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February 22, 2024 – Good Luck Buddy

February 22, 2024 /

We are at the culmination of high school wrestling season. Today starts the state tournament for those good enough to make it. I have been away from wrestling for a long time. The last time I dipped my toe in it was youth mat club when I accompanied my son for a season. It became pretty clear that this wasn’t going to be his sport and so I drifted away.

My brother and I were into it in high school. He has remained active, in fact he is a head coach at a local high school. My nephew and my son are three weeks apart. He started school a year later than my son so that makes him a junior this year. But, he stayed in youth wrestling and is now reaping the rewards of that. A third district title and a 34-4 record looking to make a mark in the state tournament.

There are very few sports where getting started early pays as many dividends as wrestling. Most of the state champions that I have followed have been devoted youth club participants all the way through their career. Wrestling involves strength, quickness, stamina and technique. Show me someone that has continuous participation and you won’t find them out of shape.

When I was a wrestler, I started out late. I actually did it because I heard that it was hard, physically. I was a sophomore in high school and started in the 165lb weight class. I remember the day that I decided, I was wearing a ‘professional couch potato’ t-shirt. I wrestled on the Freshman team and didn’t win a match, not even close. In fact, I got pinned in about 20 seconds in my first match.

I wasn’t discouraged. I was doing this for me but to see how much I could push myself. I don’t remember how I did when I was Junior, I think that I was pretty bad that year as well. But I decided that I was going to push myself my senior year. Instead of just wrestling, I ran cross country in the fall. I went from one of the slowest running wrestlers to one of the fastest.

I was in shape wrestling between the 142 and 136 weight classes comfortably, I developed a never quit attitude. I still couldn’t beat the kids that had five years of experience over me. I was physically tougher but less skilled. And despite all of my efforts my senior year, I didn’t wrestle a single varsity match. I don’t consider that a failure, I simply ran out of time.

I pestered my brother for the wrestling schedule at Christmas time. He finally sent me the schedule with one dual left to go, so I went to support my nephew. My nephew won his match by pin, one two team wins in a 69-9 blowout. My wife really wanted to go to districts so we made the day of it and watched my nephew win his weight class in districts, now it is on to state.

In today’s world, I think too much emphasis is placed on putting kids in club sports. Travelling basketball, volleyball, baseball cost thousands of dollars and precious time on kids that likely have no future beyond high school. In fact, there were a few years I was questioning who wanted to wrestle more, my nephew or his parents. They claimed that it was his decision, they were just making him finish his commitment.

Some are going to go on. My nephew claims he wants to wrestle in college and winning a state title as a junior would help a lot. As long as the kid is happy and everybody loves it, I am fine with that. It has been a huge commitment in their lives.

End Your Programming Routine: We all do for our kids what we hope is the best path. I have zero interest in participating in Chess in the Park but there is no denying that it requires my enablement to fully make it happen. Wrestling was really important in my life not for what I did but for what it did for me. My mindset moved from that is too hard to try to I can do anything I set my mind to. That was invaluable to me.

February 21, 2024 – Same Old, Same Old…

February 21, 2024 /

I have mentioned before that my wife likes to binge watch shows. What has been on for the last couple of months is ‘Deadliest Catch’. In fact, it is on right now as I am typing this out. I haven’t heard this much in the later seasons but they liked to use this term ‘grinding’.

Grinding means that to make their goal, they have to just keep working. They don’t look at the clock, they don’t take a break, they don’t worry about the conditions, they don’t really even try to take stock in what is currently the status of their catch is. They just keep grinding.

That is where I am at, grinding. I probably have too many things going on at one time. I got ahead with my culinary book club reading and so I started “The Boys In the Boat” that I got for Christmas and continuing to read “The Inferno”. I have been pecking at my duct project. The next run is going to be more complicated with wiring in the way. I am still running into Linux problems getting my software scanner done.

I tapped one of my kegs for super bowl to get promptly plugged. I got to thinking that my valve was bad and so I changed it. It promptly got plugged again. After doing this six more times, I gave up. It is hops plugging it up from my dry hopping. I am going to have to filter this keg before I use it. Another thing to do.

Lesson learned that all the loose hops did not settle to the bottom after lagering. I like the effect, finally a homebrew that has some teeth to it from the hops. So, I think I will keep experimenting with dry hopping. But, it also means that filtration is required before kegging. Since this is my last keg, I really should get to brewing my next one

I also upgraded a scope on one of my air rifles. The main reason I did that is my eyesight is starting to degrade. I noticed that the open sights on my son’s Crossman 760 were really limiting. So, I decided to move the chinsy 4×12, $10 scope off of one of my rifles to a whole honking $30 variety. Anything will be better than nothing on that old rifle. I have been plinking away at getting those things sighted in.

I have projects in the waiting, so I am not just letting off the gas, I am just not done with anything. I like my work on AltF4 to be reflective of completion, not just progress unless there is something to learn. That is what generated today’s title. I have been holding onto this one for almost a week now waiting for something to break and it just has not. Sometimes you have to grind.

I will remind you that the reason for the duct project was in preparation for a wine cellar build. I am actually beyond where I needed to be to work on that project but it has made so much difference that I might as well finish this off before starting something new. I am amassing parts for a CB radio installation in my pickup. I have wooden valence to build. I should be starting seeds right now. There is going to be another culinary book tomorrow and I still have all the current things going that I want to finish.

I sometimes have problems getting motivated in the winter. It is dark and cold and wet and I just don’t feel like I have the energy to do anything. Besides that, I have other reasons (not excuses) for me making slow progress that I am not ready to discuss. I will likely have more information soon but I want to be absolutely concrete about the details.

End Your Programming Routine: So, a cliffhanger for the ending. I don’t have a lot of insight on this post other than you don’t finish a big job without putting one foot in front of the other. In other words, you gotta grind. Some day I will look up and it will be done, until that keep working.

February 20, 2024 – What the Heck is UEFI?

February 20, 2024 /

For the last couple of months, UEFI has been irritating me. I am going to get into what it is in a minute. A couple weeks ago I set off to fix the situation and then I really messed things up. So much so that I actually bought a new solid state hard drive (SSD) to start over. This was an attempt to make progress on my Software Defined Radio scanner project.

First let me define what UEFI means. This is an acronym for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. If you do not do what I do, then you may never see it. There is a selector screen before the operating system boots up. In my case, I can choose between starting Linux or Windows.

This is an old computer that was inherited. I wanted to keep it in case we needed some data from it, but I did not have the password to login to Windows. By running Linux, I can access anything on the hard drive. This is also part of my long running experiment with Linux which will eventually become my software defined radio police scanner.

For several months now, I have been getting notifications that my UEFI driver was out of date. It wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that it notifies me twice a day that it is out of date. At first, it was a problem for later, which became months. Then I set out trying to fix it.

It turns out that the UEFI driver has a Microsoft signature. I thought that maybe if I could add an account to Windows, I could run the driver update there. Once I selected boot to Windows, it was a one way street. After the Windows path was chosen, there was no going back to having the Linux option. So then I started changing settings in the BIOS. I messed the configuration up so that it wouldn’t boot Windows either.

I saw some options to go into ‘Safe Mode’ make a recovery disk and all of that. But, the truth is that this machine also has Windows 10 and is just slightly newer than my primary desktop. I highly suspected that it was not going to make the Windows 11 cutoff and I felt like all of that effort would be for little gain anyway.

I made the decision that I was going to start over. Solid State Hard drives are cheap. I paid $30 for a 512 GB drive. If you haven’t gone from disk based drives to and SSD, it it hard to explain how much better things work. I firmly believe that my Windows 7 computer runs better now than it did when I bought it in 2012. In fact, that computer runs better than my significantly more powerful laptop from 2018. I am going to be changing it to an SSD as well after I get a few other projects completed. But, let’s get back to the subject at hand.

I have started to become comfortable with Linux. I am not proficient by any means but I am convinced that Linux is in my future for the desktop that I do most of my writing on. Once support runs out for Windows 10, I will be converting that computer to Ubuntu. I am a light PC user anyway, browser based work, word processing and spreadsheets are the primary stuff I do. The more familiar I am with Linux, the easier the transition will be for me.

Its funny, the more connected our devices have become, the more isolated they are. In the old days, I would start a file at home, email it to myself and continue to work. Or even better, I put it on a thumb drive. I haven’t done anything like that in years because I can’t really share anything between environments anymore for security purposes. My biggest outstanding concern is that I have been using, saving and storing everything in Microsoft 365. This seems like a topic for another day however.

As it turns out, UEFI is important to me and without it working properly, I can do nothing. The good news is that I got my SSD today and I already have Ubuntu installed along with everything except the Software Defined Radio and SDR++. Starting from scratch, I got an updated UEFI driver and everything works like it was supposed to.

The computer geeks out that probably find this to be a little juvenile. I had no idea what this driver was supposed to do. Reading the release notes there were vulnerabilities to certain viruses. Hindsight being 20/20, Ubuntu recommends the risk as low and to not worry about it. There are some commands to ignore the device check that I read after the fact. I wish I would have read that before I messed up everything but in the end this is going to be better.

End Your Programming Routine: I have heard that the reason little kids learn so fast is that they have no fear. They just push keys and try things because they can. I have a streak like that with Linux, I don’t know what I don’t know and definitely what I am doing. That being said, be careful. I had no data or anything really on this computer so it was $30, a re-install and two hours for me and the end result is a better computer. I guess I am learning like a child but I will be more cautious in the future.

February 16, 2024 – The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto VIII

February 16, 2024 /

This canto also covers some of two circles. Once again I am going to focus on the one of them, circle five the wrathful and sullen. Circle six will cover several cantos so we can cover that adequately next week. Don’t forget that this circle officially began last canto, but don’t worry I will cover it here.

It wasn’t just my imagination but reading the notes for this canto said that the last chapter was a change in philosophy. It is speculated that Dante took a break at Canto VII and that it was intended to be one circle per canto. But that break brought out a re-imagination about how the story was going to go. As a consequence, I am rolling with it. Next week will be three cantos for the first time.

There isn’t too much going on from this level. The setting is the river Styx. The condemned seem to be under the black and stinky water. Once again there was only one encounter, a fella by the name of Fillipo Argenti. He was apparently an argent enemy of Dante’s.

If you ask me, it seems like Dante was the wrathful in the story. Dante is using his writing as the vengeance that he seeks. Very little is said other than sharply condemns his enemy. So, I guess we will have to look at the crime (or end it here).

I think we all generally know what wrathful means. So let us look at sullen. The definition that I see for for the word means gloomily or resentfully silent or repressed. I rhetorically ask, is this really worthy of the fifth circle of hell? To date, the crimes have all been pretty petty to get into hell.

Apparently, level six is a transition from what is considered outer to inner hell. To get into inner hell, it is all contained in iron wall like a prison called the city of Dis. Another thing that I kind of find interesting is that most of these so called sins to date would not be considered crimes in our society. No assault or rape or murder, maybe those will be in the inner circle but even theft or larceny? Once again, the wrathful one seems like Dante.

I am not totally sure where to really go with this today other than it is very clear that this story is personal to Dante. So I am giving you an early weekend this week. The pace is going to pickup next week and go into hyperdrive for the following week. Get ready.

End Your Programming Routine: Like a good Christian, I believe in redemption. So, it would be a good idea for my soul not to get involved in too much wrathfulness or sullenness or gluttony or any of the other sins. That being said, if we do slip into any of those things, I can’t help but be thankful that something is out there to help out eternity.

February 15, 2024 – Along the Lines of Yesterday

February 15, 2024 /

Yesterday I talked about waffling about whether I should invest in a garden space and things like fruit trees and bushes if I am planning on moving. The same is true with all home projects. The wisdom in the space is to be careful about changes that are made so that you don’t overspend compared to value of the house.

This project that I have been picking away at is not one of them. I cannot say how much improvement there is in my basement by tucking ducts up into the floor joists. It hardly costs any money and it make the space so much more open and accessible. I used to have to duck under two ducts each time I entered and left my office. That has all changed.

Not only is it easier to get to my office, having the duct tucked up in the ceiling allows more light over the whole space. There are two windows in the basement, more natural light is coming in as well as the electrical fixtures. Because the ducts were hanging down, they were constantly in the way of moving decorations and other storage items around. All of that is going away with each duct I move.

I won’t be able to do all of them because they don’t all run parallel with the floor joists. But, doing the major pathways has paid major dividends on the usability of the space. It looks better too, not just an after thought or the laziest installation possible.

To date, I have spent about $100 on materials. I have never worked with duct work before since this is typically a one and done type job. That being said, I am kind of liking it. I ended up buying a crimping tool so I can make my own custom lengths or rigid pipe. The truth is that the original installers taped the flex duct to the rigid fixtures and over time, that tape has failed. I have already had to fiddle with trying to re-attach ductwork that is in my way over the years.

This is one of those projects that fits into the do it regardless of how it effects value. In my opinion, there is no way that it could hurt and it is so little initial outlay of time and money, I should have done this years ago (it should have been done this way originally). So, I will pick away at it a couple hours at a time until I have done what I can do.

End Your Programming Routine: If it was simple, I would be done already. I have to delicately pick my way through different things like re-enforcing structure or wires in the way that have to be reconfigured etc. But, I am doing this purposefully and carefully and each one of those things adds a little dimension to the puzzle without having heat all day. It is a new kind of challenge.

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.