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May 6, 2025 – Kids…

May 6, 2025 /

“I don’t know what happened, it just stopped working”. Huh, I have no idea. I guess that I will take a look and see if I can see anything. Oh, I see there is a bunch of sand in here that does not belong.

In years past, I have replaced a few RAM DIMMs, hard drives, disk drives, and the like. That doesn’t make me and expert in PC repair, it makes me a part swapper that has a little knowledge of what things are inside of the cover. Years ago, the motherboard would sometimes have some diagnostic LEDs as well as speaker beeps. The combination of those two tools would help steer you in the right direction.

I haven’t seen this problem in years but every so often, the motherboard battery would die and the PC would act like a failed hard drive. It seems like those batteries never die today, at least I haven’t dealt with it in my batch of ancient PCs. Once again, the onboard diagnostics were very helpful in resolving quickly.

When my son said that his computer makes a constant crackling noise and doesn’t stay connected to Wi-Fi, my first thought was that he dropped the thing and there was a loose connection. Dropping electronics is a very common occurrence that never happens with kids either.

Where to start with these things? I just turned it on. I noticed that there were a lot of updates that needed to be applied. That got me thinking about drivers. Sometimes not having the right driver installed can even have wildly erratic behavior. I didn’t see any driver updates that needed to be made. That did not make any sense.

First, this PC had not been on my network since before I made all of the upgrades in March. The location of his room was notoriously spotty because I fought with doorbell many times and his room is directly above that. I signed the computer into the network with new credentials and things seemed pretty stable. I think the Wi-Fi stability was just a phantom problem of a weak network signal.

Now to the crackling noise. It sounded like a static-y AM radio station at times. Although my son said it was happening constantly, I only heard it about five times in fifteen minutes for a couple of seconds. He said that it was much improved. I figured I would just let all the updates install and see what happened from there.

Meanwhile, I did some research into the internet. It seems like this problem is not unique. In all of my years as IT manager, I have never heard of it. Despite all of the claims of high dollar sound cards and meticulous checking of connections and power, most of the claims were resolved by disabling sound components in device management. I still think I need to get under the covers of this machine. I was still under the impression that it might have been dropped and has loose speaker connections.

When I took the back cover off, viola. Sand contains conductive material and at the very least, it doesn’t belong inside of a computer case. I took the compressed air to the motherboard and speakers and everywhere I can reach to blow it out. In hindsight, I think a vacuum is probably the best first approach because blowing the sand around risks jamming the particles deeper in the machine. When I turned it on, the crackling was gone.

End Your Programming Routine: When approaching a problem that is new or unusual, the first step is to take a look. Whether it is automobiles or CBs, it is amazing what the human can recognize as ‘not quite right’ even if you do not know how to fix the problem. In this case anybody other than a blind person should be able to recognize that sand doesn’t belong in a computer. In the future, I will be more insistent on making sure that my son performs basic troubleshooting steps before I get involved. This is how we combat a culture of ‘call a guy’ from completely taking over.

May 5, 2025 – Impromptu Staycation

May 5, 2025 /

Today, I will talk about what I did last week. It was not really scheduled but I got a lot done by making the most of time. There were some honey-dos as well as some purely self-indulgent things that I chose to do. As a result, I feel good and I do feel rested unlike some of the amazing trips I have taken as vacation over the years.

May 2, 2025 – In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Introduction (Chapter 1)

May 2, 2025 /

If you own a firearm with the thought that you could possibly use it for self defense and you have never heard of Massad Ayoob, stop right now and go find this book. Unfortunately, it is out of print but I bought it reasonable priced/used on Amazon. So, it is still available. While the book is dated for reasons I will talk about a little later, the fundamentals of this book are rock solid.

Ayoob started as a police office and morphed his career into expert witness for criminal trials. His information is based on real life situations and trial information. I would say that he is recognized as the preeminent subject matter expert in the legal aspects of self defense. He offers some of the most well respected and sought after firearms training in the country through his company Massad Ayoob Group (MAG) as well.

There is a reason that this book is out of print. It was published in 1980 and a lot, I do mean a lot has changed in 45 years. The extremely affordable, polymer framed, striker fired, double stack magazine Glock had not yet been invented. The FBI had not yet had the Miami shootout the lead to the creation of the 10mm cartridge followed by the 40 S&W that spawned the resurgence of the 9mm that killed all of them using better bullet design.

In 1980, Indiana became the first state to change their approach to concealed carry. At that point, only Vermont had no concealed carry regulations or restrictions. They adopted a ‘shall issue’ stance meaning applicants no longer had to justify a need for concealed carry permit (known as may issue). By the late 1990s, 30 states were shall issue and by 2006, 39 had shall issue or no restrictions. A second wave of concealed carry changes started in 2003 with Alaska no longer requiring a permit to carry (known as constitutional carry). As of time of this writing 29 states have a form of permit less carry.

For those of you that have not gone through the licensing process, every state is different and the laws vary quite widely. Some require a shooting test but at the core of all is a very basic overview of the law. For example, some states do not recognize other states permits. A very convoluted affair.

One of the most significant tactical changes since 1980 has been the prevalence of adoption of Stand Your Ground laws (now 30 states). In all states, stand your ground removes the requirement of retreat until deadly force can be employed. A more extreme version of this is called the Castle Doctrine which exempts the fear from imminent harm as a requirement for deadly force.

I say all of these things not to necessarily give you a history lesson but to highlight how much has changed since the book was written. You cannot just read something and take it as gospel. That being said, if you take the more conservative advice, you are likely going to be the safest under the circumstances. You absolutely need to be up to speed on the laws of your jurisdiction if you are considering self defense.

Chapter One is three pages long, so there isn’t a ton that I can distill from there. The one thing that I can pick out that I agree with is that self defense has two key components, knowledge and skill. This book can help fill in the knowledge gap. Books can point in a starting point direction for skill but you also have to get out there and practice.

Fundamentals for hitting the target are necessary. But can you do it under stress? What about if it is dark? Maybe flipping on the light switch is not the smartest idea, but maybe it is. You can probably spend your whole life working on this. I say this, starting somewhere is a good idea, even if you decide this is not your life’s work or passion. It is not going to be mine, but I know that I need to do a little more than what I have done.

End Your Programming Routine: This is a short book. I am going to group this study into similar concepts as I cover the book. That means next week will be Chapter two which is all about the different definitions of lethal force. I will certainly point out where things have changed since its publishing because that is also important to know where the gotchas are.

May 1, 2025 – Putting the Pieces Together

May 1, 2025 /

It is time for my first multi-day trip. I cajoled my son to go with my with my plan. I was going to pick out a camp site. Then I would drive the car to the starting point. From there, we would hike back to the campground and spend the night. The next day I would pack up camp and hike back to the car. The plan was 10 miles there and 10 miles back.

This is a relatively new trail called Corvallis to Sea. Part of it we ran in a relay race called Barrel to Keg back in my half marathon days (2016). It is close to me, so it a perfect place to test things out. There are actually two routes, one is for bicycles and the other is for hikers.

This trip tested my limits. And if I am to be honest, I am not ready physically for the PCT. The first day we clocked 10.5 miles with the last 2.5 on the road (bike route). We got a late start and we were running out of daylight. I was worried that we would run out of daylight on the trail. I wanted to be in camp so I could setup my tent for the first time.

It didn’t help that the first five miles were uphill. I was out of gas by the time we reached the summit. By the time we got to camp, I could barely walk. Since my son changed his plans and was going to leave the next morning, I changed my plans. There was no way I could do this again. After we ate, we went back up to the car and brought it to the campsite for a new plan tomorrow.

I slept terribly because I was so tired and sore. When I woke up the next day it was difficult to move but I resolved to do something. I decided to go back up the road and finish what we didn’t do the night before. That was about a 5.5 mile loop. And by the time I got back to the car, I had enough. Saturday was a day of moving for survival and Sunday, I have a lot of soreness.

My tent was great and so was my pad and my sleeping bag. The tent wasn’t too difficult to setup and there was plenty of space for one person. I don’t know about two, it would be pretty tight. My pack worked great and I never ran out of water. The fundamentals are solid. We had a some freeze dried meals out of my stash for dinner and breakfast. That was fun and my stove worked perfectly.

There wasn’t anything that I thought, I wish that I had brought… There were things that I brought that I didn’t use. Granted, this was only an overnight so I didn’t use a change of clothing, I didn’t use my stainless steel cup, I didn’t use that celebratory flask filled with Pendleton whisky or that roll of TP. I also didn’t use my spare water bladder or my pouring attachment because we had water at the camp site.

Part of why I was gasping for air on the uphill was because I was carrying extra weight. Trust me, I can still feel it. But, there are storage sacks and things that are adding a pound here and there that need to go. This is why I tested these things. More so than the weight, I am very worried about volume.

I carried water and both of our food for overnight on this trip (on purpose). But, that bulk equated to a completely full pack. Even with only one complete change of clothes, I don’t think that I have the space to carry what I need. Because I was so bushed, I didn’t eat replacement calories in food. I declined the extras out of exhaustion. Not to say I am going to starve as my weight has remained the same over this process but at some point if my weight, metabolism and hunger ever intersect, I am going to have problems with the volume I can carry. More testing is necessary.

I really wanted to drive home Saturday morning. But, I knew that I needed to push myself. Truthfully, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting even though my body was at it’s end by the time 5.5 miles were logged. It told me that despite being sore, exhausted and low motivation, I could push into the ‘have to’ zone (to some degree). I think that future me needs to do this kind of trip multiple times and probably a two night trip included to feel confident that a week is survivable.

End Your Programming Routine: This is what we call fun. Despite the suck, I am proud of what I did. I enjoyed the one on one time with my son, something we rarely have done. I loved seeing elk on the trail and it gets me excited that this is excellent training for the hunting season. My gear worked great, my body not as much. With so little time before my planned trip, I don’t feel shame in saying that I am not ready. What I am now thinking is that this will be another year of training. Remember, what I believe is that achieving the goal is not the joy, it is the journey that is the true prize.

April 30, 2025 – The Mushroom Hunters: A Hidden World of Food, Money and (Mostly Legal) Adventure

April 30, 2025 /

The Mushroom Hunters by Langdon Cook is the Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection for May 2025. I got a head start compared to my normal pace due to last month being a cookbook and setting our club schedule a little bit in advanced. I started reading this at the beginning of the month and got a good way through it on our back and forth to the east coast.

This is one of those rare books that our club reads that is not fiction, not a memoir and not a cookbook. It is culinary non-fiction. It reminds me a lot of the book Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker that we read in some of our earliest days of the club. It was so early that I didn’t have AltF4.co running yet and I never reviewed it here. But, essentially it is a story about Bianca’s quest to become a sommelier.

I cannot say what the exact motivation for writing this book was but it sure appears that the author Cook is very into mushrooms. The number of miles driven and time spent over the span of the story is significant. I suppose that is a mark of a good journalist to really get into the story, to get it right and not just phone it in.

Cook is from Seattle and most of the story takes place in the Pacific Northwest with a couple main characters. One is a mushroom picker and the other is a buyer/broker. They run up and down from Canada to California and from the ocean to Missoula as the parameters of their picking seemingly on an instant.

I would love to know more about personal mushroom picking. But, to tell you the truth I am scared to death of eating the wrong mushroom. I have have heard too many stories of mistaking the variety and either puking all night or even dying. I had no idea that there were so many varieties of edible mushrooms that grew wild here. According to the book, they happen most of the year.

The thing that I liked the most about the book is that the action was all around me. I kept reading and saying to myself ‘I know that place’ or ‘I had no idea this was going on around me’. In particular, there is a tiny town near the place that we have been deer hunting that turned into an Asian shanty town at the same time deer hunting was going on. The impromptu camp had a popup karaoke bar and pho restaurant. All this and I never even noticed.

Reading the book took me back to my youth. As the primary picker was a former logger, I got to thinking about the impact of the timber drought that began in the early 1990s. Once those mills stopped operating, loggers were out of work too. There was a whole genre of forest literate men but lacking transferable job skills. This in turn gave way to government assistance, poverty and drugs.

There is a 20 mile stretch between the town I grew up in and a reservoir that we water skied. There were at least four mills on that stretch. Now, there is one and it is a Weyerhaeuser mill. The biggest survived. It wasn’t totally an environmental situation as much as it was all the old growth was logged. Combine that with a US policy of conservation rather than production and only the companies that owned vast tracks of their own land survive. The good news for mushrooms is that second growth opened the door for a lot more production.

If you ask me, I would say a lot more of the mushroom harvest (written about) was more gray market. There was a lot of situational ethics in play such as ‘they don’t care about the mushrooms, only the timber’. Or, that No Trespassing sign is the result of equipment damage, sabotage and environmental damage. It doesn’t actually mean me who is not hurting anything. There is a lot of truth to that sentiment.

When timber comprised a significant portion of the economy, companies made a much greater effort to have a symbiotic relationship with the public. It seems like in today’s world that attitude has changed. I don’t remember a single locked gate growing up and now most private timber is access by recreational lease holder only. When you couple that with the vast amount of land owned and the semi-dubious methods by which it was acquired, it does seem like situational ethics are appropriate to a point.

I loved this book and thought it was fantastic. But the reason I did was because I could picture probably a quarter of the book. If you don’t live here, it may not hold some of the same romance. It doesn’t really tell you where to go specifically or how to identify mushrooms but that there is a whole cash based, gray market subculture feeding the finest and trendiest restaurants in New York as well as the Pacific Northwest.

End Your Programming Routine: Cookbooks are fine. The truth for me is that most of them I don’t get a lot out of. I am grateful that we step away and read something else, particularly something as fascinating as this. This late in the game, I won’t get into the storyline but the broker is still in business. I thought about e-mailing him and thanking him for participating even if it left his situation a little vulnerable. Part of me thinks that he won’t reciprocate or care. I don’t know but I sure admire his passion.

April 29, 2025 – He Who Smelt It, Didn’t Fix It

April 29, 2025 /

Bathroom fans are a dubious proposition. We want industrial hood suction with a consumer level price and engineering. I for one am somewhat skeptical on their effectiveness as it seems like fan off/on seem to have the same results. This particular fixture has always had weak lighting and now the fan has stopped working. It may be worth trying to diagnose but an upgrade in lighting is certainly in order.

I am amazed at the number of options today. When I was last looking at fans a couple of years ago there were a handful of choices. I didn’t buy one because the volume I wanted was on backorder. Those choices were largely based on fan volume. Today, there is a whole isle of bathroom fans. Later I learned that there was nothing wrong with the fan at all and what I thought was a bearing was a loose cover connection.

I have replaced this fan once before, so I am confident that this job is easier than it could be. If your fan is original to the house, your job is going to be much tougher as it is likely attached to the structure in a way that is not accessible from the finished space. This means that you will have to come up with a way to cut and chop your way through the fan body to get it removed.

I suspect that this fan overheated due to dust (or see below). The easiest fix would be to simply replace the fan motor. In our case, the light is so poor that we are going to upgrade the fixture. Replacing the motor is about an hour job, replacing the whole fan, box and all is probably an eight hour job including multiple days of finish work.

I did find out when I took the box out that a squirrel had made it’s way down the vent pipe and stashed a walnut in-between the flapper vent. For all I know, maybe that is what caused the fan to burn out. At the very least, this should help with heat loss and better ventilation for that matter.

Make sure the power is off. If you are confident that your wiring is conventional, then you should be able to leave it off at the switch. But, if you are not, then you will need to find the breaker. Next, remove the electrical connections. In this fan they are made underneath the plate that you see. That means that you will have to figure out how to disconnect the fan from the box. Detach the box from the framing so that it is only connected to the duct work. Finally, disconnect the duct and install in the reverse order.

Now is time for the pro tips. I did have to cut out my old fan box to remove it. I was not expecting that but it had to do with the wiring clamped outside the box. Second, I did have to modify the new fan. The first modification was that I cut the new work tabs off of the box so it would fit in the hole. The second modification I had to make was I had to disassemble the entire fan to make the electrical connections. There is no way to use a wire clamp (middle picture) when the box is in place. None of that is in the instructions. Finally, the new fan box is quite a bit smaller than the one that it replaced. That means that there is drywall repair to be done. I am still working on that as I type this.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to be honest, this job requires a lot of different skills such as electrical, HVAC and drywall finishing. If you could find someone to do the work at a fixed rate, you would probably time ahead unless you are pretty darn good. Since I had done this a number of times, I thought it would go quicker than it did. And even though I can handle it I found myself frustrated at points and sweating a lot.

April 28, 2025 – Is the Pope Controversial?

April 28, 2025 /

I am not Catholic, but I have a lifelong closeness to the religion. Today, I talk about how my proximity has influenced my life as well as some of the controversies related to the direction of Catholicism. Surprise, surprise even Dante gets into the discussion. This is about remembering Pope Francis and the impact the church has on inside and outside the faith.

April 25, 2025 – Revelations 21-22 and Conclusion

April 25, 2025 /

We have turned a corner here. We past the rapture and now we are onto the reward. Gleaming cities of gold and jasper etc. I wonder if this is where the ‘pearly gates’ descriptor comes from? It is described as the new Jerusalem for a new earth prepared for those that are worthy.

First, God cast out Satan forever. Then He prepared a new city. The tree of life was available for the first time since Adam and Eve. John was explicitly told to proselytize that this is a new world order.

Among the couple of things that I found interesting is that there is talk about no temple in new Jeruasalem. There is no longer a need for priests to act as the mediary between God and the people. For the uninitiated, there was a curtain called a veil in the temple. The priest was the only one that could go behind the veil because supposedly that is where God was.

It was the promise of Jesus, also called the ‘New Covenant’ that was supposed to break that requirement. This was allegedly authorized at the last supper with the bread and wine (what we colloquially call communion to memorialize the event). I guess I don’t totally understand why this is coming up now when I believe it comes up earlier.

I don’t think that you get to pick your truth, even when it is conflicting. That being said I would like to know more about the origins of the Bible. What books were stricken and for what reasons? Since the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have very similar accounts, your can reasonably assume corroborating facts are true. Revelations was controversial and it seems like for good reason.

Jesus told them to expect his return after crucifixion (remember doubting Thomas) but why this new development? Why a whole new purging of the earth and starting over? It does seem to contradict the whole premise of Christianity provides salvation with free will. The vengeful God was supposed to be replaced with the loving God post Jesus.

It would be very presumptuous of me to say that this book seems a little far fetched. But I am going to say it anyway. We can’t just ignore controversy because it is convenient. It seems pretty likely that John would have communication with God considering how close he was to Jesus. But just like the Fourth Turning, why hasn’t it happened yet? Surely a millennium has passed by now.

For all I know, it happened at or near 1000 AD. It is not as if recorded history was the best it could have been. What if it was the black plague in the 1300s? I don’t think Satan has actually been banished considering the state of the world. But, I would also expect humanity to be gone as well and we would all be living in New Jerusalem.

What that says to me is that there is something up with the interpretation. I don’t know exactly what that is aside from the calculation of time. If one thing is off, what about other aspects of the story? As a result, it is probably best to live as if the rapture could come anytime.

End Your Programming Routine: I always knew it but now I can concretely say what fascinates these doomsday groups. A strong faith and a strong fatalism combined with timing of the Julian calendar and who knows what will happen? This definitely wasn’t my favorite Bible foray, but it leads me to believe that I will do more because I have not read all of it myself. Next week is the introduction to “In the Gravest Extreme” by Massad Ayoob.

April 24, 2025 – The Tide Has Definitely Turned

April 24, 2025 /

I recently took my inaugural hike with my new pack full of all that shiny gear that has never been used. I am happy to report that I did not have any straps slip and everything was great. I probably need to add some more weight because I didn’t have anything representing food or clothing in my pack for realistic weight. A large part of this trip was also gear shake out so I wasn’t pushing distance or speed.

The day was a sunny, low seventies day. It was the first that I have seen here this year. I think that there was one in February that I was sick and in bed all day. There was also one last weekend when we were in North Carolina. But the forecast had low seventies all week long. The tide has definitely turned on the weather. It also appears that there is no frost danger in the forecast.

Along this trail system, there are several places marked as viewpoints. I set a goal to hike to the closest viewpoint testing my satellite communicator. I forgot my map so I wasn’t totally sure where it was. But, after a couple of miles I got a good view of Mt. Jefferson and the Three Sisters. I figured that this is good enough.

Mt. Jefferson is the second tallest peak in Oregon. I have grown up within view my whole life. Yes, Mt. Hood gets all the press as it is the tallest and closer to Portland than Mt Jefferson. But still it is an impressive sight. Typically, Mt Jefferson can’t be seen in the Summer or Fall due to air pollution, largely agricultural dust. We all know how many sunny days there are in the Winter and Spring in the Pacific Northwest. It is a special day when it can be seen.

Recently, I was sitting around thinking, I wonder how the mountain got one of the most coveted names of American history? Then it came to me, Jefferson sponsored Lewis and Clark. Of course, but wait they didn’t come through here they would have passed Mt Hood on the Columbia river. Jefferson wasn’t the first name of course, turns out that the natives called it Seekseekqua.

Lewis and Clark did see Mt Jefferson on their journey. The story goes that due to its distance and proximity to Mt Hood, they felt it held a reserved status compared to the other things that they have seen. Those in the know recognize that there is a Mt. Washington and a Mt. Adams as well in the Cascade mountain range. There are places in this state where you can catch many of these mountains from the same viewpoint.

The weather was great, my pack was staying put, how about the satellite communicator? The instructions say that it should be used in a clear and open area. How realistic is that in western Oregon? I wanted to see how would function under typical conditions. After all, how often is an emergency in ideal conditions? The things I was interested in are battery life and effectiveness.

My plan allows for both text messages and pictures as well as periodic bread crumb tracking. The preprogrammed messages are (paraphrased) 1. I am starting, 2. Checking in, all OK, 3. I am done. Those all tested fine. I also successfully sent several free form messages. I made sure that my phone was in airplane mode so that it was not mistakenly communicating in cellular mode.

The picture did not send. More troubleshooting will be necessary. Probably since messages went but pictures no I am thinking that the message size is a problem. I assume that the device will do what it is supposed to do, something that was more potentially concerning was the battery life.

I am not planning on taking a battery or charging capability. In my two hour hike, I used 3% of battery capacity of the inReach. This was leaving breadcrumbs once every 30 minutes. It also requires the phone app to compose and read messages and my phone was about 10% down after the hike. My next test will be just having the communicator on. I think that in order to make it a week, I am going to have to use them somewhat sparingly.

The last thing that I wanted to do was to check the breadcrumbs. Everything worked like it was supposed to. A position once every 30 minutes is not terribly helpful on a 2 hour back and forth hike. I might turn up the frequency just to see it work on the next hike. But, I can say that it works.

End Your Programming Routine: I am definitely checking things off. With Easter last weekend and family obligations next weekend, I have to find some time for some overnights. This weekend seems to be an opportunity that might be too good to pass up for an out and back. Then I can try out my new tent and actually cook as well as do my first consecutive days.

April 23, 2025 – The Anthem Of a Generation

April 23, 2025 /

Sometimes I get in a mood. It seems to be particularly on Fridays where I just want to listen to music and set the podcasts aside. I was thinking about the song Uninvited by Morrissette but I couldn’t remember the song name. So I started listening to the song catalog to figure out the right song. Of course I remember Hand In My Pocket but all of the sudden I wanted to hear it again.

Fresh off of the Fourth Turning and reading the lyrics of this song I realized why all of the sudden I liked it. It was the anthem of my generation. “One hand in my pocket, and the other one…” (doing something else). It was smack dab in the Generation X summer by a singer of the generation. In one way holding back and in another way moving on with what needs to be done.

I thought about picking and linking other songs for other generations. But, I am not sure that totally appropriate. I could certainly do that based on my opinion and impression of the generations. Then I thought about adding more songs that I think represent Generation X but then I thought why muddy the waters when I think this song just describes the generation.

Hand In My Pocket was never a song that when I heard it, I said “turn up the radio!” In fact if you would have asked me in 1995, I would have said that this is a ‘chick’ song. I would have been much more likely to crank up Tom Petty or Firehouse when it came on the radio. The music reminds me so much of the beat of Hootie and the Blowfish or Blues Traveler or even Beck in Loser. There were so many songs that had this pop-y, low key music.

I would call the 1980s more of Baby Boomer generation of music. There is a particular sound that when I hear it I say, that screams eighties. One song I like particularly is a-ha’s Take On Me. When I hear that song, my mind instantly goes back to what the eighties felt like. But, it doesn’t speak to my generation. There is no angst or uncertainty.

Don’t get me wrong, I could rattle off a whole list of songs from the 1980s that I think are great. But, I think that because we grew up with that kind of feel good, everything is alright music, it was a natural transition for Generation X to assume the culture mantle with music that more represented who we were.

I do think that the eighties sound influenced that 1990s music in two ways. In one way there was a whole Morissette/Hootie/Cranberries vibe in popular music that sounded very similar in the way that the 1980s sounded similar. But when I look at the top 100 songs of 1995 I see a lot of songs that shared other things in common. Coolio, TLC, Boys II Men was the shift of hip-hop assuming popular music. So the conformity of the sound was familiar but the divergence of the happy-go-lucky lyrics swung the other direction.

I know that I shifted over to primarily listening to country music at that point. I think the reason being is that hip-hop did not speak to me or my experiences. For that reason, I guess that I have to be careful labelling one song as a total overlay of a generation. But every population is a bell curve. College bound/educated, middle class seems like the peak of the bell to me for the time.

That was all great and all but 1995 was thirty years ago now. Looking forward I think we can still call Hand In My Pocket a generational anthem. As I have talked about multiple times in the Fourth Turning series, Generation X may be the generation that got skipped with the oldest Millennials now in their mid forties. In theory, Generation X should be solidly in charge now. But are they?

I see Generation X having one hand in their pockets and the other doing what needs to be done (for themselves). This is the very behavior that is going to let the Millennials assume leadership and supersede Generation X. And you know what? That suits me just fine.

End Your Programming Routine: I spent the day listening to all kinds of music that I pretty much forgot about while I was writing this. It is funny how a song can transform you back to a time and place. This song puts me squarely in my dorm room as a sophomore wondering what 2025 would look like:

[Verse 1]
I’m broke, but I’m happy
I’m poor, but I’m kind
I’m short, but I’m healthy, yeah
I’m high, but I’m grounded
I’m sane, but I’m overwhelmed
I’m lost, but I’m hopeful, baby

[Verse 2]
I feel drunk, but I’m sober
I’m young, and I’m underpaid
I’m tired, but I’m working, yeah
I care, but I’m restless
I’m here, but I’m really gone
I’m wrong, and I’m sorry, baby

[Verse 3]
I’m free, but I’m focused
I’m green, but I’m wise
I’m hard, but I’m friendly, baby
I’m sad, but I’m laughing
I’m brave, but I’m chicken shit
I’m sick, but I’m pretty, baby