and opinions. I know that it is hard to enjoy someone else’s vacation, but hopefully there was at least some good information presented.

June 28, 2022 – Do You Have a Favorite Architect?

June 28, 2022 /

I sometimes tease my wife that she is the only person I know that has a favorite architect. There may be some competition with the previous title holder after our trip to Spain. The truth is, I am pretty much enamored as well.

Where we were both exposed to architecture as an art was in college. We both took Art History 101 and 102. From there, we learned about Frank Lloyd Wright. For Americans, his work is much more approachable since we can more easily travel and visit some of his buildings. Wright was prolific and there is even one of his houses here in Oregon. In 2002, we made a specific destination as “House of Falling Water” on an east coast road trip.

The genius of specific architects is that they are visionaries. For instance, Wright invented the Ranch style house. Arguably, that is the most popular American home style ever. It is simple to build, easy to maintain and infinitely adaptable.

Another architect that we learned about in Art History was Antoni Gaudi because Spain was out of sight, out of mind in 1995 so it got filed on the backburner. However, modern Barcelona is the city that Gaudi built (and is still building despite his death in 1926).

I am not going to go into all of the specifics of each work, but you can check the link for additional information. Above is Casa Batllo, a personal residence Gaudi remodeled in 1904. It is remarkable for the use of color as light direction, ventilation as a function of design and flexible spaces with movable room dividers.

Park Guell was originally envisioned as a housing development outside of the city. Only two houses were built but much of the infrastructure was and that is what has become the park. The dragon fountain is the symbol of Barcelona and it is in this park.

Gaudi’s real masterpiece in my mind, and I think much of the world’s is Sagrada Familia. This is a categorized as a Basilica not a Cathedral and it is still in progress. When it will be done, who really knows. Gaudi kicked it off knowing that he would not see it completed but laid out the master plan and then also left it open for future generations to make their particular personal stamps.

End Your Programming Routine: Barcelona is a top twenty-five world destination and Gaudi is part of that. As you know me, I am not all about collectivism or subjective interpretation but I can admire a future thinker and a reverent one at that. Gaudi is one of the founding voices in modernism. It has taken me a while to appreciate that type of expression but in many ways modernism is a more complex presentation. It may appear simpler or cruder even but there can be more behind the image.

June 24, 2022 – Podcast Episode 3, Dungeons and Dragons

June 24, 2022 /

I suppose game playing has become more acceptable, particularly role-playing games. Now that they can be played on the computer or game console and not had to be read out of a book, more people do it. Yes, I was one of those Dungeons and Dragons nerds in middle school and high school. Today, I make an argument for why I benefited from playing those games.

Anecdotally, we started watching Stranger Things recently. You know that the opening scene has the four characters playing Dungeons and Dragons. We are mostly through the first season, if you have seen it then you will see the undertones of Dungeons and Dragons keep popping up.

I actually wrote the outline of this podcast May 17, 2019. I was trying build up a library of show topics before actually starting to podcast. I remember what happened was that my wife was not totally into the name, then I kind of got put off and stopped working on the project all together (until December). I did keep them and I was looking for something non-temporal to talk about.

End Your Programming Routine: We should be on our way home by the time this is published. I am currently unable to predict the future, so we will see how things go for next week. For now, I am going to leave my point in the podcast and hope that I am able to get back in the groove Monday. Until then, enjoy your weekend.

June 17, 2022 – Looking for a Quick Win

June 17, 2022 /

I want to start building some rigor into podcasting and unfortunately, the timing is poor with me being in Spain. I thought maybe I would talk about some travel tips today since I have flown quite a bit. In addition, I have flown internationally many more times that I would like and this all fits into what I have up to lately.

At one time, I was a Delta Platinum frequent flyer (back when that was the highest tier) and I even got a Christmas card from a hotel one year. I know a bit about travelling. What I am trying to convey is not the nuts and bolts of travelling or packing tips or how to get the best deals or the most out of travel but best practices.

The Merriam Webster definition of best practices are as follows: a procedure that has been shown by research and experience to produce optimal results and that is established or proposed as a standard suitable for widespread adoption. To be clear, these are most typically opinions from subject matter experts (like myself in this case). There is nothing saying that there are not conflicting opinions labelled as best practices from different sources.

Travelling for business and travelling for vacation are not exactly the same thing but they share a lot in common. Primarily, they are both travel. I think most people in the business world pack and orient toward speed. Meaning ‘How can I get off the plane and get home as fast as possible’? This means no checking bags and keeping things as compact as possible. I am going to let the the podcast speak for itself for the rest of this.

End Your Programming Routine: Bear with me, this is the beginning. I have listened several times and heard the smacks and uh’s too. I mean, I don’t think it is too bad considering these are off the cuff and I don’t have much practice. I anticipate adding some bumper music and working on a more standard intro and exit. But overall, I am pretty happy with what I have here.

June 14, 2022 – In the Storm

June 14, 2022 /

I talked about the appearance remodel that began Monday of last week. We survived nearly a week without a kitchen. As I predicted, there will be a host of changes as a result. The floor is going to get painted as well as the cabinets. Not all of the the cabinets are going back up. And, I will have to build some shelves to replace the corner unit. The ceiling is going to be torn out with new lights and so on and so forth.

I am not upset, there is no point. But I am not totally happy. I think that it is wasteful to get rid of the cabinets and I think that we are adding less functional shelving to replace it. I am not a fan of painting wood for the most part either. The only thing that I can kind of understand is painting the floor. I will be interested to see how that works out.

There are some things that I just cannot care too much about. And this is going to be one of them. I think that it will be nice when it is done, I just don’t think that it is necessary. This is one of my not going to die on hills.

I think the other issue that I had is that this is going to keep the kitchen in disarray for some unknown time. Enough of that though. I have my own projects to worry about. plus we have deck work starting this week and the fence and now driveway soon.

End Your Programming Routine: After the kitchen is done, there will be one room remaining that hasn’t been touched since we moved in. That is what is the master bathroom. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is next on the list as it is 90’s ugly. Just like I like my furniture buy once cry once, I hope that removing the paneling and adding tile is one of those changes.

June 13, 2022 – Baseball, Graduation and Better Weather?

June 13, 2022 /

I was looking back on the years and I wax poetically about graduation at some point every year. This of course is the time that it happens. High school graduation was last Friday and the local university graduation was last Saturday. I love the hope that graduation represents. I love the party atmosphere, people seem to genuinely be in a good mood around town.

High school is really a stage gate. We went to some of the recent end of year awards ceremonies where seniors were recognized. Some of them put in a huge amount of time over the years, 1100 hours dedicated to one discipline. There was real emotion about the tenure ending. However, the exuberance about graduating is really like a caged animals getting released.

College graduation has a quite different feel. I would say it is more of a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Because everyone has taken a different walk to get there, there is a different level for each person. Some have their parents, some have their kids, some are with friends because the family is far away and some are alone because that is the the way they wanted it. Each person knows that they have put in the work to meet the requirements to graduate. And so a new life begins.

Graduation is the transition between the school year and summer. When I was a kid, summer was the time to play baseball. I would say that it is was my favorite sport at that point, even though I really wasn’t good enough to make the ‘A’ team or the high school team. So, my participation in baseball waned as I got into high school. But, it doesn’t mean that I lost my appreciation for the game.

When I was younger and seemingly had all the time in the world. I would follow baseball. Later, I made attempts at some points but I guess I just couldn’t dedicate all the time. For a year or two we went to five or so minor league games before kids. The local team was a San Francisco Giants Single A team that was chocked full of future major leaguers like Buster Posey, Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval. They tore up the Northwest Summer League. Unfortunately, that league was shut down in 2020 and never to return.

College baseball is somewhat big here as well. The Oregon State Beavers have won three national titles since 2006. I was listening to the Beavers play Vanderbilt last week and between the two schools they had five national titles this century. That is nearly a quarter of all the titles in that time frame.

Amazingly, they got in two games over the weekend (best two of three). Other events were not so lucky. There was an absolute deluge of rain Friday night which forced high school graduation inside. I have sat in the seats when it was raining before. It rained off and on all Saturday making college graduation hit an miss. And, baseball managed to miss it all. Last weekend, they played in rain that I thought for sure would postpone things.

This seems to be one of those years that maybe things will turn around July 4th. In the ten day forecast, I don’t see any highs above 73 degrees with more rain predicted. Yesterday, the high temperature was only 58 degrees. It feels more like Alaska than what we have been used to in the last five years. That being said, I remember a year in the 1990s that we didn’t get a temperature in the 80s until mid August.

End Your Programming Routine: In Oregon, you can’t stop for the rain. You just have to work around it. I guess what I can say is 20-30 years down the road you will remember bits and pieces about the graduation ceremony but not necessarily the weather. So, congratulations grads enjoy your moment and go Beavers.

June 10, 2022 – Just Do It

June 10, 2022 /

It was 1988 when this slogan came out. Athletes like Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan were in their prime and leading the charge. I was in middle school and of course, it was the coolest thing to emulate or wear certain marketing slogans (like this one). We had no idea what it really implied and we were not the target audience, but it did leave an impression didn’t it?

Truthfully, I haven’t given it much thought in years. I did some quick research on current marketing slogans and I don’t see much that I actually recognize. ‘Just Do It’ is credited with turning Nike into a global apparel juggernaut. I am a little biased I suppose because I grew up in Oregon and it always seemed that way to me, but that is what the experts says. I think that there is something to that motivation. Stop thinking about everything and just try.

Well, I did it. I stopped putting excuses like researching the right host for scalability and just created a free account on castbox.fm. There may be some consequences in the future, but I think I will treat it like I did my earlier WordPress transition. I will build a beta library of podcasts that I will probably divert later. But, if I never get started, I will never get it done.

This podcast was inspired by some real stuff going on. I wanted to speak up, but I didn’t feel like it was going to make a change in the outcome. Plus, my thoughts were not truly organized. I had more to say so I did this podcast.

I am not promising that this is the end all or that I will switch formats but I think that I want to start adding at least a podcast a week. Maybe Fridays are the days to do that? Maybe this will change, but it actually took more work to make this podcast. Just writing the outline probably took as much time as actually writing a post. For now, I am going to just try to get familiar with the technical aspects and see how it goes.

There are still things to do to make this fly and I don’t even know what they all are. There is adding the RSS feed to the popular podcast vendors like Apple, iHeartRadio and Spotify. I should find some bumper music, learn more about editing, etc. But, I am not going to worry about problems that I don’t really have either. I would like to have a small catalog of podcasts before I really look into the distribution.

As an avid listener to podcasts, I am aware of some of the gotchas, especially free services. Maximum posts per month, maximum post size and total catalog limits. Then there is bandwidth throttling and random ad placement. So far, I have seen none of this but we will see what kind of problems come up with this arrangement. I am not opposed to paying, but I want to make sure that it is a business expense, not a personal expense.

End Your Programming Routine: It feels real. It is what I started this endeavor to do in the first place. Honestly, I think writing every day has helped me eliminate some of my fears but it also gave me a crutch not to move forward. I am happy that I finally broke that barrier. Looking forward to podcasting again.

June 6, 2022 – Symphony for the Masses

June 6, 2022 /

My kids are into music. I understand, I was once a high schooler in band. I suppose that it did build some appreciation for classical music as well. I definitely enjoyed playing music rather than listening to it anyway. We had a family outing over Memorial Weekend and it was a night at the Oregon Symphony.

I’m sure when you think of symphony, you think of fancy, expensive, a little bougie. I do, so I wouldn’t blame you. This was something different as a more approachable and quite smart way to draw in a new audience. This was the Oregon Symphony playing the score of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

This event drew in the Harry Potter fans, symphony goers, kids and the like. The audience was encouraged to interact with the movie by cheering or jeering however we saw fit. There were definitely people that had their Harry Potter garb on as well as people that appeared to be on dates. It was quite the mix.

The movie plays on the screen while the symphony plays the soundtrack to go along with it. At $50/ticket, it was the most expensive movie I have ever watched. I do have to say, since I have never seen the movie (I did read 75% of the book), I found myself focusing primarily on the screen and not the sound. I guess I would say, if you prefer the music then this experience may not be for you.

It seems like they have been doing this for some time, I just recently became aware of it. There will be another one in two months that is the music from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. We are already talking about whether we want to buy tickets or not.

Looking at other upcoming performances, it does seem like this is not the symphony of 30 years ago. In addition to what you might expect, the next performance is Beethoven’s 9th Symphony there is also a Beatle’s tribute as well as a Star Wars vs Star Trek concert. So, it does seem like they are trying to reach a broader audience.

End Your Programming Routine: We did get dressed up. We had to go to Portland and pay for parking. With that came a midnight stop at a 24 hour diner as well as a friend a piece for each of my boys. So, this was not an inexpensive outing. I couldn’t think of a more unique scenario to enjoy a holiday weekend.

June 1, 2022 – Mark Twain

June 1, 2022 /

“We build a fire in a powder magazine, then double the fire department to put it out. We inflame wild beasts with the smell of blood, and then innocently wonder at the wave of brutal appetite that sweeps the land as a consequence.” Mark Twain Speech, between October 5 and October 17, 1907

I probably should do more research on this character. He seems like someone that we share a lot of views in common. I have to say that I ran across this quote when I was scrolling through one of the groups I watch on MeWe. When I tried to find the source, I found a lot of quotes that were interesting.

“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot”, “I was educated once – it took me years to get over it” and “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” These are a handful of quotes that makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Mark Twain, was the pen name of Samuel Clemmons. Every time you read about him, he is described as a ‘humorist‘. As far as I am concerned, I see him as a man that was intelligent and had a platform to deliver his views in a way that was palatable to many, like Shakespeare or Benjamin Franklin. In some ways, I think this is what Rush Limbaugh did. You may not have liked his views or even thought he was funny, but there were many times he was attempting to use humor as a way to make a point.

Of course, I have read Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. And, you should know by now, I am not convinced of the innuendo between Twain and his writings in terms of a social platform. I will not deny that his views outside of his writing were pretty clear and direct. All that being said, you cannot necessarily separate Twain’s opinion and the subject matter of his writings. At the very least, his writing built his speaking platform.

I ran across this over the weekend…

I think irony is an important aspect of humor. Isn’t it ironic that someone would want to organize some sort of anti-violence demonstration while simultaneously promoting violence at the same time.

I am going to speculate about what I think Bob is saying. No country should invade another country and kill it’s citizens and try to take it’s territory, therefore I side with Ukraine. After thinking about this, I have to say that even self defense is violence. I have to imagine that if Ukraine was not resisting, there would be significantly less death and destruction. That is not a conviction of right and wrong, but educated conjecture.

I skimmed through most of the replies and I am confused about the intent of this. This is organized as a response to the Uvalde shooting last week. I think orange was a bridge between hunter orange i.e. gun owners and people wanting to protest bun violence (?). I have no doubt that a large contingent of people do not fully understand the second amendment but there is no connection between that and hunting other that guns are mostly used to participate.

I think Twain would do his research on the subject before commenting. Which side is really the good/bad guys here? Is it the Ukrainians who denied regional succession to become Russians after an overwhelming vote to do so or is it Russians seizing foreign territory? And, how can you be against violence yet support it at the same time?

We have got some issues here. Unfortunately, people are not looking deep enough into something before adding a no thought given emoji to their signature. I am giving Bob the benefit of the doubt here, I am assuming he is ignorant and really means well. I sure hope that it is not the other way.

End Your Programming Routine: “Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right.” I don’t know the exact context of this quote, but Twain was an unapologetic abolitionist. Think about the context of the day versus today’s view of slavery. Now, use that same discipline for everything else in life.

May 30, 2022 – Remember the Ultimate Sacrifice

May 30, 2022 /

Fortunately for me, I don’t know of anyone that has died in combat. I do know someone that took their own life as a result of PTSD which, while extremely sad is not quite the same (I will get to this later). If you remember my stance I took in 2020 this is not Veterans Day or First Responders appreciation. This is the day to remember those that gave all.

I will have the barbeque going and I will enjoy some family time as well as a day off. I will be thankful that I don’t know anyone that has died in combat. I will also be slightly pissed off that our soldiers died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, UAE, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Bosnia, Serbia and Kuwait to name the ones that we know about. I will be sad that kids were brainwashed into believing in the mission so strongly that they didn’t realize they were the pawns and casualties in a power struggle beyond their wildest imagination. I will be boggled and disgusted by a culture that can’t tell the difference between a veteran and a combat death.

This is all to say that we need to be very careful in our moral superiority complex. We must not confuse advancing Liberty and Freedom with the actions of a bully. This is not a benevolent bully either. This is a bend to our submission so that we can remain at the top of the heap. Our dollar is worth more, our gas tanks are filled first, we eat first, we piss upstream of everyone else.

When I hear the phrase “fighting for your freedom” I want to throw up a little bit. In a small way, that is true. It is not freedom per se, but my ability to leverage my superior economic status over yours, or my manifest destiny, or protecting my business interests in a location that is not governed by my country. There have only been three occasions where this has truly been the case, the war of Independence, the war of 1812 and the Civil War.

I could be persuaded to give Korea and Vietnam a pass to a point. But one, we should now know that proxy wars are not protecting our freedom and two after we have seen those failures we keep doing the same thing (Afghanistan). Or, how about the ‘We fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here’ stance? Here’s an idea, if we stopped pushing people around all together maybe we wouldn’t have to deal with this nonsense constantly.

Remember the accusations that Russia would dare to mettle in our elections? How many elections do you suppose we have manipulated? How about the invasion of Haiti to restore a dictator that was disposed by a military coup? The same guy that was assassinated last year, how did that work out for him or us for that matter? There is nothing like a constant power display to build contempt so that they get to the point that they would rather blow themselves up than keep on keeping on.

I would like to think that my people are the god fearing, flag waving, not apologizing for shit, Toby Keith types. I used be one of those for sure. But, part of being god fearing is looking at the situation from a different points of view. At this point, I can’t endorse any sort of non-defensive military aggression.

I do not blame the soldier. In theory, they were used to advance agenda of economic superiority using propaganda masked as patriotism. This is the real tragedy of Memorial Day. To put a final point to this, the ultimate sacrifice was not self sacrifice exclusively but a willing sacrifice for someone else’s prosperity without the full knowledge of the situation. It is no small coincidence that combat veterans suffer from a high degree of PTSD. No only did they do things they regret, they intimately understand the whole cabal after it is too late.

End Your Programming Routine: My heart goes to you if you had a loved one die in the line of duty. About ten years ago, we met a husband and wife that were up in the woods. We were looking for a specific grove of old growth timber called ‘Valley of the Giants’ but they were up there because their son was killed in Vietnam and buried in a town called Valsetz that no longer exists. They were near the old townsite to get a connection on Memorial Day. Fortunately, they were more than willing to lead us to our destination which we would not likely found simply wandering in the woods.