Category: Philosophy

January 19, 2023 – Humor, a Deep Cut

January 19, 2023 /

Today is one of those days I am just writing and we will see where we end. If you are like me, then you probably remember the campy 1980s movies with titles like Caddyshack, Airplane, Police Academy, Vacation and the list goes on. Given my age, this was a very impressionable time in my life (5-15). I don’t know what the specific trigger was, but I have been very influenced by comedy.

It wasn’t just movies but also TV and print. We weren’t generally not allowed to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live or the late shows but for when we might be over at a friend’s house. I remember checking out Garfield compilations in grade school at the library. A daily read was the comic section in the newspaper.

It was a great day when I could get my hands on a Mad magazine. My mom was really kind of against them because they were crass but we had a handful of them anyway, usually purchased at the used book store. Funny story, one of them had a parody lyrics of Bruce Springsteen’s song called ‘Porn in the USA’. My brother and I would yell it out at the top of our lungs when we heard the actual song. It was only about ten years ago when I was thinking about that moment that I actually realized what I was saying. I am kind of shocked that my mom never said anything when we were doing it.

Later as I went into my middle school years, my interest in humor got more dark following the Mad magazine vein. I started to make sure that daily newspaper reading got political cartoons as well. In fact, the used book store we occasionally frequented had a free monthly that compiled political cartoons throughout the country that I liked to read. I started skipping all the strips that never made me laugh. But there were a handful that I liked such as BC, Calvin and Hobbes and and especially The Far Side.

This is actually what triggered me to write about humor. I was a huge fan of The Far Side. I still have the Best Of’s volume 1-3. Unfortunately for me, Larson decided that he had reached his pinnacle in 1994 and it was over. Incidentally, 1995 was also the last year of Calvin and Hobbes syndication so it was kind of a difficult time in my humor journey. That’s OK because I was in college, so TV took over.

We had very strict TV limits when we were kids. It was a handful of approved shows until we got into middle school. That means that we watched the most popular shows but that was it. I remember some of my parents friends persuaded them to allow us to watch The Cosby Show. What stuck out for me was actually a show called Night Court. Sure, Cosby was cutesy but Night Court made me laugh. I found myself re-watching episodes when I was not working in 2019. I wrote about this show in 2020. Ironically, there is a reboot of Night Court coming to NBC very soon.

There were three other sitcoms that I consider brilliant. That was Seinfeld, That 70’s Show and The Office (the Steve Carrell years although I have given the later years a chance recently and found them better than I remember). There were other shows that I found entertaining but never planned my evening around like The Simpsons (and all of their spin-offs), Southpark and the ‘adult cartoons’.

I would say that we are in the post TV era at this point. I don’t really watch TV anymore and my wife watches them via streaming platforms. My kids don’t watch TV at all. I am talking like the over the air, nightly line-up like we did growing up. But there was a couple of years that I had an XM Serious subscription. Most of the time, the station was tuned to Raw Dog Comedy.

I would say that my early 30s were the genre of stand up comedy. Raw Dog is the unfiltered station and pretty much anything goes. You know that I love Norm MacDonald and of course, I loved the big acts. But I found some others that really clicked with me like Todd Berry and David Cross. It takes me back to those days of listening to Eddy Murphy on cassette. That was some good stuff.

From the mid thirties onward, it was podcasts over everything else. I do like the ones that make me laugh as much as the serious ones, like Adam Carolla shows. I would say today, I spend my time primarily serious entertainment like reading books. But, my wife bought me this Far Side Calendar for Christmas. So, I have a daily dose of an old friend when I turn on the lights in the middle of the night. It brings me back to a simpler time.

End Your Programming Routine: I guess where we ended up was me rambling about all the content that I liked. I suppose this a window into my soul. I believe that humor is important in health and happiness, not just for entertainment. I have just been letting Todd Berry autoplay while I write this, I am having a hard time finishing because I am laughing so hard. I am going to sign off so I can keep listening.

December 15, 2022 – A Bench Story

December 15, 2022 /

Unless you are a coastal steelhead fisherman, the time to tie flies is the winter time. The theory is that you stock up in the down time to get ready for fishing time. At least this is what I hear from the podcasts that I listen to. Fortunately for me, I do live in coastal steelhead country so I really have no excuse to not fish or tie flies.

This is not what I wanted to actually talk about today. I have a secret. My bench in the basement began life as a fly-tying bench. The top was specifically sized so that my vise would be able to clamp onto the top. In fact, I planed down the thickness so that this would work because I had planned on making it thicker. So, this is the story of my bench.

Back in 2011, I started this project of building a bench for my basement. I needed a sturdy space to do stuff. I thought that I would use it to do house projects but also tie flies. I spent a couple weekends milling stock and planning the design. This was an evolutionary effort where I had a rough idea about what my requirements were but the design changed as the wood revealed defects and my mistakes changed things as I went. My progress ended after the first couple of weekends because the cat decided to take up residence with kittens.

That time in my life was a whirlwind. Much of my work week was spent on the road from 2010-2015. I was travelling and working and my woodworking project languished. When you live like that and have toddler aged children, you don’t have the energy or the social capitol to do non-essential things like hobbies. But, I was making some side money in the form of travel bonuses so in 2012, I decided to buy a reloading setup.

The reloading equipment stayed in the box and my bench stayed in parts. When I got my range membership in 2016, then I really started recreationally shooting. I had been carrying empty brass around with me my whole life because my dad was a reloader but it really started piling up when I started shooting monthly. I decided to get back in gear and clean up my shop by finishing this project finally in the summer of 2017.

The reloading press got center stage when I mounted it. My original intention was to remove the press when I wasn’t using it allowing me to tie flies in the center of the bench. I did a lot of reloading but not a lot of fly tying so the press stayed. At this point reloading is here to stay and so is the press. There is room to move the vise somewhere else along the edge.

It was always my plan to have storage underneath the bench. I just didn’t know how I was going to manifest it until I got near the end. The large drawer was re-purposed from a previous workpiece, my home built router table, miter bench that didn’t make the journey back from SC. Before that, the drawer was part of a dog house that I recycled.

This bench is not that old, but it certainly has seen action. Currently, I use it almost daily as the stand for my pellet trap. Guns get cleaned on the bench and a lot of reloading has been done. I have wrapped presents, soldering, chopping and a lot of junk piling too.

I had this vision of using an old computer to stream music and look-up a few things now and then, but I think that machine has entered the end of its life because it doesn’t have the memory to stream larger format items. Right now, it is not really hurting anything where it is, so it will stay there for now. There are other things you cannot see or are not worth much but a mention like a cordless battery charger, a test phone, etc.

End Your Programming Routine: Sometimes things don’t end the way that you expect and sometimes they just take a long time to get there. This has some of both. At this point, I cant really imagine life without this bench, it plays a pivotal role in so many things that I do with content generation and hobbies. I doubt that it will make a move if and when that happens but I guess that is an excuse to build one based on the lessons of this one.

November 22, 2022 – Election Fallout for AltF4.co

November 22, 2022 /

Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children. – Malcom X

I don’t always agree with Malcom, but this sure resonates with me. I will assume that you are dense and explain this a little further. We send our kids to school for seven hours a day and then we are surprised that they leave after thirteen years woke and entitled.

I wrote early on about being the ‘gray man’. This means don’t get noticed, blend in, be strategic about your permanent footprint. Every day, as I write and post I consider whether what I am producing will have negative consequences. I deliberately leave personal information obscured for those reasons.

While these two things don’t 100% correlate, I guess what I am trying to say is to not educate your enemy because they will use that against you. Don’t be surprised when I talk about a subject every week and all of the sudden I am an expert or at least a target. That is where I am at with Tacticool Thursday. With that, I am going to discontinue that segment immediately.

The truth is I am sad. I have lines of ideas that I want to write about. I have more things in the pipeline for that one weekly segment than any other. But, it is foolish to continue to broadcast even a small amount of attention for what I may or may not have.

Let’s talk about what I am and am not saying. It doesn’t mean that I am going to stop with the activity. It means that I am going to stop writing about most aspects. It doesn’t mean that I am not going to occasionally write about related subjects or even certain gear. But, firearms specifically are no longer going onto the blog and similar topics are going to be greatly reduced.

If I end up moving to a place that respects freedom more, then Tacticool Thursday will likely come back. For now, it makes no sense to continue to paint a background scene to my self portrait even if I haven’t put my picture in it.

It is very likely that a challenge to Oregon 114 will be upheld. Already magazine capacity limits in states like California and New York have been nullified by the results of Bruen v. New York State Rifle and Pistol Club Supreme Court ruling last year. The current precedent of that ruling is that magazine capacity limits are unconstitutional. But, when it comes to the comparison of right and dead or wrong and alive, which one do you want to be?

Despite the fact that these laws are getting struck down, do you want to pay the lawyers’ bill? Do you have 10 years of your life to fight this fight? Do you want to go through the hassle of arrest and bail or ticket? This is what I am saying, stay the gray man.

End Your Programming Routine: I do not deny who I am or what I like. I do not deny what I have written. But, the past is the past. I think that I am going to start investigating freedom on Thursdays. I need to start spending some time researching a better alternative to where I am currently residing and the best way to do it in my mind is to write about it.

October 29, 2022 – When Your Legacy is Conflict and Hurt

October 29, 2022 /

This is a special Saturday morning edition. I have some quiet time to really go deep into my thoughts. Two days ago, my mother-in-law passed away. It was sudden and it was unexpected although not surprising given that she had terminal cancer and was nearing the end. This event opened the door for people to behave poorly. Out of nowhere, I got a text message.

It is almost like, they bit their lip while she was alive because how they felt about the situation, not necessarily my mother-in-law. The ironic thing is that I prayed for all of those involved shortly before receiving this because I knew that there was hurt and pain.

I am not going to say that I am holier than thou, because I am not. There are certain people that I would like to punch in the face if I saw them on the street right now (figuratively). Then, I push my feelings to god and go about another couple of hours until the next wave comes again.

Yesterday morning, I was reading the news headlines. The implication of the article is that without moderation, there will be a lack of civility on Twitter. And to a large degree I believe that will be true. But, is it right? Do we have the right to be ignorant? Do we have the right to not be offended? Do we have the the responsibility to judge other’s intent simply for civility?

Despite all that has happened, I never have never thought that these people didn’t have the right to feel the way that they do nor speak their mind. I am not a proponent of hate speech but I am also not a proponent of censorship, even when it is threatening.

There is a saying that “your right to free speech ends at my nose”. This implies, say what you want but that doesn’t give you the right to do anything physical. I am self-aware. I already know that they do not want us around. The fact that I am unwilling to engage or give them an audience allows them to invent whatever fantasy fits their narrative.

Listening to the radio a couple of days ago, I was reminded of the nursery rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. We used to say that as kids in the 1980s. The truth is, words do hurt at least a little bit. A build up or barrage leads to self doubt or at the very least. Unfortunately, we have become a fragile society and want someone else to stop or filter what we don’t want to see or deal with.

What is truly sad is that rather than writing a memorial, my mother-in-law’s legacy is hurt, anger and conflict. People that think that they know the situation have no idea about our truth. Many people have done this exercise. It is the picture that either shows a young woman or an old woman (actually it shows both). This is literally the same picture and people immediately see one thing.

History is a set of facts written or interpreted with a biased perspective. It could be pioneers prospered in the west or it could be our society was wrecked and our land taken. Both are interpretations and presentation of the same set of facts. Of course I am upset about what has been said to my wife and her sister (and me). I also have to assume that I also do not know our aggressor’s set of facts or total intent. Just like I don’t appreciate being judged, I will refrain from doing the same thing any further.

I will say this: what I know as ‘facts’ are all first hand information. I was there and I was involved in the situation. That is my solace and truth.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to predict that things will not continue to be ugly. What I do believe is that people that react this viscerally to any situation will likely get redirected to the next shiny thing. With time and separation, it won’t be worth their effort. God, give me the strength to act in your image and represent my beliefs.

September 10, 2022 – Whiskey Lullaby

September 10, 2022 /

Hi friends, I know it is Saturday, but sometimes I just have something more to say. You may more may not be familiar with this song, But, to sum it up, a man ends up drinking himself to death over his pain of a broken relationship. And the woman cannot live with the guilt, so she drinks herself to death as well.

Last night, my wife’s uncle passed away from complications due to diabetes. Out of respect for him, I am not going to mention his full name. But, this is my forum so I am going write about my feelings and perspective. I think that was his own whiskey lullaby. It wasn’t the relationship that caused the drinking, it was the drinking that ended the relationship. But, ultimately when he lost everything it was too late stop the damage.

I feel bad for him, the baby of twelve. He wasn’t too much older than me, I would say fifteen years or so. In some ways a distant older brother rather than an uncle. You almost can’t help it with age gap as my wife and he grew up together, and that took a long time.

I would say he was about forty when he married and assumed a family. He seemed happy and changed from couch surfing and staying up all night drinking to buying a small property and raising animals, a stepson and a life I never knew he had in him. I suppose that the forties are an age where cracks start to appear from the habits acquired in life. My father-in-law was diagnosed with diabetes in his mid-forties, my wife’s other uncle that drank himself to death in his mid-fifties had diabetes for a number of years.

I guess what I am saying is that everything seems fine until it isn’t. At that point, you have two choices: straighten up or continue the way things are. Like all addictions, it is really hard to change. I don’t know if he was really an alcoholic or someone that just couldn’t imagine life differently. We knew that the doctors advised him to stop, we also knew that he didn’t. I suppose that it is one of those things that you think there is still time.

I can’t help but think that if he had a couple more spankings as a child and a few less turned heads as an adult that this wouldn’t have been the end. He was a good guy with a few faults. If he was an alcoholic, he made it to work every day was always helpful setting up and cleaning up family functions no matter how much he had drank. Maybe that is what you call functional?

Once his wife had enough, it went downhill fast. The house went up for sale, in fact he was in the hospital when the property closure happened and we had to help move his stuff out. I don’t know for a fact but I assume that the pain was too much because he was in and out of the hospital all summer. Then we got the call yesterday that if we wanted to say goodbye, we had better hurry.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose that we all have people in our lives that are headed to a crash course to reality. I am sad that this is how the story was written. I really don’t know what else to say but R.I.P – Jim. I hope that you have now have the peace that this life did not bring… “and the angels sing a whiskey lullaby”.

August 30, 2022 – Rodeo Season is Winding Down

August 30, 2022 /

I don’t think that I have ever talked about Rodeo before. Before I get started, I don’t want to leave the impression that I am some kind of poser. I have never attempted to ride bulls or broncos and I don’t know how to rope or steel wrestle. Despite that, I do have respect for the people that do this.

The origins of American rodeo come from cowboys and working the ranches. But, the truth is is goes way back to Rome. This is the modern day form of animals and humans in the colosseum together. American rodeo has it’s set of events but there are other countries that have theirs. Ours tend to focus on buckles and prize money while others bring a focus on horsemanship with fancy stepping horses marching in unison.

This particular rodeo we went to was called a rough stock rodeo. This means that it was an abbreviated event. A full rodeo would include steer wresting, calf and team roping which the winners are based on the quickest time to complete the events. A rough stock rodeo is the bull and bronco riding (for some reason this one also has barrel racing as well).

The object to riding an animal is to hang on for eight seconds. If that happens, then the two are scored up to 50 points for the animal and 50 points for the rider. The nastier the animal is with bucking and twisting, the higher the score. For the rider, spurring front to back and keeping one hand in the air lead to points deductions for technique. With that, the best score wins. This means that there is some luck in this as well as skill.

When I was a youth, the Fourth of July was unofficially called Cowboy Christmas because there were so many concurrent rodeos happening. In my area, there were three big ones which would draw bigger names because the could compete in all three and therefore enhancing chances with a bigger payday.

Most venues are outside making summer the primary season for rodeo. The biggest one to my knowledge is the Calgary Stampede which runs for two weeks in September. That is one that I would like to see. The official commencement of the year is the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas in February. That is an organization like the PGA that requires membership and has it’s own rules for participation and qualification.

The one that we attended was at the Oregon State Fair. We specifically went to the fair to watch the rodeo and the concert by Ned LeDoux afterward. We are planning to go back to see anything else at the fair since this took our entire evening. It is pretty common to see food, games and a carnival atmosphere associated with rodeos. It is an entire entertainment experience, not just a spectator event.

With TV series like Heartland and Yellowstone, I think that there is a resurgence or new awareness of rodeo. This is one of those pursuits that can be very dangerous. And you don’t see old rodeo cowboys. It is just too physically damaging to ride bulls and horses for long. Actually, I think the roping sports tend to be older guys because it takes a lot more skill to do it and it is not nearly as physically damaging.

End Your Programming Routine: I like putting on my boots and hat to go out and watch the rodeo with my wife or family. Stick and ball athletes may be strong or fast but cowboys are tough. The whole process requires desire. The desire to travel and live on the road, the desire for a chance to complete for mostly peanuts as wages, the desire to be the best at a life threatening pursuit. It is a culture and a lifestyle that I enjoy participating.

July 12, 2022 – Love of Game and Community

July 12, 2022 /

My son is a chess player. He started in grade school and plays outside of school now that he is in high school. He came up with this idea that he wanted to create a summertime chess get together colloquially called “Chess in the Park”. As the parents (and the responsible ones) we had a lot of debate about when, where, how long, what is your vision etc.

As driven as he is, some of those more etherical questions are probably a little more advanced then had been thought through. Still, we went for it. He did the talking (marketing) the asking to hang fliers (selling) the coordination with local supporters (management) and we had the first of six Saturdays last week.

Among the work that has been done was getting the city to sponsor (with a parks and rec grant), the middle school chess advisor is a sponsor, the library kicked in boards and timers. Local chess leagues from as far away as an hour promoted it on their social media sites. The city also did work to get the notice out to other groups within the town like Rotary and advertising on the website.

Since this occurred in the middle of my Covid, I was almost exclusively on the sidelines trying to stay away from people. I was there because I needed to be, not necessarily because I wanted to. Next week, I will help facilitate more and stand in play so that we don’t have people waiting for a game to end.

I think from a peak in the two hour session, we had twenty-two players. One guy said that he was taking the next six weeks off to do this. Not bad for a town that has a hard time getting participation in anything.

End Your Programming Routine: Chess is not really my thing. I respect the game and I know that there is some skill to it given that my son beats me every time. However, this has the makings of being something special. I could definitely see this becoming an Eagle Scout project if it gets to that point. And as much negative as I have to say about government, the city really did a lot to get the word out.

June 27, 2022 – Back to Reality

June 27, 2022 /

It is strange sitting in the Barcelona airport and typing this message. We are about board the plane for the first leg home. I had all of my posts staged for the last week and a half (with the exception of last Tuesday’s). So, I haven’t given much thought to the beginning of the work week.

So much of my future has been pegged to this trip. It seems like everything was categorized as ’Needs to Get Done Before’ or ’Needs to Wait Until After’. Now, the trip is over, so there is only what comes next. For instance, It is truly time to get to work on my siding project before I actually run out of summer.

I am sure I will probably talk about my trip most of the week, so I don’t have to get it all in today. Plus, I am in kind of a mental fog right now. I don’t know exactly how to name it, but I will attempt to describe it. It is not a hangover, that is the next day pain from the party. It is not the intoxication from the trip, I guess that I would call it the afterglow? You just want to be and nothing really else.

I don’t always feel like every vacation is over. I suppose that it is more like the vacation never started. Maybe it is a function of the duration of the time and maybe distance. In this case, having 10 days in Spain is probably enough time and disconnection from reality that it worked. In contrast, my last day off was a drive to Texas and back in a week. That was definitely not relaxing.

I don’t know if there is a proper formula for a successful. It very well could be different for each person. I know for me, I don’t want to just lay by the pool or in the sand. However, I don’t know if a constant touring format is enough downtime. This vacation had a bit of each.

I was able to finish my pretty substantial book “The Lost Symbol” on the trip as well as see Barcelona multiple days. If I had full control of the itinerary, I probably would have tried to take advantage of the fact that this was my first time in Spain and try to see as much as possible like it was my one opportunity. But, in retrospect I think leaving something for later as well as not filling every minute made it successful.

I am a creature of habit. My days are filled with doing the same things every day. I listen to my podcast list, I check my usual blogs, social media, news and information aggregators. None of these things I did on the trip. The instinctual part of me wants to catch up but a larger part of me want’s to leave it where it lies. That is probably part of a successful vacation as well. It is so difficult for me but probably worth it.

End Your Programming Routine: A lot of this I wrote before we got home. I definitely had some major surprises when we got home. However, I am not going to take today down with those specifics. Let me just say, it was definitely back to reality on Sunday and hopefully another trip to Spain someday.

June 20, 2022 – The Rain In Spain

June 20, 2022 /

The first time I ever heard this phrase was in Steven King’s The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. If I remember correctly, the main character Roland recites these words as a poem.

“The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
There is joy and also pain
but the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
Pretty-plain, loony-sane
The ways of the world all will change and all the ways remain the same
but if you’re mad or only sane
the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.
We walk in love but fly in chains
And the planes in Spain fall mainly in the rain.”

I didn’t know the origins of the lyrics, I think I read the book in middle school or high school. I thought it was unique to the book when one day I heard my grandfather utter the phrase. We were working on a rental house and it started raining and then he said, “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain”.

I never asked him, but I am pretty sure he was not a reader of Steven King. He read a lot of other things like National Geographic, the newspaper, the Bible, the Catechisms, Reader’s Digest, etc. It made me think that there was another source. But, this was the time that was pre-internet so research was not so easy to do. I kind of forgot about it until I was think about our trip to Spain.

It turns out, it was referenced in the 1938 film Pygmalian and subsequently published in 1956 for My Fair Lady. I am no old movie/musical/theater buff. So, I haven’t seen either but I am sure that is where he picked it up. This would have been in the early 1990s.

From my research, it appears that King changed the words so I guess if you get past the first stanza, you wouldn’t recognize it. To me, it sounded kind of like gibberish in the first place. It’s probably a book that I could re-read and get more out of it. I don’t remember a lot of it anyway. But reading the plot summary again, it said that King re-wrote it in 2003 because he thought it was difficult to understand and follow. I kind of agree and I think that is why I don’t remember much of it.

There was a movie made in 2017. From that plot summary, it was a combination of two books (in the five book series). So, the phrase was not in the original play, but in the subsequent movie, then changed by King in his books which have movies combining books together. No wonder I don’t know what is going on.

End Your Programming Routine: Coming from very temperate Oregon, we have not had any rain in Spain. It got up to near 90 at the end of April but we have been seeing highs in the low sixties lately. It is nice to get a taste of summer on our vacation.

June 15, 2022 – Spain Bound

June 15, 2022 /

I know, security experts say not to broadcast your absence over the internet. To that, I say that is good advice particularly for social media. But, either the people closest to us know that we are going or people on this site do not know precisely where we live. It is not that the house is going to be empty anyway.

Today, we are off to eight days in Spain (plus two travel days). I am probably going to do some degree of writing ahead here. But, I don’t think I will do eight days worth. I may opt to post some while I am travelling, but that is not likely. What I am saying is… be prepared for a gap.

This is an important trip. For one thing, the airplane tickets were almost $2000 a piece. This is my first vacation since 2019. Not that taking two years off wasn’t restful, it definitely was. This is my kid’s first time in Europe and leaving the continent. This will be all of our first time in Spain.

We are going to visit our exchange student and his family. We are going to stay pretty close to Barcelona except for a couple days in Majorica with no real agenda. We will see the sights in Barcelona, but most of it is going to be seeing the beach and re-connecting.

There is some anxiety on for the trip as well. From what I have read, for entry we need a passport and a vaccine card within the last 270 days. In order to come home, we will need a Covid test to be negative. I really don’t know what the mask situation or anything like that is currently.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t want to dwell on the potential negatives. I am looking forward to taking some time off and an adventure. I am sure I will get some content out of this so, look forward to some insight from Spain later in the month. Until then, I am off!