Page 110 of 138

June 25, 2021 – 1984 2:8

June 25, 2021 /

Before we get started, I am writing in anticipation of the hottest day ever recorded coming this weekend. It is supposed to be over 110 degF on Sunday. Current forecasts are between 111 and 113. So, while I am a little cold this morning setting at my computer at 67 degrees with shorts and sandals on, I know that the inferno is coming.

My feelings right now are probably a good metaphor for Winston’s situation in this chapter. This is the calm before the storm. We see Winston meet with Obrien and making his final commitments to his true beliefs. There isn’t a lot of transition between getting the invitation (last chapter) and the meeting where this chapter begins.

I find this chapter interesting but devoid of a lot of the heavy intellectual concepts that much of the book is full of. Part of what makes it interesting is that there are paradoxes that are not really well developed. For instance, Obrien lives and acts as a high party member but is supposedly a high level traitor who will disappear at any moment. I suppose that if you were to pin me down I could go with a couple.

Propaganda makes Enemy’s Friends and Friend’s Enemies- There has been a portrayal of the Eurasion race as sour, nasty and bleak. Now, it appears as Obrien’s servant Martin is an insider and confidant in the movement. Despite his lifelong training, Winston doesn’t react (much) to Martin being involved in the conversation. This is the perfect manifestation of political dichotomy today. Enemies are a far stronger tool to solidify an agenda and unite a faction. Once a faction is united, they are far easier to manipulate in the future.

Some Beliefs are Worth Sacrificing Your Life- As Obrien describes the process, it is portrayed as death is likely. It is also thankless and you will not see the results or know the strategy. This is a hard one to actually swallow as I have not been in this position. But, as I have written previously Winston realizes that there is no hope of the future. I can imagine that it is the final acceptance like the stages of death – acceptance.

I don’t want to reveal too much about the future of the book here but it seems like this could be a setup just as easily as it is Winston joining the rebellion. I am particularly wary of Obrien as it is hard for me to believe that he can be in the inner party and high level resistance at the same time. Corruption and politics are highly integrated, so I guess we will have to stay tuned to find out.

Another thing that I find interesting is that Julia has become a minor character in the book. I think that she was the vehicle to propel Winston into his thought position. It is clear that she has a role in his decisions and desired outcomes but really has had little interaction in the recent past including this chapter.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe my mind is already baked and I am missing the significance of this chapter. It answers some of the longstanding questions about the existence of Goldstein, the Brotherhood, etc. The next chapter is the longest one in the book so maybe this is a transition primarily.

I guess the advice here is that the decisions have been made there is nothing left to do but accept it. There have been times in my life that I have made a major decision and not completely sure that it was the right thing to do. But without recourse, all you can do is move forward.

June 24, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

June 24, 2021 /

There is no doubt that even in Oregon the Fourth of July is summer and will be here in a little over a week. Time is ticking and hunting season is rapidly approaching if you need to get into shape. I wish that I could say that I am taking advantage of the nice weather and just enjoy summer.

In just a few days we will be in the Portland area for the state Trap tournament. Apparently, if so inclined we are also invited to the national Trap tournament in Michigan in July. At this point, we got too little notice to plan on that one but this one will be a good first start.

Today I wanted to talk about youth and shooting sports. In my brief exposure, I have found a generous amount effort to make it happen. Here are some examples

  1. Friends of the NRA donated half a pallet of ammunition to our team. Remember that a box is 25 shells, a case is 10 boxes and half a pallet is 50 cases.
  2. Before we got the donated ammunition, I had another coach drive over 600 miles to get our team 15 cases of ammunition to buy. That was enough to make our season work.
  3. Oregon Hunter’s Association paid our team to draw raffle tickets. After it was done, one of the members bought every team member a box of ammunition
  4. We shot an ‘away’ match at another club. One of the club members that was also there paid the fee (for targets) for the entire day.
  5. One of our coaches was driving over 150 miles per practice to coach our team and then coach another team after we were done.
  6. Our team is shooting on a range that belongs to the Elks. The Elks have given carte blanche to use the range and all of the facilities at will.
  7. A target manufacturer has shipped a pallet of targets out of distribution for us to pick up at a local location at cost.

These are some of the examples of the efforts that others have made to enable this team to happen. That kind of generosity is astonishing to me, but that is the way it goes.

I am not totally naïve, there is a degree of self-service helping youth shooting sports. This can be a lifetime activity, so discounts and building positive memories can build a lifetime participants (customers). But, when I read the body language of those giving, I get the sense that the act is genuine.

Wish us luck. The forecast has the temperature over 100 degrees, this is our first organized tournament and we haven’t shot in over a month. But, these are the things that build memories.

End Your Programming Routine: If you have a youth or interest, consider looking into the shooting sports. The largest national program is through 4H. But almost always local ranges have knowledge of the different opportunities available and from there, you can get more information. From what I have seen, people are more than willing to go the extra mile to get you what you need.

June 23, 2021 – Is the US becoming North Korea?

June 23, 2021 /

I ran across this article the other day. I am a sucker for articles about North Korea because I like to see the type of shenanigans that are happening. But I never drew the conclusion that the same kind of tactics that North Korea uses are showing up here.

This is an article written about an North Korean defector that is now a student at Columbia. Her name is Yeonmi Park and has even written a book about the escape. This is definitely something I am interested in looking into.

Yeonmi has some quotes that are just spectacular.

“The people here are just dying to give their rights and power to the government. That is what scares me the most,” the human right activist said.  

She accused American higher education institutions of stripping people’s ability to think critically.

“In North Korea I literally believed that my Dear Leader [Kim Jong-un] was starving,” she recalled. “He’s the fattest guy – how can anyone believe that? And then somebody showed me a photo and said ‘Look at him, he’s the fattest guy. Other people are all thin.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, why did I not notice that he was fat?’ Because I never learned how to think critically.”

“That is what is happening in America,” she continued. “People see things but they’ve just completely lost the ability to think critically.”

For some reason, WordPress is limited to embedding media within certain sources. And Fox News is not one of them. I really encourage you to take a look at the entire piece if you are into the subject. I half expected to not find it two weeks later, but it is still there.

End Your Programming Routine: Make no mistake that I think Fox News is any more a beacon of liberty than CNN or MSNBC. Remember, it is the other side of the dichotomy so they work hand in hand with their counterparts in advancing the machine. However, this one is a gem.

June 22, 2021 – Slum Lord Tactics, Custom Paint Colors

June 22, 2021 /

This post may not be super revolutionary but it can get you out of a jamb or at least save some money. For me, I am typically paying $60-$100 a gallon. To top it off, getting rid of leftover paint is also a pain. In my state, every container is charged a recycling fee. That is supposed to cover the cost of returning leftover paint for recycling.

A quick word about recycling. There is a company in the state that picks up all of the paint that is returned. Everything is sorted, for instance exterior and interior and by color. Then like colors are grouped together and mixed and finally standardized into a basic color palette to be sold at a value price.

I have personally never used the paint, so I cannot really comment on the performance or quality. I would consider it for applications that do not have high performance applications like interior paint or outbuildings that you just want to get something on. There is a lot of science involved in paint and just combining different manufacturers could effect the integrity of the paint.

Back when I was a youth and working with my grandfather, we would occasionally gather all of the leftover paint and mix it together. Often times, it would come out as a brown or olive color (as exterior). Interior whites were a no brainer, you ended up with some shade of white that was unique but just fine.

When you have multiple buildings to maintain, a smarter tactic is to standardize on one color. Many times we did use the same color, but there were times when it was inconvenient to drive across town to buy paint or a tenant had a special request or we were given paint and other such random events. Consequently, we always had a mishmash of paint.

I talked about this subject last year on July 1, 2020 when I referenced the color ‘Pandemic Pink’. That was a mixture of a lot of my random exterior colors that came out pink. Today I am going to mix leftover interior paint for my sheetrock priming. My plan is to mix about 1/2 a quart of yellowish/orangish with about 1/2 a gallon of purplish gray with one gallon of PVA drywall sealer. I expect it will come out as a light brown.

Ultimately, I am going to paint over it with something whitish because I want as much light as possible in the room. I just haven’t totally decided yet because I want to minimize the inventory of leftover paint. I also want to minimize cost so I am weighing total cost versus future utility.

Additionally, I wont go as far as saying paint has a shelf life but in practical terms nothing lasts forever. What I have found is that the container fails before the the paint actually goes bad. The ammonia used to buffer the paint (water-based) rusts steel and causes pinholes to let air in and dry out the paint. My point is that if you are saving partials for eventual touch-up you may find that your partial is no longer paint some day when you open the container.

End Your Programming Routine: As I mentioned above, there is a lot of science to paint. I am going to end it here today and save getting more detailed into the qualities of paint later. If you have a bunch of paint that you no longer need or want and a project that needs some painting, consider recycling it yourself.

June 21, 2021 – The Weekend Hangover

June 21, 2021 /

It has been quite a while since I have had one. Of course a lot of it was the lack of having a weekend (or job). Then with all of the social restrictions over the last year we just didn’t get a chance to have one. We made up for it.

It was kind of a belated family gathering because we didn’t get together for Christmas. We all had different things going on and just couldn’t quite swing it to make it work. My sister was the one that suggested we get together for a trip and that is what we did.

We spent the weekend at the house my brother-in-law’s family has owned since the 1940s. It seems like this area is a well known secret as we only a mile or so from Bill Gates’ and the Nordstroms’ homes. This is the water of ultimately the Pacific Ocean, in Washington. My mind is blown. I could never imagine anything like this on the Oregon coastline.

We left Thursday as soon as the my kids got home from the last day of school, around 1:30p and got back Sunday night at 10:15p . I am in full on hangover as we still have to unpack from our trip and get ready for softball tonight.

End Your Programming Routine: Welcome to summer; this is how things have gone in recent years. There is a lot more coming. I am going to try and recover for a couple of hours.

June 18, 2021 – 1984 2:6-7

June 18, 2021 /

So this week I read two chapters…what? That is right, two; primarily because the first one was only three pages long and the second one was six pages. Since we are gone today I am writing this in a hurry without a lot of time to really analyze what I wanted to say. I have kept this one pretty close to the facts without wandering around too much.

It may not have been one of the more impactful analysis I have performed, but there are some pretty powerful quotes particularly in chapter 7. These two chapters work nicely together. Chapter 6 has Winston finally meeting O’brien and arranging a meetup. Chapter 7 is his thoughts about and the consequences of that meetup.

Be aware of the deliberate action- When O’brien met with Winston, it was the first time that they had ever spoken in earnest. O’brien’s deliberate actions of speaking and writing his address was described in a theatrical manner. The conversation was innocent enough and in line with all expectations but the circumstances were not. As a result, Winston is aware that this is the beginning of the end.

Winston suspects that taking this step of meeting O’brien is going to result in his demise. He also knows that he is going to do it. It seems that the only thing that is not entirely clear is what side O’brien is really on. The implications of such is the duration before Winston disappears.

“The terrible thing the party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world. When once you were in the grip of the Party, what you felt or did not feel, what you did or refrained from doing, made literally no difference.”

Talk about a powerful quote from chapter 7. This is the quintessential description of the left/right dichotomy. It doesn’t matter which side you choose, playing the game is a losing proposition because either choice lands you in the system of control. This transitions into the second concept of the post.

To simply live is to be dead- In multiple places in the chapter, Winston references freedom over life. He says that the ‘Proles are alive, we are dead’ and ‘the object is not to live but to be human’. There is a strong connection being drawn between personal choice and freedom. This is why Winston is getting the feeling that the end is near because he is making those connection and realizes that he will never have the choices.

There are many anecdotal supporting stories from refugee camps or soldiers in battle or drug addiction where the people are alive but the circumstantial trauma has them devoid of emotion. I suppose that is my way of trying to relate something other that the post apocalyptical world of 1984.

End Your Programming Routine: 1984 is turning out to be a complicated work that is more than a bastion of liberty. That being said, these two chapters play right back into the cautionary tale of totalitarianisms. As much as I am not an emotional person, emotion is essential to humanity and by proxy life, buying Orwell’s Kool-aid.

June 17, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

June 17, 2021 /

Regardless of how you think you feel about the National Rifle Association (NRA), it is largely influenced by what side of the political spectrum that you subscribe to, whether you are a gun owner and if you have actually looked into the mission. I am here to say that there is the NRA that you think you know and the NRA that is.

First and foremost, the stated mission of the NRA is to promote safe firearm usage. That means it has to be accessible, which means that it must be permissible (legal) and affordable (to the majority). By far and away, they are the preeminent training the trainer organization, host organized competition and perform civil rights and legislation advocacy.

With that power comes corruption. Over the last four years or so the foundation has been crumbling. Some speculate that the NRA’s serious legal problems impacted the presidential election as well as critical legislator races because they did not participate at all in 2020. Many industry insiders are speculating that the existence of the organization is in question and criminal indictments are a forgone conclusion. News about all this can be found by searching the internet if you like to look it up for yourself.

There is a common saying: ‘A right not exercised is a right lost’. When is the last time you thought about the ninth amendment? Oh, you mean the one that says if it is not written in the constitution then it belongs to the people? Well there is one that we have lost isn’t it? To be 100% clear, it has to work with the tenth amendment which says anything the federal government doesn’t address (in the Constitution) is permissible for the states to address.

There is the concept of enumeration which means that some rights transcend the federal/state border, like the first, forth and fifth amendments. Non-enumerated rights only apply to the federal government. The second amendment is on the edge of both sides right now. This is where the NRA has been so valuable and why it is important to all active gun owners what is happening with this situation.

I know that your eyes might be rolling but civil rights have to be part of the overall discussion of exercising your rights. Without the right, I am discussing history or something else in this segment. I will be completely honest, I have not renewed my membership to the NRA in the last two years because of the situation.

This is a fight for the existence of the the NRA. The problem is that they are using all of their funds not to fight for the second amendment but to justify all of the legal problems. From everything that I have heard, malfeasance and fiscal irresponsibility are the reasons that they are in legal problems to begin with. I don’t want to fund the legal effort, I want to support the second amendment.

This hasn’t completely played out. There has been some very good work from The Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee to Keep and Bear Arms. These have largely been in the court and not on the legislative and lobbying side. They don’t replace the role of the NRA in the space, they supplement and enhance it.

End Your Programming Routine: For now, there is no heir apparent or resolution to the NRA debacle. Supporting organizations doing good work is part of the overall effort for sure. My point for writing this was to bring up what is happening in this space which seems to be quiet if you are not paying attention. Consequently, I don’t really have any good advice for the situation but to stay tuned to the overall battle and the changing landscape.

June 16, 2021 – Greenhouse Experiment: Finally, Something Interesting

June 16, 2021 /

My greenhouse experiment is still ongoing. I have learned enough that there are definitely some changes that I want to implement. I will give a little rundown of what I have done over the years.

I remodeled my garden shed in 2017 mostly because it was rotting. The entire south side siding, framing and floor was in bad shape. I also wanted to move the door from the south side to the west side to take better advantage of the layout and make the most use of the space. Instead of replacing the siding. I wanted to change it to glass and make a greenhouse out of it. I compromised with my wife and instead of just replacing the bad framing, I bumped it out two feet as well (I cant find the pictures I took of that process now.)

In 2019, I built a potting bench and I have plans to build a growing shelf but haven’t got there yet. My first experiment was a lemon tree that I bought. It did live through the winter, but barely. By the time that I took it out last year the thing was on hospice care. I got probably 5 lemons off the tree but it clearly wasn’t happy.

There were two things that I learned from that. The first was that I don’t think it got all of the proper nutrients that it was suppose to have. But, the second an more important thing was that I don’t think that I watered the plant enough over the winter. When the sun comes out in the winter time, the temperature inside the greenhouse will get over 80 degrees. I think I only watered it two or three times over the course of the season. My bad.

Last year, when I tore out my garden beds (remember that I was supposed to move them to the front yard?). I saved a nice bell pepper plant that only gave me one pepper over the season. That was largely because I was in full remodel mode and didn’t give any of the plants the attention that they needed. They got in the ground very late, got overrun with weeds and didn’t get frequent watering. They were lucky that they didn’t get trampled with all of the activity.

Since Bell peppers can last for years if they don’t freeze, I thought that I would save it for this year. I learned from my lemon experiment and took some care of it. I watched the sun and opened the door when it was warm so it wouldn’t cook. I watered it at least once a week and sometimes once a day depending on how warm it was. I noticed that it was blooming a couple of weeks ago and now there are three small peppers coming on.

Despite the fact that I remodeled in 2017, there is some maintenance that needs to happen. I have had a tarp on the roof since last fall. I need to re-roof as the flashing ripped of in a strong wind and pulled up a bunch of shingles with it. A couple of the poly-carbonate roof panels are also broken (I don’t know how that happened).

As to the upgrades, I want to install a thermal fan that comes on so that I don’t have to open the door when the sun comes out. I also want to add a 400W solar setup so that I can have some lights, charge some tools and light electrical work. I added a gutter so that I could build a rain barrel, I would like to get that installed as well so that watering is more convenient.. I have also debated trying to build some thermal mass but so far getting too cold does not seem to be a problem.

End Your Programming Routine: Knowledge of food production is something that takes time. Your setup, habits and experience all play a role in how successful you will be with the process. Gardening is something that I have an interest in but it almost never is my first priority. If I am going to continue to delve into it, I need to make changes that make my life easier and more likely that I am going to succeed with it.

June 15, 2021 – Am I in a rut?

June 15, 2021 /

Trying to come up with new things to talk about in a meaningful way everyday is sometimes difficult. It is not necessarily that I don’t have ideas but I am weaving this endeavor into my day and it takes a level of prep to do good work. I need supporting photos and videos ready to go when I sit down to start writing.

Sometimes when I get ideas, I queue up article stubs and then when I am looking for something to write about I go to the well of things that I have already put some effort into. Sometimes I have the week entirely planned out before I start. Not this week.

A large part of the reason is that I am focused on the drywall finishing of my office. It is not something that you casually pick at. It requires blocks of hours at a time if I ever want to get this project finished. Another analog is like painting with a roller. Once you get paint on the roll, you are committed to going until you have to stop because it takes so much effort to clean a roller that it is not a casual start and stop process.

Hence, it feels like I have hit a rut here. Monday some sort of opinion, Tuesday is a project update, Wednesday is a grab bag, Thursday is Tacticool and Friday is the 1984 analysis. I am definitely planning on not keeping it this way, but it is convenient for the moment while I am pre-occupied.

This project has grown more refined since I started. Originally, I wasn’t going to finish the drywall. I also wasn’t going to cover the ceiling or the ductwork. One reason that I did it was that it is going to be dark in there and wanted as much reflective surface as possible. In terms of cost, It added may $30, it is more the time that it is going to take to finish the project. I am still on the fence about molding, The cost is again minimal but it is more time and time is something that is pulling at me.

End Your Programming Routine: I should probably set a date to toward and be finished. So, I will arbitrarily pick July 1 to be moved in. If I feel like it, then you probably do to. For now, I am going to power through and keep going.

June 14, 2021 – Never Quit, Unless You Want to be Happy

June 14, 2021 /

This was graduation weekend last weekend and my nephew got his bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice. I love graduation, I think it is the best feeling weekend of the year. There is so much hope, optimism and genuine happiness, particularly at the higher level. Most of the graduates are in their early twenties but if you look around there are many non-traditional students as well. Everyone is smiling and celebrating. And unlike high school, blood and treasure was expended to get this degree; it was earned.

Since he lived with us from eighth grade through high school, this was close to a child graduating. Normally, I don’t write about other people but I will make an exception today for the graduation speech that should be given. For simplicity sake, I am going to use his first name, Isaac.

Obviously, if he ended up living with us then not everything was as good as it should have been. He had the dream and capability but he needed the structure and support to reach full potential. He dreamed of helping people when he entered the world and to him it was becoming a police officer.

During the course of studying criminal justice, Isaac enrolled in the cadet program with a local police department. In the program, cadets perform auxiliary support for events like crowd control and get exposed to the life. It also puts them on a list to be hired if an opening appears and builds the resume with practical experience. So, it is a good step in goal setting and achieving the dream.

Somewhere along the way in the last year, dreams change. Isaac moved into the our little house in the back that I remodeled last year with his girlfriend of several years. Early in the calendar year, he decided that he wanted to go into a different direction and work in the social services area, not being a police officer. So, he quit in a sense.

Now, we are going to slight shift. I am pretty open minded but I try to stay arms length at other’s relationships until I know that it is going to progress into permanency. It looked like this one was going to but there were some things not quite right. You have to understand that when someone lives in your backyard, I notice a lot. And, it is not because I am watching and waiting, but I see the body language and the coming and going.

For instance, they didn’t appear to have anything in common. She had friends but they were not really his. They didn’t really do anything together, some of that was circumstantial because of school being a priority. There was a vibe that this was progressing seriously but couldn’t sustainably. I will make a long story short in that they broke up right before graduation.

The graduation party that we held this last weekend had some unspoken temperance and somberness to it. It didn’t have the unbridled exuberance that it should have had because of course, emotion was raw. When a life is built on one premise and that suddenly changes so do the dynamics. Finally, to my point.

There is a saying “When is the best time to plant a tree”? The answer is ten years ago and the next best time is today. When you quit a relationship that isn’t working or a career path that doesn’t fulfill, you are free to pursue one that does. And, ultimately isn’t that the path to true happiness?

Failing and quitting are not quite the same thing. Failing is in the act of whereas as quitting is in spite of. Our culture does hold those two things in different regards. One might be celebrated while the other might be admonished. We have all heard ‘Quitters never prosper’ but is that really true? What are they quitting? Is is toxic or soul crushing, it it preventing true happiness?

While the timing was less than ideal, we are planting a tree here. Isaac being in his early twenties is a good enough time to get started. Life is transitioning in the biggest way possible at this time. This is when he is truly moving out and up.

End Your Programming Routine: I want to say that quitters will prosper if they are looking for a better replacement or at least trying something out. There is no way to know if a career path is a good fit without trying it. If you pursue things because of sunk cost fallacy or to please someone else then you risk being miserable in the process.

We always have a choice. It may be that the cost is deep and the effort is high but that is not no choice. There is a smart way to quit, so don’t be stupid. Ask for help and support. Have a rough idea of a transition plan and hope for the best. After all, this is your life at stake.