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February 18, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

February 18, 2021 /

My official transformation has begun, and no it’s not becoming a woman. I officially left my last day at Amazon on Monday and I started my first day at my new job yesterday. Things haven’t gone entirely smoothly or at least the way that I expected. The recent weather has thrown a monkey wrench into delivery services like Amazon and Fed-Ex to name a few.

I have been waiting for my computer to get started since Friday of last week. The tracking site has literally not change in over a week. So, in lieu of working right now I am am going to shift my day later and work later. That means I can do this right now.

Today, I was thinking about carrying my stuff around. I was thinking about this as I unpacked my work pack and put all my stuff away that I was using while I was a delivery driver. Some things went back to where they were before I was a delivery driver. Some things were specifically for that job and I am not sure if I will ever use them again and trying to figure out how to move on.

The backpack on the left I use to hold my computer. It was company swag. I switched over from a Swiss Army Pack because I thought that it was the right thing to do, showing the colors with the logo. My Swiss Army pack was quickly repurposed by my nephew who needed a new backpack and gone forever. I went along with this pack for probably three years at work.

Let me say, I hated it from the day I switched. The divider arrangements, the overall capacity (volume), the depth of the zipper opening all were not adequate. It was fine for light use and carrying a computer around, but not for carry-on travel or everyday carry (EDC). On some business trips, my backpack would be the only luggage I would take and I didn’t have the room for a book plus toiletries plus a change of clothes.

When I started working at Amazon, I said “I hate this bag but I can make it work because I don’t need to spend extra money right now”. And it is true, there is a bit of first world syndrome in my thinking. I got my lunch and water bottle and raincoat in there. But I could never get out what I wanted without pulling everything out. It was crammed and difficult to close. When I wanted to clock out, I had to carefully repack everything and squeeze. I couldn’t just stuff and dash to get home.

I started immediately dreaming about what I would want in a daypack. I wanted outside water bottle access, a sunglasses pocket, full access to the inside, one small item organizer compartment and no waist belt. I also didn’t want a huge logo or at least a globally recognized brand. Nothing says tourist or maybe this bag is full of cash like when the entire back says Oakley on it. When I was in China, I had a Dell backpack and I always felt self-conscious like that just added a little extra target on me.

I thought about life after Amazon and how I might use a new pack. Infrequent day trips or family vacations would be the primary mission in the future. I looked at very ‘Tacticool’ packs with concealed carry pockets and gear loops and things. But, I wanted to be the gray man, plus I don’t think that is the best way to carry anyway.

Another thing I have learned is that everything is a compromise. More pockets generally mean less space because everything still has to fit in the same overall volume. Once the bag becomes segmented, it restricts the amount of gear in each pocket in order to retain the integrity or function of the particular pocket. For example, either exterior water bottle takes from interior space for rigidity or it relies on some sort of elastic material to keep the bottle restrained. The latter design ultimately doesn’t hold up to hard use because the elastic stretches out of shape and then your water bottle starts falling out. My hunting pack has that problem.

One last consideration, it is fairly difficult to find a ‘Jack of All Trades’ bag. The hunting bags are camouflaged, the computer bags are made for pens and computers and tablets, the hiking bags are made for overnight trips, the school bags are made for textbooks and such. Stores that are oriented towards particular markets carry items that are oriented toward their customers and market. Online is the best option for model and color.

I found some packs that I almost bought that I would have gotten near lifetime use. Mystery Ranch was my top pick but it was $200 everywhere I looked. If I am going to spend that kind of money, I really want to see what I am buying because it is difficult to visualize the difference between the 24L and the 28L and the 32L sizes. I had some second choices with Patagonia and The North Face, but everything was above $150 that met most of my requirements.

I was very frustrated with my computer bag. After looking at REI and other outdoor stores on the more high end side I went to the discount store Sierra Trading Post and I found this Thule bag for $70. It met most of my requirements, so I bought it. It is 28L and has one compartment. It is sleek and doesn’t have a lot of straps and things to get hung up. It had a removable waist belt and it held all of my stuff I wanted when I was on the road.

It did not have an organizer compartment. But, I have a Maxpedition ‘NeatFreak’ organizer that I carried inside of the bag. I could put my pens, spare batteries, tire gauge, charging cables, etc into the organizer. Again, everything is a compromise and those things take up space too. But, once I switched over I felt immediately better. Getting to my lunch didn’t require a complete un-pack. I could grab my water bottle on the road. I had cold weather and wet weather gear with me at all times.

One thing I have been guilty in the past has been ‘make due’ attitude. Many times, that is to my advantage (from a financial standpoint at least) but sometimes it is not. I quickly bought quality footwear and then changed my bag and added a few things to make my life better while I was delivering packages. I can confidently say that it was a good decision because then I could focus on doing the work rather than the other perceived distractions.

Admittedly, this was a want more than a need. Consider how mood and attitude effects productivity and outside work activity. I think that it is worth evaluating your situation and making changes that could be relatively inexpensive for those ‘quality of life’ scenarios. Items like quality cookware, a comfortable bed or pillow or items used in your profession for safety and comfort can turn a miserable day into just another day.

February 17, 2021 – 1984 1:2

February 17, 2021 /

Chapter two of the first section builds on the first chapter. It peels back a little more of what life is like with a neighborly interaction and the struggles of rationing and substandard infrastructure. What’s more, a few concepts are further developed.

Propaganda- Once again, the slogans “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” are brought up. We learn that these slogans are ubiquitous are found on money, posters, tax stamps, etc. The use of propaganda is to unite the population on simple slogans. It might remind us of “Make America Great Again” or “Yes, We Can”.

Indoctrination- begins at a very young age. There are the Spies and the Youth League which seem to be these Cub Scout/Boy Scout analogs of kids organizations training into the system. The focus is on activities relating to eventual military or government service such as physical fitness and hard skills like bushcraft. There is reference to kids turning the parents into the “Thought Police” which is some organization for eradicating non-conformist thinking.

Scarcity- Another control mechanism to manipulate the population. From what I can gather throughout the book, the situation is real. By controlling diet, heat, living conditions and even pleasures Big Brother can exert some constant level of control. They can also use situational change to effect the citizens perception of reality. In essence, no one believes anything because everything is wrong making it difficult to know if something is really true.

This is a short chapter I feel to support that home life is as dire as work life was in chapter one. Minor character development paints similar interactions regardless of the circumstances or locations. Things don’t look to good for Winston as he is having wandering thoughts and treasonous writing.

February 16, 2021 – Lessons from a Winter Storm

February 16, 2021 /

It has been a long time since I talked about preparedness. We had a major storm roll through last Thursday and still feeling the effects on Tuesday. It really wasn’t too bad in my local area, we had probably 1/4″ of ice twice from freezing rain on Thursday night and Friday night. But the effects have been devastating around the region.

Of course, as an Amazon driver I was at the tip of the spear for trying to get life back to normal. On Sunday, I was sent to the hardest hit area of our delivery territory to try and deliver packages. I saw power poles broken off with lines across the road, many crushed cars, trees and limbs blocking state highways and cellular service was near zero.

First, I have to say that I have lived in my house for over sixteen years and have never seen a power outage more than a blip in that time. I can count the number of times we have have a blip on my hand. So, the electrical service is pretty reliable from that standpoint. We had an outage that lasted from 5AM-3PM Saturday. Other areas that I was delivering to yesterday were expecting to get service restored on Thursday, a full week after the event began. Those were the areas that were accessible.

People were generally cold and tired but in good spirits. There were neighbors helping clean up. People used their own resources to flag downed lines, danger areas and clear roads. Everywhere I heard chainsaws and generators. Brush, limbs and lines littered the roads and right of ways. Now that I have set the scene, I really wanted to talk about the lessons from the storm.

  • Leave refrigerators and freezers closed. A deep freeze can remain cold enough for several days with no power as long as the door is not opened. I would advise not to open it for any reason if you suspect that an outage will last more than several hours.
  • Keep your freezers full. The more mass that is inside the unit increases the time to thaw significantly. If your freezer is not full, fill old containers with water to add. You can always use the ice as block ice later as a secondary benefit.
  • If you don’t have the money to buy a generator, start with an inverter. One 800 watt inverter is enough to power one refrigerator or freezer and can be found for as low as $50. Then you can use your vehicle to power the inverter and in turn keep your investment safe. Freezers only need to powered for a few hours a day to stay frozen. One more thing, appliances draw more energy when they start so a refrigerator may only use 3 amps but may need up to 7 amps to start. For those of you non-science types Ohms law is Watts = Volts x Amps; 800 = 120 * 6.66
  • Don’t forget to have extension cords that can reach from your vehicle or generator to the device that you want to power. For power hungry appliances, thicker cords are better. There is a power drop over every cord so the inexpensive 16ga cords have a maximum wattage that they can power (something like 1000 watts).
  • If you are having an ice storm you can use the ice to put in a cooler and move the refrigerator contents if necessary. Ice is a much more efficient way of keeping those items cold that doesn’t require additional electricity. From an energy consumption standpoint, making ice is more efficient than trying to keep a refrigerator running, regardless of the method.
  • I live in an all electric house. I do have camping equipment and a kerosene heater for the shop. Do have a carbon monoxide detector that works on batteries. I brought in my detector to use in the house as we started a fire and cooked breakfast on the camp stove.
  • I never got to the point of starting the heater as the fireplace warmed the living area enough, but have fuel for heat and cooking. You need wood to burn, if you have wood burning appliances. You need propane or kerosene for heaters and stoves. That stuff can go fast. My 20000 btu heater will burn through 2.5 gallons of kerosene in about 40 hours. It heats up my 16×20 space nicely during that time but it’s only going to be effective in a room.
  • When the real work needs to get done, a gas powered chainsaw beats a battery powered saw hands down. Battery saws are great for day to day pruning, but underpowered compared to gas and when the power is out, you cannot charge your batteries (at least not without a generator, inverter or solar). That is not a great justification to own a tool that you rarely use but sharing or bartering with a neighbor might be in order. Don’t forget fuel for that either.
  • We never got to the point where we needed much lighting but have flashlights, lanterns and batteries. Headlamps are good for task lighting, lanterns are good for area light and handheld flashlights are good for carrying around. I also have lights that use my rechargeable tool batteries that mostly get used for job type work. But they are convenient, powerful and long lasting as well as share batteries with other tools. With LED, battery powered lights are some of the most efficient use of power conversion there is.
  • When the power is out, so are the Point of Sale (POS) and ATMs. Even though businesses may be running on generator power, it can often be a cash only proposition. Have cash on hand with change if possible to get those things that you really need.
  • Cell communications continue to be spotty. Carriers have different levels of service and towers are in different states of operation. The best service seems to be around major traffic corridors, which were also the clearest to drive. I cant speak to land lines however but our internet was down and by far and away it seemed like the biggest losers were the cable TV connections.
  • Stay home if you can. I am not one to be squeamish about much but I thought that it was kind of ridiculous trying to deliver packages when you cant drive on the roads or even use the software to deliver. I had to run over countless downed lines (that I didn’t see until it was too late) and maneuver around road hazards only to be turned around by a roadblock. Road updates were close to nil as data service was down everywhere. Unless you are part of the solution, you are part of the problem in the cleanup and restoration effort.

These are some of my thoughts and tips around my experience. Hopefully we will all be prepared better for a next time.

February 11, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

February 11, 2021 /

If anything is constant, it is change. My routine is going to get more consistent in the next week. That is because my schedule is going to be predictable; Monday-Friday. It is going to be a little unique in that I will be working Central Time. But that is OK because I will be working 6AM-3PM, I have always preferred to start and finish early.

It also means that I will be shifting my writing time from the morning to the evening because I doubt that I am going to want to do too much that early in the morning. But, in the mean time, I am going to launch into another project. This project will be to build an office.

When I was last employed, I always worked at the dining table. I worked infrequently from home, it was the couple of snow days a year, the days when the car was in the shop or there was some kind of appointment mid-day and it didn’t make sense to do a lot of driving back and forth. My new job is 100% remote (for the foreseeable future) and everyone is home, it makes sense to have a dedicated space.

The location is less than ideal. It will be in my sometimes wet basement and is superseding the space that holds my fishing rods, firearms, shooting supplies, tackle boxes, frame packs etc. Which means that stuff needs to find a new home. On the bright side, I hope that I can make a podcasting setup, integrate some more secure storage and will be comfortable with heat and adequate lighting.

This is also a priority for me. It means that I am going to put dedicated effort and time into finishing it as soon as possible. Reading between the lines, it means that I am going to prioritize that work over writing for the duration of the project. My guess is that it is going to take at least a month to finish on nights and weekends.

Since this is ‘Tacticool’ Thursday, lets take a minute and fanaticize that I am building a “safe room” rather than an office. What attributes should I build into to make it happen? First what are the threats? In my area, the biggest threats are earthquake, flooding, fire.

Each threat might have different design considerations. Take fire, the best structure for fire would be one that doesn’t burn. Or for an earthquake, a wooden structure that can move but the framing elements are strapped so the parts don’t slide apart. Flooding would want to be sealed or at least have water management capability. So, from that standpoint, no one single structure is going to meet all of those requirements adequately.

But also in the room is going to be some supplies to wait out the emergency such as food, water, sanitation and entertainment. Depending on the duration of the event would be what to prepare for. My scenarios would range from a few minutes to several days.

I have always thought that if you were in the situation, you may need tools to get out of the safe room. Imagine that the house around you collapsed, you would want to escape from the place or at least be found, so some demolition tools and shut-off capability.

The Hollywood set would have you believe that this is the place to ride out the Zombie Apocolyse. This room would be hidden and fortified against outside threats. There are such things as ‘bullet proof’ panels (of fiberglass) or steel plates but they are heavy and expensive. You could add steel door frames with hidden doors. I think that in reality, those things are adding extra time until they are breached rather than so much as ‘proof’ anything.

Sometimes I see Youtube videos of fallout shelters and I watch because I am interested in seeing how problems are addressed. You can generate some power as long as you have fuel or you can have a bank of solar panels strung up somewhere. Many of them have some sort of charcoal air filter. My view is that you can probably survive some acute event, but sooner or later, the filters are going to fail. Charcoal is great at absorbing until it is full. Some sort of power source would be needed to refresh it. It would be impractical to live more than a couple weeks in that kind of setup.

So, I guess what I am saying is that everything is an act of compromises. The perfect structure for one scenario is largely imperfect for another. Building a structure for one type of scenario is potentially possible and could be successful. This office won’t be a saferoom, but if I lived in a tornado prone area, I do believe that having a place to go for that sort of thing would be on my list of wants.

February 10, 2021 – What a wonderful mess

February 10, 2021 /

I missed the boat on learning linux/python/.php. I have enough programming experience to muddle around but I don’t have any of the fundamentals. My only real website building was writing straight HTML when I was in college but I don’t have a real understanding for the server structure, etc.

Back in my working days, I used to play around with Microsoft’s web hosting platform (IIS) and that was really difficult as well. There were so many nuances that the casual web user doesn’t really understand or have to deal with, such as browser caching. It seems so complicated and confusing enough that a reasonably technical guy doesn’t want to deal with it.

Today, I spent several hours trying to get this site back up. I violated the first rule of support which was to look at the simple things first. The site was working, but I had some SSL certificate errors which I tried to correct by removing the SSL. That spun me into all kinds of other problems when the real problem was simply to update a plugin for the site.

I suppose the beautiful thing about open source platforms is that there is so much knowledge just by searching on the internet. For a brief moment, I thought about trying to find a book like python/php for dummies. Now, that I have admitted to myself that it is harder than I thought, I would probably get some value by learning the fundamentals. Not today however, I learned what I needed to finish the job.

With so much information, we can’t know everything in a particular area. We can get bogged down in ‘toolbox fallacy’ and other paradigms rather than just learning the thing we need for the time and place. I suppose that if I am going to continue in this vein of content creation, it behooves me to learn some more. Right now, I have too much going on to warrant an investment of time right now.

I am starting a new job on Tuesday and still working on side work while finishing out Amazon. I have plans to build an office and that won’t be done for another month or so, at least. That is my outlook today.

February 5, 2021 – Testimony Time

February 5, 2021 /

I don’t get religious a lot. I am sensitive to people believing how they want to believe and not getting into their faces about it. That being said, sometimes you have to out yourself when things go the way your beliefs work. I am going to talk in circles for a minute and then I will get to the issue at hand.

I was going to write again about 1984 today. However, I have been working on another deal that came through today. I signed a commitment to begin working in the professional arena again today. That will likely impact my dedication to this project and others that I have had up in the air.

I have mixed feelings a bit. This new endeavor may involve moving eventually. The working hours are Central Standard Time as it is all remote minus some level of travel. I took a significant pay cut from where I left my career in 2019. Despite all of that, there is a phrase that is thrown around in Christian vocabulary, “God provides”.

When I first left my job, mid-April 2019 my plan was to take the rest of the month off, decompress and then decide what my next steps were. I decompressed for a couple of weeks and then I was contacted by a recruiter to interview for a position as the head of Manufacturing Execution Systems for a regional supermarket chain. After I didn’t land that position, I interviewed for several opportunities that had significant downsides like more than 50% travel that I declined. I wasn’t ready to be employed again, at least under those circumstances.

Because of that, I basically took the rest of 2019 off. I was entertaining offers when they came, but not actively looking. My head and heart were not in employment. I knew that I wanted to try and start my own thing but I didn’t get much farther than that.

In the beginning of 2020, my wife and I discussed reality. We were not in a financial situation where I could never work again. Despite that, Covid-19 hit and the job market changed radically. For someone in my position, I was in a difficult spot. I needed to secure employment but hiring freezes were largely in place. Even postings had gone largely virtual. I was in a huge vortex of people needing jobs and no jobs available or known.

In the mean time, we invested a lot of money into remodeling our Accessory Dwelling Unit (little house). It was in sad shape. We could see that our savings was going to be gone by October of 2020. I put some energy into marketing my handyman skills but the business didn’t materialize in a way that I had hoped. Luckily, Amazon was hiring everyone that was qualified to deliver packages. This wasn’t enough income but it was enough to survive. We cut expenses, sold unnecessary items like my Mustang and lowered our needs.

Still, driving for Amazon was not the solution. I have enjoyed it for what it was but another recruiter contacted me right about the time I started driving. I had several interviews in December and then things went cold. I even assumed that I need to stop holding out hope and look elsewhere, which I did. But, low and behold they came back last week and wanted to talk again. That is where I am today.

The story is nice, but now to the main point of what I am writing, “God provides”. This is not something that I take lightly. Maybe my eyes haven’t been open, maybe this was a real test of faith. I have always heard this, but haven’t really lived it. I have always believed that you have to help yourself in the process.

God provided me with a spouse that pushed me into quitting my job in 2019. I have been on a nearly two year vacation. I was able to sell assets quickly that helped keep us afloat. I was given an opportunity to pick up some side work as well as a small steady income until my next opportunity was right.

2020 was an amazing year for me in terms of personal growth. I turned a more faithful and opportunistic leaf that I probably wouldn’t have done if I didn’t make a leap. Believe me, it was a true leap of faith, without as much faith. I can’t really recommend doing what I did, but I think that it worked out for me.

If I was to do it all over again, I would have tried to secure employment like driving for Amazon much earlier in the process so as to not exhaust all of our savings as quickly. That would have given time to build my business in a more organic and sustainable way rather than hope to hit the jackpot in the first spot I dug.

I hold hope that things will click and this will be a good decision, despite my reservations. The worst case scenario is that I can buy some more time to find the next thing. I am going to go with “God provides” at the moment.

February 4, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

February 4, 2021 /

Well now… it’s been a while. It seems like I am always working on Thursday and today is no exception. But I am writing on Wednesday to post on Thursday because I can. I created the draft placeholder over a month ago, now I have no idea what I was going to write about at the time.

So, I am going to go a different direction today. I am going to talk about what I see and what we can do in this ‘Tacticool’ space. What do I see? A lot of nothing. In the great firearms buying frenzy of 2010 that cleared briefly and then went from 2012 to 2016 there were some differences than today.

The first is, firearms minus the AR15 variants were abundant. That is not the case today. Many stores that I see have less than full shelves. It looks like you can buy a bolt action hunting rifle or some really inexpensive 22s.

Even the ammunition looks different than the Obama years. I could buy as many shotgun shells as I wanted to. Now, the only thing I see on the shelves at the local store is 28 gauge. I could buy match grade 22LR like Eley where I was paying $6/50. Now we can only dream of finding that. I saw Remington Thunderbolt at $50/500 by a private seller. That is crazy. Someone bought it at $15 or less more than likely.

Fortunately, I bought ammo when it was available. Do I have as much as I want? No. But, since my shooting has scaled way back this last year as I have focused on working and finding work, I have way more than I ‘need’ because I haven’t shot anything since September.

Another thing that is different is that primers were scarce during the Obama buying, but powder and bullets were not. Now, there is none of that. The prices for private sales are three times what they were a year ago. Just crazy. I do have reloading components as well because I started focusing on buying only on performance type ammunition and loading all of my range ammo several years ago (minus shotgun shells cause I didn’t think I would need to). So I have bullets and primers and powder.

So, you are not going to buy ammunition, nor reloading components or probably firearms unless you are willing to pony up the cash to pay the market rates. What is the ‘Tacticool’ guy to do? Here are my suggestions.

  • Optics- these are still available at the the normal prices. I am going through and looking at all of my platforms and tightening up the places where I would like to make enhancements, like adding red dots and saddle mounts for my shotguns.
  • Magazines- I still see AR magazines on the shelf. I have always encouraged having more than you think you need because they break sometimes. You also never know when the standard capacity magazine will be outlawed.
  • Accessories- Barrels for that shotgun, new grips for that handgun, holsters, range bags, tools and equipment like spotting scopes, range detectors or wind meters. There is also targets that can be fun..
  • Quality over quantity- Since a lot of things are not available splurge for the things that will make you happy. Some day, I want to change out the grips on a revolver from black rubber to elk antler. I think it will look really sharp but they are $180, a little hard to justify at the moment.
  • Field time versus range time- I like to hunt. With the exception of waterfowl or predator hunting, usually this involves a lot less shooting. The biggest problem is that this is not a season where I live other than waterfowl or non-game species like rabbits. But some states have squirrel still. Heck some states still have big game at this time. It is the time of year to start planning for hunting season, looking for antler sheds is about to start and general scouting can begin if you are not snowed in
  • Maybe it’s a good time to take up fishing- That is sort of tongue and cheek but I tend to focus on other things when I can’t get ammunition. I plan to get back into fly tying at some point in my life. I would like to try cross country skiing or snow shoeing. All things can sort of be related to general fitness and preparedness and hunting and enjoying the outdoors.

With all this said, I don’t know if it will ever be as good as it was the last couple of years with supply and pricing. Since this is a pay to play world, this might be the new normal. I would bet it is for the next two years at least. So, we might as well get settled in for a longer term strategy. I encourage people to look outside the lines for participation into their hobbies. I know for myself that accessorizing has been a pacifier for not being able to do. That is a story for another day.

Feb 3, 2021 – 1984 1:1

February 3, 2021 /

I think that it was three days ago, I was listening to Glenn Beck while I was getting ready for work. Of all the people in talk radio, he is one of the people that I like. I think that he really does use his brain and is not afraid to change his opinion if the facts warrant a change. That being said, he does stand for principles and he is one of the few in that space that has a grasp on the what is happening, not just echoing talking points.

He started talking about the book 1984. I started listening more intently because I knew that I was going to start writing about the subject. There wasn’t much detail in the discussion but one of the things I heard was that sales have skyrocketed in the last year. I looked it up to see if it was true, and here is what I found.

I really haven’t been plugged into the latest news of the day, but I really didn’t realize the references to the 1984 have been so prevalent. I didn’t realize that so many people were making the same connection that I have. With that, let us get into it.

I am going to refer to the indexing as Section and Chapter. This post will be discussing Chapter 1 of Section 1. I think rather than summarize the entire book each day, I will highlight the concepts that I thought were applicable to us. There is a brief introduction into the world of Winston Smith, the main character. It describes the construct of the political system and the basic work life and home life routines.

The following are some of the important constructs of the book and a bit of my analysis.

Cultural Divide: There appears to be two sides in this world. One side is called ‘Big Brother’ and the other side is the ‘Proletariat’. It is portrayed as Big Brother is the side that is and agrees with the government and partakes in the benefits that come with that membership. The proletariat is a class that is more like the ‘untouchable’ caste in the Indian culture. These are people that are not involved with the government in any form and the two groups do not interact in any form – for risk of retribution from Big Brother.

I think in today’s lens, I would put the what we would call ‘Big Brother’ are all of the interests sympathetic to the government angle like all forms of media and related groups right or left. While not a perfect match, the ‘proletariat’ would be those that do not participate. They are the dirty and nasty which the party will not associate because they are not worthy.

Telescreen: This is a device that information is put out and has two way capability. They are also ubiquitous. They are in every home and workplace. As a party member, you are expected to listen and interact with this device at all times.

I think the telescreen is what today’s cell phone is becoming. As we all know, the phone knows our location, it can listen to what we are doing and saying. Based on the profile that our data builds, we start to get fed only information that fits our profile.

Newspeak: This is a particular language that is spoken as well as a system of communication. So the system part, this is a way of changing facts to fit the narrative. It can be goods produced or history. Everything bit of data is cross referenced so that an attempt to change the permanent record has to be made for all media items such as newspapers, books and television programs.

In our culture, I think both sides are using this tactic. For example, does everyone remember when wearing a mask did prevent the spread of Covid-19? Now, there seems to be many studies supporting the opposite conclusion, hmmm. It seems that most ‘science’ today is done in a way to provide proof of a political agenda and not to learn the truth.

Hate Week/Two Minutes Hate: The two minutes hate is a mandatory, daily rally to reinforce the agenda of Big Brother as well as communicate the Newspeak changes for the day. Because the facts are always changing, the party members are conditioned to accept whatever the story is presented at the moment as truth.

Hate Week is portrayed as a festival celebrating the propaganda. Said another way, a week of constant hate. The tactics of xenophobia (build a wall or Black Lives Matter) combined with constant warfare as our side is bringing liberty to a country that doesn’t know it is the perfect cover align the party members with Big Brother.

Already in Chapter 1, we can see these concepts have striking corollaries in today’s world. I want to point out that no matter what side of the left/right dichotomy you chose today, these tactics are in play. That being said, the only way to not be manipulated is to not play the game.

Feb 1, 2021 – Two More Days to Go

February 1, 2021 /

I have been on a slug of work days. It is really difficult to do anything other than work on those days. Today I got up a little early for some reason and so I have a few minutes to check in and see if everything is working.

A real quick topic I have been thinking about is enjoying the season. Truthfully, I have never put much stock into enjoying Winter. With our climate it is gray and damp. Well this year, I have been out in it. Here are some things I have noticed.

  • It is not actually as wet as I thought. Yes, it is not totally pleasant but in general, I would say that more than three quarters of my days have been dry. I know this well because I have to bag packages when it is raining and there is no cover. I just haven’t had to do that often.
  • I never noticed how late the sun rose in the Winter. I am acutely aware of sunset and the lack of daylight on the back end. In the shortest days of the year, we didn’t have a sunrise until almost eight o’clock. That is something I never noticed.
  • The difference in the relative humidity. We have wet and humid, that feels cold. We can have not wet and dry, that also feels cold. We also have some warm. One day it was 60 degrees in January (and of course raining like a monsoon).

Today I am expecting rain on my route. That will be the first time in probably three weeks that was the case. Not something I really expected.

Wednesday I am planning to start in on 1984. See you then.

January 27, 2021 – We Didn’t Start the Fire… But We Are Fanning the Flames

January 27, 2021 /

Hello world. This is a famous introduction in programming where the output of running a program displays text on the screen with the words ‘Hello World’. It is pretty universal, no matter the language and I the syntax on how you do it.

As you all can tell, I have been pretty busy. I am still delivering for Amazon and when I do, it is an all day affair. I leave the house at 9:30AM and I usually get home between 8:30 and 10:00PM. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for other things. I have also picked up another handyman client which leaves me working that around my days off.

In some ways, I have been holding back writing because I am resisting jumping into what is clearly a mess and it is counter to my mission here which is teaching skills with a little commentary. The heat is getting turned up from different sources on exposing the ‘Great Reset’. ‘Cancel Culture’ is becoming an often used and successful strategy to further divide our population. It feels like we have yet to see the big event because tension is building on both sides.

This song ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ by Billy Joel was released in 1989. It was the very end of the Cold War but I think that it was really relatable at the time to my generation (X) and I think that it was targeted to the Baby Boomers. It was an homage to this very scary era where we believed nuclear war was possible and we were inheriting a mess that we weren’t even sure that we wanted to participate.

The song was mostly a list of events in history that describe the Cold War. If I represent my generation, to me the song resonated because I had the ability to look at the facts without prejudice and form my own opinions of the validity of the current political beliefs. Obviously with hindsight, we can see what we thought to be true in 1985 and what we know to be true in 2021 were two different things.

If we take a look at the culture of today, we might get a pass to claim that we didn’t start the fire, but boy do we like to watch it burn. My father is one of the earliest Baby Boomers at seventy-four. If we look at leadership of business and politics, the who is leading the charge are the Baby Boomers followed by Generation X.

Traditionally, a generation would lead and enact policy to influence culture based on the events that shaped their experience. It seems a likely A to B connection that the people who fought in World War II would have strong, global military to prevent another repeat of the same circumstances. Even the Vietnam conflict, which was a misguided attempt to rebuke Communism is understandable under the World War II generation of leadership but the Baby Boomers who predominantly fought in the war seem to be just as hawkish today.

For some reason, we have lost the ability to be objective. No longer do we question our adherence to dogma. Once we are jumped into our gang, we become ‘lifers’ and there is no escaping no matter what our gang does.

Take for instance, former President Trump as a really good case study. I am pretty sure that most people (on both sides) never realized how masterful he was at manipulation. I do not believe for a minute that he ever intended to incite a mob storming of the capitol, resulting in at least two deaths. I also don’t believe that he was not stirring the pot of his supporters which indirectly lead to this happening. This incident went in a direction that nobody ever thought possible. Both sides are right and wrong at the same time.

Where does that leave us in the middle? You can’t or won’t as easily be manipulated if you don’t pick a side. Once you have figured out that the game is rigged and there is no way to win, you cannot play.

How do you get out of the gang? For me, it has been a slow evolution. I guess that it started with being repeatedly disappointed with my side of the electorate. Then, I got disgusted by my media of choice defending that group to the end, so much so that I turned it off. Then I started looking for choices that interested me which turned out to be more anti-establishment.

I am sure that most people are like me. There are issues that are important and those that are not. For instance, I still get suckered into the drama of defending the second amendment. I struggle because I see the writing on the wall for standard capacity magazines, semi-automatic firearms and such. I know that one party is better on those issues than the other but they are so bad at everything else including their platform issues. I cannot support the totality of loss of freedom despite my second amendment opinions.

But you see, I am being manipulated in that argument. My pull is to want to vote for the lessor of two evils because it will temporarily stave off what I now see as inevitable. So, I have to fight the urge to participate in a system that doesn’t care about me or represent me. It makes you feel used and disgusted. All of my programming through the years makes my stance feel wrong, but it is the way it has to be.

I think that if we boil it all down, we like the idea of Freedom more than we like the actual application. It is clearly evident in my routes delivering for Amazon. There are neighborhoods where freedom is embraced. I know that because I see the lifestyle choices. I see the houses that don’t have trash service, who own as many dogs/animals/cars/boats as they want. I see houses with Christmas trees still up and houses where Halloween decorations still up, believe or not.

I also see the neighborhoods where order is more important than freedom. Nearly every single one of those houses has a garage packed to the gills with stuff. That is a sign that they can’t or won’t ever be as free as their nature would permit.

With that, I will wrap it up. I will not make anyone submit to my way of thinking, that would be against my principles of supporting freedom. When I look at how much we have lost in my lifetime, I cannot help but worry for my kids experience and belief on what freedom means as they inherit the world in the next twenty years. Twenty years ago, I was throwing wood on the fire, but now I realize participating in that is a fools errand.

Finally, if you look at the American Revolution the timeline spanned much longer that our condensed look at history. The ‘Stamp Act’ was enacted in 1765, a full ten years before shots fired at Lexington and Concord. There was discord years before that occurred particularly relating to the end of the French and Indian Wars. Don’t be surprised if we are seeing the warning signs or an irreparable country.