Category: Philosophy

June 19, 2020 – Maybe I should become a wood poet?

June 19, 2020 /

Sometimes my mind goes in a direction that seems like it is different than everyone else. For instance, while remodeling the kitchen to add the new microwave hood, I found a piece of blocking in the wall that was rough sawn oak. I have written about wood and my speculation of it’s origin before.

To the untrained eye, this would have been tossed out with all of the other debris. It is too short to re-use anywhere. It is still full of nails and has a sizable knot on one edge. But I saw something different.

I first noticed that is rough sawn. That is why I set it aside to look at it later. Then I noticed that it is a true 2″ piece of dimensional lumber. After I pulled the nails out, I started to notice the saw markings. If you look closely, one face is cut with a circular saw (those are the curved lines) and the other face was cut with a band saw (indicated by vertical lines).

Now, I am going to jump around a bit as I do to eventually get to a point (you can feel like you are getting a Malcom Gladwell experience here). In 2015, we wanted to paint the house. While attempting to do some rot repair, we found that the house was constructed in an unusual way. That led to adding new siding. After everything was completed, we were paid a visit by a former owner (Lloyd) who brought us a handful of pictures and a couple hours of stories as it was from the 1960’s when he purchased the house.

Over the years, we have had a number of run-ins with people that are connected to this house. It first started in 2005 (our first year here) when we had a garage sale. Some people that stopped by said that their grandparents lived here and that they used to stay here in the summertime in the 1950’s as children. Everybody knows this house, it is a big, blue Victorian at the top of the hill on Main St.

It seems as though the history of the house is uncertain. The county list the date as 1893. Former owner’s claim that is when records began and that this house dates back to 1873. Further, stories allege that this was the original homestead in the area, with all the lumber from the site. Now, we are starting to circle back to wood.

Let us assume that the rough sawn board on the left is from this site. I counted the growth rings on that board as 36 from what I could see. Not knowing the ultimate size of the tree, a person could speculate that tree was at least growing in the 1850’s (1893 – 36 = 1857).

The board on the right is definitely from this site because I milled it in 2006. When I cut down the fir tree, it had 56 rings making it planted in 1950. The history of the house in that period is much more certain.

Lloyd tells a story that he was living in an old farm house across the street. He was noticed that it was empty and went to inquire about the future of the house. The city considered it a nuisance house (it was previously spit into college apartments) and was going to tear it down, so Lloyd purchased the house. I guess you could say that Lloyd saved the house, but somewhat killed it at the same time because the house was stripped to the framing both inside and out.

The lap siding was replaced with T1-11, the plaster gone, windows replaced, doors and Victorian decoration all gone. On the upside, we got a modern electrical service (200 amps) and insulation and a new lease on life. We heard about how he ceded a portion of the property in back so that the neighbor had a lot size big enough to build a house. We heard about how the other neighbor built the fence on our side of the property line. All-in-all, it was an extremely interesting and surprising visit.

At this point, no one fully knows what was happening on this property in the 1850’s. The town was incorporated in 1859, the same year as the state. One of my future goals is to look at historical pictures and see if I can discern any truth about the origin of the house, including architectural details. I have seen some aerial photographs taken from a balloon that date to the 1880s, but they always orient toward the city center, which is to say away from this house.

There have been numerous changes in the town landmarks over the years. Houses have been moved, rails were removed, even the highway was moved in World War II to accommodate for an army base down the road. It will take a keen eye and thoughtful mind to reconstruct the past, but it sounds like fun.

Happy Father’s Day everyone.

June 3, 2020 – Making time

June 3, 2020 /

Life is so busy for me right now. I have a significant deadline to get this house livable in two weeks. I am feeling major pressure to find a suitable replacement job. I have a desire to build a lifestyle income and I have other personal interests that I would like to complete.

That said, I took last night off. I have been working from the moment I wake up until nearly bedtime since early March, every day. I took Mother’s Day off and I took the Saturday of Memorial weekend off.

I love what I am doing, I am seriously considering making a go of construction or handyman work. I also have a really hard time turning things off. Even as I sat around the fire, I had to weigh the pressure of my project versus the guilt of my presence. But, I decided to push that all aside.

It was a beautiful evening. We started a fire and popped popcorn over it. The kids roasted marshmallows and made smores. I drank a beer and enjoyed the warmth of the fire as well as sitting down doing nothing for an hour.

I have been accused of being around, but not present. I don’t know if that is something that will ever change, but it is something that can make a conscious effort to be aware of. I am ready to be done with this project. Everyday, all day for months is starting to get old when you want the freedom to do something else at times. So, back to work for me.

May 6, 2020 – Covid-19 has turned my 5.0 GT into a commuter car

May 6, 2020 /

My son sees a medical specialist every couple of months for monitoring. That specialist works at the research hospital in Portland. For us, that is over an hours drive on a good day. Normally, I make the next appointment when we are at the doctor’s office. I try to make it where it will have the least impact on the school day or in other words ‘as late as possible’. That leaves us at the whims of rush hour traffic during most appointments.

As a life-long, small town guy I find rush hour traffic extremely frustrating. This is born largely out of my belief of the colossal waste of time commuting is. My two years living in the suburbs or Portland cemented that for me in the 1990s. I have tried very hard not to live or work where I had to deal with those frustrations.

First, I needed to get fuel before we left. The Mustang has a small tank to begin with at 16 gallons. With the low price of gasoline I filled the car up for $32. I almost always reset the trip counter when I fuel up because I monitor the fuel economy during that period. It is a habit that I have always done as a double check on the gas gauge.

During our trip, traffic was incredibly light. I would characterize it as Saturday morning. I think that we stopped at two lights in Salem on our way to the freeway and two lights once in Portland. For an appointment at three PM, we would start to encounter the afternoon rush hour at this time, however typically not terrible in the mid afternoon.

Our round trip spanned from 1:30-5 PM. I would have expected 1:30-6:30 PM so I was really happy about that. Now, the best part… the Mustang’s overall fuel economy. I averaged 29.2 MPG on that trip. I have never seen the economy that high before. I usually average about 20-22 MPG. For that trip specifically I have seen it as high as 26 MPG.

The net of this is that the Mustang can be more than double as efficient as my other two vehicles. I am typically no lead foot nor am I a hyper-miler. I enjoy the power sometimes, but it is hard to find a place where I can safely exert it because usually there are too many people about. That usually leaves me with merges or passes when I flex it the most. But, when there is little traffic, it is nice to see what can be done at a steady pace.

May 4, 2020 – The continued legacy of ‘Techno-junk’

May 4, 2020 /

I had another occasion to dig up what I call Techno-junk this weekend. It happens to be an old desktop computer from the Windows XP era. There is a circuitous route for why I wanted it in a minute.

I am having a problem with the headlights on our 2010 Navigator. They will just shut off without warning. Sometimes it is one side, other times it is the other side and sometimes it is both. When driving in town, you may not notice that your headlights are out, everything seems dim however. So, I wanted to use my scanner to check for any codes that might be present.

I didnt get any codes at all. My scanner is only configurable to the model year 2007. This scanner is upgradeable, by connecting it to the computer via serial cable otherwise known as COM. This is an old connection style, today it would USB. In fact, there are COM to USB converters, but I do not have one.

This machine we used three generations of operating systems ago. I think we probably used it from around 2005 – 2012. It does have a COM port and I have connected this scanner before. This computer has kind of lagged around, not for this reason but because it has personal information on it, including a lot of old photos. I have made efforts to remove these items but the total status remains unclear.

The first problem I had was that the BIOS battery was dead. Apparently, I knew this because a new battery was installed, but the protective sticker was still on the back of the battery. I installed the battery and set the BIOS clock. Then the cover was off, and there is some sort of proximity switch that prevents boot up without the cover.

I did get the computer running, I navigated through all of the errors and warnings to update the scanner. Then I started looking around to see what was still on this computer. I found a lot of music, iTunes worked perfectly and it notified me that the newest version was available for download. It even downloaded current versions of podcasts that I am still subscribed to.

When I launched Rhapsody, it blue screened. After reboot, it launched but it was a program that wasn’t used much so it really didn’t have a lot of data or function. While I was messing around, updates were prompted to install.

Twenty-eight updates were attempted to install. At least six failed, they were .NET framework service packs and things of that ilk. But I was sure surprised that there were any updates. I had several blue screens during the process so I am not sure what the real problem is. Now, the machine wont boot passed the BIOS check.

There are some warning lights on the back of the case. The status indication is that there is an ‘other problem’. Troubleshooting steps are to verify the connections of the hard drive and disk drive are solid. It kind of acts like a hard drive failure though.

One trick that I have used in the past is to remove the hard drive and plug it into a working machine. That bypasses all of the other hardware issues. If I can offload the data (one more time), this machine will finally be headed to the scrap heap.

Because my scanner is OBD II specific, there are no other updates that it will receive and the COM port will no longer be necessary as that protocol was ended in 2012. The scanner is as up to date as it will ever be. Some things will be lost forever like music downloaded with the Windows Music license format. That idea was not carried forward and will only play on devices originally downloaded. Tax years 2011 and 2010 are no longer relevant. Only photos are the prize.

I guess what inspired this post was my amazement that six years after support ended, I still had pending updates. I know that this machine has been on and connected in that time. This experience has driven a few planned posts as well 1) headlight resolution of the Navigator 2) repair of the Yamaha sound systems – I know what is wrong there.

I am still very much busy with my housing project. That is partially why last week was so barren. But I will be back.

April 11, 2020 – Holy week is ending

April 11, 2020 /

We have wrapped up another Christian year with Easter tomorrow. This has been what is called holy week starting with Palm Sunday. The holy week timeline goes as follows.

Palm Sunday represents the day that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. Thursday is supposed to be the last supper. Friday is the day of the crucifixion. Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, which is Easter. That is a lot of things crammed into one week. I suspect that the actual timeline was a bit longer, particularly between arrest, conviction and death.

For those weaker on their doctrine, the resurrection of Jesus is God fulfilling his promise that the death of Jesus begins a new relationship between man and God. That is often referred to as the ‘New Covenant’. The old covenant was actually the Jewish religion. The difference between the two being that humans had relationship with God through a priest in the Jewish faith versus each person having relationship in the Christian faith. And with that, there is a shift between a fear, anger and punishment oriented God to a love and forgiveness God. At least this is my Protestant view of all that.

That makes tomorrow Easter, and traditionally a day of celebration. With the quarantine underway, we will be having a family oriented dinner, easter egg hunt, church on YouTube. It wont be the same, but it will be in line with tradition.

We are in the midst of our own new covenant. The state has decided not to reconvene school this year. With that, seniors are considered complete in their academic year. Our own exchange student who is a senior is now done with school. And with that, it is time to go home.

So the family dynamic which has grown so nicely over the year is about to change. We always knew that this day would come, it is a lot earlier than we expected and it certainly didn’t go the way that we expected. In a way we were lucky because we got a little more time with Sergio than a lot of host families did. Most programs recalled their students the week of spring break. He is the only exchange student that I am aware of that is still here.

Thursday morning, he will be on his way back home and we will be officially relieved of our duties take care of another child. We are all feeling a little sad about it. With that ending, another new beginning can occur. We will see what that is.

April 3, 2020 – Bonding with Grandpa, at the dump

April 3, 2020 /

When I was seventeen, I landed a super gig. I got to work for my grandfather for the summer. He was no slave driver, he paid us for eight hours and we usually only worked for six. He bought lunch and the experience was invaluable. At the time, this was a man that I barely knew. We were not nearly as close as my other grandparents so I was a little nervous at first.

I had worked for his son (my uncle Ed) before and it seemed like I was always too slow for him. I wasn’t working hard enough, constantly enough, he said that I was a slug. Looking back now, I feel like I wasn’t unusually slow, just a week, early teenager with no experience. I see it in my kids today. They don’t know their limits and don’t know how to push themselves physically.

At the time my grandfather told me that what he was going to teach me was going to be more valuable than what I got paid. The beauty of that experiance is that money is what I needed at the time, but I am still getting paid today. I learned so much that I cant really put a value on that summer. In one short summer, we painted several houses, built an addition, fixed plumbing problems, built a masonry wall, we did metal roofing and three tab roofing. I learned how to research properties at the county court house, get a loan from a bank, file an eviction (FED in legalese) and how to back a trailer.

One thing that was always constant was going to the dump. My grandfather told me that years ago, he got into a dispute with the garbage company over a multi-unit that he owned. From that day on, we were responsible for the weekly pick-up and disposal. Don’t get me wrong, it was a disgusting job. Summertime trash comes with smells and sights that are burned into my memory bank.

But, going to the dump was fun. We didn’t have a dump per se, it was a transfer station because the county ran an incinerator. The transfer station was a big, covered concrete pit. I would pick up a half jar of mayonnaise and throw it into the pit to watch it shatter and splotch all over the place. It was a game to anticipate the destruction of a console TV as it hit the concrete twenty feet below.

Today, I wrestle with the wastefulness of people. I really try to separate electronics from typical waste. I try to recycle as much as possible and ‘recycle’ wood to the fire pit for secondary usage rather than throw stuff away. That unfortunately takes a lot of time. I am in a situation now, where I need to get my little house cleaned out so I can get to work on rehab.

My load to the dump

It seems like in today’s culture clothes, food and even furniture is disposable. Some of that stuff that I threw out were things that were like new when I put them into the house, but they didn’t fit into my wife’s newest décor. When I looked at them two years later, they looked like it came from a homeless camp, dirty and broken down. Watching the parade of vehicles come into the dump, I saw either furniture or construction debris as the primary payload.

I hope that when I get older, I can have the patience and respect to teach my kids or grandkids the way that I learned. Believe you me that a lot of my work was substandard, but from the ability to make mistakes came the ability to do much better work. I respect that my grandfather also saw the value in his methods. He knew how to do things properly, but he let me struggle to learn to get it right. He was there to fix things if they went too far off of the rails.

My other uncle (Tyko) turned out to be a great builder. He took some of the great characteristics of my grandfather like thriftiness and thinking beyond the box and put them into unique and attractive houses. Some of his early work looked a lot like mine. It takes time and practice.

One of the many noteworthy phrases my grandfather had was ‘putty close’. Meaning that the job was good enough that we can smooth out the gaps. I am forever grateful that I got that summer to build a relationship that I probably never would have without doing that work. The money was spent thirty years ago but I am still using that knowledge today.

March 17, 2020 – Coping with Failure

March 17, 2020 /

When I was in High School, I got the opportunity to work with my Grandfather. At the time, he told me that what he will teach is far more valuable than what I would get paid. The beauty of that situation is that as a seventeen year old, the pay was important but as I got older what I learned was incredibly valuable. Those were incredibly formative years in building my character and who I am now.

One of the phrases that he would frequently use is ‘The Lord hates a coward’. I think what that means is that you cannot be afraid to look into or start anything. I utter that phrase to myself sometimes when there is a task that I don’t want to do, seems like it will be hard or I am in the middle of something difficult.

I ran into that situation two weeks ago. My wife’s car started developing a noise that sounded like a fan hitting or a heat shield vibration. I am fairly early into the troubleshooting and diagnosis period of the problem but what I did notice is that the transmission was leaking, I figured that I would check that first. I found that the fluid was low, so I added one quart feeling like if the noise just started adding some would eliminate the problem until the leak was stopped (if that was the problem).

ATF fluid on the lip of the transmission pan

Adding two quarts did not eliminate the problem, but allowed me to drive the vehicle around and spend some time isolating the variables that cause the problem. I went ahead and ordered the parts to replace the transmission fluid gaskets and all thinking that I would do that anyway since it has been a few years.

Here is where it gets bad. The H pipe on the exhaust was in the way of the back bolts. I spent three days trying to get to that bolt, I tried everything that I could, including trying to remove the exhaust. I brought over knowledgeable and experienced people for opinions and help but didn’t get any further than I already was.

After spending three days, I threw in the towel last night. I got it all put back together in about two hours. But my ego was bruised. I was sure that if I had the right tools and the ‘not gonna quit’ attitude that I was going to eventually succeed. I suppose that if I was made of money, I probably would have cut the exhaust off and replaced it with new. So, it is not like it was impossible but I don’t want to throw good money after bad considering that this may not be the problem.

Where I am at now is how can I move forward from the funk of failure? I guess when you try to add perspective Navy SEALs get killed in the line of duty or NFL ball carriers still get tackled and have negative yard games. So, the best of the best have bad days and fail why cant the average person?

One helpful skill to have in this situation is knowing when to quit. That is something that I struggle with. It has it plusses and minuses. One idea that I heard about that is failure develops that instinct better, like in business. Or said differently, without failure there is no success. Not having a lot of what I would consider failure in my life (largely from never giving up) when I do face it, it is difficult to reconcile and accept.

So, I have made an appointment with a mechanic. Hopefully, all the work I have done will be helpful to a quicker diagnosis and I certainly have all the parts. I will be spending some time trying to internalize this and learn from it. I don’t think that it would stop me from trying to do something like this again, but it may prevent me from spending three days at it. If some epiphany happens, I will write about it. For now, on to something more productive.

March 2, 2020 – Unflavored Towels?

March 2, 2020 /

Yesterday, my wife and I attended a funeral of a family friend. He was a man that I really didn’t know much about, he just seemed to always be around. He would have probably been considered of the Korean War generation, but wasn’t from this country at the time he was of age.

We had to travel to Eugene to attend the funeral. It is a city that I have spent very little time and is very foreign to me. Navigation is confusing and nothing seems familiar. We decided to take this alone time and do something we rarely get to do, go to Indian Food. It was here that I stumbled across the label ‘Unflavored Towels’.

I havent seen the polling numbers on people that prefer flavored versus unflavored, but I assume that it is probably fifty-fifty (insert ha-ha here). The point of all of this is that you don’t have to understand the exact meaning or translation to get a sense of the intent.

Here was a man that was 87 years old and the church was full. I would estimate 200 people were at this funeral. Every seat was taken, the vestibule had twenty or more people, the mothers room was full. I haven’t seen that very often.

His family was bigger than today’s standards but not huge, survived by a wife and four childeren. He was one of ten, but being from Mexico and older, there were only three siblings in attendance. That means that in order to get that sort of turn-out, at that age, given those circumstances you had to mean something to quite a few people.

As I stated, I didn’t really know him. Juan and his wife bridged age the gap between my wife’s grandparents and parents. They lived almost 100 miles away, but yet they seemed to be at every family function, including the Sunday afternoon barbeque and the Thursday night birthday party. Spanish was his native and preferred language, but he could speak fluent English as well. For me, that is a bit of a self conscious barrier to communicating with someone, unless they initiate the conversation.

Probably a third of the service was also in Spanish. Again, I wasn’t totally clear what was being said. The words were spoken very rapidly but given the setting, body language, audience participation, etc I got the spirit of each particular speaker.

The results were tears and laughter and a huge turn-out. Isn’t that the way that you would want it to be remembered? I don’t think that you have to know the man to understand that was a life well lived.

February 14, 2020 – Happy Valentines Day and Happy Birthday Oregon

February 14, 2020 /

It is always a weird day when there is some official event on the same day as Valentines Day. Oregon became a state on February 14, 1859. I remember going to the Sesquicentennial in 2009. It was interesting and fun where there was a party at the capitol and special flavor of ice cream released by a local maker. We went to the top of the capitol dome and looked over Salem (for the first time in 20 years for me). There were music, exhibits and festivities; quite the party.

But then we get back to reality, it is Valentines Day after all. Now, you have probably guessed that I am not a romantic. However, I do understand the importance of making specific time for your spouse. We will spend a few hours together today and attend an event that is focused on our relationship.

Relationships are hard… I feel strongly about my cabinets being natural, she feels strongly they should be white. I think it is OK the kids can choose not to wear a coat even after being hounded, she feels differently. As I age, I feel like I am getting more stuck in my ways and not as flexible or forgiving or tolerant or maybe gun shy overreacting without empathy. I always need to try to re-center and remind myself of the reasons below.

This person is my biggest critic, but also my biggest supporter. She is quick to anger but first to apologize. She is the fun, the encourager, the enabler, the people person, the caregiver and the love. Believe it or not, she is the reason that I up and left my job and never looked back, not something I would have done without significant prompting.

So, still not a hopeless romantic. But reminding myself that I am lucky to have this someone to be my partner. Yin/Yang or karma or God will give you what you need. Give your partner your attention and Valentines Day that they want. Your relationship will thank you and you might get something out of it too.

February 11, 2020 – The case for changing your own oil

February 11, 2020 /

The warning light had been illuminated for over a week now. Then, last Saturday, my son ran into the house yelling ‘the car is on fire!’ I immediately dropped everything and went outside to look at it, maybe use the fire extinguisher. Fortunately, it was a coolant hose that was dripping onto the hot engine causing steam and stink. I said ‘shut it down, this car is going nowhere’. We all had to pile into the old pickup to get to our scheduled family function.

I keep supplies on hand for doing maintenence

Today I spent a some time doing maintenance including replacing the heater inlet hose. The following is a time line for the oil change.

  • 3:05pm – Pull into the garage
  • 3:10pm – Remove the oil plug
  • 3:20pm – Replace the oil plug and remove the old oil filter
  • 3:30pm – Replace the oil filter and start filling oil
  • 3:40pm – Complete

Now, I normally do not spend thirty five straight minutes changing the oil. It usually takes me much longer because instead of pushing through all of the steps, I drain the oil and go do something else. So, I really don’t calculate the time it takes at all. The only real impact is that you must be around and that particular vehicle is not moving during the process.

In between the steps that I listed, I refilled the washer fluid eliminating that warning. I topped up the coolant that was lost during the hose change and I did a quick visual inspection of the other systems and fluid. I hardly know anyone that changes their own oil and I think that is a shame. Below are some reasons why I think changing your own oil is a good thing.

  • Time – Unless you have an appointment somewhere, you aren’t going to get a much faster oil change (consider the drive). I run my supplies like a pantry and pick them up when they are low, eliminating that emergency or specific shopping trip.
  • Peace of Mind – looking under the hood gives you a view of how your car is doing. You can see wear, leaks, battery health and other observations that indicate your car’s condition.
  • Tools and Skills – I mentioned this on a previous entry but tackling some of the easier jobs gives you the confidence and the ability to take on more complicated tasks. I was able to identify the hose leak, order the part, and replace it in about an hours worth of time. I don’t even want to consider what a hassle it would have been to get it to a mechanic, let alone cost.
  • Cost – Filter $4, 6qts Motorcraft 5/20 synthetic blend $24 for a total cost of $28 (minus labor). That is an OEM oil change, see what Ford charges.
  • Better Service – Almost every used car that I have purchased has a stripped or dripping plug because oil change businesses don’t care. They don’t use premium products and they don’t treat the vehicle as their own. I also don’t try to up-sell myself on BS services or scare tactics like ‘air’ in my differential fluid.

I suppose the counter arguments are 1) there is no place to do an oil change like an apartment 2) the car is a lease and you don’t care about longevity 3) you are physically unable to do the work. Those are the only real objections that I can think of. Don’t be one of those people that cant be bothered, buy some tools, read a manual or watch YouTube, get to it and good luck.