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August 26, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

August 26, 2021 /

Finally, there is something to report on and there are two stories on both ends of the spectrum. I will report on them probably in two different instances because there are some life lessons coming.

Last Friday, I took my dad to the range. He inherited a rifle from his uncle who was his lifelong sportsman’s partner. They hunted an fished together my dad’s whole life. And when I was a kid, I was there too. My great uncle Art didn’t have any children of his own so he kind of adopted my dad as a surrogate son.

Last year when I took my dad to the range, we started to take a look his newly inherited Winchester Model 100 .308. The first problem was that my dad had taken the scope off for some reason, I think he said to clean everything thoroughly. He took a couple of shots and it was no where near the target, so we tabled it for later as he needed a bore sight to get started.

Fast forward to this trip. The goal was to get that rifle sighted in and also to try some newly loaded 30-06 in a different rifle and make sure that rifle was sighted in as well. Last year, we had kind of left it in a ‘I think it is OK state’. We were going to see about getting it on the 50 yard target first and then move to the 100 yard target.

The first thing that happened was that when he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. Come to find out, there was no cartridge in the chamber. After some fiddling around, he got one in the chamber and fired. I saw no trace of it around the target or the ground. He fired again, I saw it hit the top of the 100 yard berm. I asked ‘Are you Sure you are aiming the the 50 yard target?’ He said yes. I had no way of knowing for sure, but I estimated that he was 12-24″ high (as you shoot over the 50 to hit the 100). A couple more shots and I saw one hole on the paper at the 100 yard target.

We did more adjusting and shooting, probably after 10 shots my dad suggested that I should try it as we were still nowhere close to getting on the target. I looked down the barrel and it was clearly pointed at the 100 yard target, not the 50. So we gave up, the rifle would need to be bore sighted and we would have to try another day.

Then we took out his other rifle, it was a more than 50 year old Remington 722 30-06. My dad had loaded some new rounds over the winter. After the first shot, the bolt got stuck and the cartridge casing got stuck in the rifle. Again more fiddling, and we got the case out. Long story long here but about every other shot we had a stuck cartridge case. I suggested that maybe we needed to table it and that I wasn’t confident that rifle should be used to for hunting until the sticking case situation could be understood better.

This isn’t a story to disparage my dad. But, between the hobbling out to get the targets or the bolt manipulation or the confusion at what target he was aiming at what I saw was that my dad was becoming elderly. I knew in my head that he is getting into his upper seventies now. But I really hadn’t seen the signs of the transition until this trip.

Hopefully, it happens to us all. But, it also means that I need to pay more attention to what is going on. I definitely get some of my stubbornness from him, hopefully we will be able to work together to make this the best possible life phase transition.

End Your Programming Routine: I guess you can say that I am fortunate to have my dad around at this point. And I know from my wife’s side of the family that dealing with aging parents can have some challenges. Sometimes decisions or lack of action can have consequences. The silver lining is that I am planning another range trip with my dad to get these things ironed out before hunting season.

August 25, 2021 – My Favorite Kind of Fishing

August 25, 2021 /

I am going to talk about a subject that I don’t think I have ever talked about, fishing. When I was in my late teens, I thought that I wanted to try and go fishing once a month throughout the year. That ship has long sailed and this is the first time that I have actually gotten out in probably three years.

So, what is my favorite kind of fishing? The answer is the one that I can do. My first pole was one that my great grandfather gave to me. I still have it, but it has been retired since I have broken the tip multiple times. He died before I was born, my dad said that he was really excited about it and wanted me to have this fishing pole. I still have and use the Mitchell 300 that was put on it when I was about 6.

My first fish was pretty fuzzy but I was young somewhere around three. I remember running around that I got one on a family camping trip to Crescent Lake. As youth, we used to fish the summer salmon run at least once a year. There was also typically a Memorial day outing at Green Peter reservoir for kokanee. My dad usually caught more even though we were using the same rigging.

I have never drifted away from my love of fishing. I guess that you might say that I reprioritized other things above it. I always feel a little guilty about just leaving for a Saturday all day when there are always so many things to do. In my last job, I organized a ‘lunch time fishing’ outing to one of three close ponds (within 10 mins of the office). I would probably do it once a month when the weather was agreeable. I always said that anyone could do it, just say ‘I am doing this, this date, this time’ and go but no one ever did even though I usually got between 5-8 people every time I did it.

One of the activities that we did while my wife was in Texas was to go on a quick one hour (of) fishing trip. It was a pond that I used to go to when I was a kid from time to time. My brother and I could ride our bikes in about 15 minutes and get to it. The pond is stocked and heavily fished in the spring. I like to go when no one is there and I don’t care about keeping the fish, just the activity. It’s nice to catch a few sunfish just for fun.

We didn’t do it a lot, but every two or three years maybe my father-in-law and a few family or friends would take a rock fish/crab charter. Often, we would end the trip with a fish fry and crab boil with everyone from the family at the coast. Sometimes it was for Father’s Day or during birthday week. That night, it was a good get out and enjoy nature a little bit.

This was another activity that we did to bring a little more healing to us. Aside for the mosquito bites a few days later, it is definitely on the to-do again list.

End Your Programming Routine: There are a number of ponds and rivers within thirty minutes. There really isn’t a good excuse to not take an hour occasionally in the evenings. Like I said, I usually don’t plan to bring anything home. It is just some quiet time.

August 24, 2021 – It’s Getting Late and I Did the Unthinkable

August 24, 2021 /

I am going to be short again as I spent most of my ‘free’ time moving computers around in my office. One of the many reasons I am short on time is that I need to spend time collating through my data to find pictures for the funeral slide show.

The funeral home setup a Facebook group for people to participate and interact. I think it is a great idea for most people. My problem is that I wanted to get to some of the pictures, which required me to sign up for a Facebook account. Considering my mostly hate relationship with Nextdoor and my ambivalence for LinkedIn, I really dread seeing more junk mail clog up my inbox. I am scared to death that someone is going to see me here and try to draw me in. I wasn’t quite the ‘I don’t have a cell phone type’ but I never wanted to participate in Facebook.

End Your Programming Routine: I have always believed in doing the right things for the right reasons. I do not want Facebook collecting my data and I find most of the interactions somewhere between ridiculous, appalling and trite. All that said, sometimes it is a useful tool. For that, I had to do it for the right reasons but don’t count on seeing me there any time soon.

August 23, 2021 – Moving at a Snail’s Pace

August 23, 2021 /

This is going to be quick, I hope. Part of my haste is that I have been separated from my computer while I am trying to reconfigure my office. I have worked in it about a week and have already decided to make some changes. I suppose that it is a good thing that I only partially moved in anyway.

First problem, I didn’t like the transition between the carpet and the hard floor. It took some lifting effort to get my chair on a different surface. It seems to roll fine when I am on the carpet, so I want to move the carpet completely under the desk.

That leads me to my second problem. I didn’t like my chair completely in front of the door. It was fine and I could get out, but also see problem one. I needed to tear everything down so I could move the carpet from under the door and other furniture in my office.

The third problem is a little more difficult problem but it relates to problem two as well. I have discovered that with the door closed, the temperature starts to climb up into the eighties. I guess that I got the insulation right, but it means that I crack the door periodically to get a little cooling. For the long term test, we will see what winter temperatures feel like. For now, it is very manageable.

Knowing that I wanted to make these changes has kept me from fully moving in. Not to say that I have had a lot of extra time as I had to work all weekend as well as being a ‘single’ parent.

Not everything is a problem. I have enjoyed having my stereo receiver in the room with quality speakers and good sound playing while I am working all day long. I like the dedicated space and having what I need where I need it. I was able to setup two monitors and use a dedicated keyboard which is really nice. I am looking forward to my final vision of surround sound and adding a couch just for fun.

One month at a time, I plan on adding Thunderbolt 3 docking stations for my two primary work laptops. Then I can add a KVM switch and I can then do all the wire management and clean up all the wires that that are strung all over the place.

End Your Programming Routine: There is no substitution for experience. I am not saying that I foresaw these issues, I just plain wasn’t able to anticipate the problems. Now that I have the foundations set, I am able to finally start moving everything in. Overall first impressions is that I am really happy.

August 20, 2021 – 1984 3:3

August 21, 2021 /

So we are to another Friday; at least this one is a little less dramatic than the last. And we are through another chapter in 1984, I think that there are four more to go. I might even combine a couple short ones, we will see.

In this chapter we see more of the torture process with Winston and are revealed some of the slogans and their meanings, at least to Obrien. I am going to surmise that the purpose of this chapter is for Orwell to explain his intent to using these these slogans throughout the book.

Early on in the chapter one of the first lines are the three stages to the process Winston is undergoing. They are learning, understanding and accepting. The last chapter was about learning and this one will be accepting.

The use of power: I think by far and away that this is the ‘how’ of all of this world that Orwell has conceived. There are so many intersecting ideas with slogans and quotes to re-enforce the idea that power is the most important mechanisms to perpetuate the party. Here are a couple to support what I am saying.

  • The party seeks power for its own sake
  • Power is inflicting pain and humiliation
  • Power is not a means but an end

What more can you say about this? It seems obvious that any regime is going to exert power to propagate its values. I don’t have any doubts that China uses power when it deems necessary. The State of Oregon is going to exert power over businesses to enforce the new mask mandates, as they stated so.

I have heard it another way and that is power is force. Winston states that he believes in humanity and that they will somehow eventually overthrow the Party. The only card that really hasn’t been addressed in this entire 1984 scenario is that absolute exertion of power can never be exercised otherwise it will likely fail. The counterpart to power is compliance. Either appropriate force must be exerted for compliance or there will be no one left to have power over or the system itself will become corrupt and fail within.

I think the idea that all the high party members are complete and exact ideologues is extremely unlikely. But, this is a story after all. Once we extrapolate the concepts and overlay them into our own world today, we can still get a lot of good insight into human nature.

Ideas are eternal: Orwell makes a point to that highlight humanity’s ultimate finiteness. We finally hear the definition of ‘Slavery is Freedom’ and that is to say that by keeping everyone working for the party (slavery) the idea will live on forever (freedom).

I think the enlightened reader might have a problem with how this concept is play out. We can all agree that the human body has a limited lifespan. We also can agree that ideas and concepts can be useful way beyond our lifespan. I am proclaiming to have the same beliefs as people over 2000 years ago with names Peter, Paul, Luke, Matthew and John.

Where we balk is the value of those beliefs. First of all, mine are personal not enforced on an entire civilization. But, second what if I am wrong? What would it hurt to try and live a better life, be better to fellow humans and strive for a cleaner existence? What am I really missing, the opportunity to prove survival of the fittest?

So while I 100% agree with Orwell’s portrayal of the concepts, I am not solidly in the camp that this is just a foreboding tale of the future, more to come on this as I wrap of the book.

End Your Programming Routine: What I got out of this chapter is more supporting information for my conclusion (so sorry you will have to wait). I think that is going to be exiting to come all the way back around to the beginning and look at where I am at now versus where I was when I started. I think that it is going to reveal a lot about me and how I think and I hope that I can do this series justice. I guess that we will see.

August 19, 2021 – Sad, Short and Sweet

August 19, 2021 /

Today is going to be short. I have already spent a bunch of time working on an obituary which has cut into this time. Happier times are on the horizon though. I have a range schedule booked for tomorrow afternoon.

When I was charged with writing the obituary, I was getting some of the other details of the service and what was going to happen. My wife told me that she was going to ask our pastor to perform the service. I thought back to different services and how they were administered and something struck me.

I have grown up in a family of faithful people on both sides. My maternal grandfather was highly catholic. Unfortunately, grandpa developed dementia and the last two or three years he was in assisted living. When it came time for his service, it was performed by a non-denominational reverend. I am pretty sure that my grandfather would consider that against his Catholic faith. I know that I heard it enough from him that I was following the wrong path and that there was only one true denomination.

Most of my ‘greats’ were also regular church goers but when it came time to have a funeral service, they were performed by someone that really had no connection. I suppose that we age to the point where we lose connection to our former life be it that we can’t physically make the service or move out of necessity. Maybe when we lose the connection, others may not have an idea of where to start?

What I am trying to say is that is saddens me that a funeral service is performed by someone that has never met. I am sure that it is God’s work and that there is probably a formula for it with reverence but it would seem a little dishonest in the end. Nothing against our pastor, I love him and I think he is genuine. If this was my service, then much more appropriate.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t make a lot of distinction between denomination and faith. In the end, I don’t think that it matters. My in-laws had a church that they occasionally attended. It was large enough and they were infrequent enough that they didn’t really have a connection and here we are. There is no real lesson here, I am just writing what is on my mind today.

August 18, 2021 – The Struggle is Over, a Root Cause Analysis

August 18, 2021 /

When I stubbed out (titled) this post August 6, I had no way of knowing that I was days away from spending a lot of time talking about life changing events. In fact, I was having a hard time coming up with topics that I wanted to discuss at all that week. Today I thought a little about trying to wind the two stories together and make some cute correlation to my failed garden attempt and life’s struggles. In the end, I decided to keep to the subject matter of my failings rather than go higher level.

Dosen’t everyone want to present their best face on the internet and not talk about their failures? Even I resist the urge to bring it up sometimes but I think it is also real. We all have things that we knew that we could do better even when you were in the midst of failing. To be one hundred percent transparent, not everything failed just the majority of things.

In my career at least I am big on lesson’s learned and root cause analysis. If we study our issues we can then implement changes to at least try and prevent the failures from occurring in the first place. How do you actually do that? I will try to outline the rough procedure below.

What Happened? I started seeds in late February with the intent of getting them in the ground in late April / early May. I had plans to build garden beds in the front yard since I tore them up in the back yard last year. I didn’t end up planting the seedlings in the ground until early July.

Why? My career options changed and with it so did my personal priorities. I needed a conditioned space to work as I was freezing all day long. So I stopped focusing on plants and focused on building my office with my free time.

Why? Lacking any sort of plan, I assessed what spaces I had and determined that I could plant in the flower beds in early May. As I was working the bed, I contracted Covid. Not that I couldn’t physically continue but I took it easier for two weeks and lost momentum. In that same time frame, I had a discussion with my wife about what I was doing and she didn’t agree with how I was proceeding.

Why? She wanted me to build raised beds in the flower beds which I didn’t have the materials to do so nor did I want to spend the time away from my office project. Because there was some doubt as to whether we would need to move, we were hesitant to make some unconventional changes to the yard as well.

Root Cause: I didn’t have a plan in place to plant my seedlings in an appropriate time frame. I planted them too late and they didn’t survive.

Corrective Action: To avoid this in the future, I need to have a project plan on where the milestones are clearly defined. Where are the beds going to be? When do they need to be completed in time to plant? How will the beds be constructed?

End Your Programming Routine: I knew that the chances were low that this would be successful. Given that I had already put energy into starting seeds and keeping them alive, I thought that it was at least worth testing their chances. It wasn’t as if I was ignoring them in the ground, I kept it wet and checked on them daily. The sun was just too intense and the plants were not able to withstand the heat all day.

August 17, 2021 – A Time of Transition

August 17, 2021 /

Change can be difficult, especially if it has been going a particular way for a long time. I have a lot of changes going on in my life at the moment. One of the biggest one is my office space. This is the first day working in the space.

I received my desk yesterday and got it assembled. But there are new components going into my setup and not everything has made it into the space yet. So, I am half in and half out with everything spread everywhere.

I knew that if I started moving then I would need to keep at it. I still have to work while I am fiddling around with all this stuff. So, last night I got to the point where I could at least be productive during the work day. I will have to tear everything apart and reconfigure a couple of times I assume.

Plus, as of yesterday, I only imagined how it would work. I think that there is going to be some trial and error on how my desk is setup and positioning of everything. I can already see some of the consequences of my decisions but I will save that for another day.

Another transition that has already occurred is that I finished my shed roofing. I can check that off of my list of things to do. That means that I need to start moving into my next project which is cleaning up and organizing the basement and garage.

This is something that I want done, but don’t really want to do it. It is going to involve dump runs, Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity and a lot of decisions. When doing this kind of thing, it is helpful when doing this kind of activity to sequence it properly. For example, going to the dump is last because there are items that Habitat will not accept. I am dragging my feet because it is a big job to tackle.

We have transitioned out of Quarantine. We all got Negative test results last weekend so we are no longer home bound. Unfortunately, we are transitioning into another mask mandate. Honestly, I never believed that this freedom would last. I think that this state has really transitioned into a pseudo Marxist government. What does that actually mean? It means that the government is making decisions for what they think is best and the people are not allowed to proceed as they see fit.

I think by now everyone knows that we are transitioning as a family. I don’t want to say too much more at the moment other than the circumstances are difficult. Not only are we coping with grief but also trying to do it in a manner where part of those most affected are unable to join us.

There is a sociological theory called the ‘Four Turnings‘. The concept goes that there are four types of generations that repeat on a cycle. I’ll try to explain briefly but it might be helpful to read the article (see link above) yourself.

HighHigh societal cohesion, calm from previous strife Baby Boomers
AwakeningLow institutional faith, personal exploration Generation X
UnravellingInstitutions are weak, individuals are strong Millennials
Crisis/HeroEra of destructionWWII generation

If you follow the theory, we are somewhere between the Unravelling and the Crisis stage as a society. It should also be said that it is not quite enough to just be born into a particular era but you need to be able to do something about it. So nearly all of the World War II people are now gone and we haven’t quite had enough of the Generation Y/Z or whatever we are naming it ascend to a place of relevancy yet.

End Your Programming Routine: Be on the lookout for the next crisis event. It very well may be on the horizon or even already has happened. As I am moving through projects and life events, the world is still moving too. You have to get your head up from time to time so that these transitions don’t occur without your knowledge.

August 16, 2021 – The Little Pastel Book

August 16, 2021 /

Last Friday I passed a milestone. I have a journal that I have been writing in for fourteen years. It is something that I do periodically often weekly, occasionally there were 6 month gaps like last summer when I was busy sun up to sun down. I guess what it has become is kind of a log of what I have done and what I am planning to do with some thoughts and feeling mixed in.

If we go back in the time machine and put myself where I was fourteen years ago, my second son had yet to be born. I was working three jobs ago and I wasn’t happy then either (see a theme here). This was the pre-podcast era for me as well so I was listening to talk radio on AM and I was reading several books on the Dave Ramsey reading list. You can see my references to Dan Miller’s “40 Days to the Work you Love”.

I was going to use this journal to document my thoughts about what I was reading, develop my goals and work on progress as it relates to those goals. This is sort of how it devolved into documenting my work over the years. I will say that it has sometimes been useful. I have been able to figure out when I did the last oil change or a general time frame of events.

One interesting use that I had was to look back on trends. 6-16-14. As predicted, not much has changed. I did move wood out of the garage last weekend. That means that things are pretty much prepped to finish the garage re-org. Vacation was pretty awesome and did the trick of relaxing the mind. I need to do an oil change on the pick-up within the the next few weekends. Serious travel is about to begin and summer will be over. It is a bit disappointing and I am seriously reconsidering my career choice.

When I was in the diminishing days of my last job, I was reading what I wrote through the years. I realized that my first mention of job unhappiness was in 2012. I started wondering why I was still working somewhere seven years later where I was still unhappy and that is what ultimately made me pull the trigger on putting in my notice. I figured it was just as insane to quit without a plan as it was to continue to work in misery.

Most things that I write are not really private, but they are personal. I have noted births, deaths, projects and statuses in story form. In some ways, this blog is a continuation or expansion of that. My last entry in this book was going to summarize my journey over the last fourteen years. That was of course interrupted with the passing of my father-in-law so I needed to get that documented instead.

My son gave me a new journal for Christmas so I am about to get started in this one. I don’t think that I will do anything differently. I will probably keep doing it the way that it has been going. I suppose it is another form of therapy for me. I don’t really plan on what I am going to say, I just say things about where I am at at the moment.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that this is for everyone. I think that it helps me keep perspective on life and a record of what I have done. It is part of that self reflection kind of time that I spend. Once I have sorted out where I am at, I can make plans to move forward.

August 13, 2021 – 1984 3:2

August 13, 2021 /

I am going to try my best not to make this a grief or Covid blog. I still have a lot more to say on the two subjects. However, some things we have to keep in perspective. And that is it is Friday. We have 1984 to get to.

This chapter is about Winston’s experience in captivity. You could say that it is torture. We don’t exactly know what the end goal is yet. According to Obrien, it is rehabilitation. Future chapters will reveal more.

I am having a bit of an supernatural experience lately. I guess that because of all that is going on. Maybe it is some sort of hypersensitivity or mind tricks or maybe it is real. Let me try to describe more. On August 11, for some reason I woke up at 3:30AM. I was worried that I was late for something but of course I wasn’t so I went back to sleep. Then at 4AM, I got the call from my wife. I don’t know for sure but I kind of think that was the moment that Frank passed. Then I get these moments that I am just not myself but those are stories for later.

I get the feeling that Winston is going through a similar process. Winston is questioning his reality. In his case, Obrien is trying to convince him of the complete dominance of Big Brother. He makes a statement ‘Who controls the past controls the future, Who controls the present controls the past.’ Obrien is trying to gain absolute obedience from Winston by using torture. Winston is fighting the reality of the situation. It is not clearly explained, but somehow Obrien knows all of Winston’s thoughts and actions that were seemingly private.

Reality is What We Make of It– I have said to myself this statement many times but I don’t always listen. In this context and using the example from the book 2 + 2 = 3 or 2 + 2 = 5 or it could be 2 + 2 = 4. What I am saying here is that absolute truth does not really matter. If we are going to be happy in this world, we have to accept that sometimes reality is whatever it is regardless to rather it makes sense or not. This is a very difficult thing for me to accept because I believe in right and wrong. And when wrong is right I don’t know how to apply my other assessment or coping strategies.

Using a simple example, take fashion. I think that it is silly and misguided but here is a 2 + 2 = 5 scenario. Two years ago, some garments from the early 1990’s would have been shunned. Now, I see rather frequently two colored pant legs or other such articles of clothing that came straight out of that era. Fine enough, maybe the person wasn’t around during the trend and they think that it is new. It is the ‘industry’ and media that declared yesterday 2 + 2 = 3 and now 2 + 2 = 5. It was the same with turtlenecks in the 80s or bell bottoms in the early 2000s.

I personally have an aversion to that kind of thought. It makes me want to go the other way deliberately or even cause conflict to try and justify right and wrong. You might say that this is part of what this forum is. I know that too much stewing is counterproductive and I have to fight the urge frequently.

End Your Programming Routine: I am mentally exhausted at this point. I had to have meetings starting at 4AM this morning and after the week I had I am not really motivated to do much more. My reality is that I need to take a break. Hopefully, it will be a nice weekend.