Category: Opinion

May 29, 2023 – Memorial Day 2023

May 29, 2023 /

My best description of today is honoring those that died in service of our country. We are not thanking veterans or first responders and we are not parroting “Freedom is not free”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war

Imagine that we were farmers and we all plant the same crop. We have the same costs and we all work sun up to sun down all spring and summer. Yet when it comes harvest time, I harvest and sell my crop and you inexplicably abandon the field. As a result I prosper for that year and you starve and die.

We wouldn’t honor that person as a farming hero who died in the career of feeding the world. We would likely say he is a fool who died as a result of his lack of farming efforts. It is not what you do to get to the end point but what you do with it that is honorable.

It would be admirable if I ploughed your field, bought your seed, tended your crops and harvested your bounty. What if after all of that, I died in a farming accident and you then just leave the crop to waste? After that, you then turn around and say ‘I know that this is prime farming ground, this crop has an infinite return and is necessary for a happy and healthy life but instead of farming it, I am going to build a shopping mall here’.

Those actions are not honoring my farming and human efforts, they are doing the opposite. Sure, I defend your freedom of choice to do what you want when you want. We cannot in the same voice then claim that death in farming is a sacred result because it is dangerous, necessary and for the better good. Culture is result of practicing traditions, consistently with a common understanding.

The holiday is not to connect service death to platitudes. It actually to honor people that died rather senselessly. I would ask what is sadder: a person that died prematurely or died prematurely as a result of a higher cause? It is natural for us to invent significance to justify the occurrence. That is why we label it the ultimate sacrifice because it helps quell the doubt of the result.

The reported stance is that military service is required to defend the state and by proxy of the state existing we have the illusion of freedom. The implication is no state/no freedom. For instance, if communism succeeded in southern Asia, then it could advance here and we would loose our country as it were and therefore freedom.

End Your Programming Routine: Not only is that what Memorial Day has become but our actions don’t respect the freedom that we proport to be so thankful for. What are you doing with your freedom? Are you buying a permit for that summer building project or to hold a garage sale, are you complaining to the police about you neighbor’s party or are you scheming because your neighbor’s grass is too tall or house is painted in an unapproved color? To embrace the true ultimate sacrifice, we need need to embrace the true concept of freedom.

May 25, 2023 – Senioritis?

May 25, 2023 /

Thirty years ago at this time, the word had a different meaning. I was in my last weeks of high school and looking forward to new adventures. I was ready to get my life started which meant starting college after summer break. It was time to move on.

I remember running track and counting the days of school left. Everything seemed so pointless to keep marking the days until graduation. Everybody knew that the brakes were off at school. I had no illusions of placing at districts and track wasn’t going anywhere. I had nothing left to prove just wait my time.

I never really had any close bonds in my graduating class. Consequently, with my aversion to social media I never really kept up with anybody. I just realized that this is my thirty year reunion. I didn’t give ten or twenty years a thought, probably wont with this either since my position is still the same and it falls on my wife’s birthday. But it does say something, time is marching on.

Today, Senioritis might have a different meaning. I have a son that will be a senior next school year. My younger son is going to be gone all year on exchange to Taiwan. When he comes back, he will also be a senior. To be honest, I am looking forward to the their transition’s into adulthood.

It would be no secret to those that know me that my wife and I have different ideas about parenting. These high school years have been very hard on those differences. There has been conflict between us like never before and it is all because I feel strongly one way and she does the other. I won’t delve deep into the psychology or details of it but I will say that I am ready for the calm.

This isn’t about right or wrong. I can definitely see her side of things but it doesn’t mean that I am going to agree with it. To be clear, I am not saying that I want them to fly the coop and never to be seen again. No, but I am tired of cleaning up after them, yelling about the same things day after day, trying to reason with attitude and be the peacemaker between them. It is time to grow up.

I am treading a little bit dangerous here because I don’t want to go too deep into our relationship. But, I think it is safe to say that my wife wants to hold on as long as possible. I on the other hand am ready for them to experience real life lessons in the safest possible fashion. Money doesn’t grow on trees so when you break your phone or need to pay for car insurance plus rent plus food plus hundreds of dollars in ‘school clothes’ that doesn’t come easily or without sacrifice.

I am already funding two open ended airplane tickets abroad this summer, plus my wife is going on a three week trip to Europe as well. Now one of my son’s is asking to go on a one week trip to a high school trip across the country. What ever happened to pooling gas money together to get a ride to the next town? We have the money for all of that but I do remember those days of bribing rides by paying extra gas money. I think that was a rite of passage and character building. You didn’t take experiences for granted.

My new definition of Senioritis is moving into the post child rearing years. I do not really want to get old, but it beats the alternative. My kids will find their own balance. I don’t think that it will be what they currently think it is. And that is OK, it is part of the process. We will still be there to support them, we just won’t be or feel responsible for them.

I would love to say that I can see retirement on the radar. When I was graduating High School, there were people in their early 50s that were retiring. For me, that is only two to seven years. I can say this, that isn’t going to happen. It is more likely that I will work until I cant then to have a bunch of years in the retirement zone. Knowing that, it is imperative to get the most out of remaining years while health is still intact and everything seems so far away to improbable.

Recently, I find myself looking at small RVs and boats so that we can get out to fish on the weekend and get back to work during the week. That is likely going to be the flavor of my coming golden years. We are already talking about and looking at houses to move. Part of it is downsizing and part of it is to get out of here. I am feeling closed in in this town and state. My wife wants to move for different reasons but for both of us, they hinge on the kids becoming adults and making steps toward their own lives.

End Your Programming Routine: It bears repeating that I love this time of year. I love the hope that graduation represents. Many people like the winter holidays but I would argue that it is school ending is where everybody is happy and summer is just starting. Not only is there accomplishment from the year that was completed but there is a seemingly endless break before starting the next thing. It is exciting. It may seem like I was complaining but really I was expressing the factors that are pushing me to be ready for a change. I am ready to start my life (again) and I want to do it before I am too old to enjoy it.

May 23, 2023 – What To Do in Transition

May 23, 2023 /

No, not that kind of transition… It’s sad to say that when I now hear this word I think the meaning has changed. I am sure that it is just me, but transitioning seems so pervasive these days I just can’t help going there. We are in transition of season, school year, activities, projects, etc. For me, I have all these things going on.

I often find that after I am pushing to meet a goal, if I don’t pay attention, transition becomes the status quo. Or said differently, if I don’t have a project lined up when I finish one, I will languish in this post project stupor. For instance, it feels like I have just finished my sofa table. In relative terms I did considering it took years to complete. But, the reality was that this was now months ago.

I have a real need. The flashing around my front window is leaking and it means that I need to remove 75% of the siding. I am worried that if I don’t address it soon that there could be real damage to the structure. It has already been leaking for eight years. I have tried some remediation efforts but they have only lasted for a season, so now it is time to fix it permanently.

The best time to do that is now, between May and October. I have the light and the dry weather but this is going to be a big project (for me). Ideally, I would rent scaffolding and I think it will be a couple of weeks (straight through). But I am dragging my feet because we have to finish the school year an exchange student on the way, kids going on exchange and my wife going to Europe. This is not to mention that we have a 25th anniversary party coming up in June.

It is probably something I should consider hiring out given that it doesn’t feel like I have time to do it. That is a whole job in and of itself. So, I am stuck in this transition malaise. In the mean time, I don’t want to completely focus on problems but on solutions. I am going to talk about what I do in those periods.

Clean-Up: Inevitably, while focusing on a project I have all kinds of ‘I will put that away later’ moments. This also extends to other areas of the house, not just my project spaces. I get focus and I prioritize the project work over everything else. This is also to say that if I am working in the shop the broom and vacuum come out for a deep, finishing clean. I certainly don’t do that while I am working. But it could also be site clean-up by picking up rotten wood, off-cuts, shingle pieces, garbage or whatever.

Maintenance: If I can see the finish line, I get super motivated to go there. This then give me the propensity to defer certain items. I recently realized that it had been 18 months since my last oil change in the pick-up. I fixed that. I have another vehicle that needs one too. I replaced the sprinkler that was broken last summer and caused me to shut of the irrigation early. This is also a good time to get things done before starting a new project. So, preventative maintenance.

Exploration: Once I complete something, then I feel like I have earned the chance to do kick-back a little bit. Doing a few of the ‘I like to try that someday’ feels like a reward without the guilt of ‘I should be doing something else’. This is exactly why I keep telling myself that I want to try to find this fishing hole lately. But it is also me wanting to try having on keg on tap and one waiting to see if only having one tap is adequate.

Rest: I am the last one to really preach rest. Rest can drive me stir crazy and I prefer exploration to rest. That being said, finishing that lagging book, taking a day trip to the beach, a weekend movie or family activities at the expense of other things comprise rest for me. I suppose rest is also not planning or thinking about the next thing while in transition.

End Your Programming Routine: What I have always wanted was to be real and honest. I don’t want to make myself seem better than I really am. I would say that I probably don’t have the right answer to any question, but I probably have an answer. For some reason, my brain is programmed to continuously push for more things checked off my list and that is what motivates me. But, making downtime productive can also be rewarding as well.

May 18, 2023 – I Am Not Prepared For This

May 18, 2023 /

Living on Main Street which is also an Oregon state highway, we occasionally get some accidents. The last bad one we had was Labor Day 2019. I remember this because it was the day before school started and several children were in the car. The person in one of the cars had to be extracted.

My neighbor is a former deputy sheriff and if they are home, they are running a police scanner. We do get a lot of sirens that come down Main Street so I can usually tell the kind of event it is by the types and numbers of vehicles that pass. There are certain trucks for vehicle crashes and different ones for fire. Occasionally I will ask him what is happening, especially if there is both police and fire involved.

Last night, I was reading the local paper and my wife was fiddling around with the TV. She kept asking me questions about what applications we needed to keep cache and we were discussing the value of why these applications were collecting data in the first place. I was looking out the window and I saw a flash.

I yelled “Holy shit, call 911. I just saw someone hit by a car”. This is the order of events. I saw a body flipping over a red car (in the forefront) while almost simultaneously a crunching thud and then a short car horn. My first thought was why would someone honk after the person got hit? My wife ran outside and as she was doing so she said “get the first aid kit”.

Trying to process all the things going on I ran into the bathroom. I was looking at band aids and spare toothbrushes thinking none of this is going to help. Meanwhile, I called 911 since my wife ran out the door and was talking with the operator so I was less focused on finding first aid and more on answering the questions.

After the short conversation I grabbed some tape and what I thought were square bandages. I later realized that it was a box of alcohol wipes when I went to put them away. I felt completely inadequate and left the stuff on the dining room table to go outside to see if there was anything better to do. My wife wanted a space blanket so I went to go get that hoping the ambulance would be there soon.

We live about half a mile from the fire station and we have occasionally have called 911. Usually, the service is pretty fast. But, the ten minutes that it took was an eternity. The kid that was hit was a teenager, he was in my son’s grade school class so we recognized him. It looked like a broken arm and leg, at least it was not worse.

Apparently, he was crossing the crosswalk (white pickup to the left) and the driver didn’t see him. Since I didn’t see the entire event, I speculate that the farther red car had stopped and the pedestrian started walking. By the time it was all over, the victim ended up just to the left of the red cars.

I could go on and on but the morale of the story is that I felt completely unprepared and useless. I probably should have a trauma kit by the front door with things appropriate like gloves, space blankets, quick clot, medical tape etc. I think that if I was confident I could respond appropriately, I wouldn’t waffle around looking to be helpful because I wasted all of my initiative trying to figure out what was useful.

End Your Programming Routine: One time I was first on the scene when a co-worker cut his fingers off on the table saw. I didn’t handle that situation very well either. But, I like to think that I learned a lot of things I would do differently for the next time and feel a lot more confident about how I would conduct myself. Fortunately, there has not been a next time. Let’s hope that this is the only time I witness a pedestrian tumbling over a car. But, I will do better if it happens again.

May 11, 2023 – Think Your Government Doesn’t Make Mistakes… Think Again

May 11, 2023 /

Approximately two years ago, we received a letter that our kids were entitled to assistance (food stamps). I actually threw the letter away because I thought the whole premise was ridiculous. Supposedly, it was to mitigate access to food during the pandemic school year.

The first problem with the situation was that my kids should be eligible for assistance. The second part was that all of the lockdowns and the entire school year at home was a year past. So, tell me why I wouldn’t think that was anything other than ridiculous. Sure enough the card arrived in the mail two weeks later and it had about $1400 on it. You can read about it here.

Follow-up from that. We spent the money. We used it to buy food when we went on our family Thanksgiving trip to Houston. At first, I didn’t want to accept something that I didn’t feel was necessary. Once I got into my headspace that I also paid $10,000 in additional taxes to the state that year plus getting audited and paying a lawyer, I put those feelings aside. Mistake or not, I have reconciled that I pay a lot more than I take. In fact, I take almost nothing from the system.

Low and behold, we got another Electronic Benefits Card a week ago. This time it was about $400 in value. I suppose that I am not opposed to taking advantage of situation, but it does start to get disheartening that the state really has no discretion on qualification of benefits. This is what I would characterize as government waste; indiscriminate doling out of money.

If you take those lines, then you will probably understand that this was actually a mistake. My wife sent me a link to a story that said that there were a number of people that mistakenly received assistance. Once the state realized it, they took all the money back rendering some cards, like my son’s to be useless.

Hooray for government, right? You guessed it. Wrong. Aren’t there checks and balances in this process? Do they not have subject matter experts for policy and ample resources (people) to execute something properly? I have to believe that this process took a significant amount of time and effort. Finding someone to print the materials and mail them out only to find out that they made a mistake after the fact has to be something majorly wrong in the process.

I know how these things probably went. Some sort of database report was executed and that is what translated to the wrong results. What failed was the validation of the data and the quality check of the process. Mistakes happen and the government is not immune to them either.

Where I really wanted to go is that the government is always pretty quick to swing a fist. Meaning, the stance is always they are right. Ever try to re-title a car without a complete bill of sale trail? Trust me, your life is living hell trying to get previous sellers tracked down to rebuild a paper trail that is absolutely irrelevant. Trust me, only citizens have to go through the run around. Dealers don’t have to do that.

But more so than that, the government will reluctantly admit mistakes when there is no other options, particularly financial ones or high profile losses in court. Sometimes that doesn’t stop them either. For instance, I have heard no apologies for ruining peoples lives for only permitting essential jobs during Covid. I have heard justification for doing what they did, but no apologies.

The main point with this whole post is not to rail on government. I do enjoy doing so, but that you should use critical thinking when getting notifications about something they think is wrong. Just because the IRS sends you a notice doesn’t mean that they are right. You have to weigh the cost of the fight into the equation. When dealing with the government, there are no moral victories either so it simplifies the variables in the decision making.

Probably every other year I get a notice from the IRS or the Oregon Department of Revenue. After consultation with our attorney, often the resolution is to pay the difference. At $200/hour it doesn’t make a lot of sense to fight a $400 bill. But, I can also tell you that we have gotten letters saying that we haven’t paid for the year and a $10,000 bill is a different story when we have.

Along those lines, it really pisses me off that I have to have an attorney and pay more money to prove that I have already done the right thing. Whereas I know people that haven’t bothered to file taxes for years and they got no hassle whatsoever. This is not to say that the government was going to get anything out of if but that they will go after the people that they will. Dropping it.

End Your Programming Routine: Don’t be a zombie. Don’t fold because you feel you have no choice. Do analyze the situation and make moves that make sense. Do seize the opportunity when there is one. This is the definition of being an individual.

May 9, 2023 – (Sunday) We Have a Free Day, Let’s Go to Costco… No

May 9, 2023 /

I am sure that I violated some kind of title rules with punctuation and choppiness. But this is what I want to say today. It has been a long time since I have talked about productivity and planning. Today I wanted to share my philosophy to prove that I have my priorities all jumbled up.

At this point in our lives, we are slaves to the schedule. In between our own commitments and our kids (let’s not forget Mother’s Day is coming up). It is really hard to get a down day in. I tend to look at things in the light of what can I do on a weeknight versus what needs to wait for a weekend.

We usually do a monthly shop at Costco for groceries. Since we are planning a Mother’s Day dinner, we need to get some stuff for that as well. Looking at what was happening this weekend, we say Sunday afternoon was open. My wife said, we need to go to Costco. I said no.

First of all, we don’t need to go to Costco. We have several grocery stores in town and we are not really out of anything given our well stocked freezers and pantry. It is not exactly convenient being thirty minutes away. There is also the commitment of putting things away. Because once you start, you are committed until at least the refrigerated and frozen items are put away.

Another reason I don’t want to go on the weekend is that it is the very worst time to be at Costco. Parking is a mess, the stores are full. But, there is a third and more overriding reason to not do this. That is, this is a task that can be done during the week. Whereas, there are many things that I really cannot do on a weekday.

Did I use my time wisely? Maybe, maybe not. I ended up coming home late from trap, I transferred my beer from the primary to the secondary, I changed the oil in the pickup, we played tennis as a family and I spent some time with my wife watching a movie. I would argue that any one of those tasks could have been done on a weeknight. But what doesn’t happen is unstructured time in large blocks.

I need some time that I can just do what I want. It makes me feel like I have some control in my life. Looking at the week ahead, I have the following schedule Monday – YMCA meet and greet, Tuesday – Incoming Freshman activity fair (for trap), Wednesday-Friday – Tennis Districts, Saturday – Trap and Mother’s day dinner Sunday – Mother’s Day. The truth is, I really don’t have an open day this week. That being said, I am sure that there is going to be some time in the evening Wednesdy through Friday. I just don’t have the precise schedule until we get there.

My schedule has not been much different this entire spring. Between sports and my kids getting ready for exchange, it seems like everyday is penciled in something. I will also offer an alternative way of looking at things. Don’t wait for the weekend to do things, do what you can during the week. It is not about the day of the week but the efficiency of the job with the blocks of time available.

End Your Programming Routine: Summer is coming and this marathon will change. Notice I didn’t say end. When you are a distance runner, when you see the finish line you run as fast as you can. This is called the push. We are in the push phase with the family. In a little over a year, I will have one in school. When the choice is either family tennis or going to Costco, the choice should be pretty clear. Choose the right time for the right task.

May 4, 2023 – Adventure Has to Have a Risk Component

May 4, 2023 /

I have alluded to this recently that I have been babysitting occasionally. Again, I am not going to get into the whys. What is important is that what does a nearly fifty year old man do to entertain a five year old girl? I certainly don’t want to play with dolls for an extended period of time nor do I want either of us sitting in front of the TV all day. My answer is go on an adventure.

Now, would it be an adventure if the result was guaranteed? The answer has to be no. We had nice weather and my mind has wandered to get out fishing somewhere. I know enough that hunkering down all day with a five year old is not going to work. My plan was to find this lake I had never been to, fish for thirty minutes (or more if possible) and then head back home. It sounds like Win-Win to me.

I have listened to Meateater and talking about getting kids out into the outdoors. Clearly you want to have a good experience to build on. That means that if you only spend thirty minutes out fishing, then it is an investment in the future. You want to slowly build kids into the activity, not cause them to dread it. This is why I picked a destination that I had never been to. The adventure was really finding it and testing it out, not hauling out a good catch.

Friday, we had a temperature in the upper eighties. Saturday, the day of my trip we were expecting high seventies. Mind you, Monday of that week the high temperature was 47 degrees. So, we just barely left winter this weekend. I knew the risk of encountering snow was high if the elevation got high enough. But again, this was an adventure.

As we started climbing in elevation, I started noticing that the ferns were all matted down. This was a sign that they had been compressed with weight. So, I started to get the sense that we were going to find snow. Within another minute, I started to see snow on the side of the road. Another minute and then there were ruts in the road. Finally, I saw that the tracks that I was following stopped and so did I.

I was hoping that this was just a shady spot, so I hiked up around the bend to see what it looked like. It was snow as far as I could see and the road was still climbing. I learned my lesson years ago that a vehicle can get stuck and with it, comes a long walk. A five year old, a dog and no cell service was a risk too high for me to chance. I made the call to turn around. There was another route to take, but it was another hour around. So, I thought that I would try it.

It turned out that about ten miles up the second route there was too much snow as well. So, we had to bag it for the day. I headed back toward home. This wasn’t quite the trip that I had hoped for, but I packed snacks and turned on the DVD player in the car and so it allowed for about a four hour car ride to seem bearable for all of us.

I say that adventure has to have risks because otherwise it is an outing. Now, probably to a five year old adventure/outing are semantics. I didn’t even realize the context until I was explaining that we were heading back home. I didn’t mean to have a philosophical conversation in my head but that is how it turned out.

The day wasn’t a total bust. I learned that some new roads existed and renewed my desire to go back to the lake and get my pole in the water. I built a campfire when we got home and we made smores and popcorn over the fire. I survived another full day watching a child and I think that she had fun.

End Your Programming Routine: I have tried to find this lake twice. Once, I was blocked by a gate and now this time I was stopped by snow. I am going to get there. I enjoyed my day regardless of the outcome. Isn’t that the most important thing? The purpose was to entertain, get out of the house, enjoy some warm spring weather and be home safely. It just leaves next time to find the lake.

April 6, 2023 – Best Advice: Rent a Car and Do a Road Trip

April 6, 2023 /

I was returning my rental car at the Des Moines airport and a car caught my eye. It was a Buick Enclave. I thought that it was a nice looking vehicle, I even did a double take to see what it was. Little did I know that when I flew into Portland and picked up my next rental, I would end up with a Buick Enclave for our road trip rental.

There was a lot to like about it. It was AWD which would come in handy in our snow covered road driving. It had a third row so plenty of room for four and the overstuffed luggage. I didn’t look under the hood, but I felt it had adequate power for the the 80MPH speed limits in the west and a 21 gallon fuel tank had over a 500 mile range. That is a good thing when you want to go or you are out in the middle of no man’s land desert. The seats were comfortable enough to drive for twelve hours a day if we had to.

You don’t spend all that time in a car and not find some things that you don’t like either. The controls were confusing, I still didn’t figure it all out after a week. We were trying out Android Auto and it worked pretty good until the last couple of days and we had consistent connection issues until we gave up on it for the last couple of days. Last but not least, the heating/cooling system we never figured out. It was always too hot or too cold. I specifically did not like the tiny back window and the small amount of clearing the little wiper performed.

Despite all the good things, our overall assessment was not to buy and the reason was ultimately the glitches left an unsatisfactory taste in the vehicle. I want to say that we are at a point that we expect the fundamentals of a vehicle to work. Adequate power, adequate economy, adequate comfort are accepted as baselines for any car. But if you cant get the heat right or settings always go back to a default set, it is kind of annoying.

I think everyone that has bought a car has had some form of buyer remorse. A couple of miles of test drive is just not enough to get a feel for certain aspects of the car. I remember when we bought our Navigator, we were literally leaving the lot and the parking sensors started going off. We drove back to the dealer and they smiled and said the deal is done. Since they were no a Lincoln dealer, there was not a lot they could do. We still have occasional gremlins that go off and don’t know why.

Taking a car on a road trip is a perfect test of a vehicle. You really get intimate with the features and capabilities. We are thinking of upgrading from the Navigator since it seems to be on it’s last legs. There sure are a lot of $50,000 cars out there which equate to a lot of payments over a long time. I would hate to decide years of obligation in 15 minutes.

Our current choices are weighted toward the Hyundai Tucson and the Ford Explorer. I have driven the Tucson several times but not the recent Explorer. I sure would consider renting for a weekend to see how I feel about each one. Ideally, you would also want to consider typical use conditions as well.

What I mean is that it is unrealistic to test moving 18 sheets of plywood if that is never going to happen because I have a pick-up for that. In software, we have a 95/5 rule. If something happens in the 5% window, it is worth considering the cost and complexity for coding the edge case scenarios. Or said another way, I am not going to buy a fifteen passenger van on the off chance that I will have 14 friends to haul one time. It makes no sense. So start by doing what you normally do and consider the edge cases on a specific basis.

A long time ago, we purchased a Ford Expedition. We had that about two years before we traded it for a Dodge Caravan. The justification was that it was lower so my wife could take her grandparents around. I think that happened a couple of times while we owned the vehicle (and the Caravan lifecycle is a story for another day). That was actually a poor financial decision for a false justification.

But here is a marriage tip, my wife should be able to have any reasonable vehicle. It turned out that with young kids the mini-van was much easier in and out. We had three extra seats that the Expedition didn’t have and we acquired some extra kids (another story for another day). The lower roofline was much easier to load kayaks which she did multiple times a year. I think it worked out alright despite the false premise to begin with.

End Your Programming Routine: As of late, we have had some pretty good longevity with cars. I think that we went through nearly thirty before we were aged 40. I have owned my pickup since 2003 and we bought the Navigator in 2012. Sure, I wish I still had the Mustang but that had to go for financial practical reasons. Neither vehicle is ideal in every circumstance. But, as I get older and smarter I want to make sure that I can live with the quirks if I end up paying $800 a month for six years.

March 14, 2023 – Bank Failures Abound

March 14, 2023 /

I assume that you are like me and don’t really understand what is happening. I see a lot of flash and almost zero in details. Friday, the news broke that Silicon Valley Bank was seized by the FDIC and that was really all of the news of substance. This combined with Signature Bank last Sunday are being billed as the 2nd and 3rd largest bank failures after Washington Mutual in 2008.

For those of us seasoned to remember 2008, Washington Mutual was the largest consumer facing bank to fail but there were some even larger institutions like Lehman Bros and Bear Stearns that were probably indicators of the the seriousness of the problem. I did some investigation to try and understand what was happening here.

What Happened: The Fed has been raising interest rates since last year to combat inflation. Remember, we have been consistently told that there is no inflation? These two banks have been highly leveraged in debt to asset ratio because their primary business has been loaning money. Credit has been much stingier in this increasing interest rate environment so patrons have been taking money from the bank rather than leaving it in the system and a bank collapse has ensued. From there, the institution no longer has enough cash to continue to operate and thus is seized by the FDIC.

What exactly does this mean? In practical terms, nothing. The FDIC is going to assume operations of the bank and transition operations to another suitor when found. In essence, your savings account is still there and your debts are still due. I do imagine that loans in progress are probably suspended if not terminated. Other than that I don’t see much in the way of changes.

I think that what this says about what is not on the surface is pretty compelling. The fact that more than one institution has failed within days is a sign of some pretty strong sickness within the landscape. The reason I say this is that one bank is based in California and the other in New York. We cannot say that this is a one off situation nor can we say that it is environmental because of geography.

I don’t claim to have any sort of insight or even knowledge of the business but I think that things must be much worse than we realize because of these events. Please, don’t be fooled by lies. We are smart enough to know that if something doesn’t smell right that it likely is not right. We don’t need to have specialized industry knowledge to know that that wrong is wrong and we shouldn’t be convinced otherwise.

Don’t forget that this is business and shouldn’t be construed as personal. The people running these institutions are doing exactly what they are permitted by law and expected by shareholders to do. That would be run up debt and leverage the institution to the brink of failure in an attempt to wring every last cent out of the company. Of course, you may not know what the line is without crossing it and that appears to be what has happened.

Where does this leave us? We already know that liars lie, we know that cheaters cheat and we know that players are going to play the game. My recently surfaced attitude of not being angry at bad guys leads me to be pretty ambivalent towards all of this. This being said, some day this is going to be real. Get your financial house in order by eliminating debt and build some level of savings. Freaking out gets us nowhere. Getting prepared for issues is something tangible we can do no matter what happens.

End Your Programming Routine: To be sure, this is another kick the can down the road moment. It just so happens that when the can was kicked, the kicker also slipped and fell down. We will have to wait and see if the fall broke our leg or not and let’s hope that while we are on the ground that we don’t get run over by a car ending it all. I am saying don’t panic, don’t make it more than it is but don’t stick your head in the sand either. Be situationally aware, remember one of the 100 skills a man should have.

January 24, 2023 – Is Bigger, Better?

January 24, 2023 /

There is a old saying that goes like this “If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem is treated like a nail”. Today I am talking about knives and for a very good reason. I have been watching the developments of this murder investigation of four Idaho college students very closely.

In the morning of November 13, 2022 it was reported that four college students were murdered in there house. My first thought was gang or drugs but it turned out to be something much more sinister than that. On the surface, three coeds and a boyfriend were stabbed to death. Two remaining roommates were home and did not hear a thing. I think I will do a podcast so I am going to skip the further details on all of this for some other time.

The suspected murder weapon is a Ka-bar knife. I say suspected because the weapon has not yet been found. But evidence at the scene suggests that it was a Ka-bar knife. The Ka-bar is known as the military knife as versions are issued to the Army, Marines and Navy and have been used since World War II.

Knives are tools and going back to my first sentence, it is one of the few tools issued to soldiers in the field. Consequently, the soldier’s knife is subject to all kinds of abuse like digging in the ground and opening cans. While I have no doubt that it has been used in combat, 99% of the things it has been used for are much more mundane.

I have a knife in my office that I primarily use for things like cutting cheese, sausage apples and the like. I took it out of my vehicle kit where I originally purchased it for things like bushcrafting. That would be things like building temporary shelter or batoning wood (to make kindling) as well as digging and opening cans. So, I would say it is pretty inappropriate for the tasks that I currently use it for.

My knife is a Buck 119. I was looking at it the other morning and the thought occurred to me that it looks a lot like a Ka-bar. So, I did an internet search for comparisons between the Buck 119 and Ka-bar knives. What I got was some good information while a lot of it fell into the ‘Mall Ninja’ category. “The Ka-bar is a fighting knife, the Buck is a hunting knife.” That is the statement that struck me as a pure point of ignorance.

The eight inch kitchen knife is the standard for chefs and cooks alike. It is good for it’s chopping and dicing capabilities, but not for all things, particularly delicate work such as peeling. Now, I use my chef’s knife for most things including tasks that would be better suited to the smaller pairing knife because I don’t want to dirty another utensil or it is already dirty or I just think I can do it.

Getting back to my point here, people that say the Buck 119 is a hunting knife have never used a knife in their lives. A hunting knife is primarily used to eviscerate and skin an animal. Just like any job, having different tools can lead to an advantage for the efficacy of the task. But, sticking your hand into the body cavity of an animal to cut the esophagus and therefore remove all of the innards is not a job for a six inch blade, way too large.

I think the optimum blade length for a ‘hunting knife’ is about three inches long. It is too large for some tasks (inside the body cavity) and too small for others (like breaking meat into primal cuts). It performs perfectly for most of the field butchering activities. Here is a place that I definitely agree with Steven Rinella on the best qualities of a hunting knife.

I fortunately can’t speak to the best qualities of a fighting knife. I think that if it comes to testing that aspect, it is a bad, bad day. But, generally speaking it is my opinion that knives with long blades are only useful in the kitchen and wildcrafting. There are too many variables in combat to makes the data only anecdotal. Just like people have been killed after being shot with a BB gun, so have people been killed with a pocket knife.

End Your Programming Routine: In my wild, circuitous route to get here I guess that my point is that internet information can be wildly misleading. There is no doubt that the Buck is marketed as a hunting knife. This particular knife is carried at many stores in the sporting goods section that only sanction hunting not tactical (or fighting). Bushcraft is a very niche and expensive category of knives usually reserved to boutique makers. As with all tools, having the right one for the purpose is always better but having the knowledge of what the right tool would be is better yet.