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July 19, 2021 – It Really Was Something Special

July 19, 2021 /

Back on May 17, 2021 I wrote about the best/worst things. I kind of skimmed through that to make sure that I wasn’t repeating myself so recently and I don’t think that I will. My point of that post was that that events that were really great experiences were also incredibly difficult at the same time. While I was in the moment, it was exactly what I wanted but in retrospect the situation was not the best for me to continue. Or maybe looking at a different perspective that all things will come to an end.

Why am I revisiting this then again? I was part of a reunion of sorts this weekend. I got together with my former team last Saturday. What was amazing was that every single person that worked with me on my core team (on this continent) was there. I never got that kind of participation on any non-work function when we were together.

The reunion was the doings of my former right hand man. He contacted me in May and asked me if I wanted to get together with some former support team members. I said sure but I would have to shoehorn it into my packed schedule which ended up being Saturday. What was also amazing was that the majority of the people have moved on to other employment. Half of the people now live in a different states. It wasn’t as if this was my hand selected team, only one of them did I even interview and approve hiring. It was a collection of people that were assigned to my team.

One of the things that I think I did right was letting the team buy into decisions that were made. When I had latitude to do so, I was able to lay out the spectrum of decisions and consequences and let them choose how to proceed. Sometimes, we would evaluate our decisions after the fact and potentially make another choice.

For instance, we spent some time developing the Standard Operating Procedure. We worked on group consequences for not meeting our Service Level Agreement. We developed operating policies and procedures. Not everyone agreed with my methodology, particularly my last boss. But, my theory was that in order to get compliance, I needed to make sure that people understood and more importantly agreed on what they were doing.

I built an incentive program around Service Level Agreement compliance. That definitely influenced behavior as no one wanted to break a thirty day string of team compliance. But, occasionally there was a questionable action by a team member. When that was the case, I would make the team vote on the facts and end the end the results always ended up where I thought it should have been. It was sometimes difficult but the team had buy in for why something happened.

When I first started out with this team, we had almost no oversight. This was when the best progress was made. After about a year, we were really beginning to perform and people began to notice. That was when we began to get pushed to do things that were straying from what I wanted to do. Despite that, we had built enough foundation to continue to be wildly successful. The company leadership continued to tinker with the team and change the direction and in essence, I lost control. That was when I decided to leave.

Talking with the guys I came to learn that they stayed and enjoyed their work because the group was supportive and people cared. When that stopped happening, they decided to make a career change. I suppose I could add that description to myself because as my team incrementally stopped becoming mine I stopped caring.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to promise that I am not going to talk about this subject again because I am still trying learn the lessons from it. Call it therapy. I guess what was so amazing was that everyone made an effort to get together because I think they felt that it was something special as well. That really feels good.

July 16, 2021 – 1984 2:9

July 16, 2021 /

This was a big and a dense one. Finally Winston gets the book that is supposed to explain everything that is going on in his society. There are two excerpts that he reads verbatim (and is printed) in the book that covers the concepts War is Peace and Ignorance is Strength.

Before I get started, Winston says near the end of the chapter that there is nothing new here. Generally speaking and for the reader, this is true. We do get a much better explanation of the justifications for why things are the way that they are. Editorially I got a lot of clarity in the world of 1984.

Oligarchical Collectivism: This is the what of Big Brother. It makes perfect sense to me because I understand both words. But, in case you don’t I will define them here. Oligarchy is the form of government that where a set few run the government. Typically those few have ties to some sort of private enterprise and by proxy run the government for their personal benefits. Collectivism is a sociological term whereby a group of people live by and for the the same goals. Typically some sort of equality is tagged as the goal.

Put those two words together to describe 1984. An elite class of people rule a society who live and work for the existence of the Oligarchy. This is why the state of perpetual warfare and the exclusive production exists so that Big Brother continues to profit by the activities of the party. This is the basic premise of the the chapter titled ‘War is Peace’.

Double Think: This is the how of Big Brother. The concept of Double Think is an individual holds two conflicting ideas as true i.e. War is Peace or more aptly for this term Ignorance is Strength. Naturally, the two cannot be true when paired together.

The book tries to explain how it works, but not necessarily why. My interpretation of the psychology of Double Think is that the paradox of two opposites create an inequality. By saying everything is equal and yet nothing is actually equal it makes nearly all statements meaningless. And when that is the case, people either tune out to all things becoming agnostic drones or they believe everything becoming useful drones in the collective.

Since 1984 is held as a cautionary tale, I thought it would be interesting to overlay today’s Unted States to some of the concepts of Big Brother.

  1. Oligarchical Collectivism – Did you know that federal departments such as the FDA or Department of Agriculture are a revolving door of industry leaders from companies like Monsanto (now Bayer). Policy and power are consolidated in the hands of a few. Regulations are written to benefit the players in the game and exclude any competition. Also, despite polling, the collective continues to elect the same individuals supporting the Oligarchy.
  2. War is Peace – Afghanistan, Syria, Korea and who knows where. We have been in a state of War technically since 1953. Practically speaking we have been in deployed conflict since 2001. There is a generation of people (now adults) who have only known middle east conflict. This now low grade conflict not only benefits the military industrial complex which in turn benefits the Oligarchy without completely upsetting the apple cart for the rest of society.
  3. Double Think – Cloth masks do not stop the transmission of Covid-19 but Masks Save Lives. Take your pick of the many other examples. How about there is no inflation, we have an epidemic of gun violence, the food pyramid, etc. Anyone is free to have an opinion and even an ignorant one, but look at the claim and then look at the data and you will see that we are manipulated by Double Think. The problem is that no one actually looks at the data and accepts everything at face value
  4. Ignorance is Strength – Knowing what I have said about the first three items I am going to set the trigger with Black Lives Matter. I am not debating the validity of the statement or movement but using Double Think, the Oligarchy creates an environment where the population is divided and uses the situation to create chaos and therefore solidifying power. (Our) Ignorance is (Their) Strength, let that set in for a minute. As stated, it is Double Think but as application it should be written as I have above.

End Your Programming Routine: We are on the downhill side of this analysis. There are technically six chapters left to go so this should be finished in less than eight weeks. I didn’t think that it was going to stretch out that long originally. I think that you can see from my argument that Orwell was pretty right how things are going.

July 15, 2021 – I Learned Something This Week

July 15, 2021 /

I have run into this problem multiple times where the door jamb does not sit properly into the opening. The generic problem is described as the wall is out of plumb. In my ignorance of the past, I have tried to build up the drywall around the protruding jamb rather than try to deal with it.

I ran into the problem last year when I was working on the apartment as well. Then I did some casework last summer for a relative with the same problem. It all boiled down to the fact that I did not know how to handle a door frame when the opening is not plumb.

First of all what not to do. Do not put in the door out of plumb so it appears to fit properly. That part I knew because it will cause the door to fly open, slam shut or hit on the floor. To operate properly, the jamb needs to be installed close to plumb and square. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but close for nice operation.

Second, I have no one to blame but myself. I should have taken more care when framing so that I didn’t have this problem in the first place. I was so anxious to get things up that I didn’t think through the consequences of a bit of sloppiness. You can read yesterday’s post about minding the small things.

But how to fix it? It comes down to a bunch of extra fiddling (or work) to shave or add material to the jamb so that the trim will sit flush in the end. If the jamb is proud of the wall, then sometimes you can nail the trim on anyway depending on how much it is sticking out. The trick I saw when looking up ideas was to plane the jamb until it was flush with the drywall.

In my case, on one side of the wall it was close enough that I didn’t have to plane. But on the other sided of the wall the jamb was 5/8″ shy of the wall at the bottom. That means the wall was tipped inward. I also had some extra framing errors that kicked the the drywall out more than was necessary.

In the end, I had to cut a tapered shim to match the tilt of the wall so that the trim will sit flush. Or said another way, I built up the jamb to match the gap. That took time plus it will require additional filling and sanding. Debating what to do or even if I wanted to deal with trim has impacted my productivity some. I had to figure out how to cut the taper in finish carpentry fashion, plus mill the material, plus test it and attach it.

By the way, I didn’t look too hard but I only found half of the equation on YouTube. I saw a couple of examples of planing off proud jambs. I had to deduce that if you removed material on one half of the problem you must have to add for the other half of the equation. So that is the new technique I learned this week.

End Your Programming Routine: I took this on not because the project required it but as an exercise in learning. This is one of the areas that I have struggled in, trim around doors. The finished product will speak for itself but so far this is a huge improvement in the things that I have tried before.

July 14, 2021 – Mind the Little Things

July 14, 2021 /

Something that has annoyed me for a long time is the heat pump condenser drain doesn’t function well. The tubing is too limp and crimps to easily causing the pump to just run until the reservoir is over full and then it leaks onto the floor. It doesn’t leak often or a lot, but potentially things are getting wet that I really don’t want.

I should take my own advice sometimes because I don’t always mind the little things. Part of the damage on the apartment I had to rebuild last year was a result of not paying attention to the warning signs. I have some rot on the shop siding as well, I need to get that handled before it turns into a bigger problem. I am planning to do that work in the fall because I don’t want to kill the flowers that are growing in the area that I need to access.

Getting back to my current issue, this is a seasonal problem. Also because this has never been a dry basement everything is pretty well placed to prevent water damage. However, my guard is down from the normal wet season and I am trying to wrap up the office project so the basement is not really water ready. The other mental trap is out of sight, out of mind.

My plan is to run the condenser line into the sump rather than outside the wall. That will prevent the pinching that occurs with the tubing between siding. I purchased the materials to do the work for less than $16. I ran the line in about 10 minutes. It will take me probably another 20 minutes to secure the tubing properly and this quick project will be done.

In theory, there is one drawback to this solution. If for some reason the sump pump fails, then there is a risk of overfilling the sump. But, I believe that the water output is minimal and I doubt that there will ever be enough volume to trigger the pump. So, I believe that the risk is very low.

End Your Programming Routine: It is often the case that the consequences of decisions (or lack there of) are not realized until sometime in the future. Experience teaches you that if something doesn’t look correct, it probably isn’t. You still may not have enough information to predict the outcome if the situation is not corrected. So it is best to deal with things when you can.

July 13, 2021 – Sealing Air Leaks For Comfort

July 13, 2021 /

Having lived in old and new houses, they both have their advantages. New houses are energy efficient, provide the conveniences that are desirable and laid out in a way that appeals to our sensibilities. I prefer the old personally, I like the character. But that does come with many drawbacks.

One of those drawbacks is that retrofits often damages the integrity of the building envelope (said more plainly: holes where there didn’t used to be). Another one is materials built for one function but used differently. For example, windows were built to operate. Because they were made of wood, tolerances needed to accommodate for thermal movement and swelling due to water. So, there was some play in how tightly they fit in the jamb. So, if there is no weather stripping, this becomes a perfect place for a lot of air leaking.

One of the podcasts that I listen to, the Fine Homebuilding podcast talks a lot about this subject. Believe me, it seems like there is a lot to know on this subject particularly when it comes to HVAC sizing, efficiency and comfort. In my case, I don’t have to go to higher tech testing or solutions to find some high value and low cost improvements.

When I started working in the basement, it was winter. The normal temperature was around 57 degrees before the heat came on. If I ran the heater all day, I would see the temperature come up to 64 degrees by the end of the day. As we have moved into summer, the ambient temperature changed to around 62 degrees. It is still too cold to be comfortable in most cases. This was the first driver to build my office space was the desire to be more comfortable during the day.

As I moved to the north end of the basement, I could actually feel the temperature get colder. I knew that there was outdoor air leakage, but I took some pictures that your could see a couple of problems.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination that when you see daylight that there is air leakage happening (not to mention water and vermin). I was looking around right before the heat wave and I saw something that not only could I address but it would be helpful. Under our kitchen is a crawlspace and that is vented directly outside. Essentially, the basement has the leaks shown but also 2 square feet of holes directly to the outside.

I had leftover rigid insulation so I built a box around the hole. As a result, I have seen morning temperatures move from 62 to 68 degrees. I have no doubt that in the winter it will be somewhat colder I am guessing add five degrees to 57 but I guess we will see.

There is one drawback to this modification which I have considered. Potentially, the air leakage in the winter provided a degree of warmth that kept pipe freezing to a minimum. I have had freezing on the hose bibs before but never in the kitchen plumbing. I may decide to remove this modification if the temperatures get significantly below freezing.

I do have one other option. It is not clear from the picture, but there is heat tracing on the piping. Most of it is in suspect condition and I have been removing it wherever it is in the way but I could hook it back up and then I wouldn’t have to remove my new box.

End Your Programming Routine: While there is no doubt that my results are anecdotal and not scientific I saw immediate change the day after installation. The cost was free since I did not have to purchase anything additional and it took me about two hours to build, fit and install the box. I expect that this will not only make the basement more comfortable, but also I think it will have an small energy impact on the whole house. At the very least, I will not need to run the heater so much in the basement.

July 12, 2021 – The Struggle is Real

July 12, 2021 /

This is a phrase that I have heard. I thought maybe it was a movie quote until I looked it up. It seems like there is a song with the title but the origin is unknown (at least from the site that I looked at ).

So what is the struggle anyway? In this case the struggle is reaching your full potential when constrained by your environment or conditions beyond your control. Take a look at this sunflower.

This should be eight feet tall with a stalk around two to three inches thick. In this case, this full sized sunflower is giving what it has got in a 1 inch cube.

These plants should have been in the ground during the first of May. I started working the ground a bit on the week that I contracted Covid. Things got busy and I was keeping the plants on life support under the lights. My wife and I were having some challenges agreeing on exactly how to proceed so nothing got done.

Last year, I moved the starts from the lights to the greenhouse in May and June and got them in the ground around mid-june. They did not yield much because they just didn’t have time to grow. I suspect that this year may be a zero yield as this is really late. But, hey we will see.

Since I completely tore up my garden beds last year, I decided that I wanted to plant in the front of the house. It is south facing, irrigated and we only use it one day of the year. My ultimate plan was to tear up the grass but that was before Amazon and then full time employment and office building and a super busy summer.

This year is just a get-in where you fit-in approach. This bed is full of bulbs Most of which I dont want anyway. It did have a huge butterfly bush that I think I finally killed. It was always touching the house so wrong plant, wrong place. I think it might be a good place for some rose bushes. Or, we have talked about that location as a future bay window.

All of that is kind of secondary to the other projects that I need to get started on now. I need to use what time I have to accomplish things that are best done in the summer time and that is not beds that won’t be used until next year at this point.

End Your Programming Routine: The only thing in life that you cannot buy is time. I am already at the point where I don’t have enough time to do all the things that I would like to do. Even the period that I was not working, I did not have the time to do everything that I wanted to do. I definitely spent more time doing things that I wanted to do, there were very few days that were wasted. The garden will go back on the list and reprioritized to it’s appropriate place.

July 9, 2021- Close, But no Cigar

July 9, 2021 /

I am still dealing with the post 4th of July sluggishness. It has been a super busy week again with lots of moving parts. I didn’t get any more read in 1984 and I made slow progress on my project.

I had set a move in target of July 1 for my office. Here on July 9, I am close but not there yet. I am still messing around with the door and jamb. I need to get that set so that I can nail the trim on. Once that is done, I can move in (without the door). Here are some pictures of the current state.

I am currently at 105.5 hours and my estimate was 100 hours. I forgot to include time for trim, but that is not the real reason for my overage. I am going to give a full accounting when I completely finish. I would guess that I have 10 or so more hours to go. It depends on how much door modification I ultimately decide to do.

It is the summer time, so the temp is much more bearable in the basement. In fact it is staying 68-70 degrees F. The urgency has subsided a little bit but it is a far cry from sweatshirt, coat and stalking cap with the heater on. Truthfully, when it was over 100 degrees last week, it was still 68 degrees down here. When I was working in shorts and a t-shirt, I was cold.

End Your Programming Routine: I the end, a goal is just that. There were things that I could have re-prioritized to finish this faster. But, I have no need to push it. Despite that there are other things that also need to get done, so the longer this drags on the more things get backed up. Ultimately, I am happy with where I am at and still motivated to get this done.

July 8, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

July 8, 2021 /

If you are like me then you have kind of given up on looking for ammunition. After over a year of nothing on the shelves, the entire pursuit has dropped off my radar. I wrote about the struggles to buy enough to participate in the trap season. Luck was on our side with that.

I have heard via radio and other sources that it is starting to come back. I thought that I would take a look for myself. To be fully transparent, I heard that it was always available online but my searches were pretty spotty. For instance when looking for trap, I did find cases available at $16/box (3-4 times what it cost the previous year) and sold out within hours. I hesitated as I was working multiple other deals and watched the inventory disappear on the screen.

I checked a few of sources in the last couple of days. What I have seen is some of the most common choices were on the shelf. The options were limited and the prices are elevated, I would say that this is far from over. In quasi-reporter style, this is what I have seen consistently in the last three months

  • 7.62×39 FMJ
  • 28 gauge target
  • 20 gauge turkey loads

In my check over the last couple of days I saw

  • 7.62×51 FMJ
  • 223 FMJ
  • 9mm FMJ and HP
  • 30-06 hunting
  • 10 gauge hunting
  • 12 gauge target and hunting

I know there aren’t many people like me (that don’t own a 9mm and don’t really care) but that is a bellwether indicator that ammunition is on the shelf. Industry insider’s public statements indicate that it is going to be at least a year and a half before a return to normal. I give that a hard maybe because that presupposes that everything including politics stay status quo. However, it does seem as this years news cycle is much more calm then last years. It only takes one event to change everything again.

End Your Programming Routine: If you are looking for ammunition, now might be a time to start. I know that I have scaled my shooting down quite a bit from the the previous years so I am still sitting in a good spot other than trap. At some point, this will have to change. The market will market.

July 7, 2021 – July 4th Tom Foolery

July 7, 2021 /

This was definitely a fourth to remember. Three days later I am still dragging because of late nights and on the go activities. I am not totally sure why I feel different this year than previous but I saw a lot of idiocy like never before.

  1. LAPD blows up their own bomb containment truck with fireworks

Despite what the caption in the picture says, they detonated the fireworks on purpose. What was unexpected was that the truck blew up.

2. Heat Wave Death Toll now Exceeds 100

It is pretty rare to see temperatures above 100 degrees. Many anecdotal reports (mine included) saw gauges reading 117 on Monday for a brief period. Now we are seeing the damage from the heat wave. I don’t think I have ever seen reporting from heat related deaths locally.

3. Ousted State Representative Receives Most Votes to Replace Himself

Mike Nearman was voted out of the Oregon House of Representatives 59-1 for opening the a capitol door January 6, 2021. He was caught on video and subsequently disbarred from the house and capitol. The committee to replace him initially voted to replace Nearman with himself. They have subsequently identified a different candidate.

4. US Evacuates Afghanistan in the Middle of the Night

How do you like that? Finally it looks like my generation’s Vietnam is going to end (officially). We have secure freedom forever now… does that sound sarcastic? It is and it is going to end like it started without a purpose.

There was a lot more that I observed but didn’t get a news article

  • June 29: Portland Oregon bans fireworks. Since they can no longer enforce mask mandates they decided to further make their subjects miserable. My county declined to enact a ban because they said it would end up with a majority of nuisance calls (thank goodness for sanity).
  • July 2, 5PM: Our local celebration stopped selling admission tickets and tickets were not available at the door. We did not buy them cementing our first time not participating locally since we have lived here.
  • July 4, 12PM: The first fourth of July parade not sponsored by the Rotary. With three weeks to go, Paralyzed Veterans of America stepped up and I thought that it was better than usual.
  • July 4, 7:30PM: Our first Fourth of July Rodeo in over twenty years. The crowd was in the mood to get loose. The lady next to me wanted to buy me a drink and I hardly said a word to her. I declined.
  • July 5, 1AM: I watched a man try to put diesel into a pickup when the station was closed. When that failed, he drove to the adjacent truck stop and I lost track of him. About five minutes later he came back and tried three additional pumps before parking (I am hoping for the night).

Over the years I have grown significantly less patriotic. I want to feel good about stealing land from the Native Americans to build something that was special. At least we could claim that even though we took it, we created something better. I think we did for all of the white, protestant males for at least for 200 years.

The philosophy and romanticism of our country’s founding is appealing but either I am watching it change with my own eyes or I was lied to from the beginning. From the ‘Patriot Act’ to the ‘CARE Act’ to a middle east military quagmire so much of the illusion of limited government is gone. With non-essential business’ arbitrarily closed and mask mandates of the last year, this is not my country. Sorry to end on a bit of a downer, but if you saw me staying seated instead of giving a cheering ovation at 245th anniversary of our country, you know why.

End Your Programming Routine: All this writing today was suppose to help me correlate and reconcile all the craziness from last week. I do believe that it was crazier than normal and I suppose the cause was all of the pent up emotion from the previous year. I am going to leave it here.

July 6, 2021 – Didn’t Quite Make it Today

July 6, 2021 /

**Note that this was mostly written on Friday of last week. I didn’t quite finish it before the holiday weekend**

I read a couple of times this week, but the chapter 9 in 1984 was long and dense. I will save all the details for the next posting on the book save to say it is the explanation of ‘War is Peace’ and ‘Ignorance is Strength’. I wanted to get some of this down pat before I write about it.

We are burning to beat the band this week. So many activities are happening that we are jumping from one thing to the next. Every night has something through this week. Another thing that I have been trying to close the loop on is my employment status.

For the first time ever, I needed to provide some references to secure this job. I was also being hounded to get them turned around in one day. I asked three people and got three yeses. One of my references sent me a copy of what was written. I could not believe what was written. I have an excerpt below.

I was very flattered by the response. I know that there was some magic when I took over the role. I had created a very strong and highly performing team quickly by just empowering people to become their full potential. All they needed was to feel like they belonged and were valued, nudged to flex some muscle and do the right thing.

I am not totally sure if my reference wanted me to read this to sort of prove how this person valued our relationship or it was really under the guise of making sure the message made it through the system. I kind of think that it is the former rather than the latter.

I still have conversations with some of the people that I used to work with. In fact, one of them organized a reunion of sorts for a golf outing later this month. I have never really continued meaningful relationships with former co-workers. It must be unique if I am deviating from my typical personality.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose that it is self-evident that relationships should be maintained. I have provided a number of references for previous coworkers before. There is just something humbling about people going out of their way to give compliments. I am thankful that people are willing to speak their mind in such short order. It is why I believe that there is something to karma.