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February 14, 2024 – Sneaking Up On Me

February 14, 2024 /

It feels like it has been forever but it seems like most years there are some nice days in February. When my second son was born, the day before there was freezing rain and snow in the forecast. After spending the night in the hospital, I went home to check on the dogs and things and people were mowing their lawns and it was 65 degrees.

The first weekend in February had some similar weather patterns. We transitioned from ice to a southwesterly jet stream and it felt downright tropical for a couple of days. Then, the sun broke free for the entire weekend before I really realized this was going to happen. It was a good thing that I procrastinated checking for a leak in the apartment until the weekend. I didn’t really want to do the task, but being outside all afternoon was glorious.

One of my persistent irritants is that my neighbors have several full-size cherry trees along the fence line. Those trees hand over the house and drop their leaves and cherries over a portion of the roof. But it also clogs up the gutters multiple times a year. While I was up looking for leaks, I took the time to trim the trees as much as I could. This brings me to my point. This is the time (for me) to start getting the yard work going.

Pruning time is here. I will cut the cherry trees any time of year because I don’t want them dropping stuff on the house. But apple trees, grapes, roses, this is the time to get it done. These are the things that need to be done at my house and a sunny, 60 degree day is a perfect time to do this.

I have a tree that I am wanting to take out. I am not sure what it is exactly and it doesn’t add a lot of value to my property. It puts shade on the other things that I want growing. This is a good time to do this for deciduous trees because you don’t have leaves to deal with, just like pruning. The truth is that any time of year is fine to remove trees so I might wait until later in the spring just for drier ground.

This is also the time to start seeds. I am currently looking at 10 weeks before last frost date. But it is getting very close to the time where seeds need to be started. It kind of just snuck up on me. I haven’t given one thought about it and now all of the sudden it is here.

There is a famous slogan in programming. ‘Days of coding saves hours of design.’ I would never say not to plan, but that ship has already set sail for me this year. I am a fair weather gardener anyway. Since I pay for yard service, I already only engage in those things that I want to do. Years of indecision about whether we are going to stay and how certain changes impact value, etc has kind of left me paralyzed with indecision.

The colloquial advice is to proceed as if we are going to stay, we just might and I am going to regret not planning a better garden for the five years of waiting to make a decision. Chances are pretty high that I will not do anything different this year and this is another year wasted. My point remains that if there is going to be any seed starting that that needs to be soon.

I know that I talk about and it may seem like I am indecisive. I am trying to delay the ultimate decision until my kids graduate from high school. That is coming in about 18 months. Since I would like to live in the country and I have documented issues where I am at, I can’t imagine that I won’t want to move in a year from now. But, I am relatively happy here and I don’t have to move so that is what makes this hard. You never know what the future holds.

End Your Programming Routine: I really enjoyed the opportunity to get out of the house on the weekend. It wasn’t in my mind that I had other tasks to do other than try to find a leak. Fortunately, god reminded me that if I want to kill a bunch of plants later in the summer, this is the time to get started. If you have dreams of a garden bounty, it is likely time for you as well.

February 13, 2024 – To the Men Out There…

February 13, 2024 /

This is not one of my usual topics. But I am not one dimensional, I believe in whole happiness and not just having the best tools or skills. And relationships are one of those things. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones that has a partner that is in sync with what you want? My experience and observation says that is probably not the case.

This is the last chance to do something for Valentines Day. Trust me, I despise it and usually I am trying to execute plans that should have been set in motion two weeks ago. Restaurants are already full, events are already sold out and you are stuck. Vow to do better next year but we have to do something now.

I keep a list of things I see throughout the year on my phone. The list is just randomized thoughts about gifts or things that she says. This list comes in handy for birthdays anniversaries and Christmas as well. This helps mitigate deer in the headlights ‘gotta do something now’ mentality.

My wife is a romantic and you guessed it, I find it frivolous. As I said in the beginning, I believe in whole happiness and I am not going to be 100% happy if she is not. It has taken a long time and I still do not like it but I have accepted that I need to put out some effort to recognize and spoil my partner with a little extra attention.

If you are a regular flower buyer, then you probably need zero help from me. In fact, I should be taking lessons. But, I do occasionally buy flowers. I don’t do it always nor do I do it a lot because I don’t want it to become something that is also routine. It helps to have a friend that owns a flower shop because I don’t feel as bad about spending the money. One more tip, ordering from a service will work all the way to the last minute but you will get more for the money or a better deal by going directly to the florist.

A minimum is to buy a card. Write a note that expresses some emotion and appreciation. Combine that with a little something, something like a bath salt or message oil and you have a romantic kit or basket. Remember, it is not the price but the thought especially when you are a stick in the mud like me.

I cook all the time, so that is nothing special. Do something that is different than normal. For me, that would be something like a dining experience. I like Korean barbeque where you cook at your table. Fondue would be another option where you are sharing the menu. But it could be all manner of dining experiences like picking your seafood for the dish or hotpot or build your own burger even. It doesn’t have to be expensive just what fits your partner.

There are all kinds of dating shows out there plus the internet for ideas. Depending on what day of the week Valentines is you may or may not need to do much more. But, if there is some sort of entertainment that doesn’t fit into the schedule, you could propose doing all of this on another day. That doesn’t exclude recognizing the 14th as Valentines Day, so I don’t prefer adding more than it already is.

End Your Programming Routine: I have more ideas that I am not going to share for fear that I may get exposed and then have to execute them. My point is that it is important for me to make my partner feel important. To do that, it takes me out of where I am comfortable and want to be but keeps me where I want to be in life. It is not too late to do something, so do it.

February 9, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto VII

February 9, 2024 /

Today we are on the fourth circle of hell. Interestingly enough, this Canto contains the fourth circle and some of the fifth. I considered covering both but then in Canto VIII it covers the fifth and sixth circles. So, we will cover the fifth next week since the sixth overlaps multiple Cantos thereafter.

When I think about it, I understand that this story is written in a formula. Each Canto is approximately the same number of lines composed of equally divided stanzas. Each layer of the the afterworld contains nearly the same number of Cantos. Since this book seems largely a social commentary, I surmise that this fourth level of hell Dante didn’t have that much to say about it and hence he combined the levels so that the story would work with the formula.

The fourth circle is interesting from the fact that it is two opposite factions pitted against one another. If you think about it, the opposite of hoarding is wasting and vice versa. It would seem as though extremes in either direction warrant an afterlife in the fourth circle according to Dante. He describes the situation that they are like two gangs, pitted against each other like they are going to brawl. Being that this is a political commentary, I find it interesting that the only constituents mentioned were clergy and church officials in this realm. I will focus in on this a little bit for now.

In today’s vernacular, it seems like hoarders are also wasters. They can’t seem to move beyond all of their possessions including garbage. And so things that have value get lost or spoil in the trash. This definition is not the strict definition of hoarding however. Hoarding is taking what you can, because you can. Just like wasting is letting something degrade because you can.

Both of this positions seem to have a personal initiative component. The term waster has a clear visible effect whereas hoarder is more subjective. A lot of people like to equate people that prepare as hoarders when I believe nothing is farther from the truth. These are people that use the time of plenty to prepare for the time without. In a season of surplus, anyone with the means can purchase, make, etc. If you look at the perspective that way, anyone that preserves a garden or purchases a whole beef would be a hoarder. They are not going to eat it all in a couple days time, but it is necessary to take advantage of when it available.

As history gets exposed, it is becoming more clear that the clergy was a home for a lot of deviants and sociopaths. If you think about the middle ages where this story was written, the church was one of the few outlets to leave of peasantry. I imagine that upward mobility combined with sociopathy lead to a lot of hoarding and wasting. It is literally the holier than thou syndrome.

End Your Programming Routine: By no means is this intended to disrespect the clergy. But, the fact remains that a some people in that profession were not living to their core values. By all accounts, Dante was middle class and it also seems like he was on the losing side of a political conflict. It seems pretty likely that he might have an ax to grind with those who were probably doing wrong.

February 8, 2024 – The Joy Luck Club

February 8, 2024 /

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is the February Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection. This was Tan’s first published work and it has been around 30 years. There was also a popular-ish movie based on the book in 1993. I remember the title distinctly but I never saw it.

The book is termed fiction, but Tan said that it was loosely based on her life’s experience. It is structed in four parts with four chapters. There are 8 characters four women and four daughters. The story bounces around with the first section being the stories of the young moms and the next section of the young daughters. Then it is old women and grown up daughters.

I don’t know if I mentioned this or not but I am now the head of the book club. I have decided to nudge the club in a slightly new direction. I am breaking the direct coupling between the the books and the food. Half the members don’t read the book anyway and part of them don’t make recipes or food from the book either. I really wanted to have some kind of Chinese New Year dinner. I may have been able to find some kind of cookbook or something but I wanted to loosen the book affiliation more.

It is often hard to find a relevant book to fit the theme of dinner or vice versa for that matter. The group voted on the book but I suggested it. I did some internet searches for novels with Chinese food. I am sad to say that there was not that much in the way of food but that is OK. I really don’t want to read technical manuals all the time either.

I cant say too much about the story because it really wasn’t cohesive. It was basically 16 anecdotes. They were really only related because all the mothers were part of the social group Joy Luck Club or it was the mother daughter story. I have to say that I really didn’t find this story that enjoyable.

I found Joy Luck Club to be manic and disjointed. It reminded me of the TV show Gilmore Girls with emotional bickering and little resolution with each sub story other than they loved each other. The book ended with a stronger want to know this Chinese component of the inner soul but the entire story did little to help it get there.

My wife has not read the book yet. I have a feeling that she will like the book because I think women would probably identify with the struggles and dynamics. Additionally, I suspect that people of Chinese descent might like because there just aren’t that many written, familiar stories. Of course, these are just speculations on my part.

My opinion is to pass on this one. I get it that it is literature and that I do not appreciate the subtlety and nuance being a white male. For that reason, I guess I would simply say that I don’t identify with the characters or the story. It doesn’t mean that the story is worthless, just does not resonate with me.

End Your Programming Routine: I read almost anything that comes across my path. It is interesting that since I have been reviewing books, I have definitely become more discriminating in my opinions. It is the activity of thinking about what I like and didn’t that has developed that skill. I noticed that acutely with my dystopian reviews lately. So, the lesson is that you have to focus on objective qualities to refine your opinions. Even with that, just because I didn’t like something doesn’t make me right, just my thoughts.

February 7, 2024 – My Good Pen

February 7, 2024 /

How many more items like this do I have? That’s a good question, I don’t really know. I really do take care of my things and they seem to hold a lot memory associations with them. This Cross pen below I received from my Aunt and Uncle for my high school graduation in 1993. I also got a check for $50 that went into my war chest, otherwise known as a savings account. Boy was life different then, we had a home computer but still the majority of all work was done by hand and I do mean handwriting.

I dubbed this pen ‘my good pen’ and so I didn’t use it much. In fact, it probably spent 15 years in my day planner. For those of you that don’t remember or know, a day planner was an oversized book size calendar. It was meant to carry with you and keep track of all things on a day by day basis. I really wanted to use a day planner, in fact I bought several. But I wasn’t disciplined enough to write everything all the time.

The day planner became an item of clutter shortly after getting it setup. And with it, my pen sat zipped up and protected. I carried that planner around for years in case I needed to take a note or something but I never really did. I finally threw the planner away several years ago.

Writing in this blog is not the only writing I do. I keep a journal that is mostly about planning and productivity. Now this pen is used to keep a weekly log of what I did for the week and what I am planning for the next. About two weeks ago, it stopped writing. Finally, after 29 years it ran out of ink.

The good news is that I can still order a refill, which I did. I like the idea that items have a story. So, while the refill cost $8 and I could buy four good writing pens for that, it was worth it. My good pen is going to live on.

I have to be honest, some of today’s disposable pens are more ergonomic and actually write better. This pen is thin and a little slick. While it works perfectly fine, it isn’t the easiest to hold for long writing sessions. It’s best function is signing things and writing checks.

One of the weaknesses of the pen and design is the clip. Mine is slightly bent because it is soft metal and it got squeezed in that day planner I spoke of earlier. I thought it was so neat to have an expensive pen, I bought my girlfriend (now wife) one for Christmas. Hers is sprung more than mine. I don’t know how, but I know that is a weakness.

Ten years ago, when I did a lot of looking a gear list for survival packs and such, there was a ubiquitous Fisher Space Pen on most of the lists. This was a pen that developed for the space program. The ink was pressurized so that it would write upside down or any position. This is probably the gold standard for pens.

That being said, I heard an anecdote that the Russians decided to use pencils. It is kind of like Indiana Jones facing the guy with the swords and then he just shoots him. Why re-invent the wheel? The reason this pen is special to me is because of the memory, not because it is high tech or even expensive. Heck, I am pretty sure I still have writing instruments that I found in the high school hallway too.

End Your Programming Routine: This actually wasn’t the only pen I received at that event. I got another pen with a $100 bill. It was a more inexpensive pen, but I probably have that as well. I know this is what drives me crazy when my kids ‘borrow’ something and lose it or break it. Here I have kept and used so many things for thirty years only to have no regard for an item.

February 6, 2024 – What is Wrong With My Chex Mix?

February 6, 2024 /

We are getting very close to Super Bowl time. My mind is wandering to snack food. But then again, food is always in the background. This one has been simmering a little because I have attempted Chex Mix multiple times since the holidays.

My wife said that she had a hankering for Chex Mix before New Years. On one of my trips to the grocery store, I picked up three different varieties of Chex cereal. If you haven’t made this before, the recipe calls for the corn, rice and wheat varieties.

The official recipe is melt three quarters of a stick of butter. Add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt, 1/2 a teaspoon of both onion and garlic powder to 3 cups of each variety of Chex, and a cup each of nuts, pretzels and rye chips. You pour the butter over and the mixture and microwave for five minutes.

I should have known that any recipe that involves microwaving is already suspect. This mixture has been around for a long time and I don’t ever remember microwaving it. More so than that, I have made it twice and it is well under seasoned. I even left out the rye chips because I couldn’t find them so there should have been more seasoning per volume.

Over the years many of us have bought the bag of Chex mix. In my opinion it is OK, it doesn’t hold a candle to the home made version. I think it has to do with the butter and the Worcestershire sauce. Plus, I don’t remember nuts in the bag. The commercial version has all dry ingredients plus a soup of preservatives which is a poor substitute to the real tang.

Chex mix is one of my aunt’s staple snack dishes. Every time I have it, I think how I should make it more often. In reality, I should probably ask her for tips instead of complaining online about why mine is not living up to my expectations. Nevertheless, I repeated the recipe twice to verify that the published recipe is not right or at least not what I think it should be.

Honestly, I don’t really know what is wrong. Should I use margarine instead of butter? My gut says to double the seasoning and maybe even triple or quadruple the Worcestershire. I pop popcorn using an air popper all the time and a little butter and salt is plenty for the whole batch. But, that is a simple seasoning, not the tangy and fragrant snack.

What a first world problem; this could have been an episode of Seinfeld. The reason I bring this topic up is that now is the time to perfect your Super Bowl party recipes. I know that I am a risk taker and I often make dishes for the first time at big occasions. But, if you are not a confident as I am or maybe not as skilled, you might want to practice before the big show.

End Your Programming Routine: What I can say is that I wouldn’t serve this recipe at a party. It lacks a lot of pizazz. I will be trying this again with some variation and if I find the secret I will report back. There is an alternate preparation that uses the oven at 250 degrees that I think helps bake in the flavor rather than the microwave. I am looking forward to the testing process.

February 5, 2024 – Vote Your Way Out of This

February 5, 2024 /

I used to be like this, I was idealistic. If we just got the right senator/representative/president then we could finally get what we wanted accomplished. After that didn’t work, then we needed the right combination of officials. After that, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen. This podcast explains why this is the case. The heart of it is an interview on the Sebastian Gorka radio show.

February 2, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto VI

February 2, 2024 /

From pagans to the lustful and now gluttons, Dante has descended to the third level of hell. This canto seems surprisingly thin. There is only one name mentioned, a contemporary of Dante and a person of seemingly insignificance by the judgement of history. I will delve in the best I can without a ton of context to carry me through.

There were three things that stuck out to me in this Canto. The first is the description of the level. Fetid, putrid, stinking and rotting were adjectives that were used. The first thought that came to mind was that it smelled like vomit here. Seems kind of fitting considering the crime.

The second and more cerebral notion that I noticed was with Dante’s conversation with Ciacco. My book has almost as many footnotes and explanations as it does actual text. The translator’s note on this was that because Ciacco was condemned, he had no further hope. Therefore, he was very interested that the current living world still remembered him and he had a legacy there. It was his only chance of living on.

Finally, there was mention of a second judgement. All beings would be returned to flesh and have a second evaluation. I am assuming that this is the famous rapture predicted in Revelations. My church and Christian understanding was limited to judgement in the living world by the second coming of Christ. The represents a new perspective for me but I maybe I should go back and re-evaluate what I thought I knew. I don’t see why not but by the same token, I am not sure if the outcome would be any different.

To peel the next layer of the onion, I want to look at the premise a little harder. What exactly is gluttony? The Webster’s definition is excessive eating or drinking. That is exactly what I thought before I looked it up. I have always considered it a temporal activity so what does it take to get to the third level of Hell with the sin of gluttony?

We could probably agree that drinking yourself to death would be gluttony. But, if the ultimate cause of death is liver failure or diabetes and yet the user stopped six months beforehand is this still gluttony? The Christian track would say that if you asked for forgiveness in the last six months, probably not.

Alcohol poisoning or overdose I wouldn’t always think apply either. Even though they are death by excess, they may not contain the chronic aspect of substance abuse. We were all young once and if you are reading this, fortunately we survived potentially risky behavior. Some unfortunately do not, is ignorance a sin as well?

What about drugs? They are not food nor drink yet I feel like they probably fit into this category in many cases. But does gluttony have to be consensual? I find it hard to believe that someone is addicted to Cheetos but then again, it is not the particular brand but possibly the chemical composition that causes the problem.

From what I have read and heard, the body becomes addicted to carbohydrates. This bio-chemical mechanism was a survival adaptation from long ago. When plants were offering fruits, the human body would consume it to the point of adding fat. That fat would help weather the leaner times. In this time of always in season, Cheetos are no longer seasonal nor do we have the wax and wain of what is possible.

The epidemic of diabetes in this country is nothing short of gargantuan. Between solicitous marketing and government/industry collusion (that is fascism by the way), they have created it. I consider myself pretty well educated and even I don’t know the whole truth. In my opinion, it is best to error on the side of whole foods and ignore all the other advice. But, there are sure a lot of people that don’t know (or won’t) to get out of their own way so to expect them to make a good and proper change is nearly impossible.

I am not holier than thou. I eat junk food sometimes, I even eat fast food sometimes. I try not to stock it in the pantry and I try to partake in moderation. I am overweight and I know that is largely from too many calories and not enough physical exertion. So, am I a glutton? I guess we will see if this is what leads to my death.

Gluttony in Dante’s time is probably different than now. First of all, there wasn’t a lot of food for many people to get fat or have chronic health conditions of excess. They were more likely to go the other way, malnutrition from lack of food. Fairness, while subjective is born into our psyche. If the rich are taking and getting fat while everyone else is barely getting by, I can see the class warfare gearing up. Also, Christianity teaches sharing and caring for the less fortunate.

End Your Programming Routine: I do think there is something here, I just am not convinced that it is as simple as eating or drinking too much. I do think that there is a chronic component, there is also probably doing it at the expense of others as well. Based on the side text, this level of hell is likely as political as it is a sin. I think that this is probably why it is titled, ‘The Divine Comedy’.

February 1, 2024 – Listening For the Shoe to Drop

February 1, 2024 /

This is getting to be old news now. But a major media announcement last week was like a punch in the gut. Sports Illustrated was laying off all staff writers and potentially all staff. I suppose that means that unless all staff is laid off, it will continue in some fashion. But what that is, remains to be seen. I didn’t realize that it has been a monthly magazine for several years, I guess that is how irrelevant they have become.

Last week I thought also saw some mention of National Geographic shutting down. As I was researching specifics for this article, I could not substantiate that. I did run across an announcement from June 2023 that all staff writers were laid off and news stand issues were no longer to be found.

In a third, related story I have the Fine Woodworking and Fine Homebuilding podcast on my subscription role. In December, they announced that Taunton Press was acquired by Active Interest Media. They do share some similar markets with Popular Woodworking and Woodsmith magazine. The difference here is that I do believe that Fine Woodworking and Fine Homebuilding will continue for now.

All three of these things happening share a very similar root cause that print media is dying. We have all heard this and we intuitively know this to be true. I think the difference between Taunton Press’s potential survival and National Geographic and Sport’s Illustrated likely demise is journalistic integrity.

Taunton Press titles are detailed, on good paper and serve a niche. They have also made a good effort to integrate additional features on the digital side and provide a complimentary service. All past articles are available digitally and indexed. Supplementary content to the print articles can be found online as well.

When you look at something like what Sports Illustrated used to be, a current swath of what is happening in sports, that is old news. Up to the minute scores and standings are all found on the internet these days, even daily newspapers are too late to the game. There are thousands of blogs covering every team and every sport offering opinions and analysis. Do any of them hold a candle to Sports Illustrated circa 1990, probably not. But those are not the days we live in anymore.

I cannot speak to National Geographic these days. This was one of those magazines that I subscribed to when I was a college student. You know, those kids that don’t even have money for food. I turned my back on them in the mid-2000s. There were many fascinating articles but then there was definitely social justice propaganda in there. I got so fed up with it that I cancelled it and never looked back.

My favorite stories were the Americana stories. They were something like County Fairs in the Midwest. I could taste the fried food and smell the livestock dust. I also remember reading a story about alcoholics and how they would drink hairspray when they got hard up. I looked forward to reading it cover to cover every month.

I remember one story about the hole in the ozone layer in the early 1990s. At that time, it was predicted that there would be mass global cooling since all of the buffering compounds were going to escape out of the hole while simultaneously we were going to fry from UV radiation. What I think that the writer (and National Geographic in general) got right was identifying a problem. They did a pretty good job of figuring out the factions and getting access to knowledgeable people. Despite the highly detailed writing, what was actually missing was the data. These became articles that supported the magazine’s bias without proving why, with data.

Scientific journals offer method information plus data so that anyone with the right tools and gumption could replicate the experiment because almost every scientific experiment is opinion. Most scientists never do because it is such niche work. People use published work to design experiments as a take off or go another direction and then they find out it cant be replicated. Published scientific work is a technical persuasion piece. “I came to this conclusion because of this data and this is how I got it.”

Actual scientific method is not “I hold this opinion because so and so did the work.” Unless the writer is repeating the experiment and is knowledgeable in the field, he has no right to state anything as fact. To have scientific integrity, it could be written third person or biographically, but not as scientific fact. And just like in English class, all non-first person information should be cited.

The last straw with me was when they found a piece of a bone in Africa that claimed that artifact was the definitive key to evolution trumps all other theories of life. They built a whole skeleton and back story based on this leg bone fragment. I am not anti-evolution, I just don’t see the data to make that leap. There is a reason why anthropology is a social science. It is not governed by strict scientific laws. Yes, there are lot of generalities and trends but absolutes, no.

I am already off the rails. My point is that these magazines created their own demise. I get that print is dying. Who reads anymore? School kids, old people and recluses like me (I am also getting old). Heck, even people in my culinary book club don’t read the books. Sometimes they don’t even know what the book is. But when you compound that with AI written articles (SI) and pseudo science (NG) you get expensive and wasteful clutter.

End Your Programming Routine: I will always value print. I despise having to be connected to what I am reading and charged to be able to do it. Despite that, print isn’t always the best way for contemporary information. Articles or stories need to be evergreen to the point that when it shows up, it is not already out of date and is well done enough to get value or perspective. Everything that is labelled periodical has shrunk over the last 10 years. That means newspapers, magazine titles and the page count within. When the quality of what is there goes down too, so does the publication.