This is a story about living my whole life with a narrative without realizing or knowing the truth. There is nothing inherently bad or evil, just simply people that want to be who they want without judgement or disagreement. I won’t say that everyone involved wasn’t hurt or didn’t know the actual truth, but I think circumstantially, it is understandable.
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November 24, 2023 – Anthem, Part 10-12
As I announced in the podcast Monday, I am no longer going to have an introductory post for my Friday reviews maybe I should do away with the conclusion post as well. Not today however. I am going to keep it this way for now, It is just that the last three chapters are only about 20 short pages.
We now that Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 have found an empty, yet inhabitable house in the middle of the woods. As a result of reading different books they decide to rename themselves “Prometheus” and “Gaea”. Furthermore, they go through more self-exploration and hatch a plan go back to the city and bring their friends back to the woods and start life over.
Those familiar with Rand would definitely identify the concepts in Part 12. It sounded like a carbon copy of the values espoused in Atlas Shrugged. Man should live for themselves, fight for what they have, collectivism is evil, etc. You know that I buy into all those things and I respect Rand for being so upfront with this as well. In fact, good on her for being consistent and deliberate in her beliefs.
The only thing that I really don’t necessarily agree with is the the last couple of sentences. (Spoiler Alert) “The word which can never die on this earth, for the heart of it, and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: Ego”. This is Prometheus’ belief as the key to humanity and happiness. I don’t agree with Rand on this.
Of course, I have had my own struggles with happiness but if I could have it my way it would be the ability to pursue your passion. I suppose that it may be whether you take the Freud position or the first definition. I cannot say. 1) The self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves. 2) In Psychoanalysis, the division of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behavior and is most in touch with external reality.
I am getting all kinds of curmudgeonly lately in my reviews. I like Prometheus’ spirit here but have you considered how difficult it is to persuade brainwashed people to take a leap of faith that is 180 degrees of their whole lives. Just like his naivete with the light bulb, to think he is going to march into the lion’s den and covert a bunch of his friends unscathed seems pretty far out.
I think another flag is the house itself. I am pretty sure whatever conflict that occurred was well before the lives of Gaea and Prometheus. Time and weather is not kind to structures and material goods. There is reference to cloth that disintegrated but most things were perfectly serviceable.
I have a thing for this, but have you seen picture of the Sarajevo Olympic grounds from the 1980s? There are trees growing through the venues. Granted the characters are only twenty at most, but I think it is fantasy to think that they are going to find perfectly preserved shelters and live happily ever after. I think it would be more like the tunnels from earlier in the book minus the active electrical power.
So, I am already bordering on next weeks analysis of the book overall. It’s hard to believe that given all of the superstition and primitive technology, that there would be any risk of the former state coming after them or even find them let alone defeat or subjugate them.
End Your Programming Routine: There is a quote that I like from Jack Spirko. “Never attribute to malice that can be explained by incompetence”. I will let you noodle that out but it basically puts a dagger in a lot of conspiracy theories. I am not saying that the candlemakers are bumbling idiots, but they may not be the scholars that they proport.
November 23, 2023 – Happy Thanksgiving
No opinions, BS or anything else today. There is something to be thankful for. I wish everyone a wonderful holiday. This one by far exceeds Christmas for me and I am enjoying what it is all about: cooking, eating and enjoying the fruits of you labor all year.
Despite the fact that most of my daily’s are queued in advance, you don’t need to be spending your holiday reading this. I will be back tomorrow with more Anthem by Ayn Rand.
November 22, 2023 – Let Us Give Thanks
I will not have much to say tomorrow. In fact, it is only a post wishing you Happy Thanksgiving. I don’t think that it is right to not acknowledge the things that happened over the last year. Part of humility needs say thanks to the good things in life. I want to do that today.
- Adults that mentor and volunteer their time. I have so many examples of this year. It is humbling that others would take interest in my kids and provide a leg up. Mr. Moore the middle school teacher who stepped in as the adult for this year’s Chess In the Park. Mr. Mosier who worked with my son to achieve his Life Scout rank (currently the highest in the troop) so that he would be in good position to obtain Eagle rank when he gets back from Taiwan next year. The many Rotarians to make exchange possible for my kids this year. Ms. Graham that donated airfare funds to allow my son’s FBLA trip to Atlanta this year. The list goes on to teachers and counselors and doctors.
- It has been quite a year on the career front. My former co-workers were so kind when I announced that I was leaving my job in August. I got emails and thanks and even job offers. It is nice to know that integrity and honesty is valued and recognized even if I had to leave to hear it. I have really tried hard to deliver my opinion more tactfully even when I thought that things were going in the wrong direction. Truth is not always welcome, how it is delivered matters. I hope that I am making strides to improve that.
- Parenting has been really hard on my marital relationship. I do mean really hard. Other that our agreement on the expected outcome, nothing is smooth or easy. We don’t agree on our approaches and I certainly don’t agree that I should have to defend my actions when I have the best intent. That never give up attitude is a double edged sword and my wife doesn’t give up on us either. I am thankful that she keeps fighting for us because I don’t know that I would.
- I am thankful that people cared enough for us to help pull off my re-proposal. My niece Jasmine was the mastermind and to be honest, without her it probably wouldn’t have happened. She coordinated with my nephew on how to spring the event and worked with a designer on making the moment special. A romantic deficient could have never pulled off such a special moment alone.
- I was listening to a podcast recently that was titled “Learn to Love Where you Live”. Talk about first world problems… With all the chaos in Gaza and so many other parts of the world, how can it possibly matter whether we have a local Starbucks? For all of the things I wish were different, I am thankful for relative stability and prosperity compared to what it could be.
- I don’t want to sound cliche but I am thankful for redemption and salvation. It takes the pressure off of guilt. As long as I continue to do my part in trying and asking for forgiveness, life should take care of itself. There is nothing more to worry about when eternity is handled.
That completes my list for the year but I have one more thing to say. As I write this, my maternal grandmother is dying. I don’t really feel much about it to be honest. It is a complicated situation. Not so much for me but for her.
My grandparents divorced in the late 1960s. The kids were nearly grown. My uncle graduated, my mom and sister were in high school and the youngest was in grade school. My grandfather was a devout Catholic and it took 40 years before he forgave himself for the divorce, it crushed him. But, my grandmother was a lesbian.
Because of the era, it drove her into seclusion and isolation. We have always had a cordial and pleasant relationship but it has always been at arms length. I suspect that she has carried shame and regret her whole life. In this modern era, her and her partner haven’t married. As far as I remember they have ‘separate’ bedrooms and I don’t even want to go any farther.
My grandmother worked for the school district at least long enough to get a retirement. Her partner worked for the US Forest Service. They have been retired almost as long as I can remember. Certainly, I was living as a ward of my parents when they moved three hours away. That made routine visits extremely infrequent. I think that they lived at the Oregon Coast for twenty years before moving closer. By that point, we (the kids) had moved on in life. We have a grandmother that we rarely see and don’t know.
My grandfather wanted to know us. This is why he paid us to spend time with him ‘working’. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything because it had such an influence, it made me who I am. My grandmother I suspect struggled with her own regret and demons. She has stories, no doubt about it. I know from my mom that there is some mystery and intrigue. She is a Gamble a generation removed from Proctor & Gamble but I don’t know the schism.
This relates to being thankful because I am thankful that people can be more accepted for who they are. Her partner was never married and has always been exceptionally nice. I wish that my grandmother had embraced who she was and who she is. She might have led herself astray trying to be ‘normal’, but that isn’t a reason to never have a relationship. Honestly, I hope this is peace.
End Your Programming Routine: Thankfulness is a habit that I should practice more frequently. The antithesis of thankfulness is pride. Pride sparks fear which prevents us from being more open. Fear keeps us from developing and fostering relationships and puts us at distance from people that we care about. I see that and identify with it, don’t be me. I am who I am; I am also a product of biology and experience. Let us learn from this and strive to do better.
November 21, 2023 – Review: Kitchens of the Great Midwest
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal is the November selection of the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. I have to say that I didn’t have high hopes for this book but it ended better than I had expected. The reason that I say that is because one of Stradal other works, The Lager Queens of New York was a book read by my wife’s other book club that also reads romance books with shirtless firemen and lumberjacks.
The story is a bit disjointed and it took most of the book to weave together. Each chapter has a culinary experience loosely happening with or around the main character Eva Thorvald. Some chapters she is the focus while others she just makes an appearance. I don’t think I have ever read a book that had the main character portrayed in this style.
Ultimately, this is a rags to riches story. Eva suffers personal tragedy and social trauma throughout her young life. As the chapters progress, so does her age and the book covers roughly 25 years in just over 300 pages. Many of the supporting characters vary from gritty to psychotic and the all the while Eva keeps on moving forward.
I was listening to a podcast recently about the structure of SEAL training. What the former instructor was saying was that the premise was pretty simple. It wasn’t necessarily what they testing but how. They wanted to wash out people that were going to give up when the circumstances were not fair. He said many people could handle the physical part, it was the seemingly ruthless and unwarranted punishment that they couldn’t take. I think that it is fair to say that Eva Thorvald is a SEAL of the culinary world.
The story was interesting because it wasn’t a feelgood one. There were self-absorbed, idiot chefs as well a characters getting addicted to pain pills. I found myself asking ‘what is going to be this fool’s malady’? Fortunately, we only had to put up with the bad characters for a chapter. The good ones seemed to make cameo appearances throughout the book.
My overall opinion of this book is really clouded by one thing and that was the over the top extravagance of Eva’s career and life as the book moves on. Honestly, I think that this book would have been better and more believable if they would have toned down her success a little. I will give an example, Eva hosted a dinner where all the diners had to repel down a cliff to get to the table.
Maybe I am just a fuddy duddy but this sounds like cheesy, Mission Impossible stuff. I realize that most people don’t buy into that, but it definitely kind of soured the book for me. I am already kind of on the fence with haute cuisine the ostentatious descriptions but add James Bond to it and it is too much.
I think that you will like this book if you like food and fantasy. I don’t mean the Game of Thrones kind but more like the Cinderella kind. It’s hard to tell if Eva is a exotic beauty or a sasquatch by the different character’s descriptions. I will say that after all of the heartache, it is nice to know that perseverance and humility is rewarded, even if it is unbelievable.
End Your Programming Routine: It’s nice to step away from cookbooks and ‘chef-y’ memoirs, even if they are not necessarily my cup of tea. I am willing to give Stradal another chance because of his approach to stories. I can’t say that I knew where this story was going based on the disjointedness of the book. I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t like it.
November 17, 2023 – Anthem, Part 7-9
These three chapters are the heart of the book. I suppose it is serendipitous that I chose to break the book up in this way. So, let’s get into it.
Chapter seven begins with Equality 7-2521 marching into the World Counsel of Scholars with his lightbulb. It went exactly how I expected that it would. In fear for his life, Equality escapes the city into the forest where he is sure no one will ever come after him. After surviving the night, he understands that he will never be able to return. The next day, who shows up in the woods out of the blue but the Golden One. Apparently, she has pretty good tracking ability.
It is pretty easy pickings to figure out what to talk about with this session. It is the sunk cost fallacy and the Council of Scholars. First of all, to be in the conversation you have to be part of the group. “A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World Counsel of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all the rules and all the laws!”. The first level of security is only having conversations with those initiated and approved.
There is now a closed feedback loop for any ideas. Once Equality connected the lightbulb, now there was sheer terror in the room. For some unknown reason, the light scared the scholars. But, then the next tool that is used is the power play. “How dare you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the mind of your brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than sweeping the street?”
Oh, but why? “Then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one man.” So, this is the real problem. I don’t know if they were shocked that someone found something that they were not supposed to or that they were scared of the technology, both are possible.
How many times have we seen something surpassed by better technology? Using the automobile, it is clear that the 2023 version is highly superior (in most aspects) to the 1963 version. I can state this empirically because looking at studies, the average age of a vehicle on the road is 12 years old. In 1963, vehicles were lucky to make it to 100,000 miles. In fact, some vehicles in the 1970s were lucky to survive more than a handful of years.
On the other hand, how many times have we seen government prevent innovation by doing things for our own good. Let us just use the minimum square footage building requirement. This is strictly to protect tax base. Look at old houses that are one bedroom and one bathroom. The way this is effecting innovation is that it is not rewarding good design. It is also wastes resources via utilities, heating, cooling and lighting unused space. I don’t think that we suffer from houses that are too small, we suffer from poorly designed houses. If there is limitless space, there is no incentive to build better structures from an ergonomics standpoint.
Finally, there are forces in the industrial military complex that desperately want to replace the A-10. But, then there are greater forces that do not see the need. Why replace something that does the job effectively. This is the final insight, money of course. If something perpetually did the job and did it well, it negatively impacts someone’s ability to profit on the change. But then again, there is always the opposite perspective of someone supporting the status quo.
End Your Programming Routine: I am resisting the urge to jump ahead since I have already finished the book at this point. But, I am controlling myself. I don’t really understand the fear of the woods outside of the city. I don’t rationalize how they travel or even have a network of other cities if they are so contained to the space. But, I guess those are questions that won’t get answered. For now, I will settle on fighting the status quo head to head is bound to be nearly impossible.
November 16, 2023 – So Many Updates
I believe this to be true, the more you look the more you see. Since my third foray into Linux, I have been more dedicated and paid more attention to how it behaves. Today is going to be for those who don’t know much or are considering Linux, pretty much like me. If you are an old hat (or Redhat) then nothing I am going to say is revolutionary.
Let’s start at the beginning. Linux is an open source operating system. For that reason, there are many distributions or flavors if you will. So, I have tried Ubuntu and Mint as my distributions. They both branch off of Linux called Debian but then further fork into their own distinct operating systems. Think of it this way, the distribution has a bunch or other programs wrapped on top of the operating system. These are things like word processing, spreadsheets, email programs are all part of the distribution.
Part of the reason that this is important is because when you go to look for programs to install or support, you need to know what type of distribution you have. Different distributions will have different programs and even syntax on how to do it. I think that the Ubuntu/Mint is the dominant distribution so fortunately you can usually find something that works. But, there are literally almost infinite possibilities. Talk about confusing for a newbie.
Open Source means exactly what it says. Anyone with the technical chops could create their own version or distribution of Linux. I don’t know exactly how you get involved in Ubuntu, but somebody has some passion for some element which drives change. These could be error fixes or enhancements or even new features.
I think that we are all used to update notifications in the software in our lives. Now that I have been using Ubuntu daily, I am noticing a high number of updates. I would estimate that there is one every three or four days. In some ways, this is the beauty of Linux. We the user have a chance to say yes we want them or no we do not. I myself being just a casual user and not having any real reason not to do them, just say yes. Since it is not my primary computer, it feels like I log in daily to see if I have any updates to run.
It seems like everything Linux does fine. But, I am seeing a problem with firmware updates. I have one that won’t take because Microsoft forces a signature of the hardrive and the motherboard (even though I am not even running Windows). The supposed risk is that someone could physically login and defeat my security. I am not too worried about that since it is at my home. My current strategy will be to ignore it but it does annoy me that the warning pops up as a to do.
One thing that I think is neat is that with each version, the home page background changes. The lobster has now become a minotaur (and a maze) since I updated to 23.10. I guess one other caveat, if you stop frequently updating, you can get out of sync. This happened to me when I ignored the computer for a few months and then I couldn’t perform the incremental updates. It wasn’t until a major revision that I got back in sync.
End Your Programming Routine: Having to do all these things is the beauty and the pain of Linux. I have a lot of control and a lot of responsibility. I want to say that I have been pretty impressed what you can get for free and pretty light weight in its footprint. It is pretty cool that it can be booted from a USB stick and is really a full featured computer. If your are willing to do the work of learning and research, it definitely works.
November 15, 2023 – Just the Good Old Boys
Maybe I shouldn’t even be writing this but I have a hankering to watch The Dukes of Hazzard lately. It was on TV from 1979 to 1985 and it was definitely my favorite show on TV. In fact, it was the only show on TV that we were permitted to watch. I was four when it started and ten when it ended.
Until around middle school, my brother and my bedtime was 8pm. That means that any prime time TV was out of the question. TV was also severely restricted in our house as well. We got to choose one TV show a week that we were permitted to watch. This is what we chose of course.
Even Saturday morning cartoons got the boot early in my life. My mom thought that my brother and I got too wound up after watching them. I knew that was the edict but I still liked to turn on the TV in the morning before anybody was a up. With the old manual TVs, you could turn the volume down and then turn on the TV. One morning I woke up and the cord was cut on the TV. That ended that.
I think I know the trigger here. I have been looking at CB radios a lot lately. Since CB became super popular in the 1970s, it played a prominent role in the Dukes of Hazzard. All the vehicles, including the General Lee had CBs and the characters communicated via radio during their hijinks. You also had other souped-up cars like the 1976/77 Pontiac Firebird on Smokey and the Bandit during that time that were using CB radio.
This is not to forget the General Lee is a 1969 Dodge Charger and I am helping my son out with his 1969 Mercury Cougar here and there. I was running errands a couple weekends ago and I saw a 1969 Ford Ranchero and all the sudden I was looking up prices of project cars. It seems like my destiny is colliding with The Dukes of Hazzard.
The truth is, as much as I liked the show, I remember very little. I love car chases and jumps. Put a brush guard on a hot rod/race car and drive it like you stole it. Who can resist siding with Robin Hood. I might remind you that Bo and Luke were (wrongly) convicted felons and so firearms were prohibited, that is why they used bows. My brother and I ate that stuff up. Western wear and Daisy Dukes… I am talking myself into buying the entire show since I cannot rent it and it is not streaming anywhere.
Finishing the highlights, the theme was sung by Waylon Jennings, one of the outlaws of country. This was also a time of peak popularity of Hee-Haw. The show reeks of the era of late seventies/early eighties. It was a simpler time, my wife would say a ‘whiter’ time. I can’t argue that, but what I am saying we were all united by less choices.
A few years ago, I was looking for something family friendly and I did end up buying the first episode on Amazon. I don’t think my kids enjoyed it as much as I did. But, it is a new day. My older son has a new appreciation for cars now and he is liking the idea of CB radio and driving passenger cars off-road. So, maybe we can try again.
End Your Programming Routine: After living in the south for a couple of years, The Dukes of Hazzard is not as big of a stretch as people living elsewhere might believe. There are still moonshine runners, there is a lot of debate over the confederate battle flag and racing is popular. I have heard of more than one person outrunning the cops when the ‘blue lights’ come on. But , so is doing the right thing when it matters. Big heart leaves me smiling after thinking about my time in the south as well as the Dukes of Hazzard.
November 14, 2023 – Review: Delicious!
I am running behind on things. “Delicious!” by Ruth Reichl was actually the August Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection. I think I found out about the book in late August and we had two books that month. I scanned through the cookbook in September and started reading this book about mid-October. I remember packing it with me on my hunting trip but didn’t make any progress.
What is different than the other work that I have read from Reichl is that this is her first attempt at fiction. To date, I have been a fan of her non-fiction as it is almost larger than life. I will remind you the Reichl was a food critic for the New York Times and dressed up as characters for restaurant evaluation so that she wouldn’t be outed.
This book has the same light, readability and feels in the same style as Reichl but is different. To me, the story meanders a lot without much of a point. I am trying to describe it without being too harsh. Characters kind of jump in and jump out and almost seems fluffy, like there was a lot of unnecessary plot line. Let’s go to the plot line first.
The book opens with the main character ‘Billie’ and her sister baking a gingerbread cake for her father’s birthday. This gingerbread is a theme throughout the whole book where she uses it to empress her potential employer in a job interview, her colleagues when they were down and anytime she wants to butter up someone for getting what she wants.
Billie is hired by the fictitious magazine Delicious! as a personal assistant to the general manager. After a short time, the magazine is closed but she is the only person kept on staff presumably because she was the cheapest. At this point, she has run of the office and the locked library where she serendipitously discovers some hidden letters to James Beard (a former Delicious employee).
The story goes on a wild goose chase of secret codes and tracking down people, meanwhile she is battling personal demons and falling in love. The whole point of all this is that Billie wants to see the whole picture so that an article can be written about this correspondence between a character Lulu and James Beard.
Maybe it is a writer’s thing, but I wonder what article she is going to write when the magazine is closed? I suppose that it could be a freelance piece, but throughout the book there is no mention of networking with other publishers. That seems a bit of a fantasy.
The story also contained some real non-sequitur parts as well. Billie meets an Italian butcher and family where she works all of her weekends. A lot of the book is devoted to this interaction that really doesn’t go anywhere in the storyline. Also, her father shows up out of the blue near the end of the book. He has been trying to get Billie to come home for the holidays for several years and yet she has refused to leave New York. All of a sudden they meet up at the same mid-western hotel when Billie is tracking information about Lulu.
It is not that I didn’t enjoy the story, it was fine but uninteresting. If I saw a book about letters from James Beard to some unknown person, I would skip it without a second thought. I certainly respect what Beard did for the culinary world, but it would seem like only a true groupy would be interested in this affair. The whole thing seemed a little forced to me.
One thing that I can say about the book (at least my version) has a section after the story about a suggested dinner party menu to go with the book. I wish that I would have known this when we had our book club meeting in August. We could have played on that theme a little bit when it came to making food.
I think that you will like this book if you find yourself turning on the Hallmark channel and getting vested with those types or movies. Or, the other type of person would be the one that fanaticizes about James Beard. You won’t like the book if you are into We or Anthem like I am currently reading. The story buttons up nicely with a few twists when you are vested in the characters.
End Your Programming Routine: Despite my opinion, I still highly recommend both Garlic and Sapphires as well as Save me the Plums by Reichl. It is not the author or the subject matter but this particular story for me. This is partially why it took me a month to get through this book, I just couldn’t get into it. That being said, it is nice to get out of the world of heavy fiction or cookbooks sometimes. That I can appreciate in this case.
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