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March 13, 2024 – Believe It Or Not, Spring Is Coming

March 13, 2024 /

Have you ever been to Yellowstone and seen Old Faithful? Do you know how this process works? As soon as the geyser blows, it starts to fill up again. Then the water starts to heat up again until about 90 minutes later there is too much pressure and it blows. It is not totally predictable, but it happens about the same time, every time. But for over an hour, it seems like nothing is happening, meanwhile everything is getting ready for the main event.

When your whole life revolves around gardening or the seasons then this is probably second nature. We have already made the shift to daylight savings time again. The photo below was taken around the first of March following the previous weekend that was in the 60s and sunny all week. Many trees and bushes are starting their bud around here yet I wont argue that March has been more like winter than February was.

My point is, spring is coming, I just can’t see it yet. Even more important than that, we can’t get complacent that just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it is not around the corner. There is a very short window between too early and too late and it is this time that is critical for being prepared for that window.

I get trapped in this loop of I have to be done by six or eight weeks before last frost date. For me, that is late April. But, I also want to wrap up the winter work before that time. On years where I have really focused on the garden, most things ceased at that point. This was to the point that projects that only had a couple of hours left languished until the fall. Other years I did not finish my winter projects by June.

The trick is knowing when exactly to transition. But what is worse is convincing yourself that there is plenty of time (in either direction). We all have priorities and decisions to make. And so, I am not second guessing my choices but simply bringing awareness to myself and others that letting off the gas now is too early.

I love the quote by Earnest Hemmingway about bankruptcy, “Slowly than rapidly”. Children are born then they graduate. I graduate from school and now I am middle age. We have freedom until we don’t. It is all the things we do in the slow time that makes a difference.

When I watch This Old House, I have come to understand that footings need to be over four feet deep in the building as best practice in New England. This is the because the ground in that area can freeze down to four feet and as the ground freezes and thaws, that ground moves. That movement is described as heave. Heave moves the building up and down as well as breaks concrete foundations and slabs. We don’t build to that degree of detail here, that is a whole different story. My point is spending time on the details that aren’t seen are critical for the parts that are seen.

End Your Programming Routine: Just like Hemmingway said, spring is coming slowly than rapidly. And just like Old Faithful, it is going to explode in roughly 90 minutes. So those freak winter breaks of nice weather lull us into the pseudo belief that spring is here followed by a just as long winter reminder convincing us it will never come. Just keep going with your pace and trust that it will happen.

March 12, 2024 – Convoy

March 12, 2024 /

There were some pretty campy movies in the 1970s. Believe it or not, I don’t think Convoy was one of them. Yes, it has some cheesy action and some CB jibber, jabber and the plot was a little thin, but the subplot was subversively amazing. In fact, so good that I don’t think they even realized what they had done.

Convoy was a movie released in 1978 based on the song by CW McCall in 1974. The embedded video is a modified version of the original song which is the opening of the movie. The movie stars Kris Kristofferson as a truck driver who inadvertently leads a group of trucks on a convoy that is essentially trying to escape a dirty sheriff.

This movie is currently playing on Pluto. If you have internet access, then you can also watch the movie for free. My wife was gone for the weekend and I turned this on while I was cooking in the kitchen. I soon found that I was too invested in the story that I needed to finish it.

The night before, I was watching James Caan as The Gambler (1974). I fell asleep before the movie was over so I wanted to watch the last twenty minutes. I saw that Convoy was coming up next. As a fan of The Dukes of Hazzard and Smokey and the Bandit, I figured I was going to like this and I wasn’t dissapointed.

I am not a trucker and I don’t know any. I really don’t get what a convoy actually does other than it is pretty menacing seeing a whole line of trucks bearing down on you. But, I think this movie has inspired a genre of protest whereby truckers impede goods movement or traffic. The last, most famous one in recent memory was the Canadian trucker strike of 2022 over requiring vaccinations for Covid-19.

Known by the CB handle ‘Rubber Duck’ (Kristofferson) or more commonly Duck, realizes that the only way out of his predicament is by driving to Mexico. This draws a lot of support from close by truckers who join up in the convoy. This in turn creates a regional sensation with the public. Remember, we only had three TV stations in those days.

What makes this movie great is that the New Mexico governor tries to coopt the public sentiment and support for the truckers into helping his campaign for senate. There it is, the ugly gold nugget. The people were largely oblivious as they are involved in the party of it all. Meanwhile, Duck and the other truckers could see right through it. There was a lot of political babble from the governor about feeling the pain and taking action with the people.

This is the where we stand. As an example, as soon as the politicians took hold of the tea party, it died. A leader has to be ambivalent of the details and aloof of the results to be effective. We used to call that integrity or doing the right thing for the right reasons. When you have a stake in the results, now all of the sudden the purity of the movement is compromised and the absolutism of right and wrong become subjective. As long as we have lessor of two evils as our choices, it will never work.

End Your Programming Routine: Look beyond some of the antics, this is a great movie. As a matter of fact, there was a time when people believed that legal didn’t equate to right. It took me a long time to get there, but I am here now. Sure, maybe there were other problems around like equality but we are quickly becoming equal slaves.

March 11, 2024 – Shogun and James Clavell

March 11, 2024 /

I am still keeping it light and finally short. I saw that there was a new mini-series from FX on Hulu that is inspired on Shogun by James Clavell. He is on my recommended read list but I have never talked about him or his work whatsoever. Today is a rundown on his work and what I like about it.

March 8, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XVIII – XXXI

March 8, 2024 /

We did it! This week was a slog. I had hours and hours into reading and re-reading to try and keep up with the continuity and understand what was happening. Thank goodness for the summary before each Canto started because in some cases, I wouldn’t know what was happening.

Sometimes I read the text and then I go back to the summary and wonder, how in the world did the author come to that conclusion based on what I read? Lost in translation I guess. In this section in particular, there were numerous notes saying ‘this isn’t exactly how it was written and here is the exact translation. This didn’t make sense, so I translated it as such…’.

I appreciate that actually. While maybe not the version of the text that we would want to use for research, I appreciate someone taking the initiative of this is more in the spirit of what is going on. As long as it is noted in places that were modified, we are free to form our own opinion by reading middle age Italian :).

This section is over 100 pages in my book, so I am not going to be able to go too deep into all the sins. What was noted by the translator and I have come to enjoy is the punishment is related to the crime. For instance the grafters were perpetually submerged in boiling pitch. The pitch represents the sticky hands in the living world. The thieves morph back and forth between reptilian figures because people who steal are snakes.

I think when I look at this section in the light of modern terms, I have to think that there is too many divisions of sin in hell. We have the Simoniacs (which I had to look up the definition) who are people that used their position to sell influence. As you would expect, this was largely church administrators and politicians. Then you have the Hypocrites who do one thing and say another. But the worse of them all is the Falsifiers. Honestly, I have a hard time distinguishing one sin from the other, they all seem intertwined to me.

Speaking of Falsifiers, there were three distinct categories with the worst of the worse being the Alchemist. Maybe as a scientist I don’t see a big deal. I theorize that alchemy was a crime against nature and therefore a crime against god. I also suppose that maybe they were considered cheats which clearly holds more wrath than crimes of passion in Dante’s time. But really, alchemy is one of the worst crimes known to man?

This section more than any has a lot of obscure references. To date there has been a lot of Greek and Roman mythology that I have struggled with. The characters are slightly familiar but their back story is basically a blank to me. Many of the previous levels are heavily referenced in those common stories. In this level, there are so many interactions with contemporaries that it makes it really hard to follow. It paints a picture that as Dante’s wrath goes, so do the characters that he perceived wronged him get more detailed and deeper in hell.

I can understand that, I fact I think that it is brilliant. I am going to write a comedy making fun of my enemies. The more angry I am at them, the worse their situation is going to be in the story. All the while, I am not committing any actual sin because it is art, fiction, its entertainment. The only problem is that if you are 700 years removed from Florence, it is hard to get the jokes.

Next week, I will be finishing The Inferno. We are about to find out who is going to be at the same scale as the devil. The following week, I am going to an analysis of the Inferno and then we will be into Purgatory and ascending toward Heaven for the remainder of the book. So, after this very heavy week of reading, things are going to get a lot easier and then a break.

End Your Programming Routine: What I take away from this week is that this is clearly a story of Dante using a heavenly setting, not a heavenly story with contemporary characters. The latter reason was why I started down this journey in the first place, but I am committed now so we are going to find out who Dante holds next to the Devil and who is next to God. It definitely will effect my final opinion and recommendation of the Devine Comedy, but it is nice to know.

March 7, 2024 – Say It To Make It Happen

March 7, 2024 /

I started off the week talking about how little I feel like I have accomplished this winter. The truth is, at that point I had a lot of irons in the fire and for quite some time. I didn’t have dedicated time scheduled to do any of the work and it seemed like each project was dragging on.

Wouldn’t you know that the log jam has broken. I finished my third duct. I have one more to go and it is a partial installation. It is still not done-done but the momentum is there as well as the desire. I was dreading the rewiring and the unknown. I also knew that once I started, I was committed and there were also limited stopping points. In addition to that, I brewed my next batch of beer. I went to the range for the first time in months. I did it all while weaving all my other obligations in at the same time.

I didn’t say those things to get me motivated. But, somehow by putting them front of mind, I found a way to push to the end. This is a technique that is very helpful when you want to get stuff done. It is one of the values of using a list. This puts tasks front and center of what needs to get done.

There is a psychological satisfaction of crossing things off the list for sure. But, the real value of the list comes down to the ability to triage and prioritize. Priority comes down the the time and resources we have, external deadlines and the desire to do it. The last one is subjective and can have a strong influence for me. My desire to do something my not outweigh the consequences of penalties on external deadlines.

That is all good and well but really I am talking about the power of committing to doing something. It is what makes ultra-marathoners complete the race, the person getting out of debt or the someone learn a new language. They put the goal first of mind and then develop habits around it.

If I were to say, ‘I’m going to get in shape’. Then I am going to evaluate my diet and my physical exertion. I am not going to get in shape if I do not make changes to support at least one of those two parameters. Each one of those things will have sub-steps and challenges unto their own.

Even if I change diet and add exercise, I still may not get into shape. I will be in a better position for sure, but to be in shape I need to do those steps with intent. Maybe to you in-shape means to finish a 5K or maybe it means finishing a 5K under 15 minutes. You need explicit benchmark goals to correctly evaluate whether you are on the right path.

Putting the goal of getting in shape front of mind means that I will have to research recipes or purchase food that in not described as cheese puffs. I means that I will have to dedicate some time a day or week to exercise. That has to become part of my calendar or schedule when planning other things. Or said another way, it has to become front of mind.

End Your Programming Routine: Mastering this is not easy. I haven’t done so. I also find that the older I get the more susceptible I am to desire. I desire not to do that so I pay someone to mow the grass. We all have these conflicts. The real secret is harnessing the time and resources we do have on the things that are important for us to do. Those are the things that we need to keep front of mind.

March 6, 2024 – Did I Invent Something?

March 6, 2024 /

A couple weeks ago, we had our culinary book club dinner. I didn’t plan this on purpose, but I decided that I would bring some of my kim chi to share. It was kind of an easy out for me since I had already made it, I didn’t have to rush to cook before the meal. Predictably, people took a courtesy serving leaving me with a lot of leftover kim chi. I don’t mind, I want to get this superfood lifestyle anyway. It is why I made it after all.

My wife has had some interesting food cravings lately. One of them is that she wants to eat a lot of hotdogs. We bought a pack at Costco at the beginning of the month. She was off with her friends one night and so I decided that rather than investing a lot of time cooking, I would just heat some hotdogs for myself and my son.

I am a fan of lacto-fermented foods. I love sauerkraut on my hotdog. And being a practical person, I was going to take a healthy serving of kim chi because I am going to be the one that eats it all anyway. All of the sudden I got the idea that I would have a bite of hotdog with kim chi. Wow.

It is almost better than sauerkraut. It is not just acidic but has crunch and the chili adds a zing to it. I had never heard of kim chi on a hotdog and my mind started going. It is nearly perfect, but I think adding some kind of sweet plum sauce as well would be the perfect combination of sweet and sour balance.

I did a quick internet search and certainly there is something for anybody out there by now. The truth is, there is very little on the subject. That means that very few people have ever put this combination together. This is a perfect fusion/food truck idea. I know that sauerkraut is not for everyone. But for those that like it, I think this is a twist worthy of consideration. It is also worthy of some experimentation for perfection.

Mind you, my kim chi is a modified version. I didn’t add fish sauce nor did I add extra rice starch liquid. My plan was to dress those things later at the time of serving. I actually think this version is a better compliment for a condiment than the traditional version. Nobody likes a soggy bun and the fish sauce umami is un-needed. But again, those could be added at serving.

End Your Programming Routine: I often find that my best results are the repurposing of ingredients. The more I experiment, the more free my mind wanders. This is a perfect fusion of east and west. It doesn’t look like I invented it, but it sure appears to be unknown. Give it a try.

March 5, 2024 – Review: The Boys In The Boat

March 5, 2024 /

“The boys in the hood are always hard. Come talking that trash they pull your card…” Remember that song? Well, the boys in the boat are also pretty hard. Coming of age in the Great Depression and participating in grueling work-outs in terrible weather kind of makes my bones chill. You might have seen the movie, I haven’t yet but it is on my shortlist just to complete this story.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown is a non-fiction story about the University of Washington crew team striving for 1936 Olympic gold. It is more or less focused on a couple of people. Al Ulbrickson is the Washington coach, George Pocock is a boat builder and unofficial consultant and rower Joe Rantz from birth to winning the gold medal in 1936.

Joe is the book’s major character. He had an amazing and heartbreaking, hardscrabble upbringing. The death of his mother and the cold shoulder of his step mother left him alone in his high school years. It is impressive that despite the cruelty of the period, Joe was able to hustle to the point that he could get into the university and stay there.

The first third of the book was the history of the three primary characters. The second half of the book was the ebb and flow of the crew team. Finally, the last fifteen percent or so was the Olympic tribulations. An interesting aspect of the book was the parallel Nazi story where the Olympics were used to deceive the rest of the world of the building evil. Short anecdotes were added about the propaganda setup that was part of the effort.

This was a book that I got for Christmas. It came as a a recommendation from a friend of my mom. I had no idea that there was a coming movie or that this story was becoming a phenomenon. Since I read almost everything put in front of me, I went ahead and dove into the book. That being said, I will offer my analysis now.

Since I haven’t seen the movie, I am going to have to speculate here. Usually I am a book over movie person. That may be because I usually read the book long before seeing the movie. I have to wonder in this case if this is a movie before the book. The reason I say this is because the book is wildly detailed. This is a long, almost 400 page story for the quest. I suspect that the same effect could have been achieved at half the volume of words.

I really enjoyed the backstory of Joe Rantz. The following chapters of the ups and downs of the crew seasons and constitution of the team got quite nuanced and drawn out. While the title is Boys in the Boat, there really was not much back story or focus on any of the other boys other than Joe. I think if I was the editor, I would have refocused the entire story, including the title on Joe.

While I found the Nazi component intriguing, this comes off as a thinly cloaked, pro-USA propaganda story of its own. We have the Germans giving their own team the best lane while the pure grit Americans win despite being put at a disadvantage proving that we were the divinely favored ones.

Was the story worth the effort? I would have to say that if you are a UW fan, a rower or a non-specific history buff then yes, but otherwise no. The human interest is really in the character Joe Rantz and the amazing feats that he did to survive and thrive. It is hard to understand the perspective of the privileged Yale, Harvard or Cornell versus hoping to eat daily Washington team. So, it is a common man triumph that could get the same effect in a novelette or magazine article.

About five years ago, my sister got her PhD from University of Washington. On that day, we walked down to Lake Washington and walked right next to the very boathouse that still remains. My brother-in-law pointed out the cut and the basic layout of the area. I had no idea that there was a story there or that one day I would see a picture in a book of that very building.

End Your Programming Routine: I was instantly drawn in to the first picture of the boathouse. I stayed interested in the early life of Joe. Once the book got into the grind of the journey, I lost a lot of enthusiasm for the rest of the story. It has an exciting ending with a photo finish but you could look that up. This is a story that doesn’t have enough meat to read the whole book. No disrespect to Mr Brown, I think it was meticulously researched by evidence of its length. My suggestion is to reformat the story to the title ‘A Boy in the Boat’.

March 4, 2024 – Keeping It Light

March 4, 2024 /

This week I wanted to come up from the heaviness since the beginning of the year and that to come. I do some self analysis and draw some conclusions. Even though I am talking about me, I am pretty sure that what I am saying applies to everyone.

March 1, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XII – XVII

March 1, 2024 /

On to level seven. It took me around two hours to read this section despite the fact that it was around twenty pages. I read, then I read the footnotes, then I read again and wonder if I am getting anything out of this. This finally seems like we are going the right direction. But still when I look ahead, I wonder if this is actually put in the right order. Let’s talk about what is here.

The seventh level contains three different types of ‘violence’. In my translation it is said the first one is violence against neighbors. That is violence as we would expect; people killing people. These were souls stuck in a river of boiling blood presumably at the depth to the level of their quantity of violence. Here we see Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun as examples.

The second area was violence against self. These were people that committed suicide. Their spirits were implanted into thorny trees that ravaged daily by furies who rip off branches causing more pain. In essence, they never escape the self torture in death that was suffered in life.

The third area had two different categories. One was violence against nature which translates more colloquially as homosexuality and bestiality. The second area was violence against art which I don’t totally get. It is said to be usury or predatory lending. The first part were souls stuck on a burning sand desert that also rained flaming ashes. The second was perched on a ledge on the way down to level eight.

There were several things that I found puzzling. The first is using a modern lens, the payday lender is bigger sinner than a mass murderer? I would imagine that we would see Adolf Hitler in the river with Atilla the Hun. Usury is a subjective evaluation in my opinion. What one person thinks is a rip-off may be fine for another. We of course have laws about the maximum amount of interest that is permissible but I find those rates to be usury myself. But, from the information I have seen, those are voluntary and satisfactory interactions.

We don’t really see usury in this society. I imagine that institutions like the mafia or gangs may fit the bill since they play in that arena. I really don’t know many details about what is common. But then again, there are probably other sins that they are also committing. Maybe you had to be there?

The second thing that I found challenging was that after level after level of surface level interactions Dante found a lot of comrades on the sand. In this epic about sin and Dante having his day, there is little evidence that these people were out in the open. Apparently Dante had several deep, admirable relationships with the specters he met here and it makes you wonder if this was really the condemnation that we are led to believe. In some interactions, there is clear animosity over perceived wrongs. So maybe Dante is a criminal against nature?

Finally, the notes in the book on individuals on suicide did not actually indicate suicide. Maybe more like reckless behavior. There were people that were killed in battle and there were mythology figures that were killed by poison as examples. But the text clearly references that it was suicidal thoughts and behaviors regardless of whether the history proves it correct.

I think that it is worth noting that we are talking about something that was written in the early 14th century. They didn’t have the internet to instantly fact check information and maybe they didn’t even have written records to reference. I think that it is somewhat forgivable to have some of the facts mixed up. But it is difficult to fully understand intent when the facts and the story don’t quite line up.

Reading this section is like reading the “Dungeon Master’s Guide”. If you ever saw the first printings of this, it was mostly an encyclopedia of monsters. I don’t have a copy anymore but I am pretty sure everything that we are running across in this story was catalogued in there.

To do another serious reading of this story, it would be worth boning up on Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology. The back story of the characters that Dante sees and interacts with plays a significant role in the innuendo of the story. I am getting some of it from the footnotes as I read along, but I am certainly struggling to swim in the name stew of mythological characters. I am a lot better with the monsters.

Be warned, next week is a long one. Cantos 18-31 comprise level eight. As I look at the story, this will be the longest stretch in the entire book analysis. To me, this indicates the significance to Dante. Of course, more on all of that next week.

End Your Programming Routine: Maybe it was finally getting to some identifiable sins or maybe it was getting into more than one or two Cantos that I liked this section. Despite the fact that I struggle with his categorization, the penalties and creatures were captivating. The notes indicate that Dante may have been in the Franciscan order at one point, but I am really impressed at how much he knows about mythology. Before the age of enlightenment, Dante is an impressive character.

February 29, 2024 – It Has Been a Long Time Since I Have Been To the Range…

February 29, 2024 /

Happy leap day everyone. It may be that I am getting older and lazier but I haven’t been to the range since November. My renewal date is around the first of the year and I haven’t hardly even thought about going. It kind of makes me wonder if I should keep up my membership if I am not going to use it.

Another possible reason is that since I have setup my basement, pellet trap I use it multiple times a week. So, I feel less of the need to go to the range because I am always shooting without going anywhere. Recently I upgraded the scope on an air rifle so I am going to talk about the process today.

My son has a Crossman 760. It is a straight tube (non-rifled), multi-pump, bb/pellet combo. It is one of those classic bb guns. I can remember my cousin’s had the same one in the 1980s. My son’s looks exactly the same but today’s model has a sleeker, more updated design. It has a 3/8 rail for a scope addition.

When I purchased my first air-rifle, it also came with a very in-expensive 4×15 scope. It truly is better than nothing but for not much money you can do much better. But, the better part of my motivation was to put a scope on my son’s rifle. I figured I would upgrade the scope on my rifle and move the old scope to the 760.

Since the 760 is not rifled, it is not likely to be the most accurate of the bunch. By my reasoning, a significant scope upgrade would only marginally be of value on that rifle. The sights aren’t that great either and my groups are more like 2 inch groups with the 760. Additionally, I am noticing my eyesight is starting to degrade rapidly. Even this scope would help.

I took the old scope off and sighted the new scope on my rifle. It is shooting pretty good and I think the $40 investment was worth the cost and effort. I put the old scope on the 760 and the picture above represents how things went. Despite the fact that things were pretty dialed in my first shot was six inches to the left. As I kept working at it, I kept walking right and up. The final three shots above the center is where I left it.

Keep in mind that changing the number of pumps or the projectile will also change how things work. In my case eight (out of ten) pumps with a BB (5gr, one of the lightest projectiles) at ten yards will likely yield lower impact for heavier projectiles or less pumps. Given the same conditions, farther distance will likely have some drop as well. I think it is about perfect.

One other thing about inexpensive scopes is the adjustments are kind of poor. It is marked as on click per 1/4″ at 100 yards. So, at ten yards 1/4″ is supposed to be 10 clicks. But when it makes no clicks, you are not totally sure what the adjustment actually is. They also tend to act erratically sometimes by having different results the next day because something finally sprang into place. Some people actually tap on their scopes after adjustment to try and help them set in place.

End Your Programming Routine: I am happy to report that things were still in place the next day and I think this is an improvement over open sights. I do have a picture here somewhere with some previous testing I did but I couldn’t find it. And there is a real improvement in my rifle with the new scope on it. Win-win, I say.