Category: Philosophy

January 29, 2026 – Is This Where My Heart Is?

January 29, 2026 /

If you were to ask me six months ago about where I would lay my head, never in 100 years would I have said the central Oregon Coast. It was about that time that I was watching the show Port Protection and I was wondering if I could convince my wife to move to coastal Alaska. I didn’t think she would go for the isolation. My dream is more the mountain west with mountains, livestock and cowboy boots not rain gear and rubber boots anyway.

We were coming home last week and my wife said, “it is time”. I said, “what do you mean”? She said the lake house feels more like home then our current home. After sleeping three nights on an air mattress, I was ready to get back to our true home. But a lot of that is only because I have no stuff there, the house is cold and I had a lot of problems with my work computer that I suspect is related to our makeshift internet situation. I am in no hurry to move but I am getting kind of tired of living out of boxes.

As this thing drags on, it is getting more and more real. Each weekend, I spend time boxing, organizing, trashing, donating and recycling. I sold my woodworking pile of wood two weeks ago, now I have next to nothing. As I go through all of my sheet goods off cuts, each one has a story. That one was from my Grandpa’s ice table. That was from the soffit that I replaced. That was the ottoman I built in SC. There was a piece of T-111 that I took off of the house when I fixed some rotten spots prior to residing. It goes on and on but if they are too small, they get cut up and thrown away.

My son and I took my last range trip for my birthday. Not only could I not find ammo to go, but when we got back, I couldn’t find my cleaning supplies either. I have a universal kit that I keep with my hunting bag, but I ran through all of the supplies that it contained. I have a bulk bag of patches somewhere along with other parts that I want, but for the life of me, I don’t know where it is right now and I am surely not going to move all the boxes around to find it.

I guess when I started packing, it didn’t occur to me how long I might be in the situation of getting ready versus actually moving. I can’t afford to sit around and wait for certainty, I will actually be out of time. The thought does cross my mind, what if this falls through? The cabinets I gave away, the shelves I broke down, all of those things in boxes have to get put back? It is kind of overwhelming and motivating at the same time. This can’t all be for nothing.

The picture above is Friday night sunset at our closest beach, about two miles from the house. It has been a beautiful run of weeks at the beach. It is clear and cold with an arctic wind blowing. We felt sorry for the dog being cooped up all day and thought this would be a nice ending to a long week. So did a hundred other people that you can’t see behind me.

I think that there is a metaphor there. I am sunsetting my time at my current home. I couldn’t have been more fortunate to have a warm house, a shop, a nice yard and loving family that has arrived, blossomed and has now left. My memories are like the day this photo was taken, bright and sunny. Even if there is now a freezing wind blowing, this is still is a moment to be savored. If I really boil things down, I am not wishing that it stays twilight forever, it is just inevitable that the night will come. Fortunately, a new dawn will be coming tomorrow.

I will never be ready to call the lake house home, until it happens. There is always something that will need to be done here and I feel like I owe my heart that. But, it will happen and it will happen when we actually complete the move.

End Your Programming Routine: Since we were going to stay into the weekend with a clear forecast, I was going to take my takedown fishing pole. Guess what, I couldn’t find it. It must be boxed up somewhere. Yes, I should just take a regular fishing pole which I know where it is but that is illustrative. While I may not call the lake house home yet, it feels like it is time to get this show on the road.

January 13, 2026 – How Wearables Have Changed My Life

January 13, 2026 /

I am not a fan boy or gym rat or even a fitness fanatic. I am just a guy that looks at data and makes observations. I got this GPS watch to help with my training for my PCT hike and it has slowly made an impression on me. It is the kind of impression that puts conscious decisions to the forefront. Before I knew it, I was making health improving decisions that I didn’t even know were issues.

Years ago when I was leading a 24×7 tech support group, I found out about this feature that buzzed your wrist when the phone rang. As a pretty heavy sleeper, I was curious how that might affect my ability to catch some of the calls that I missed because I was sleeping and the ringer was not waking me up. Some of the guys in my group were wearing them and swearing that this was the difference maker when they were on call.

I shared this with my wife and she was interested too for different reasons. For her, my excuse of not hearing or feeling the phone ring while I was working around the house was coming to an end. She seems to have this incessant need to feel like she can get ahold of me at any moment. It is a feeling driven out of fear that I have fallen off the roof or something.

I downplayed the risks but when it came to tracking my training, I changed my tune. I looked at the top of the line and double the price watches but I decided that it wasn’t worth the price. I was not planning on using my watch to navigate and I didn’t need a color screen. I picked the Garmin Instinct Solar Tactical II. I am not sure what makes it tactical other than it is brown. It was the watch that fit the price and had the features that I wanted, particularly the run time.

This is actually my second Garmin watch. My first one was a much simpler watch called the Forerunner. I used it when I was training for my half marathon. I became battery sensitive because after two years, it wouldn’t run long enough to complete at two plus hour run. But, it was pretty cool because I could see a map of what I did plus pace. Battery life became the reason I quickly ruled out the Apple watch nearly immediately. I don’t want another thing that I have to charge everyday.

Yes, I do use it to track my hikes and walking. I look at steps and time for pace as well as distance. But what I really found is valuable is the other data it provides. When I sync my watch on the Garmin Connect application, the very first graphic it provides is a ‘body battery’ image. It takes the activity and rest for the day and comes up with some sort of point in time calculation of what my body battery value is. I have to say that when I feel run down, the body battery validates that either I did not get enough rest or I have been busier than I realized.

Another thing I look at is my sleep score. I typically only look at it when I feel like I slept poorly. But I have to say that I feel pretty validated about how I am feeling and the relative score that is presented. A general trend is that I start the week high and my battery declines as the week moves on. On some Fridays, my battery is a quarter of what it was Sunday morning.

A lot of the day is out of my control. But, there are occasions when it is a Wednesday and I am feeling low energy and I make the conscious decision to go to bet at 8:30 rather that trying to make it to 10pm. This is particularly true when it has been a hard weekend without a lot of rest. Looking at the data is changing my behaviors. I am making decisions to act on the data in the interest of feeling better tomorrow.

I have had a scientific interest in the data as well. I have observed that on days where there is a fair amount of drinking that my sleep is garbage. It didn’t matter if I slept 10 hours on New Years Eve, the result was that it was of poor quality and my body battery started off significantly lower than where it should have been. I have used the data to decline that second drink.

I have to say that the solar component does almost nothing that I can see. I have yet to see an increase in the battery life on a sunny day. But, supposedly after a full charge, there is 40 days of GPS free operation. I have yet to see the battery get low because I charge it when I take a shower. The watch will gain four days in thirty minutes.

I can also say that I only feel the ringer function about 2/3 of the time. I often find when I am being very active, it is very noisy or some amount of vibration I often do not feel the ring. Maybe it is just my choice in wearable, I don’t know but I thought that I would share that this may not be a panacea if you are looking for that function specifically.

End Your Programming Routine: This body battery function is one of the unknown gems of a wearable. I always knew that I felt run down as the week moves on but now I have proof. And because I can conduct empirical experiments, I can actively do things so that I feel better tomorrow. I don’t believe that it is all mental, because I usually check to validate my feeling and not look before I decide.

September 25, 2025 – Experts Say…

September 25, 2025 /

Early June, we started to hear a grinding noise that had the distinct hint of metal on metal. As I have profusely espoused how ridiculously busy the summer was. But, I did find time in late July to have the brakes checked along with an overdue tire rotation. Their report to me was that everything looked fine with the brakes.

The next week after the all clear, my wife was complaining again. I have to be honest, I am very easy on brakes. Many times what she hears and feels It will take me months to hear. On top of that, I trusted that the tire people knew what they were doing. I said that I would take it in again but I kind of deprioritized it to the point that she took it in herself. They said that sound was metal on metal.

Needless to say, she was mad. She was mad at them and she was mad at me for believing them and not acting faster. She has this trait where if there is a perceived safety deficiency then there is going to be some yelling. The tire shop asked if she wanted to schedule a brake job, I said no way. I am not paying $700 for a couple hour job.

If you look at the picture closely, you can see that the pads on the left are bare metal whereas the pad on the right look like they are half used. My theory is that the tire store only looked at one side of the brakes when they declared that everything was good. Clearly, that was a mistake but how did this happen really?

My theory goes back a couple of years to 2023. We had taken the vehicle to a mechanic shop to do a few things. One of them ended up being the front brakes. A couple of months later, I was on a business trip and the rest of the family was on a road trip. My wife called and said that the brakes were making a metal on metal noise. I couldn’t do anything and we couldn’t take the car back to the shop and so we took it to this Northwest tire chain.

I had assumed that when any mechanic did one brake they did both. Since I was not present for the work I kept the same theory until looking at the brake hardware. It was very clear that one side was different then the other and so I think the tire chain only replaced one side. It had only been a few months and so I can’t argue, I think it was the right decision to only do one. That being said the pads were clearly different durability.

We never went back to that shop again. I don’t know if it was faulty work or faulty parts. There were a few other things that they didn’t follow through with and so this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I sent them a copy of the bill as well as well as their bill along with my displeasure about the situation but I never got a response, so I guess that pretty much cemented things. They could have apologized or given me a credit or something if they really cared.

As the title implies, if we always trusted experts then it could be trouble. My wife frequently said that if she had trusted doctors, she would be dead. I can’t say that I disagree. While experts are experts in their field, we are experts in our bodies and our vehicles. We live with them everyday. If something doesn’t look, sound, feel right, it may not be. It takes this type of misdiagnosis to keep teaching the lesson that we should have confidence in what we know.

End Your Programming Routine: The lesson that I learned from this is that I should put more faith in my wife’s observations and complaints. Just because I don’t notice something doesn’t make her wrong. The truth is that I did hear it once, just not repeatedly and so shame on me. I don’t mean anything by it. I think it is the skeptic in me that makes me more of a scientist whereas for her is a matter of respect. That is an expert that I should always listen to.

May 7, 2025 – Sometimes, You Just Have To Do the Work

May 7, 2025 /

It was Saturday morning and I was doing some extra clean-up from dinner the night before. Usually, we put foil down when melting cheese on nachos but forgot this time. As a result, my son did the after dinner dishes and filled this pan with water to ‘soak’.

When I cook, I hate to have a dirty and cluttered counter. So, I was going to make breakfast because I had a busy day planned but there were a few things on the counter from the night before. This pan being one of them.

We have a loose rule in the house that the cook doesn’t do the dishes. That typically means the kids are responsible for the dishes. Sometimes, the other non-cook spouse jumps in as well. When my boys do the dishes, one loads the dishwasher and the other does the hand wash dishes. They have a famous stalling tactic of letting stubborn, stuck on food residue soak overnight.

The most common cooking vessel that gets ‘the soak’ is the crock pot. In fact, there have been a number of times that the crock sits in the sink for several days because there is still stuff stuck on the surface. With the sun shining through the window I couldn’t shake the thought that soaking only takes you so far. Sometimes, the short cut has done all that it can do. You just have to put in the work to get that dish clean.

As I have recently mentioned, I discovered that Life Below Zero has all the seasons on Disney Plus. During my free time like while cooking, I have the show on in the background as I run through the recent seasons that I have not seen. A constant theme in the dialog is how much work needs to be done. Unlike clean dishes, their work is life dependent.

In today’s world of building science and modern building materials (as well as more moderate climate), people that heat with wood go through three to six cords of wood for a year. In some cases with crude cabins and primitive buildings, they are using a cord of wood a week. Let’s not forget that heating season is nine months a year and many are also cooking with a woodstove.

For those of you that don’t speak wood heating, a cord is 4′ x 4′ x 8′. A typical stove length log is sixteen inches. To paint a visual picture, a cord would be three rows that are eight feet long and four feet high. And, that is per week. With temperatures as low as fifty degrees below zero (F) you really cannot afford to not put in the work.

Even though I am writing this, I feel like I sometimes fall into this trap. That is avoiding the work because I don’t want to do it. I think about even things I love to do like deer hunting. One of the reasons that I go once per season and rarely get a deer is because I don’t put in the work. I have a freezer full of beef, a closet full of clothes and money to buy any tools that I might need (if I need any more tools).

I love it. I am excited at the thought of going deer hunting. But when it comes right down to busting brush, getting rained on, sweating profusely, etc. I really don’t want to do it. If I have that much trouble with activities that I purportedly love, think about the motivation to do something that I don’t.

We are all human and have our preferences and desires. I find that a lot of the time, if I decide that I am going to do something, then that is what happens. The psychological barrier of not wanting to do something is much, much stronger than the time it takes to do the task. While I don’t have concrete evidence, I suspect that those of us that are willing bust through those barriers rather than being stopped are more successful in life.

I have found that through the years some things are best tackled first or at least early. For instance, the cheese grater washes infinitely easier if it goes from use to the sink. Even if you do not scrub it but keep it wet, it makes a huge difference in effort as well. If it sits on the counter until after dinner, it is significantly more difficult and time consuming to wash.

If I get a chance, I will wash the grater while I am making dinner. This is not because I want credit for less mess but I consider it a service to whomever is washing the dishes. If I can do it in a third of the time because cheese is not stuck onto a difficult to clean surface, I should do that as a courteous person in the kitchen. It is a variation of the golden rule.

End Your Programming Routine: I think that it is A-OK to let the pan soak. But, the next morning it is time to put in the work and get it clean. We can’t be so work adverse that we don’t put our firewood up or that metal rusts into pieces sitting in the sink waiting to get loosened up. Hard things can be character building as well. At the very least it helps to gauge when we have gotten all that we can from the shortcut or helper technique. Hard work often gives us the motivation to try and invent a better or easier way for next time.

April 25, 2025 – Revelations 21-22 and Conclusion

April 25, 2025 /

We have turned a corner here. We past the rapture and now we are onto the reward. Gleaming cities of gold and jasper etc. I wonder if this is where the ‘pearly gates’ descriptor comes from? It is described as the new Jerusalem for a new earth prepared for those that are worthy.

First, God cast out Satan forever. Then He prepared a new city. The tree of life was available for the first time since Adam and Eve. John was explicitly told to proselytize that this is a new world order.

Among the couple of things that I found interesting is that there is talk about no temple in new Jeruasalem. There is no longer a need for priests to act as the mediary between God and the people. For the uninitiated, there was a curtain called a veil in the temple. The priest was the only one that could go behind the veil because supposedly that is where God was.

It was the promise of Jesus, also called the ‘New Covenant’ that was supposed to break that requirement. This was allegedly authorized at the last supper with the bread and wine (what we colloquially call communion to memorialize the event). I guess I don’t totally understand why this is coming up now when I believe it comes up earlier.

I don’t think that you get to pick your truth, even when it is conflicting. That being said I would like to know more about the origins of the Bible. What books were stricken and for what reasons? Since the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have very similar accounts, your can reasonably assume corroborating facts are true. Revelations was controversial and it seems like for good reason.

Jesus told them to expect his return after crucifixion (remember doubting Thomas) but why this new development? Why a whole new purging of the earth and starting over? It does seem to contradict the whole premise of Christianity provides salvation with free will. The vengeful God was supposed to be replaced with the loving God post Jesus.

It would be very presumptuous of me to say that this book seems a little far fetched. But I am going to say it anyway. We can’t just ignore controversy because it is convenient. It seems pretty likely that John would have communication with God considering how close he was to Jesus. But just like the Fourth Turning, why hasn’t it happened yet? Surely a millennium has passed by now.

For all I know, it happened at or near 1000 AD. It is not as if recorded history was the best it could have been. What if it was the black plague in the 1300s? I don’t think Satan has actually been banished considering the state of the world. But, I would also expect humanity to be gone as well and we would all be living in New Jerusalem.

What that says to me is that there is something up with the interpretation. I don’t know exactly what that is aside from the calculation of time. If one thing is off, what about other aspects of the story? As a result, it is probably best to live as if the rapture could come anytime.

End Your Programming Routine: I always knew it but now I can concretely say what fascinates these doomsday groups. A strong faith and a strong fatalism combined with timing of the Julian calendar and who knows what will happen? This definitely wasn’t my favorite Bible foray, but it leads me to believe that I will do more because I have not read all of it myself. Next week is the introduction to “In the Gravest Extreme” by Massad Ayoob.

April 18, 2025 – Revelations 8-20

April 18, 2025 /

He has risen… again? At least that is what the prophecy of Revelations claims. Since Easter is this weekend, I want to be the first one to wish you a happy Easter. Unlike Christmas, this is a true Christian holiday. A day of salvation and redemption for all that seek it.

Today is actually Good Friday. This is the day of Jesus’s crucifixion. The day that he was nailed to the cross and hung to die. But it is also the day that mankind’s sin died as well. So while it is bittersweet for Jesus, that was his purpose on earth and a victory for eternal salvation.

From what I have gathered reading these chapters, this is the rapture. As soon as the seventh seal is broken, the action begins. One third of the plants, water, animals and sunlight. Then, god sends down the devil and locusts.

Something that I found kind of interesting when I was reading some commentary on Revelations came up. In Chapter 12, it says that Satan was thrown to the earth. What? I thought that he was already condemned to Hell? Yes, but no. Apparently, Satan has the ability to go back to Heaven in order to lobby for his case. Meaning that if he sees some soul go the opposite direction, he can appeal to God.

Remember, this is a vision of the Rapture. This has not really happened yet according to Biblical belief. So if that is really true, then that means that Satan currently has the ability to appeal for souls. Interesting.

Revelations 13 is a good one. This is the chapter that identifies 666 as the mark of the beast. I remember the first time I ever heard this concept back in the early 1990s. My scoutmaster affirmed that if we were ever to get some sort of tattoo that was the mark of the beast. Now, I am not totally sure about just any tattoo but I am a little bit conflicted.

You may have heard of people embedding RFID microchips into their skin so that they can just wave their hand over some sort of scanner to check-out in something like an Amazon store. I am not sure where we are with that experiment at this point but I think that this is coming much closer to the mark of the beast than a tattoo.

I will not make comparisons between Amazon and Satan. But, I do have to say that permanently forfeiting your sovereign humanity at the expense of convenience is starting to tip the scales. I don’t think that Amazon is pure evil but they are surely not benevolent either. RFID implants is definitely a step too far for me.

Much of today’s readings focus on what happens during tribulation, particularly when you have accepted the mark of the beast. Chapters 19 and 20 finish that and see Christ’s second coming. Satan and the False prophet are cast off the earth forever.

I think that there are two things that come to mind reading Revelations that are somewhat puzzling. The first goes back to Revelations 10. John is instructed to eat a scroll of judgement. This has two purposes. One is so that he can ‘ingest’ the real sins and the vision as it is revealed. The second goes hand in hand with not revealing the details of the vision. How is it that John is writing this book of the Bible if he promised God that he would not reveal the vision? That seems in direct violation to something the John holds so personally.

The second is God’s promise of judgement after a millennium. By our time measurement, we have seen at least two since the prophecy. This of course added extra significance to the Y2K hoopla. I have often pondered the Biblical accounting of time. This is particularly true with Noah living 900 years. He wasn’t the only one but he was remarkable at siring children at such an advanced age of 500.

I do believe that miracles are possible through God. I just wonder about some of the accounting. Further more, why? What is the purpose of Noah living 950 years? Did it really take that long to establish a flawed, human civilization? It almost seems like the early Bible was trying to fill in the gaps of known time versus known people because in the New Testament people seem to have more typical lifespans.

This is all to say that I have no idea of what measurement a Millennium really is. I tend to think that because this is New Testament text, it is more similar to our modern calendar. But then again, I don’t understand the rhyme or reason to the Christian calendar either. As a person that is pretty good with patterns and algorithms, how is it that Eater changes every year? You try to understand it so you can explain it to me.

End Your Programming Routine: I am sort of getting the gist of why this book is controversial. From the Jewish standpoint, they are waiting for the first coming and the Muslims have already had the second. The best policy is to be faithful just in case. It might not be the rapture but it might be a sudden car wreck which has the same result as a religious cleansing. Next week we will close the book on Revelations. “He has risen indeed.”

April 11, 2025 – Revelations 1-7

April 11, 2025 /

There is a bit of controversy surrounding the book of Revelations. It was allegedly written by John based on some visions that he had. It is the last book of the New Testament and follows a couple letters from John. Apparently, during the Counsel of Nicaea this book was on the chopping block as to whether it belongs or not. There is even controversy that Nicaea actually debated the bible. For simplicity sake, let’s just agree that the Bible is was adopted in its current form at that event just like a lot of other things they adopted.

Revelations is one of those books that is extremely galvanizing. It has often been a focus of Christian splinter groups (or cults) like the Branch Davidians as an example. The colloquial view of the book is that it predicts the second coming of Jesus Christ. As such, those who have been faithful will ascend directly to heaven while those who have not will be damned. At least this is what I have already heard and believed.

One might wonder about it’s placement in the bible. I actually think that it is genius. Scare the Christians into obedience. If you have just read all of this love your neighbor doctrine straight through and then you get obey or else. That seems like a strategic position.

I am certainly no bible scholar. I have read bits and pieces here and there. One time I set off to read it and got into Joshua of the Old Testament and then put it down. There were too many names for me and it is really hard to read the Bible like a novel. I have also read all of the Corinthians I and II as well as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke of the New Testament.

What drove me to want to read Revelations is that attraction of the Doomsday groups to this particular book. I cannot condone the Branch Davidians activity, but I recently watched an accounting of the FBI masacre and I really cannot condone that either. There is something like us tin foil hatters that have to stick together.

Here is a quick synopsis. Chapter 1 is John’s vision of Jesus. Chapters 2 and 3 are about what the churches are doing wrong and what they need to change. Chapters 4-7 are all about the elements in the vision.

Having never read this before, I am not sure what to really expect. One thing that I can say is that Chapters 4-7 read remarkedly like Dante’s Paradiso. Dare I say that maybe this was the template to what Dante used? It kind of makes sense how Dante would come up with the dancing and singing angels. It was all in John’s vision with Jesus.

If this were a sermon, I might start off talking about the the seven churches and the context of each in relation to John and maybe even history in general. Then I would talk about the animals, thrones seals and scrolls. But I wont. Partially because I don’t really know all of that and partially because I think this time we will read all the way through before disecting each little part. There are internet sites that can help with the symbology if you want that.

I have to leave you with something though. So we have some churches gone astray as well as scrolls that contain a list of sins that is getting checked out. It probably indicates that trouble is brewing or at the very least stuff is being accounted for. Better get ready because the rapture could come at any time. We will see what happens next week.

End Your Programming Routine: When I think of the theology, there is probably a reason why Revelations doesn’t get a lot of Sunday air time. I know the bible stories about Noah and starting over but is God going to really empty the earth? I thought that he created it for companionship? Would this be the end of the human experiment? It sure seems likely.

April 1, 2025 – April Fools Day 2025

April 1, 2025 /

I remember the days that comedy was king. It was staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live, sitcoms were the top shows on TV and slapstick comedies were the most popular movies. Now, I was a kid and taste’s change in me as well as the culture.

I can list off movie after movie that you had to see if you wanted to be in the in crowd like Airplane, Caddy Shack, Police Academy, Vacation, Revenge of the Nerds, Ghostbusters and many, many more. Some were more risque than others but yet still very popular amongst my grade school peers like Porky’s and Sixteen Candles. Nevertheless, comedies were everywhere.

I had a friend in middle school that gave me a cassette tape of the Dr. Demento show. It was a radio show that played all kinds of wacky songs and comedy bits on a weekly radio show. My brother and I listened to it several times and laughed and laughed. I don’t remember the time slot or station but it seems like it was on too late or a station that we didn’t get very well.

It’s always the friends. We weren’t permitted to stay up to watch Saturday Night Live mostly because we were committed to church Sunday mornings. I now occasionally watch it here and there and mostly find it disappointing rather than catching a good night’s sleep. But, it was pretty common to hear all about it on Monday morning at school.

My parents were interesting. They were very strict about how much TV we watched or movies we could rent. But, we could listen to the radio or read almost anything. But, if they heard somebody they respected say something, it was lights out. One time our Scoutmaster said that we were banned from listening to Guns n’ Roses because of their drunken behavior on an awards show. That then followed through to my household as well.

Of course we disobeyed. I really liked their music (still do) and that was really hard to enforce. I look back on a lot of this stuff now and I think that it is pretty tame compared to what access to things kids these days have. I have even asked myself, would I try to prevent my kids from watching or listening to this or that? My bias says no.

It is hard for me to remember whether Dr. Demento got banned or not. I kind of think yes. After listening to this YouTube throwback, I have to say that it does not appeal to my now either. But, to be twelve again, in a more innocent age this was entertainment. Some of those songs are still stuck in my head from that tape all those years ago.

This kind of humor seems pretty innocuous. A lot of it wouldn’t pass the DEI filters of today. I think that the root of humor has to be laughing at yourself first. How else would you have a parody song with the ‘Yoopers’ stereotyping themselves. Funny thing is that a lot of these songs would make it occasionally on popular radio. Dr Demento was just a show of all these kinds of songs strung together.

End Your Programming Routine: Just like last year, I am not big on pulling pranks. Listening to this kind of takes me back to the days of Mad magazine. Not everything in there was funny either. Some of it I didn’t get until much later in life like the parody lyrics to Born in the USA changed to Porn in the USA. All of a sudden, I felt like I was back to my youth.

March 20, 2025 – Old Habits Die Harder

March 20, 2025 /

I had to do it. When I first heard that the name of Die Hard 2 was Die Harder, I couldn’t believe it. That is the stupidest title I have ever heard. Now I guess that I will make fun of myself a little bit today.

When I think about who I thought I would be at say 15 and who I am now at 50, it seems light years away. The truth is, I found it difficult to really imagine what my life would be ‘when I grew up’. I know that I didn’t imagine that I would be publicly writing everyday and enjoying it. Likewise, I didn’t think that I would be the primary cook with frequent fancy embellishments.

As I have written about in the past, my life changed fairly drastically between 15 and 18. At 15, I had yet to get engaged in sports. I learned that I could push myself beyond my wildest capabilities and really impacted my psyche. Nevertheless, there are still some things that predate all of that.

One of my habits is reading. I used to see how many books I could read in a week. I was constantly at the library checking out books to read. It started off with series books like The Hardy Boys. Then, I moved on to specific authors like Dean Koontz, Steven King and Tom Clancy. There were a lot of others along the way as well.

Of course I still read but I don’t spend all day Saturday doing it anymore. In fact, I try to set a goal of a chapter a day. I probably only hit that twenty-five percent of the time. It would be a rare day that I read more than a chapter however. Probably as long as I can see, I will probably be reading. A book is typically the first thing that I pack when I am getting ready for a trip.

When I was a young teenager, I wanted my life to be hunting in the fall and camping and fishing in the summer. I did a lot of camping as a youth and even more as a Boy Scout. Honestly, what got me soured on camping was the amount of stuff we have to take to get the whole family out. Trust me, I want to be comfortable but I don’t want to take days of packing and putting away.

I’ve got one summer trip like that in me a year. But my recent effort into getting me geared up for backpacking has actually gotten me excited to go camping again. I used to feel guilty about the thought of going alone but my wife takes trips without me all the time. I would love it if she would want to go and I hope that she does but I am just going to start doing it myself.

The fishing has really suffered. I try to do it at least once a year but that is so sad. Can you imagine wanting to do it every weekend as a youth to trying to make time as an adult? Part of why I even do that is because I feel like I paid for the license I owe it to myself to not waste it. Maybe this camping renewal will get me more outings this year.

As to hunting, I thought that I would try for anything that I was allowed when I had the freedom to make my own decisions. I have never done that and probably won’t at this point. Just like fishing, I try to buy a tag and go out at least once. Man it is hard to schedule stuff like hunting in when there are family dinners and sports activities and trap and all that on the schedule.

Even though we spent a lot of time hunting, we didn’t recreationally shoot much. We didn’t have a good place to do it. So, we really didn’t. I guess that this is the one thing that I actually do more of as an adult than I did when I was younger. I pay for a range membership, I volunteer coach for the trap team so I have positioned myself to be around it as much as I can afford.

While I don’t get to the range enough either, I shoot air rifles almost daily. It is a small little thing that I can do that is inexpensive and accessible. In a way, I feel like it is my connection to my youth dreams.

End Your Programming Routine: My dad said that you have to make time if you want to do something. I don’t disagree with that, I am pretty guilty of thinking I want to do this or that and not sharing. Then all of a sudden, my calendar is filled with things that are not what I really want to do. Ultimately, I feel like my commitments as a father and a husband supersede my own desires. This likely stems from my youth when my dad prioritized his hunting and fishing. As I said, old habits die harder.

February 4, 2025 – The Cost of Stem Cell Transplant

February 4, 2025 /

I anticipate being brief today because a picture is worth a thousand words. I believe that I mentioned this earlier last year, but for the sake of clarity: a stem cell transplant would not be performed without insurance approval. That was all pre-approved before we went through all of this last summer.

I brought it up, so I might as well give a quick overview for context purposes. My wife had an Autologous Stem Cell Transplant. This is the most common form put into practice (I have to admit that I don’t know much about the other types). The theory is that the oncologist is going to kill the cancer first, like a first time diagnosis. If that goes well, then you go through the transplant process.

This consists of high dose chemotherapy, harvesting your own stem cells, then putting them back into you when the high dose chemo is complete. The purpose would be to reboot your own immune system. This is accomplished by getting good stem cells post chemotherapy, killing everything and then starting over with the good cells. The autologous part means that you are the donor for the stem cells. I have to believe that other types use different donors, but not 100% sure.

While the process is fairly effective, the risk is not from the procedure itself but the secondary effects. Those would be infection due to lack of immune system, stroke from high blood pressure from all of the medications, dehydration from side effects and failure to thrive through eating, drinking and mobility.

It is imperative to be near the treatment center with high dose chemotherapy. Some sessions took up to six hours to complete. By the time it is over, the requisite hospital stay of 7-10 days is required and if you went through it you would agree. After that, the follow-up treatment is pretty minimal. Our staying in Portland was a function of how far we lived from the treatment center (a requirement). To be honest, I am glad that we did.

When you look through the pages and pages of the Explanation of Benefits (EOB) statement, you would see all of the activities for this event. This is not the total cost but it is pretty close. You have lodging fees, plus food and incidentals. In our case, the lodging was reimbursable so that was net zero. The only additional cost really was the convenience food or unconventional packaging.

I thought that it might be interesting to show what a major medical event would actually cost. I know that one day we will probably all have one but unless you are actively caring for someone you don’t get an opportunity to really understand this. I found it interesting anyway.

End Your Programming Routine: OK, I am going to leave cancer for good (unless it comes back). I want to count my blessings that it has been a stable and calm six months. I am doubly thankful that insurance covered the process completely and disability handled the loss of income. If you have to go through this, it couldn’t have been much better than this. God must be looking out for us which means there has to be a greater purpose from this event. I will keep my eyes open.