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May 5, 2021- Feliz Cinco De Mayo

May 5, 2021 /

This is one of those days that has changed in my lifetime. I suppose that with the rise of Latino culture in my area, there has become more awareness of the culture in general. I would equate it more to Saint Patrick’s Day where people are enjoying something that they have no idea what it is about.

Ask a typical American what is Cinco de Mayo and there is a good chance they are going to say Mexican Independence Day which is wrong. Mexican independence is September 16 Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of a victory against the French at Puebla in 1962. Huh, so what so important about that? Good question, not a lot. My wife who has lived in Mexico says that it really isn’t acknowledged as a holiday.

You can read all about it if you like, but now that you know the truth what are you going to do? I say enjoy it. I love Mexican food and the weather is (often) nice. Crack a cold one or two and start to get educated the real history.

Now that I have given permission to enjoy, let’s get serious. Mexican food is way (and I mean way) more diverse than tacos and Coronas. Just like the United States, Mexico is an infusion of culture primarily German, French, Spanish and native. For instance, my favorite Mexican beer is Dos Equis Amber which is an example of a Vienna style lager. In fact, all of the ‘brown’ beers like Negro Modelo are take-offs of the Vienna style lager. We all know about the Margarita (lime and tequila) but what about the Paloma which is grapefruit juice and tequila?

I am going to transition from drinks to food now but I was trying to give some recognizable difference to show what is under the surface but probably not known. So, food… who doesn’t love nachos? But what we think of as Mexican food is colored by a number of factors. First let’s start at a high level history of the food.

The basis of the food is the indigenous base. That means that it is different depending on the location. For instance, food is different in the southern region than it is in the northern and the inner regions differ from the coast. Because of the long history of different indigenous cultures, every state (in Mexco) often has variation of the same dish. It had to do with the spices and raw ingredients available. To the tortilla, wheat is from the north and corn is the most ubiquitous. It is also why I consider pairing wheat with beef but more often corn with everything else.

You take the base (or real) Mexican food and you start mixing food from other countries like France and you end up with very intricate and refined food. Sauces such as mole are extremely complicated and rich in flavor. Don’t be fooled with the restaurant mole, this can be highly refined and delicious. I would submit that Mexican food can be fine dining and held up against anything else in the world or dressed down to street food.

As food and culture migrate, so does the interpretation. Frequently what we see as ‘Mexican’ food has been coopted into Tex-Mex and American tastes. It is kind of like when I had a hamburger or pizza in China, close but not right. Our typical rice, beans, entrée plate has become what is synonymous with Mexican food but it runs much deeper than that.

End Your Programming Routine: Enjoy Cinco de Mayo. I haven’t decided what is for dinner yet, but it is either going to be ceviche (not originally Mexican but already made) or some fresh made chorizo (Spanish origin) I bought yesterday. Take the time to be educated in history and culture so that you make your celebration about the right things like just having fun rather than thinking you are some culturally sensitive, woke dumbass.

May 4, 2021- Libraries as a Resource

May 4, 2021 /

I grew up in and around the library. My earliest memory was the ‘Bookmobile’ arriving in the neighborhood and going inside the and seeing all of the books. It looked something like this.

Later we moved into the country and away from the typical services of the day like cable TV. But free entertainment was always in order so weekly, we would go to the library to check out books and participate in the periodic reading programs. Our closest library was integrated into the middle school and so I could check out books while at school. I would say that I probably averaged a book a week for years.

As I got more busy in life, reading changed a little for me. I don’t spend hours on the weekend reading. I switched my tactics from checking out books to buying books so that I wasn’t constrained by a due date and the urgency to finish. In the last five years of so, the library has crept back in to my life.

My kids were taking karate for a few years and the library was right across the street. I would go in and kill an hour by scanning through the periodicals of interest. After they lost interest in karate, I started sneaking in to get free seeds and I found the annual reading challenge. I started reading for pleasure again.

I suppose the question is why the Library? First of all, Benjamin Franklin established one of the first libraries in this country. Of course, I want to be like him. But more seriously, there are a couple of benefits that I will mention that I use.

  1. We are already paying for it with our taxes, be it county or city or region.
  2. It is eco friendly. I try to ask myself ‘Will I ever use this again once I read it’? The answer is almost always no. I also try to buy used whenever possible as well because the last person probably only read it once as well.
  3. I like to scan through magazines that if I bought, I would feel more obligated to read. At the library, I have no commitment.
  4. On magazines, there are a lot of titles that I enjoy, but it doesn’t make sense to have 20 subscriptions.
  5. They have movies and music on disk. Titles that are ten years old are in the sweet spot of hard to find streaming.
  6. I can get a whole garden’s worth of seeds (free). I can also get seeds when they are gone from the stores. Starting my fall garden, I can get things that I didnt plan for in the spring.
  7. Friends of the Library sell used books for a dollar. I have picked up cookbooks that I am interested in, like Rick Bayless for cheap.
  8. They have great summer programs for kids, especially the real young ones like 2-4 year range.
  9. If you are willing to wait, the internetwork of libraries have a lot more titles available then what is in the local libraries and will ship to your local library for pickup.
  10. Internet access, printing and copying are available.

I think I could come up with at least five more, but I will leave it at that. I suppose the best reason to do it is that I enjoy it and that is the best reason of them all.

Change Your Programming Routine: In a world with so many choices of entertainment and knowledge, the Library may seem passé. Sometimes you can get to the information faster than waiting for shipping or more in depth than an internet article. Don’t overlook the library as a resource.

May 3, 2021- New Feature: End Your Programming

May 3, 2021 /

Last week I was listening to a podcast about ‘how easy it is to build a digital brand’. A quick aside here, there is a difference between easy and simple. Digging a 4 x 4 x 4 foot hole is technically simple even with a shovel, but it requires a lot of digging which is hard work. At least for me, I equate easy with not a lot of hard work. It is a bit of a stretch for someone that has been doing it for over 10 years that it is either easy or simple.

I haven’t found this endeavor easy or simple. The technical parts are pretty easy, not simple (for me). The discipline to post routinely is simple but not always easy. The actual brand building is neither. If it takes what I think it takes, I will probably never be successful because I don’t want to engage at the appropriate level. I have tried social media and I don’t really like it. I don’t want to be glued to my phone, I don’t want to be posting cute or snarky comments day after day. I don’t even want to login and scan the posts routinely, I find them boorish and trite for the most part.

However, this is not going to be about all of that other than one particular aspect of building a brand. A tagline, preferably quick, easy to remember and relevant. I was thinking to myself, I already have a tagline but I don’t leverage it at all. I never mention the phrase ‘End Your Programming’. I never correlate what I am saying to how that relates.

‘End your programming’ was something that was personal to me. Yes, there is a backstory and it is more intricate than it might appear on the surface. I write a little bit about it in the About section of this site, but it is more than that. I was the one that wanted to end my programming. I wanted out of the rat race. I had become something that I didn’t want to be. I felt trapped in a high paying career that owned me. I went from running my business unit with full reign and contentedness to having to report daily to someone else and executing their new vision.

It wasn’t that I was not successful before, I was wildly successful. I transformed a business unit from underperforming at best to a team operating at the highest level of the company. My team saved jobs and relationships that my company had bailed out on. I did it with very unorthodox techniques and people that didn’t fit in anywhere else. I was so successful that the company brought in consultants to leverage what I had built and take us to the next level by providing managed services. In the process, they trampled on what made it work and the people in the way. I am planning on talking more about this later because I want to give it the proper focus it deserves.

So, how does this relate to the new feature and what is it? The new feature is the ‘End Your Programming Routine’. A little play on programming but essentially, it is taking the information for the day and putting it into practice. As I wrote about last Monday, I need to find a way to relate my writing or videos or podcasts or whatever I do with this into actionable things people can do to end their own programming. Each day, at the end of the post I plan on creating a segment to apply the topic or at least make suggestions as to the relevance. It is doubtful that this is the secret sauce to success but I hope that it that it changes this from seemingly random topics to something more helpful.

End Your Programming Routine: I like to think that I am self-reflective. I would suggest that continued personal growth is driven by evaluating the things that are important to you. Don’t be afraid to admit when something needs to change to be better or more productive.

April 30, 2021 -1984 1:8

April 30, 2021 /

The road to hell is paved with good intentions… is that how the saying goes? Anyway, I read this chapter three weeks ago with the intent on writing about it immediately. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out that way.

This was one of the longer chapters in the book to date. Despite the length, it is also one of the lighter chapters in terms of heavy hitting content. This chapter has Winston out and about in the ‘forbidden’ world. The sights are the everyday life of the Proles; from the constant danger of errant explosions to the daily routine of the pub. As Winston said, it is not expressly prohibited to walk amongst the Proles, but highly suspicious.

History is Grounding- Let it be said that history is an interpretation of the facts from the perspective of the person writing it. It is no different than today’s news or this blog. That means that there is an inherent bias but that is not really important. Just like adopted people search for their real parents or siblings, there is something to knowing where you came from. It gives us perspective on why we are who we are, why we look and act the way that we do. Once we can reconcile our history to our current position, there is a certain inner peace.

Tokens Complete Our Picture- Trinkets sometimes bridge the gap between our history and the present. In the case of Winston, he become infatuated with a glass ball. His speculation was that it was paper weight but regardless, Winston was infatuated with it. So much so, that he would risk his safety to buy it and take it home. We all have those items that usually have sentimental value or for some reason we are drawn to it. Fortunately, in most cases we are not risking our lives to hold on to such things.

This is the final setup into Winston’s life changing decisions. Using the English term it is foreshadowing. The urgency to discover the historical truth has been growing in frequency and importance over the last couple of chapters. I tried to relate the role of history to our understanding above. The fundamental questions of Who are we, How did we get here, What are we supposed to be doing require context to satisfactorily answer.

I am developing a different opinion of this book than I had after the first time I read it. My plan is cover that more in-depth at the end when I summarize all of these entries in the final closure. When you look at the book from different perspectives, it may be this chapter is more important depending on the lense the reader is viewing the story.

April 29, 2021- ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

April 29, 2021 /

Today is going to be a serious topic. This one was supposed to follow the April Fools podcast but you know, stuff got in the way. Today we are going to talk about firearm safety.

I the firearm circles, anytime a firearm accident occurs, the term usually used is ‘negligent discharge’. The reason it is negligent is because one of the primary rules of gun safety has to be violated in order for it to occur in the first place.

Various organizations have three to ten rules that essentially represent the same principals. I will write the version that I use below.

  1. Treat every firearm as it is loaded all the time
  2. Never point the barrel at something you are not willing to shoot
  3. Know what is behind your target
  4. Keep your finger off of the trigger until ready to shoot

https://www.military.com/video/guns/gunfire/firearm-negligence/1676955087001 I tried to get this to work as an embed, clearly I need to spend some more time trying to figure out the actual code to do it as it wouldn’t natively convert. But this is a short video on some examples of stuff that can happen.

I once had a negligent discharge and fortunately there was no serious consequences. It was definitely a life altering experience and made me completely re-evaluate safety and my approach. So what happened?

I once owned a pistol and periodically the trigger did not reset when I was shooting. The first time it occurred, I pulled the trigger back for a second shot and no action. I was messing around with the firearm trying to figure out what was wrong while it was still loaded and cocked and the gun fired in the air. In that case, I violated rules one, three and four and arguably all of them.

If you are around gun culture long enough, most people have a similar story. I know for me, it made me take safety much more seriously. If that were to happen now I would stop, unload and then try to figure out the problem. Most accidents occur because of carelessness or ignorance. In my case, I would say both were true.

I am so thankful that I was lucky the pistol was pointed in a safe direction for me. I cant say that I know what was behind my target but I was in the woods so the probability was extremely small. That could have easily been deadly because I was seriously not paying attention to the risks. It is one of the reasons that I advocate for a ‘Range Safety Officer’ with even informal settings because they can intervene when not everyone is paying attention.

In case you are wondering, I don’t own that pistol anymore because I couldn’t trust it to fire reliably.

April 28, 2021- Floor is done, can I afford the rest?

April 28, 2021 /

I am not going to go on about the cost of materials. I will say that plywood has gone up 20% in the last month; other building materials as well. I found a good deal at the local ‘discount’ building materials location. This is 3/4″ MDO overlay plywood. It couldn’t be more perfect for my application since I am not planning on putting a finished floor, I am running out of headroom.

I have a few things I can do before buying materials again but my next major move is to buy framing lumber. I can start prepping my door for painting and cutting to size. I am also planning on removing the insulation around the duct work in favor of a more attractive solution like rigid foam. I can also start working on the rough wiring as well.

Today is going to be quick with some pictures of progress. I am moving slowly because I am trying to buy materials as I need them. I am also spending one to two hours a day working on the project, as soon as work ends usually.

April 27, 2021- Beer Can Science

April 27, 2021 /

Today we have some science you can get in to. My wife recently purchased the Brumate can cooler. The nice thing about this product is that it can hold either a 12oz or 16oz can. She already had the Yeti and we know that it works pretty well.

My problem is that I never have a drink that sits around long enough to get warm, but that is OK because we are doing this for science. How did they work? The initial check was straight out of the refrigerator.

Immediately, the uninsulated can was 45 degrees while the other two were 43 degrees F. After thirty minutes, the temperature was measured again.

This time, the uninsulated can was 49, the Yeti was still 43 and the Brumate was 46 degreed F. Clearly the Yeti was the winner of this quick test.

There are a few discussion points with my ‘science’. The first being why was the uninsulated can warmer than the other two? Could it be that it initially started out warmer and that not everything was in equilibrium in the refrigerator? That was a point that was not controlled or measured.

Second, what makes the Yeti better? I am not totally sure, but in order to allow the Brumate to hold both 12oz and 16oz cans there is a spacer that is inserted into the vessel. The spacer is filled with water and during this test the spacer was at room temperature. Therefore, there is a warmer mass inside the vessel potentially causing the can to warm faster. To be fair, I read on the website this morning that spacer can be frozen, which may make it perform the same or better over a longer duration.

The science is not settled, but the results were enjoyable. A Prost!

April 26, 2021- Good Things to Come

April 26, 2021 /

After a brief hiatus, I am trying to piece time together where I can. I am working more than full time, and my wife was gone over half of last week. In addition, I am trying to build an office so I can keep my feet warm while I work on this project (not to mention work). I had to spend a number of hours this last weekend gathering tax information as well as working but I cleared some of the fog out to come up with some ideas that I want to get out there.

I can feel some of my determination slipping. It is hard to work all day in front of a computer and then dedicate another hour or more to do this. My mental clarity starts to wane as I get into early afternoon and I want to do something physical after work.

An interesting thing happened yesterday. I was watching the piano player play at Worship and I was thinking about how much it appears that he enjoys playing the piano. My mind wandered a bit and I was thinking about how someone turns passion into a career. I was thinking about the local high school drama teacher and how he plays piano and sings and so forth. Since a career in music is a tough go, people that have a particular interest that career field find outlets that may be paying (or not) an related pursuit. At the very least, performing weekly is that sort of outlet.

For me, some of my passions could be money making while others seem to be money burning. But, it shook me back to looking for a way to convert my interests into a career. I have been so focused on making a good impression in my new job and focusing on everything that goes along with that that I forgot where I want to go. Don’t get me wrong, this job is fine but in my heart of hearts I wouldn’t be doing it if I had another option.

It sort of goes hand in hand with this week’s message; focusing on pleasing people instead of pleasing the Lord. I hope that I am right that I think our individual purpose will go hand in hand with God’s will. I believe that it is a test in keeping the mind and ears open. From what I have seen, when people find their purpose, they are happy and at peace with all that entails. Maybe I need to find my outlets outside of work and change my outlook or maybe I need to keep trying? I don’t know. But that stemmed a bunch of new ideas here, so stay tuned.

April 13, 2021- Tuesday Quickie

April 13, 2021 /

Today I am had some technical as well as time issues. I ran across a couple of interesting articles that might be fun and maybe interesting.

This article compares the risk of sanitizer versus the catching Covid. https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/another-covid-myth-dies-death

And, this article makes an argument that drinking a bottle of wine a day may not be that bad for you.

Is Drinking a Bottle of Wine a Day Bad for You?

Finally, I am making a little progress on my project.

April 12, 2021- The Great House Controversy

April 12, 2021 /

I have talked about my home some over the years. But, I don’t think that I have talked about the controversy. Within the county, the date built is listed as 1893. However, talking with a previous home owner it was his belief that it was built in 1873. The theory to the age discrepancy was that was when the first record was recorded with the county. It was his belief that this house was the original structure on the NE corner of the city and that all of the lumber was milled from the site. There is an older house on the block (1846) but it was moved from a different location in the city I was told.

What I do know is that this house has been extensively remodeled and almost none of the original detail remains. Both the exterior and the interior have been removed and replaced. The major model occurred in the late 70s. The original lap was replaced with T111, the windows were replaced, the plaster was removed, knob and tube wire was replaced with Romex and insulation was put in the walls. All changes that improved the livability and moved this house into the next century.

In 2016, we needed to paint the house. There was some rot in existing T111 and today’s building practice (and code) would not allow for replacement so we chose to add Hardi-plank on top of the T111. Subsequently, people started coming out of the woodwork that had a history with this house. We heard it was a boarding house in the 1950s and college apartments in the 1960-70s. One of them was the previous homeowner who brought us a whole stack of photos from before, during and after the remodel in the 1970s.

Because of the photos, I can see that the house is balloon framed. That is where the structural members span from ground to roof. That was a common practice late 1800s. There are two reasons why that practice has fallen out of favor. One is the quality of lumber is not the same as it was one hundred years ago. The second and bigger reason is that in case of fire, there is nothing (what is called blocking) to prevent the fire to spread between floors at a rapid rate.

Another potential clue I have seen is that the framing lumber is true to dimension and often rough sawn. Rough sawn means that it came from the mill without running through a planer. But, true to dimension is a bigger clue. I ran across this document while I was doing some quick research on the subject about the history of the lumber industry. It appears that lumber standards were adopted in 1902 for the west coast. Interesting, but not helpful if trying to figure out the year built before the standard or even milled on site.

I am still looking for the smoking gun. One thing I found while cleaning up under the house was this ‘Halls Catarrh Cure’ bottle. It definitely has an interesting story, if you are interested. My research indicated that it was from the was the 1890s period, but still not conclusive.

Maybe the best piece of evidence I have to date is this floor covering scrap. When we removed the carpet for my wife’s office space last fall, it exposed a jute backed linoleum.

I forgot that I took this picture until yesterday when I was chatting with my son about what I was going to do for a floor in the new office. He was telling me that a local lady was giving away used linoleum and I was trying to understand what he was saying. Strangely enough, I realized that we didn’t have any linoleum in our house and neither do a lot of people we know currently. Again, this is not conclusive, however I do believe that I could date the pattern, it would be a more solid indicator of age.

Finally, the county historical society does have a collection of photos. I have casually looked and have not found a photo of my particular house. I do believe that I can make an appointment and dig in more seriously, but I haven’t prioritized it over the other many other things I have to do. It might be as simple as just asking the question and having one of the curators point me in the right direction.

And so the controversy continues. Will it ever be resolved? Who knows, but I enjoy finding little things like this.