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February 20, 2025 – For Pain and Gain

February 20, 2025 / / 0 Comments

If you look closely, you can see that I made it to the snow line this week. That is not because I went higher but because the weather got quite a bit colder. I took the same general route that I did the week before for the first part of my hike and my goal was to measure if there was any effect of my struggle the previous week. I am happy to report that I could see minor improvement.

This was a celebratory moment for me. It means that not only did I make measurable progress but that it was a sign that I was going to make it. Don’t get me wrong, I have a long, long way to go but this trip was a sense that what I am doing is working. Trust me, I don’t really embrace the suck but I know that it is necessary for my goals.

Before we get too carried away, I want to report on the bike. I got the basement cleaned up and the bike is setup but I have yet to seriously use it (at the time of this hike). So, I can’t claim that made any difference at this point. The week after the hike I used the bike a couple of times.

I don’t really have a solid plan yet. Part of the reason for the bike is when I can’t get a walk in outside be it daylight or weather or whatever. Because I live on flat ground and limited distances I can go, I am thinking of using the bike in addition to walking. The goal is to bolster cardiovascular fitness with the bike.

Last weekend we were at the beach so I have not tested the bike work yet. I also do not plan on taking the same route every week. Remember my theory of goal setting, the joy is in the process and not the achievement of the goal. I want to get to know as much of the trail system as I possibly can which means different routes each week. It is the same reason why my daily walks vary every day. Otherwise it feels too much like walking on a track.

The good news is that at my stage of fitness, I don’t have to continue pushing boundaries like distance. Doing repetitive hikes and even shorter ones can yield benefit. I was looking at the data from my hike the week before and I saw that my heart rate went as high as 153. That is too much stress.

The conventional wisdom says that your maximum heart rate should be 180 – minus your age. That makes my max heart rate to be 130. For that reason, I made this hike shorter. I don’t know if I totally buy that but the reality is that I am out of shape and midlife, I probably should be mindful of my boundaries. There is also spotty cell phone coverage in this area. Getting medical help in timely fashion is an iffy proposition.

This is not a race, I am not timing myself and measuring improvement. I am measuring improvement by how I feel and my ability to keep on going. Putting one foot in front of the other will eventually accomplish the goal.

End Your Programming Routine: As I head out the door to these longer weekend hikes, I have dread. I hope to someday look forward to doing these and enjoying the experience but right now it is necessity. I can’t afford to skip many of these and expect to not pay for it on my PCT hike. As long as I can be confident in my fitness, I am looking forward to that hike but I have a ways to go.

February 19, 2025 – This Is My Therapy

February 19, 2025 / / 0 Comments

**Politics Warning** Today I break one of my guidelines about bringing up politics midweek. But, this is less about the topic and more about me being upset about what transpired. Sure I made some mistakes by participating and was a contributor to the argument. Today, I talk about why I am so upset and what I am going to do about it. And yes, I am starting to feel better.

February 18, 2025 – Fork and Film? Gumbo

February 18, 2025 / / 0 Comments

When I heard about this idea, I figured it was some kind of Tik-Tok fad or something. It did come from a person that is highly influenced by such things. But, when I did research on the subject, I found out that it is really haute cuisine that is served at the point the subject is mentioned in the movie. I looked up local events and the cost starts at $169 per person. What?

Here is the idea. A meal is prepared to mirror what is happening in the movie. At the right moment, a dish is served as it appears in the scene. For our ‘event’, I made gumbo for the movie ‘Princess and the Frog’. We also had hushpuppies and beignets. The truth is I was busy eating and didn’t pay much attention to the movie so I don’t know if we got the timing right or not.

Making gumbo is not hard but has a lot of preparation steps. The prep took much longer than the actual cooking. There are also a fair number of ingredients so be prepared to make a grocery list before the cutting. Aside from buying the missing ingredients, I had chicken thighs and okra to defrost and stock to make the night before.

Is gumbo Cajun or Creole? Yes, I would bet on Creole but it doesn’t really matter. For that reason there are lots of different variations of recipes. My advice is that unless you are one of them, don’t worry about it and put in the ingredients you like. Heck, try some stuff that you wouldn’t normally as well. Just don’t worry if you cannot find file powder (it is on Amazon). Just focus on the larger quantity ingredients.

I was instructed were to use a dark roux. This is flour and fat. It is heated until the flour browns and is used to thicken the soup. The recipe that I based this on called for 1/4 cup of each and I did not see it do any thickening. I am sure that it added an undertone to the dish but it added a lot of time because I did not feel comfortable chopping vegetables and not paying attention. Either make a lot more to actually get the thickening or forget it altogether.

In with the meat, chicken and andouille sausage. The purpose is to render some of the fat out. Just like French cooking uses mirepoix Louisiana cooking uses the trinity. This is equal parts onion, celery and green pepper. The meat came out and the trinity went in. After that was slightly sautéed. put the meat back in with broth and the roux. Throw in the rest of your vegetables and cook fifteen minutes or so an you are done. I added a pound of shrimp with five minutes remaining so as not to overcook.

Serve the soup with white rice and you are done. As near as I can tell, Gumbo and Jambalaya only really differ on consistency. Gumbo is more soup like but the ingredients are basically the same. Pro tip: as I ate the leftovers, it was much better the second day and it was delicious when I made it. For a bang up meal, I would make it the day before minus the shrimp.

End Your Programming Routine: I briefly got the run down on the concept about a week earlier. For most of the week, I thought that we were cooking along with the film. That was the reason I started obsessing about the recipe. It would be fun to cook along with the film but this is a much better dining experience. This was a Disney movie but file this away for Valentines Day next year. Rabbit soup anyone?

February 17, 2025 – How a Job is Like Dating

February 17, 2025 / / 0 Comments

If I worked at this a little bit, I could turn this from something serious into some sort of stand-up routine. But, alas I am not going to be a comedian today but adding some perspective. If you are struggling in either relationship or your job then maybe one parallel or the other will ring true. I may or may not be taking my own advice here but I am recognizing what some of my tendencies lean toward.

February 14, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 6

February 14, 2025 / / 0 Comments

At this point, we know all about the generations and the turnings. We have focused on the vocabulary that is crucial to understanding the writing. In theory, we know everything that we need to know to really integrate and understand what is our current saeculum. This chapter is all about the first turning and the American High (1946-1964)

The generations that are in play in order from oldest to youngest Lost, GI, Silent and Baby Boomers. As with all of this book, there are no clear lines. I find it easiest to work backward so the Baby Boomers were the result of the oldest Silent generation and the youngest GI generation is a good example.

My paternal grandparents fall right on the line. As an example my grandmother was born in 1925. That makes her technically part of the Silent generation since the GI generation range is 1900-1924. My grandfather was born in 1922 making him amongst the youngest of the GI generation. When I look at my maternal side, my grandfather was born in 1925 and my grandmother in 1930. This of course makes them both of the Silent generation

Like the book explains, people around the edges of a generation can take on properties of either generation. Before I did the math, I assumed that they were all of the GI generation since they were of age and involved in WWII (ignorance on the part of my maternal grandmother). Further, because all of the children were of the Baby Boom generation it was an automatic assumption. Of course, I did no math and I wasn’t a conversant of the theory like I am now.

The mood of the country was as the turning implies, high. The book makes a point to talk about the roles of each generation and their contributions to the era. I will spare the details suffice to say that the GI generation was large and in charge. They pretty much overwhelmed the remainder of Lost generation and elbowed out the Silent generation from further prominence.

Momentum is the term I would use to describe how society proceeded. As a reward for saving the world, the GI Bill is introduced causing all who qualified to become the most educated in history. That same bill made buying a shiny, new house much easier and that became the standard. Live better than your ancestors in every way.

The children of this turning (Baby Boomers) were the product of committed, successful and secure parents. This resulted in a certain coddling as well as the idea that children had a voice. Theories about the importance of what they had to say have led to the conclusion that they were destined to become entitled. This of course will manifest in the next turning.

The unity of the period resulted in things like institution building and homogenization. Factors such as TV played a strong cultural role in that beside just the mood. Medicine, food, education and socioeconomic status were all at parity during this period. Compared to rural poverty (or at least scarcity) the middle class life in the suburbs seemed like a dream.

This is probably intuitive, but I have never thought of it in this way before. Community unity drives individuality to almost nothing. As a result, issues such as Civil Rights take a back seat to group prosperity. This will of course raise its head in the next turning. My takeaway from this is that this is a watchpoint. While I don’t consider movements such as BLM as individuality, the fact that it is a social issue points to lack of cultural cohesiveness and prosperity. That is certainly an indicator of what turning we are actually in.

The American High ended with the assassination of JFK, America’s first GI generation leader. The die was cast however. He was followed by LBJ, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmie Carter, Ronald Regan and George HW Bush all of the GIs. From 1961 – 1992 one generation imprinted it’s nation building fingerprint on our policy and politics. That is a time frame that is fifty percent longer than the generation’s fall saeculum itself. Some might say that is undue influence.

End Your Programming Routine: It is hard to really put too much commentary on history. I think it is generally known what the stronger generations did in certain time periods. Notice I didn’t really even talk about the Lost generation nor the Silent generation. I think that is largely because those generations were really a non-factor in history. That is not to be disparaging, it still remains to be seen if Gen-X will have a hand in the next turning. We are running out of time as the oldest are in their sixties now, already stepping into Winter.

February 13, 2025 – Like Water For Chocolate

February 13, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is the February 2024 Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection. This is the first Mexican themed book we have done in a long time. It is also one that has been around a while. I saw the movie in the mid 1990s. I will be honest, I don’t remember anything about it. My wife read the book in Spanish in 1994 when she was studying in Mexico. This is my first go around reading the book.

The story takes place in revolutionary Mexico (1910-1920) somewhere along the border. I surmise this because it references swimming in the Rio Grande at one point. The premise of the story is about a young women Tita who is in love with a boy but because of a family tradition of the youngest daughter has responsibility to take care of the parents until they die is denied marriage from her widowed mother. As a result, the boy marries her sister and the emotional tension between him being around throws Tita into cooking elaborate meals.

There is of course much more to the story but I am not going to spoil it. What surprised me about the book is that there are 11 recipes in it. The text of the book are the steps on how to make each dish. By my experience, they look like the real deal with the right ingredients and flavors. This is exactly the kind of fiction that we are oriented to read.

Being that this is February, a romance is the perfect selection for the month as well. As you probably guessed, I am not much of a romantic. I found some of the plot a little too out there for me. But the one thing that I can say is that the mysticism that is woven into the culture is right on. These come out with the home remedies that are used throughout the book.

Again, not much of a Romance reader I found the story bearable. If you like that sort of thing, then you might find this book even tame. It was edgy without being explicit would be my description. For that reason, I can say that it is a book that can be read in a setting like ours.

I enjoyed the story to a point. The farm life, the food, the history and the politics were all enjoyable to me. As an example, the storage mechanisms for eggs in a pre-electric era was pretty cool. The shower, the self reliance with keeping and eating animals raised on the farm were also enjoyable. I suppose that the story without the sexual tension wouldn’t have been a story at all. For those reasons, I would say that if you were going to read a romance, this would be the one for me.

For the dinner, I am bringing Mole. Not the recipe in the book but I have already made this and it is in the freezer. It is quite a bit of work which is why I cherish the leftovers but this is the perfect occasion to break it out. This is a group that will appreciate it and if they have only had it in the restaurant it is going to blow their minds.

The art of Mole is almost lost. Most people make it with a starter base commercially available. One person I spoke with years ago said that nobody has five hours to make this when they can just use the starter. I don’t like the sweet, bland, gelatinous blob at all. That being said, there are literally hundreds of variations of the sauce hailing from Oaxaca. Not having a particular ingredient shouldn’t be an excuse to not find a Mole that you can make.

I would be interested in trying some of the other recipes in the book. The very first one was called Christmas Rolls which is chorizo and sardines on a hard roll like a sandwich. I love chorizo and I am intrigued. There is also a recipe for chorizo in the book. I have never made it but I have made the pre-cursors and I think it would be fun. There are several others, but you read the book.

End Your Programming Routine: What I really like about the book is the passion in the story is translated to passion in the food. That is something that I can connect with. The truth is that did not translate when I watched the move all those years ago. But, maybe I will watch it again to see if I really missed that. One thing for sure is that you are not going to get the ingredients in the movie. For that reason, the book is better but maybe this is one to que up for Valentines Day between you and your special someone.

February 12, 2025 – And So Goes Change

February 12, 2025 / / 0 Comments

You probably think that I am a sentimental sap. That may be true but I recently read that my old dorm complex is being torn down and I got a little sad. This is the place where I figuratively came of age. This is where I met my wife, this is where I made friends and where I learned that warm Old English 800 was terrible but it was fun anyway.

Demolition underway at SOU’s Cascade Complex – SOU News

By Friday noon the planning was already underway for the Friday night party. Who’s room, who was buying and when? A typically afternoon of anticipation involved watching SportsCenter after the girls watched their soap operas or playing touch football or intramural softball with the guys. After that it was Nintendo, forties and pass the pipe (if you were into that, me only a couple of times). Saturday morning was non-existent but waking up in the early afternoon started the cycle over again. You have to do that stuff when you are young, right?

Of course that was not all of my weekends, but a lot of them. The others were with my girlfriend. It was going out to local restaurants for breakfast or going to the mall in the nearby town. When at the dorm and not partying it was study time. A lot of days and nights working on math problems or chemistry problems with her on the bed watching TV.

The cafeteria was central to all of the halls in this complex. It was brand new in 1992 the year before I attended the school. We all called it ‘Butt Food’ for a nice, adoring nickname. Even though I primarily hung out with people from my dorm, the cafeteria was a meeting place for all students that lived on campus. It was infrequent where we didn’t meet another friend that was there at the same time.

After doing some reading, it appears that the new dorm complex was occupied in 2014. Not totally forgotten, classes for certain departments were held in the abandoned dorm complex while their particular buildings were being renovated. Science, Theater and Athletics have used the space in the interim. This is where the problems with maintenance costs began to surface. ‘If we are going to keep using this in this way, we really should…’

Tearing down the dorms seems like a permanent loss. It has been over thirty years since I called it my home but the fact that they are gone makes the memories fade that much faster. Every time we were in town, we would drive by to rekindle the old, very good memories. The tossing of keys out of the window so people could get in after hours, the times we lounged on the grass in the early spring sun even the ten minute parking limit that we had to rush to beat the ticket writer.

I live in a town with a sister college to Southern Oregon University. Since I have lived here twenty years, I have seen an amazing amount of change. A new athletic complex, student medical center and education building that has been built. The old education building has become ‘Student Success Center’ last year. The Oregon Police Academy used to be here, and now the math department has moved in. The Oregon Military Academy used to be here as well. That is now the ‘Student Welcome Center’. Since the pandemic years, it seems like they have gone crazy building empty buildings with less and less on-campus students.

I can say without a doubt that there has been more change here than at SOU because I am connected to both. Both are regional schools but here, at least half of the students are commuters. The population centers are completely different with half a million locally close versus 100,000 in southern Oregon. That is to say there are many more students on campus and in town in SOU with similar enrollment sizes.

The title is an homage to Kurt Vonnegut. As soon as someone got killed for doing something stupid or something completely random kills a soldier “And So It Goes” was his response. This isn’t random nor is it stupid but it does kill my memory.

End Your Programming Routine: The advantage of getting old is wisdom. I am not opposed to them being torn down as they have been vacant for over ten years. I am sure that they did not survive the digital revolution as there was no wiring for modern data service. As a taxpayer, maintenance and upkeep for sentimental purposes is a fools errand. Ultimately, I am just sad to witness the end of my era.

February 11, 2025 – Rotate, Rotate, Rotate

February 11, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I do this so you do not have to. But, feel free to do your own experimentation. I recently remembered that I had some snacks squirreled away in a bag that I used to keep in the car when I commuted to work. I didn’t think that they were that old, but I guess that they were. See picture below.

At one point, I would travel from work to an event. Sometimes things like track meets would not end until 7pm making snacks an essential comfort item. As a result, I would keep things with me that wouldn’t melt and have a shelf life. I certainly forgot about these otherwise I would have eaten them over the summer when I was at the hospital.

You might be wondering what six years expired almonds taste like? I will tell you that they were stale and not great. The granola bars had a hint staleness but tolerable. The jerky, only three years expired tasted fine. They were dry like the desert and hard but no off flavors. The truth is, I don’t like my jerky sticky and moist like most of it anyway so I actually preferred it this way.

I started carrying snacks when I got really into my preparedness phase. The thought was what if I got stuck somewhere like car problems or natural disaster blocking my way home. Not being hangry would buy some time and help with making clear decisions. Fortunately, I never got stuck anywhere or had to walk home but certainly there were some late night trips from the airport where I would break into the snack stash.

Since I have built my office and finished my stereo table, the bag containing the snacks has lived behind the couch in my office. No wonder I forgot about it. One of these days, I am going to open a 30 year old MRE that I just forgot about. The point here is that stashing food is a good way to forget about it. When you forget about it is a good way to have expired food.

Technically, I have a whole tote of expired freeze dried food. I was surprised to see that the expiration date being only three years in the future. Maybe they also go stale in that particular packaging? I am willing to risk those but I am also eyeing them for my hiking trip as well. I have eaten some of those here and there with seemingly no degradation. If food is not exposed to water, light or air, it is unlikely that it is going to go bad.

There is a reason that the preparedness mantra is store what you eat and eat what you store. That is because if you eat it, then you will likely rotate it. I recently used some coconut water that had a similar best by date. I had bought a case of it when my wife was into making a Caribbean style rice with it. After the novelty wore off, it sat there for years. It tasted fine to me suggesting that best buy dates have more impact on certain ingredients than others.

I know that I cannot convince everyone. If my wife knew that that coconut water was expired, she would have thrown it away. I would advocate for cautiously smelling and tasting it and assuming all was well use it as soon as possible. It is usually those situations that I make a mental note to never buy in quantity again because it is not likely that we will use fast enough. I am known around the house for trying to ‘use things up’ menu planning.

The same day that I stubbed out this post, I heard on a podcast that inventorying your pantry was a suggested idea if you were snowed in. Whether it was force by circumstance or not, it would be a good idea to periodically see what is going on. The larger your supplies the more likely you are going to run into this problem.

End Your Programming Routine: Stale is one thing, spoiled is another. While stale food may be less desirable, it is not going to harm you. I ate all of those almonds throughout the course of a week because I hate to see waste. I am pretty sure that when you are stuck in a snowbank, some stale almonds are going to taste pretty good compared to a grumbling stomach. It would be even better if they were not stale.

February 10, 2025 – Dirty Secrets From the Trail

February 10, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Today I am going to talk about things you never hear at the sporting goods store. You don’t read magazine or blog articles about it. Heck, people don’t even talk about it. This might be because they don’t deal with it. But, my encouragement for testing or practice is all about the subject. These are the things that have happened to me as I continue to train for my PCT section hike.

February 7, 2025 – The Fourth Turning, Chapter 5

February 7, 2025 / / 0 Comments

If you are struggling to keep up, you got a break this week with the chapter only a couple of pages long. My feeling is just because it is short that doesn’t make it clear. In fact, I am really grooving on the book and the theory but this chapter makes no sense at all. Even the definitions seem to have conflicting opinions about the meaning.

Chapter five is all about the Gray Champion. The origin of the name comes from a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1835. The story takes place in colonial Boston (1689) and is about a much disliked Governor Andros. The Gray Champion is an unknown, unnamed character that stands up to Andros and his troops as well as warns the rest of the people about the ills of letting Andros proceed.

Strauss and Howe tend to take a more recent view of the Gray Champion. That is a person that stands up to the status quo. In the story, he represented the Puritan ideals which were directly opposed by the British monarchy and the colonial system. Theoretically, the Gray Champion would re-appear whenever Puritan values were threatened. Strauss and Howe specifically mention Paul Revere and John Brown as an examples of that. The Gray Champion is the harbinger of the forthcoming crisis.

A more common interpretation of the Gray Champion is an individual that leads through crisis. Names that we would all recognize are George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and F. D. Roosevelt. What is important about this version is that these are all individuals that are not born of the Hero generation but lead the Heros through the Crisis.

I didn’t find out the second definition until I was researching the Gray Champion to write this. That definition seems to make more sense in terms of the overall theory because I cannot fathom as to why a Gray Champion would be required to initiate a crisis. But if I really try, maybe I can take a stab at it like the difference between WWI and WWII.

Make no mistake, both were horrific events. The reason WWII was the crisis and not WWI is several fold. The first being WWI created WWII by the settlement that was reached and the punitive restrictions placed on Germany as a result of the war. The second being is that WWI sort of happened. It was Rube Goldberg of assassination and alliances that set the war into motion. As a result, there was no real warning or concern about a building conflict. It was a war that grew as time went on (much more like an unravelling).

I am not totally sure who the Strauss and Howe Gray Champion is in WWII, but maybe it is Winston Churchill. He was certainly instrumental in holding the line against Germany and dragging the United States into the war. Even with that, I am not clear why a Gray Champion is required if the crisis is unavoidable. Maybe it is more of a coincidence rather than a requirement?

Strauss and Howe stress that a war is not required for a crisis despite the fact that our most significant events and cycles have been bookmarked by such events. It was Howe’s speculation that the crisis might have begun with the 2012 financial crisis. If Howe was right, would that make Ron Paul the Gray Champion? Also, if that were true, how are the Millennials (Heros) fixing it? We will have to wait another 7-10 years to find out I guess.

Under the more common definition, I was reading that Trump might be considered the Gray Champion. I definitely see him as determined and visionary using strong arm tactics just like Lincoln and FDR. I personally do not want to give him that title but somebody is going to get it and it would actually fit right under Howe’s opinion of the crisis dates. By that token, we are there and he is the leader and what Trump is doing seems to have effect.

Just like I wrote about last week, even though Gen X is in the fall season and should be generally in power, the fact that the Baby Boomers are the stronger generation makes Trump an exceptional character. He is not of the Millennial generation but leading through crisis. The same would be true with Gen X in charge but the point is that everything fits the theory perfectly.

End Your Programming Routine: Yeah, so I don’t totally get it. I guess that I get what the Gray Champion does but I don’t get why it has to be. It makes me wonder who that figure actually is. It also makes me want to keep an eye open for that person. The most logical person would probably look like a conspiracy theorist, dismissed and discredited by the status quo. As always you have to end your programming and keep looking at the evidence if you want to be ready for the crisis.