Category: Philosophy

January 4, 2021- AltF4.co Looking Forward

January 4, 2021 /

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I know that I look forward to getting back to the business as usual and that starts today. For us anyway, school starts again tomorrow and my wife is back at work.

There is a lot said about New Years and resolutions. It seems like a thing that people kind of do half-heartedly. I remember reading a newspaper story one time that said something like 50 percent of smokers set quitting as a New Year’s resolution. Of those, ten percent succeed.

This is not a commentary on the validity of peoples desires but I go back to my short series in November with the comment “You have to Want It”. Setting meaningful goals requires effort. It also requires a methodology to succeed. We can call them resolutions if you like, but for the last five years I have set yearly goals in January.

Here is a tip, set goals that you think you can achieve. Also, look for activities that will make you feel good at the same time. For instance, I like to set (rifle) range goals and then I plan out each month. Last year was an abysmal on my success rate because I only got to the range three times instead of the twelve that I would have liked.

My strategy is to pick one personal item, one business item and one hobby item. If the particular item can be done in less than a year, I set more until the year is filled up. Here are some examples of goal that I set in in the past.

  • Learn to reload cartridges
    • Month 1, pick a recipe, watch YouTube videos, read the manual
    • Month 2a, shop and buy components
    • Month 2b, clean and prep brass
    • Month 3, make first cartridges
    • Month 4, test fire at the range

All of that could have probably been done in one week. But by spreading the work out it sort of extends the fun and makes it less likely that it will get dropped by interruption in the one week sprint to do something. For instance, when I started building the reloading bench, I spent a heavy week in the shop only to have the cat have kittens in the shop and it took two years for me to get restarted on that project. When I got back into the work, it probably took me another heavy week to complete. Meanwhile I was moving wood out of the way for years.

Since I was off all of last week, I really didn’t spend the time to formalize my goals yet this year. That is part of what I am doing now. I would have to say that this is a go-no go year for AltF4.co. As much as I enjoy doing this, it takes up to three hours a day to write. That is time that I may or may not have when I have inevitable re-employment. It is sad to say, that I wanted this to be my job but as of now, it makes no money. As much as I like writing, I also like working in the yard and the shop, my son has a car that he would like help with, I like to hunt and fish and all that takes time.

Here are my goals for 2021

  • Q1 – Solidify branding and develop a marketing plan for AltF4.co
  • Q2 – Develop and implement a membership program
  • Q3 – Replace at least one blog post with a podcast a week
  • Q4 – Generate positive revenue

My goals for 2020 were a little less structured.

  • Practice posting routinely, determine if I wanted or liked that sort of commitment.
  • Move from free WordPress to my own domain
  • Don’t get stuck in the Toolbox fallacy

Accountability is part of being successful at goal-setting as well. You guys will be able to see my progress as well as I can throughout this year and then you will be able to judge whether I am going to make it or not. In the end, I may just decide to throw it all out and keep doing things the way I do them because I like it. But then of course, I won’t make this my profession.

A real forward looking and self-aware person knows that failure is part of success. Failure allows us to reassess our skills and desires into the most productive and happy person that we can be. I have to admit, that I thought that I would get traction quicker than I have, that was more about naivete than anything. One of these days I am going to figure it out.

December 22, 2020 – Is Christmas Really What You Think?

December 22, 2020 /

This is for sure a holiday that I struggle with. Call me selfish, call me a Grinch or a scrooge maybe. I wanted so much to assign a newer or different reality to the holiday but chock it up to a long line of non-conforming beliefs.

Growing up a Christian, it was ingrained that this was a celebration for the birth of Jesus. My world was rocked when I was a Junior in High School and we talked about the origin of Christmas in Latin class. I had never heard of such things, it was so foreign that it took me years to accept the truth.

Alright, rewind. It is well established that the winter solstice has been recognized by indigenous cultures throughout the world. Winter solstice has a place in agrarian life because it celebrated the transition between daylight getting shorter and daylight getting longer. One of those celebrations was the Roman version, called Saturnalia.

Saturnalia was a celebration named after the Roman god Saturn, who happened to be the god of agriculture. One description I read was that it was that it was akin to Mardi Gras; an over the top party. I suppose that you could see the appeal, I mean who doesn’t like to have fun. Gift giving was one of the traditions that went along with week long party.

As the church was growing in influence and Rome was diminishing, the popularity of Saturnalia was not. It is believed that Pope Julius I co-opted Saturnalia into December 25 as the ‘official’ birthday of Jesus. Even though it is believed that his actual birthday would have been in the early springtime.

Maybe I just haven’t accepted the reality that everything is what it is. I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised people believe in traditions that are not always what they seem or are even based on reality as we are told. There is a lot different brands around the type of holiday be it ‘Hallmark’ or religious or ‘the magic of the season’. For me, maybe I will lean toward Festivus, for the rest of us.

December 21, 2020 – The Shortest Day of the Year and the Possibly the Shortest Post of the Year

December 21, 2020 /

At least that is my intention. Everyone in my household is on their winter shutdown, except me. I am finishing my week after working six days in a row. I have been delivering packages in the rain and darkness out in the rural areas of my area and I am ready for a couple days off to finish my Christmas preparations. As a side note, this will be the first day I will be working Christmas Eve for probably my whole career.

This post has some significance, it is my 200th post. That counts the two or three I began with in 2016 and didn’t really get rolling until December 2019. As I have mentioned before, writing has turned out to be much more therapeutic than I had imagined. I prioritize my commitment to doing this because I think that it is good for me. It allows me to analyze my thoughts and assemble a picture from what appears to be a jigsaw of life.

Tomorrow, I am going to talk about the real Christmas story. It ties into the solstice and the origins of western culture. I will probably take a couple days off from writing as well because it feels right to take some downtime and prioritize family. But for now, take comfort in the days only getting longer from here until June.

November 23, 2020 – You have to want it

November 23, 2020 /

I will be more forthcoming about what I am up to as time goes on. However, let’s just say that I was busy this weekend and I missed church for the first time in months. Since we host a small group, we just can go willy-nilly, we are committed to attending as much as possible.

Good news for me, they have started releasing the audio in podcast format and it works really nicely to listen to it while I am walking the dog in the morning. This is something that I have started about a two months or so in the spirit of getting more connected to faith and doing something different than I always have. The real intent is to spend time reflecting on the day, to prioritize the most important things and to pray on the issues, particularly my issues.

The big message this week is about healing wounds by doing something different. Of course it is bent towards doing something different in Christian tone. But, some of the first words of the sermon got me right where I was week, I suppose that you would say committal or even want.

I have talked about this some in the past. I have talked about my lack of jumping when there are two sides of the fence. As I have analyzed my situation in life, it is a bit like arguing minutia. If both sides have significant drawbacks, than is one side better (or worse) than the other? The answer is probably not and by staying on the fence, I am delaying the inevitable including the the inevitability to move on in life.

This idea continues to play a theme in my life. I first realized the significance of the concept when I was dealing with addiction. I was reading the pamphlet that came with the gum and one of the first things it said after all the false congratulations was that “you have to want to quit”. I was immediately struck by my stance. In past attempts, I really didn’t want to quit, I wanted to 95% quit. I wanted the freedom and choice without the reality. I wanted my wife off my back, I didn’t want to be judged or condemned, I didn’t want my kids to see me. I didn’t really want to quit.

Since I realized my issue, I have seen it crop up in other scenarios. For instance, I have noticed on most job interviews, I don’t really want the job. I feel the pressure to need the job is high, but in every instance I am very reluctant to give my soul away again to another employer. The alternative is to seek unacceptably low paying jobs that don’t require that level commitment. That has not really been an option either. So, the results have proven that I have had just enough self sabotage to not get the job. I am too good for entry level and no where near good enough to go up a level.

When it comes to branding and building my own business, I can find lots of things that I don’t want to do. I really don’t want to get too deep into social media. I know that is probably the number one thing holding me back at this point. I haven’t wanted to ‘advertise’ on Nextdoor or Facebook. I haven’t wanted to become active on MeWe or YouTube. I am not quite sure what this says about me and what I think I want, but I think that it says that I probably won’t be successful in this area either.

Turning the corner toward inspiration, I believe that once we as humans set our minds to something, those obstacles fail to become issues for us. Quitting addiction is a mindset much more than it is physically (in most cases). Once the conscious decision is made, the rest is commitment and follow through. I won’t say it is easy because you have have resolve that every day is a new battle and you will be tested. You can’t rest on success yesterday and it does becomes easier.

As for my other problems, I don’t know where I am being led. It is not easy for me to always know or see what I want. It seems like I am in spiritual boot camp of sorts. This journey is breaking down the old thoughts and reforming new ones with the wisdom of age. That has to count for something.

October 27, 2020 – Have I failed at unemployment?

October 27, 2020 /

I guess that you could say maybe I hit the mid-life crisis stage a few years early. I got the car (and sold it), I quit my job without a plan and I am still trying to answer that question succinctly. Last night, I realized bigger truth is that we are asking ourselves the wrong wrong question in life.

I believe the proper question is not ‘What’ but ‘Who do you want to be when you grow up’. As I grow older the wisdom of age starts to come into play. The reason things and a high paying career don’t bring happiness is because they really don’t matter. In fact, they do the opposite by cementing you into your unhappiness by propelling you to do things you don’t really want to do to have things that don’t change the happiness paradigm.

Photo by Diana Platonova on Pexels.com

It is not easy to go from associating a title and worth to an unknown. Let me give an example. Am I unemployed, retired, a struggling entrepreneur (or an idiot)? Last April when I left my job I told people that I was retired. I was mentally burned out from the years of brutal travel and being on the clock 24/7. While I was employed, my mental numbness was soothed by buying things like tools that there was no way I would ever use because I didn’t ever have the time to do so. I was sure that I wanted something different and controlling my own destiny would go a long way toward self fulfillment.

As time went on, I knew that I was too young to ‘retire’ from a financial perspective but I didn’t have any prospects. Of the interviews I did last year, some of opportunities would have paid a lot more to do similar activities. I briefly considered that if I made more money, the struggle and stress would be worth it. Fortunately or not, none of those opportunities worked out and I shifted to unemployed.

As of the turn of this year, I dedicated more effort into finding a replacement job. Little did I know that the Pandemic economy would change the business landscape. For instance, my wife hasn’t been in her office since March. Many of the large tech companies are decentralizing (locations), potentially forever. Social gathering and networking has been pushed into the virtual domain. More so than ever, job searching has become who you know, increasingly online.

My lack of success being unemployed had forced me to become entrepreneurial for better or worse. I think that it is still very much in line with my happiness. I don’t mind working longer from a timeclock standpoint as long I am controlling my destiny. The real problem is that this is emersion learning and commiserate earning. It will be take some years to become proficient and viable in the business aspects.

One of the reasons that I wrote about being grateful last week is that is a who statement rather than a what statement. Despite the title of the job or the salary attached to the title, knowing who you want to be can help shape your circumstance. Trying a litmus test, here are some characteristics that I think will make me happy.

  • I want a faith centered life to provide a framework of principles, decision making, accountability and redemption
  • I want to be a supportive husband, father, son, citizen. I want to be available without guilt to volunteer, attend functions and appointments to do my first duties first
  • I want to have meaningful relationships that help other people people grow into what they want to be or be safe to be themselves
  • I want to be a positive force where applied, wanted or needed
  • I want the freedom of creativity and choice, the scientist in me wants to hypothesize, test and analyze results.
  • I want the ability to learn from and influence my future based on lessons learned or perceived mistakes
  • I want merit based reward, not based on tenure or title. This keeps the incentive to innovate and strive for continuous improvement in front

From those things, what career would you say I should be looking for? There are a few things that are applicable to a job but many are not and none are specific. In my talks with associates in the HR field, their advice is that I am not specific enough in my approach, where I am looking or even my interviewing. The way I see it is that I cant be, that is the crisis and dichotomy that lead me here in the first place. I have subconsciously changed my focus to Who and not What and it seems to show in my job searching.

I am going to start wrapping it up. What I will do is keep pushing forward keeping my values in front, evaluating data consistently and things will fall into place. Just as promised in my stated goals, I want to be a positive force for others so I hope that you spend more time focusing on ‘Who you want to be’ rather than ‘What do you want to be’. If you ever get the Who licked then by all means go for it!

October 5, 2020 – Have you heard of the ‘Hairy Armpit’ Theory

October 4, 2020 /

I guess that it is a theory. I will credit a former co-worker with the idea. The basic idea is that you leave something blatantly wrong so that people will focus on that problem and not dig in too deep to look for other problems. So, to bring the whole picture around, in North America you would not generally expect to see a woman have a hairy armpit. Therefore, you would not look for any additional flaws because this one is so evokes such a strong perception.

My ‘Hairy Armpit’ is the spelling of Ressurection versus the real spelling of Resurrection (largely because the proper spelling was already taken). Nobody has ever made any comment on it and I acknowledge in my About page the misspelling. Going back to my ‘Toolbox Fallacy’, it has been my intent to move this blog to a real domain and do proper marketing, etc but I haven’t because well, you know why (see above).

However, I found another situation that was not known to me, more akin to walking around with your zipper undone. I really liked the idea and concept around the word Floricane. I have never searched for my own blog to connect, only sent links out for people to connect. My son was trying to setup a subscription to follow and I noticed that Floricane in the header has been misspelled for nearly a year. I thought that I checked that multiple times, even doing web searches related to the other domains using the term.

How embarrassing. That is sophomoric level editing and presentation and here I thought that I was being sophisticated and clever. I guess that the only thing to do is correct the problem and move on to promote somebody else’s clever concept of the ‘Hairy Armpit’ theory.

I haven’t talked about faith in a while, but this week’s message has a poignant intersection. To go to a super high level, we need help as people where we can. To ascend to higher spiritual levels, we need to concern ourselves with the problems of others. I think that as a matter of principle, it is our responsibility to help people by pointing out their ‘Hairy Armpits’ (discreetly) because maybe they just don’t know about it or at least the cultural standards.

It may also be twisted logic but I think that to effectively help others, you have to keep working on yourself. Just like the foster parent commercial, you don’t have to be perfect to be a foster parent, simply willing to try. However, the moment you have it all figured out is the moment that you have failed. Keep working to move past your issues, do the best you can to correct your errors and help people to the best of your ability. Those are principles that regardless of your beliefs will make a better world.

September 23, 2020 – Fall is here

September 23, 2020 /

It feels like there are a lot of half done or almost done things around here. I have got apples in buckets waiting to get canned, I am halfway through last month’s book, the dog’s invisible fence wire is laying on the ground, the trailer is almost filled with a load to go to Habitat for Humanity, my leaf blower is kind of working, my dirt pile is waiting to get moved away from the house, the shop is almost cleaned up from my last project and I am in the middle of troubleshooting a new/used CD carousel as examples.

I have said multiple times that this is the harvest time and it very well can be the most busy time of year. Obviously, some things have a greater sense of urgency than others. For instance, the apples need to get dealt with in the next day or two. Items outside would be better served doing now before the weather turns. We are expecting rain for the next four days but we should get some nice weather after that. Temporarily, it seems like the outside to-do’s need to wait.

Sometimes I suffer from too many interests and a focus on the wrong priorities. Take for instance the CD player, I bought that on a whim at Goodwill and I figured at eight dollars, it would be no sweat if it really didn’t work. Well, it almost works, I replaced the belt to open the drawer and with a little finger pressure it opens and closes but not by itself. This leads me into a spiral of research and more testing. I keep thinking one more quick test before I move onto other things and pretty soon, those quick things add up to real time and certainly focus on the wrong things.

I also tend to be very single minded. I focus on one project to the exclusion of most everything else. Take for instance my remodeling project. That was everyday, all day. I suppose some of my urgency was knowing that was the kind of effort necessary to get it done it a timely fashion. However, I really did prioritize it over many things, including eating at times. I definitely couldn’t relax knowing how much work was to be done.

One thing that has usually worked for me is keeping a list of things that need to get done. That list get’s prioritized and then steps are broken up into subtasks on a calendar. I have had projects get stalled for years sometimes like when I built my potting bench. After I finally got tired of the lumber being in my way, I broke down the remaining to dos and assigned tasks into daily achievable milestones on the calendar. I gave myself about a month to finish and I completed the project in two weeks.

The advantage to using a calendar format is that it also integrates planning into all the other life commitments as well making a more realistic plan for completion. I usually only do it intensively for a couple of weeks out or the duration of one project otherwise it is too cumbersome to shift around on an Excel document frequently. The disadvantage is that it is time intensive. One of the reasons that I don’t use this format as much as I would like is that it takes a lot of time to plan successfully. I could probably spend thirty minutes a day going over this file if I tried. So, I try to set a rough plan for the week and adjust it next week.

I have been using this file since 2003. My active use waxes and wanes depending on how much I have to do and how much planning time I spend. There are times when I open it every day and there are times when I open it once every month. I just depends. I guess that this is my version of a project management program.

I feel like this would be a good mobile app to build, I would certainly use it. I would also be interested in hearing about other productivity tools. Let me know if there is something better out there with goalsetting and project management. As you can see, I have a lot of work to do.

September 8, 2020 – Survived the Apocalypse, Now the Nuclear Winter

September 8, 2020 /

It’s late today. Without getting into too much irrelevant detail, we are currently surrounded by wildfires.

Growing up in the west, fire is an annual event. The mountainous and forested areas are the places that most frequently affected. Lighting and fuel combined with low population density are a common recipe for the big western fires. Typically the area of the state that I live in is a greener and wetter climate. But, when the coast is on fire, you know that there is trouble.

As my wife and I were enjoying a Labor Day drive, I got a reverse 911 call warning of high winds (known as red flag winds). In about two hours the smoke stared blowing in from fires in the central part of the state. Overnight, too many fires to mention kicked up and started burning out of control.

6:45AM, 7:15AM, 8:30AM, 12:30PM, 4:00PM

From what I have seen, the municipal services have done a pretty good job of jumping into action and keeping us to date. It’s no joke, towns have burned and my brother evacuated earlier today. I think that I am in a good position, but I wanted to talk about more concrete actions you can take.

First of all, have a plan. A plan is a place to go and a route to take that is going to be safe. If your party is going to separate, discuss alternate routes to arrive at your destination safely.

Be prepared for evacuation. I would recommend that you gather important documents, medications, glasses, mobile chargers and communication devices and essential non-replaceable items. Pack a bag for extended time away from home. Include items for pets as well like food, bowls, carriers, etc. Make sure your vehicle is fueled and serviceable.

It might be too late, but here are some of the things that are helpful to protect your home. Keep brush and vegetation away from structures. If possible, keep landscaping watered. It has sometimes been beneficial to wet structures with sprinklers or hoses. Native plants tend to fair better to fire either resisting or recovering.

There is too much information to summarize tonight, I will provide some information that I am aware of.

Don’t panic, this will pass.

August 31, 2020 – Have you ever been audited by the IRS?

August 31, 2020 /

Anybody…? Well, I can tell you from personal experience that it is not fun. I probably didn’t need another issue to deal with right now. Fortunately, I am fairly well organized, understand the risks and rules for the most part and it is still a pain in the butt. Not to mention that the attorney costs $250/hour.

In this age of electronic statements, sometimes it is not even possible obtain information. I have statements that went to my previous work e-mail that do not exist anymore. With rollovers and closed accounts I no longer have information that is being requested.

I will spare all of the analysis and insights of the weekly message. If you are interested, you can watch the link yourself. However, the thrust of the message is “what in your life needs to be reborn?”

Looking at things, I think you could say that many of my former peers might say that that I need to rebuild my life. But in this context, you might say that my life is being reborn. A rebuilt life would be moving into a similar job in a related field. It would also be working seven days a week if necessary and being available 24 hours a day. It would be prioritizing a customers/clients desires over my family. It would be taking phone calls during my kids Christmas concerts and having meetings on Christmas Day.

I am not totally against all of that, I am just against it for me now. Everyone needs to hustle, make a name for themselves and learn what they like and are capable of. Everyone needs to push lines until they realize that they are on the wrong side or went too far.

I am at the point where I have learned many of those lessons. I am also trying something new, letting go of control and the safe choices that went along with those choices. That is really scary, but I think that it is a lesson in faith for me. I don’t really want to retire from life, I just want to do something that is less demanding of my attention and loyalties.

I hope that there is something moving me to a stronger and healthier direction. This audit will pass, this season will pass. With the benefit of hindsight, it will be much clearer what is happing.

August 21, 2020 – A True Education in Entrepreneurship

August 21, 2020 /

After spending spring and summer remodeling, stuff starts to pile up. With the Covid restrictions in place, places such as Habitat for Humanity and Goodwill were not accepting donations for months. Even the dump was restricted to two days a week.

I made a deal with my kids, if they did the work then they could have the profits of a garage sale. The way we structured things, items that were their’s they kept the whole profit. Items that were mine (or mom’s or household) were split evenly between them.

The part that I like the best is after the sale is over, everything that remains is getting packed up and will be donated or disposed of. But even more than that, my boys are learning some real lessons in business. For instance

  • Marketing – They made and hung the signs that were distributed throughout the town. They also leveraged social media to advertise the event.
  • Sales – Engaged customers, answered questions about items, made suggestions for alternatives, negotiated prices with customers
  • Inventory – Items were cleaned, organized in logical categories, evaluated and priced accordingly. Some things were deemed free and others unfortunately were worn out and didn’t make the garage sale cut.
  • Accounting – Sales were categorized and documented to make sure the profits went into the right categories and to the right person.

School will be starting in a little over two weeks. There has been quite a bit of side talk about the quality of education with our district opting to go online. Some parents are sending their kids to private school, others have withdrawn to do homeschooling. I myself think that opportunities like this garage sale is chance to learn about the hustle of entrepreneurship and have a real world experience while making some nice pocket change.