Category: Philosophy

June 3, 2022 – 500

June 3, 2022 /

This is the 500th post at Altf4. I have to say, I don’t think all of them were great and to some degree not all of them were (technically) real topics. There have been some occasions where I was having technical problems and just posted an update rather than a real topic. But, technically, this is the 500th blog entry.

My favorite things I have done so far are the series posts. I think number one was documenting the remodeling of my apartment in the spring and summer of 2020. I do look back at those posts sometimes when I want to check on some aspect or find a picture of the project. Number two was the analysis of 1984 followed by the analysis of the American Dream I completed earlier this year.

Individual posts that stand out to me as favorites are Lessons Delivering for Amazon, Memories of my Grandfather and teens and grief. There are lots of runner ups, particularly ones that I think have great pictures like my fishing, crabbing ones. I suppose the reason that all of those appeal to me is that they hold memories versus the opinion pieces. There is no real connection to the content.

What are the top questions I get asked? The truth is none. But, let’s pretend that I had fans I was being interviewed?

  1. How do you come up with topics every day? I think it is helpful to have a bit of a formula. For instance, a series is useful in filling at least a day a week. Tacticool Thursday is a set placeholder and so I only need three days worth of topics at this point. I use projects on the weekend to generate content for the remaining days. When I get ideas, I stub them out to be filled in later as well.
  2. What is your favorite part of writing AltF4? I like the creative outlet but it also helps me solidify my thoughts. When I was in a funk six weeks ago, writing about it helped me figure out what was going wrong. It also gives me pause
  3. What is your least favorite part? I think because I do this on my own time, the quality and scale of what I do is less than what I want it to be. When I am writing heavy opinion pieces, I will often let them set a day or so before re-reading and publishing. Usually I don’t change much but I often see places where I wander or could streamline the argument. Because of time, I usually let them go. I would like to do larger and more intricate projects but time is usually a constraint.
  4. Is there anything that you wish you hadn’t written about? No. But I do wonder sometimes if I come off too strong at times. I do give some thought to opinion pieces and wonder how this is going to come back to harm me in the future. I often take a second look at my initial stance before I write about it or at least publish it.
  5. If you could make one change, what would it be? I wish that AltF4 was my career. There are lots of things I would like to do that I don’t feel like I have the luxury of doing without sacrificing all of my free time. I would like to build some other avenues of interaction, maybe some e-commerce store with stickers, I would like to refresh some of the sticky pages and organize some additional resources and links.
  6. Any plans for the future? As of right now, nothing new is planned. This doesn’t mean that I won’t change my mind or find an easier way to make the changes I would like to see happen occur. As I have stated recently, doing things the way that I have been doing them has satisfied me to the point that it is comfortable.
  7. Is there anything that you have learned doing this? Actually, I have learned quite a bit. I think I have the discipline to write a book if I wanted to, and I actually enjoy it. I have learned a little about PHP, SSL and web technology as well. I learned that I like having an open forum to do whatever I want to do.
  8. Is there anything else that you want to add? I would like to thank my fans for submitting the questions and letting me answer them. Honestly, I know that this is a passé medium just like reading books or preparing family dinner every night. I guess that I am an old soul. Thanks for giving me your time not just today but every time you read.

I know that growth requires change. In my head at least, I thought I was practicing what I thought was a proper business practice. And that is, keep generating content while the conversion to the new thing is going on. I suppose the reality is that I don’t have the bandwidth to really do both. I get kind of irritated when somewhere closes down temporarily to make a change. My thinking was, I don’t see anything wrong with the way it is. This is the reality of a one man show.

As a result of trying to do something extra for post 500, I have spent some time over the last couple weeks to revamp the static pages. I have consolidated the Left Coast Cellars Culinary Book Club to one page instead of a yearly page. I repurposed the other pages for umbrella subjects of media and influences. Hopefully, those pages will be a little more evergreen and useful and less temporal than they were in the past.

So, with that, I am not going to make any additional promises on the future at this point. I am going to keep writing until I decide to do something different. That something could be that I just don’t want to spend my time doing this anymore. But, I don’t really foresee that at this point.

End Your Programming Routine: It is no secret that I am a routine listener to The Survival Podcast. In one of Jack’s many business building routines, the advice is to do things routinely. Very few are going to show up to something that has five entries or episodes and post randomly. I took that advice to heart, so that part I have down. What I still need lots of help on is the marketing and monetization components.

May 16, 2022 – Another Tough Week

May 16, 2022 /

I had about 80% of Friday’s post written but couldn’t quite get it over the hump before I ran out of time. I will do my best to use it this week. But, I have another long week ahead. I am not making any promises.

I would be remiss not to mention that summer is approaching quickly. For myself, I have one month before we are off for a family vacation to Spain. I will be away for ten days on that trip. That will put us into July and I will need to spend between July and August working on my summer project.

Summer is always a super busy time. I addition to what I am planning to focus, there are other activities like Boy Scout camp, gardening, family gatherings. Don’t forget, there could be be a funeral thrown in there at any time. What I am trying to say is that as busy as I am with work, there are certainly opportunities to accelerate everything outside of that as well.

End Your Programming Routine: I will do my best to keep up. Ideas keep popping up all the time. I keep taking pictures and building a war chest of ideas. I am sure that the volume of things that will happen over the summer will generate plenty of material for the coming months. I hope that I can keep my head above water.

May 9, 2022 – Lots of Content, Little Time

May 9, 2022 /

I am going to be proactive and anticipate that I am going to have a difficult time keeping up this week. Last week I worked six out of seven days and put in twelve hours a day, plus family, plus everything else going on. What helped me was that I got a head start on the weekend and I had all of my posts written before mid-week.

This last weekend, I did not have the same time to get a head start on writing. Between Mother’s Day and travel all day Sunday, I just didn’t have enough free time. I am going to have five long days of work as well.

End Your Programming Routine: This isn’t about excuses, it is about covering my bases if I don’t get anything else published. I have planned talking about my keg experience, how my chronograph work has been going, lessons about maskless travel, observation in my plant starts and my new reading list. So, it is not lack of ideas that are going to cause me problems this week.

April 29, 2022 – Keeping It Light, If You Can Call It That

April 29, 2022 /

With the recent death of Gilbert Gottfried there was a special relationship between him and Norm Macdonald. Both were more comics than actors despite participating in both worlds.

Me, I was never really interested in Gilbert. But, because of the connection to Norm, my YouTube suggestions have spiked since his death. I find myself watching 10 or 15 minutes a night before I ultimately decide I have better things to do.

It was fifteen years ago or so, I used to listen to stand-up on XM radio. I probably had it on for several years straight. I mostly listened to the rated R station, ‘Raw Dog’ because I think that what makes good comedy is pushing the boundaries. It is not that clean comedy can’t be funny, but I find that often it seems like it doesn’t push the boundaries as the dirtier brand.

My wife and I have attended multiple stand-up shows throughout the years. Actually the last one we saw was at a church called Date Night Out. It was Valentine’s Day but it was a little hard for me to enjoy because I had a fever and was the beginning of what was being sick for weeks. I do remember laughing.

Now that I think about it, the statement above was not exactly true. We saw a local act at the Elk’s lodge a two weeks ago. So, I guess that it is safe to say that I like comedy. It just so happens that Norm Macdonald is my particular breed of wackiness. I loved his deadpan, looked you straight in the eye and tell a tale that is unbelievably ridiculous all the while keeping a straight face. That being said, it is also funny when they get 90% of the way through and loses it too.

I like the idea of comedy on Fridays because it breaks the tension of a stressful week and sends the weekend off on a light and positive note. I had visions of writing unique and funny things on Fridays but it takes a lot of time and energy to have that level creativity. Maybe I should be linking to things that make me laugh during the week? I also liked doing my book reviews on Friday’s as well so maybe I will vasilate, we will see.

This week, I am going with the former.

I know that this is not some of Norm’s best work but it is some of his last work and it is topical. It is interesting to look at comedies’ view of Corona Virus at the beginning of it as compared to now. My, how things have gone full circle.

In my liberal arts education, I learned that the genesis of humor is actually tragedy. When you read Romeo and Juliet, it is historically categorized as a tragedy. The story line and outcome are the tragedy, but a large part of the dialogue is comedy. I think that a large reason Shakespeare’s work is revered is that he was able to entertain the masses by ‘sneaking’ in a serious subject or moral juxtaposition.

Humor is a coping and healing mechanism. After the week I have had, I need some humor. My brother has gone through an analogous type situation as mine, our spouses mother’s needing third party care and the family drama surrounding it. We spoke last night and are nearly identically aligned on our feelings and outlook despite not ever really talking about it. Along the way, we had a lot of laughs about the situation. What can you do?

End Your Programming Routine: I know that a super majority of my work has been serious. It doesn’t mean that laughter and humor isn’t a huge part of my life. Happiness is smiling and smiling is from having fun and laughter is a big part of that. However, I know that I need to make a bigger effort to utilize and develop that side of me. I will keep working on that.

April, 18 2022 – I Am Starting To Get a Picture

April 18, 2022 /

Maybe this will be ‘My Therapy Mondays’ . Just kidding, but I have been thinking a lot about how to identify my funk. Like I talked about last week, I know that it is largely about all the things I need to do but don’t want to and all the things I want to but shouldn’t because of the former.

What you are looking at is my path from the garage door opening into the interior of the garage. As I wrote about quite a bit in the fall, I expended a lot of energy getting rid of everything both in the garage and the basement. There are some obvious questions that come up. How did this happen? What are your waiting for to get started?

And, I suppose the answers are just as complicated. But, this is a delicate situation. For some reason, my wife has a constant need to buy new furniture and re-organize the living areas. It seems like a constant evolution of lamps, couches, rugs, chairs and other home furnishings. For instance, the bar stools in the picture were $800 a piece. It annoys me that they are replaced by some much less durable stools (one has already broken and it has been less than two months). I have accepted that the barstools will not come back but I feel like they are still well made and probably selling them could help offset the cost of the constant evolution. That means keeping them around and in my way.

I have made multiple trips to the recycling center in the last couple of months. Every one of the new furnishings show up with boxes and Styrofoam and packaging material. Not only is the process expensive but it is very wasteful. In our locality, the ability to recycle is pretty limited which means I have a large volume of things that cant fit into weekly trash can. For me, a minimum dump load is a full pick-up and trailer otherwise I am just wasting more money. So, I am holding onto that stuff until there is enough to make the trip.

I am not denying the carpet in the kids rooms were bad. They were bad when we moved in sixteen years ago. Along with the new carpet came new furniture, new beds, new linens etc. During the room clearings a lot of extra junk was identified as no longer necessary. There were clothes that will not be worn, garbage like old school work, toys that have been outgrown, etc. That all got piled up in the garage.

Also, in the back of picture you can see my son’s go-cart. He is actively working on it. My problem with this is that there are tools, cords and junk spread out everywhere. I feel like he does not respect the space or my stuff. I made him twice over the last weekend go and put stuff away. By my estimation, I think that he did about two thirds of it. And, when he is cutting and grinding, it is showering grit and stuff all over the furniture that is supposed to be donated.

There is also a contingent of items that came as a result of moving my mother-in-law into the small house in the back. By my read, they are also junk but then they are not my things to dispose of (yet).

End Your Programming Routine: I am starting to get the picture that maybe I have a marriage problem and probably a me problem. Of course I want my wife to be happy but I simply don’t want to be around all the things that I don’t agree with. I don’t want to have to climb over things and step on metal and move wheels out of the way to get to the freezer to get ready for dinner. I don’t know when or where this will end because this round of decorating is not done yet. This is the reason I haven’t started taking action yet. This will pass, in the meantime I am avoiding my garage and shop.

April 1, 2022 – Marking Another April Fool’s Day

April 1, 2022 /

Along with Festivus, this might be in the AltF4 collection of recognized holidays. In tradition, I am supposed to play a prank on you guys. However, I have never been into playing practical jokes. I suppose it is my one areas of empathy.

I like jokes but not so much pranks. I think the difference is the physicality. When I was in college, some of the guys thought it was funny to pretend to trip and dump an entire 32oz drink all over you. It only happened to me a time or two, so no big deal but it wasn’t so fun for the person getting drenched with soda. About ten years ago, one of my coworkers bought donuts and injected them with horseradish (or something). I was out of town that day so I missed that one.

A few years ago, my wife played several tricks on my sons. She froze the milk in the cereal bowl (and a couple of things I cant remember). That triggered one of my sons to go whole hog on April Fools. Two years ago, he setoff some kind of stink bomb in our room in the middle of the night and then tried to saran wrap the door. It didn’t fully work but the prank was definitely not appreciated.

I could probably go for some kind of hidden camera ‘What Would You Do?’ type prank. Not a prank, but some kind of skit, sketch or otherwise unusual public behavior would be funny by me. Alternatively the video below has very harmless pranks. We have tons of videos of pranks and examples. It was one of the premises of America’s Funniest Videos.

End Your Programming Routine: The thing for me is that both parties should be able to laugh. Waking up to a house of burning sulfur for hours is not my idea of a good prank. In the end, you know your friends and family and yourself. So, maybe they like getting a 32oz soda dumped on them but I doubt it. Have fun and let me know what you come up with.

March 29, 2022 – The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back

March 29, 2022 /

I tried to do some research on the origin of the phrase and I couldn’t really suss out the meaning. I was trying to derive the significance of the Camel to the phrase. I did find out that this idiom has a long history which dates back to the 1700s and it has several variations from straw to feather and camel to donkey. It would appear that this is indicating a load bearing animal and it is one item too much.

Originally, I thought that I was going to title this the ‘fall that broke the camel’s wrist’ as a play on words for reasons that will become obvious later in this post. I was thinking that the camel was a stubborn animal and that it was more than just a plain, gruesome act. But it doesn’t seem so.

To say the least, this has been a difficult time since my father-in-law has died. I have written about this a little bit and for obvious reasons, not explicitly. To state it bluntly, my mother-in-law is dying, not capable of caring for herself and refusing to accept the situation. This has caused a strained relationship with her children and has driven wedges between my own marriage.

This is just a small flavor but she paid a down payment on a puppy. The children all agreed that this is a bad idea. My wife even spoke to the owner of the puppy not to sell the dog to a person that is living in a travel trailer and cannot walk more than a few yards un-assisted. I am sure we can all use our heads on what the possible problems are here. This lead to a huge blow-up where my wife blocked her mom and I had to become the middleman in constant conversation for two weeks. The words were nasty and hurtful.

That situation came to an end two weekends ago. They were all supposed to stay in a beach house for a week. My wife wanted nothing to do with her. My sister-in-law and her family didn’t want anything to do with her. I was supposed to drive my mother-in-law to the beach house but I couldn’t get ahold of her. A few hours later, I got a call that she had fallen and possibly broke her wrist. She was in the ER, already at the coast.

I told my wife and she unblocked her to communicate in the situation. They ended up spending the planned four days at the beach but that wasn’t easy either. I had multiple phone calls about how my mother-in-law was behaving and I don’t have words. I prayed.

I am not claiming to have a command of the best Christian behavior. Quite frankly, I would just as soon not have anything to do with her either. It would make my life a lot easier. But, that is not the way of Jesus. I certainly didn’t want to be the middleman or even try to get deeper into the situation. But, this is a time of need and our my beliefs would tell me to forgive the sinner.

I think that the broken wrist has made a thaw in the relationship. For one thing, we moved her into our apartment last weekend. The travel trailer is getting moved before the first and it will likely be her last night there. I haven’t had a direct conversation specifically, but I think it was a wakeup call that today is the best day that there will be.

Fifteen years ago, before podcasts I used to listen to Dave Ramsey a lot. One of his recommended books was Boudaries. I never got around to reading this book but I maybe it is not too late. I think we could all use some help in this situation.

End Your Programming Routine: From my observation, this is the reverse of raising a teen. They are trying to resolve the desire to become more grown-up and yet not quite ready. This situation is trying to get the person to realize that they cannot do the things they did even a year ago. It is hard and we have no legal standing to stop it in most cases. Keep all of us in your prayers.

March 23, 2022 – Total Domination

March 23, 2022 /

I remember this vividly. I was 17 and I was wrestling in high school. My brother (15) was also a wrestler and cousin(15) was a football starter. We challenged my dad and uncles to a 3 on 3 basketball game. I figured that they were all smokers and out of shape that this would be a cake walk.

I can still remember my grandfather cackling as they proceeded to beat our asses badly. I think that the final score was 40-2 or something like that. I don’t really remember the game itself other than they were way more physical that we were. Not in a fouling or nasty way but more like aggressiveness.

When getting the family settled into the beach house on Sunday, we play a couple of hours on the ping pong table. My sons recently started playing tennis. So, my younger son thought that he was going to school mom. No way Jose. Mom played several years when she worked at a youth residential treatment facility. It was closer than my loss in basketball, but my son was shocked. He proclaimed that he was going to beat her 10-0 in the next game.

I have noticed over the years that youth are not as strong as I think they should be. I don’t know if it is mind over matter or they are just not fully developed. I have had my nephew or kids help me move furniture around and they seem to not be able to move or lift things despite spending hours a week “working out”. Don’t get me wrong, I am out of shape and they can run circles around me. I am talking about practical fitness however.

I have spoken about wisdom in the past. Back to basketball, my guess is that we were in top physical shape, but they used wisdom to play to their strengths. Maybe if we were all basketball players instead of wrestlers the game would have ended more like the ping pong game. I just dont know but I have seen this enough times in various forms to know that it is more complicated that how much you can squat, bench press or deadlift.

Back when I was in high school, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. Your character has both wisdom and intelligence. Intelligence is analogous to knowing pi is 3.14159 (plus a whole lot more) versus wisdom of using 3.14 when calculating the area of a circle. I can’t remember all the severely complicated math I learned to prove pi as a number but I certainly remember where to use it.

End Your Programming Routine: It very well may be that high schoolers competing against other high schoolers are at a roughly equal mental development. At that age, we don’t realize the influence that our mental ability has on the physical. We also don’t realize that we have not mentally peaked or that we don’t know what we don’t know. As I sat there watching that ping pong game, the great memory flashed back of my grandfather just howling as we got schooled.

March 18, 2022 – American Dream: Where Do We Stand?

March 18, 2022 /

This was kind of an interesting exercise for me. When I wrote off the cuff about the qualities, I really was reacting to what I thought that I knew. After really digging into the definition of the terms and their applications, I came away with a different perspective.

As a refresher, here were the five properties of the American Dream: Democracy, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity and Equality. In my opinion, the most important one is also the most subjective. Rights are recognized and incorporated into the government, have known boundaries and an expectation of exercising.

When we look at what our founder’s described as rights, properties that we were born with before the existence of the government are not necessarily recognized in other cultures, some examples the right to keep and bear arms or women’s suffrage. The fact that we have an entire category of law and lawyers means that rights are constantly evaluated and not considered static or even inherited before the government.

If we believe in this concept, then we have to be OK that our neighbor is doing something that we don’t like. We have to accept that my dream is not my neighbors just as his is not likely mine. We have to agree that the risk of not living in a Home Owner’s Association is worth the reward of freedom. We have to agree that we have the right to succeed beyond our wildest dreams but that comes with a risk of losing it all. We have to agree that consenting adults can gather together to worship the devil or have sex parties or snort cocaine as long as no one is being forced to do so and no one else is harmed in the process. We also need to understand that there is recourse for damages in a free society rather than attempting to force them to do something by creating laws.

You see, there is nothing wrong with the American Dream concept except we no longer believe in it. At the risk of sounding harsh, the term mental masturbation applies here. We like the thought of the American Dream, but we don’t actually want it. Just as a person could be very happy and thrive in a socialist, homogenous society, it could be miserable if you believe differently. Back to my comment on freedom I said a few weeks ago, totalitarianism is some of the most prosperous and happy conditions when you are on the right side of the ruling class.

I spend a lot of time railing against the fascist left (that’s right you are just as fascist despite what the media says), my religious right friends need to look in the mirror as well. Jesus never required us to legislate morality. In fact for salvation purposes, morality is strictly the responsibility of the individual. When the veil was torn so were the ways of Judaism and the ceremonial laws of sacrifice and circumcision. While I can understand the distaste for sin, judgement and condemnation are also some of those sins. Creating laws of minimum square footage restriction may impact my dream as readily as I am not allowed to own livestock or buying alcohol on Sunday.

In case you feel like I am a bit all over it is because I am trying to get across is that both sides are pinching at the American Dream for their own reasons. Let’s be honest, both sides hope to use the power of the state to force everyone to adhere to our version of the better society. What is the impact? We lose the ability to pursue our dream our way.

End Your Programming Routine: Seems like we are ending about where I started, probably not for the the same reasons though. I assumed the American Dream was dead because the characteristics weren’t being upheld. It is even the case that some of those properties really are only ideals and not actually true, particularly Opportunity and Equality. I now think that the American Dream is dead because the definition of the characteristics change.

March 11, 2022 – American Dream Series: Equality

March 11, 2022 /

Here we are on the last quality of the American Dream. I will save my overall analysis for next week and stay focused on this particular aspect. It is probably a good start to look at the definition of equality. The Webster definition is the quality or state of being equal. I suppose that makes sense, equality is an adverb (or describing) the word equal.

And so, the definition of equal means of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another. Of course, we need to look at absolute and relative application of equality in the same manner that we have been looking at throughout the series.

What is this quality really getting at? Is it possible to have opportunity without equality? Maybe… you were given a job because of your parents, or what school you went to or for that matter whether you have a degree in a particular field. I would have to say that there are lots of areas that hands people opportunity over others.

It is pretty likely that this is really referring to racial or gender or even whatever self identifying class that I want to use. The question remains, do we have equality? Let us see. Are all races equal – no. Let us take something like skin cancer. Below are some statistics.

The point I am making is that it is physically impossible for all races to be equal, remember I am taking the absolute stance here. Now, is it possible that men and women are equal? Lets just look at how the transgender swimmers are doing.

Really can we make that case that there is really an absolute equality? I think the answer will never be yes. For instance, what are the odds that I would get equal consideration to be president? Can I get on the ballot, probably in a few locations but could I get elected, I highly doubt it. I think for the most part we have the equality in attempting something. Where we don’t and never will is largely achieving something.

There was a local kid about eight or nine years ago that started playing football as a freshman, first time ever. He was starting on varsity in the first game. By the time he was a senior he was one of the top 50 overall high school recruits, let alone number one in his position. He got a scholarship to play for USC and now he is actually in the NFL.

I don’t know if that was really his dream or it just worked out that way. The fact is there have been countless Heismen Trophy (best college player of the year) winners that never made it past one season in the NFL. There has to be some degree of luck in attaining some limited dreams. Just because I want it and do all the right things still don’t guarantee that I can achieve things. I would even argue that the best player in college football is not equal to most of his peers that get drafted and supersede his longevity.

I freely admit that story was more of an edge case than the intended center of the argument for equality. I am going to use conjecture from here on out. What is with pay inequality for genders? I think when the most people see that women get paid 80% of men, they assume that they just get paid less. I really don’t think that is the case.

We are not really talking about a woman and a man getting paid the same for the same job, we are talking about what all men make versus what all women make. We are talking about genders making different career choices because values and opportunities pursued are different amongst the sexes. This is not the first time, but currently, my boss is a woman. She works around the clock and she is very good at it. I hope she gets paid more than me because I don’t really want to do that.

End Your Programming Routine: I didnt’t talk a lot about race today and I am going to leave things here. I guess to be blunt, I don’t see common equality as an issue. I am not saying there isn’t racism or discrimination but largely we do not have equality barriers. Further to this, everyone will never be equal. That is the beauty of humanity and I think we should always play to our strengths.