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May 24, 2023 – Been Making Skillets

May 24, 2023 /

Sometimes you get surprised by things. I was pretty blasé about another cookbook as our April book club choice. That being said, cooking in skillets fits my life. It is easy clean-up and simple construction of recipes and techniques. In the last six weeks I have made four or five recipes and it is growing on me.

Shown above is a Cuban pork chop. By the way, I think that my picture looks much better than the one in the book. We like to vary what we make and eat from day to day. Sometimes I just take something out of the freezer just to have something defrosted without knowing exactly what I am going to do with it. This happened to be the result.

Within Milk Street: The World in a Skillet, there are several pork chop recipes. The other one was a Chinese version. I chose this one because all I needed was cilantro, we had all the rest of the ingredients and time is always a factor on weeknights. I really do want to try the other recipe some day. That one also had cilantro but some additional peppers, including Sichuan which I don’t have or know if the they are in our local store. I might be inclined to skip or even substitute but I on that night, I just wanted dinner going.

The other reason this book fits our lives is that we eat the world. Friday night we had Mexican, Saturday we ate from food trucks (I had Bahn mi) that inspired me to make pho on Sunday. Earlier in the week we had round steak with gravy over mashed potatoes. I would say on any given week we have Latin, Asian and American but I also love Indian and just good food.

As I have said with other cookbooks that some of them just don’t fit me. If they are seasonally oriented and we don’t have alignment in the season or the fair doesn’t excite me, like salads the book will slip to the bottom of the pile. This one seems to speak to me based on the composition and techniques.

I also like that there is an index by main ingredient. So, I can look at pork and see the fifteen different recipes that are listed. I often use this technique on the internet as well. I search “recipes for round steak”. And sometimes I also use “quick” or “easy” as well. I works fine, but there is satisfaction on using a resource that you paid money for like a cookbook.

I also find that many recipes are very similar on the internet. They might be named differently or the picture looks different but they are often duplicates of the same things. I guess that is why they are in the common domain. I find that often cookbooks go deeper into the subject matter and are more unique. That is what you are paying for.

This is not to mention that I have a hard time trusting internet recipes unless they are pretty basic, particularly the timing. I find Food Network recipes to be particularly poor at this and very often it is 3x to 4x the overall time. I am not sure that all of these celebrity chefs are really in touch with reality on such things and I think that they are more concerned about content generation than content accuracy.

The other thing that drives me crazy is all the crap you have to wade through to get to the recipe. So many of the blogs talk about how to select the cut of meat or the history of ingredients and I have to search around for the oven temperature or the list of ingredients. It makes it difficult to decide to execute the recipe without going through the entire article to find if you want to do it.

End Your Programming Routine: My wife gets on me for her perception of me complicating dinner. I think that if I do the planning, cooking and finish in a reasonable time why does it matter? Continuing to work on the craft with challenges and new ideas makes me better altogether. The overall time was listed at 40 minutes and I don’t think that it was much over that. Plus, it got good reviews from the eaters. I think it was a win on multiple fronts.

May 23, 2023 – What To Do in Transition

May 23, 2023 /

No, not that kind of transition… It’s sad to say that when I now hear this word I think the meaning has changed. I am sure that it is just me, but transitioning seems so pervasive these days I just can’t help going there. We are in transition of season, school year, activities, projects, etc. For me, I have all these things going on.

I often find that after I am pushing to meet a goal, if I don’t pay attention, transition becomes the status quo. Or said differently, if I don’t have a project lined up when I finish one, I will languish in this post project stupor. For instance, it feels like I have just finished my sofa table. In relative terms I did considering it took years to complete. But, the reality was that this was now months ago.

I have a real need. The flashing around my front window is leaking and it means that I need to remove 75% of the siding. I am worried that if I don’t address it soon that there could be real damage to the structure. It has already been leaking for eight years. I have tried some remediation efforts but they have only lasted for a season, so now it is time to fix it permanently.

The best time to do that is now, between May and October. I have the light and the dry weather but this is going to be a big project (for me). Ideally, I would rent scaffolding and I think it will be a couple of weeks (straight through). But I am dragging my feet because we have to finish the school year an exchange student on the way, kids going on exchange and my wife going to Europe. This is not to mention that we have a 25th anniversary party coming up in June.

It is probably something I should consider hiring out given that it doesn’t feel like I have time to do it. That is a whole job in and of itself. So, I am stuck in this transition malaise. In the mean time, I don’t want to completely focus on problems but on solutions. I am going to talk about what I do in those periods.

Clean-Up: Inevitably, while focusing on a project I have all kinds of ‘I will put that away later’ moments. This also extends to other areas of the house, not just my project spaces. I get focus and I prioritize the project work over everything else. This is also to say that if I am working in the shop the broom and vacuum come out for a deep, finishing clean. I certainly don’t do that while I am working. But it could also be site clean-up by picking up rotten wood, off-cuts, shingle pieces, garbage or whatever.

Maintenance: If I can see the finish line, I get super motivated to go there. This then give me the propensity to defer certain items. I recently realized that it had been 18 months since my last oil change in the pick-up. I fixed that. I have another vehicle that needs one too. I replaced the sprinkler that was broken last summer and caused me to shut of the irrigation early. This is also a good time to get things done before starting a new project. So, preventative maintenance.

Exploration: Once I complete something, then I feel like I have earned the chance to do kick-back a little bit. Doing a few of the ‘I like to try that someday’ feels like a reward without the guilt of ‘I should be doing something else’. This is exactly why I keep telling myself that I want to try to find this fishing hole lately. But it is also me wanting to try having on keg on tap and one waiting to see if only having one tap is adequate.

Rest: I am the last one to really preach rest. Rest can drive me stir crazy and I prefer exploration to rest. That being said, finishing that lagging book, taking a day trip to the beach, a weekend movie or family activities at the expense of other things comprise rest for me. I suppose rest is also not planning or thinking about the next thing while in transition.

End Your Programming Routine: What I have always wanted was to be real and honest. I don’t want to make myself seem better than I really am. I would say that I probably don’t have the right answer to any question, but I probably have an answer. For some reason, my brain is programmed to continuously push for more things checked off my list and that is what motivates me. But, making downtime productive can also be rewarding as well.

May 22, 2023 – Twenty Questions

May 22, 2023 /

I am still fighting through my recovery with life. So, I resurrected something that I originally wrote for Polymath Daily, the version 0 of altf4.co. At the time, I was going to batch up a bunch of outlines so that I could stay way ahead of my podcasting. This was before I sort of found my mojo with altf4.co and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be.

End Your Programming Routine: As the days move by and we zoom into summer, I am hoping that this funk will pass. I suppose that it is not so much funk, but life so busy that it makes it hard for me to dedicate time to this endeavor. Just like Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” and it will be a safe place before we know it. I am going to hang in there, I hope that you do too.

May 19, 2023 – Lord of The Flies, Chapter 1

May 19, 2023 /

We have come to a new book. It also happens to be one that I have never read. It also happens to be a book that shows up on the lists ‘If you like 1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc.’ Given that I have never read it, it is deemed a classic and it fits in this genre, it is my next pick for book review.

This is another reasonably short book. As of right now, I am going to take it a chapter at a time. This means that this review will last into the middle of the summer. Once again, I may change my mind if it seems like chapters go together or are really short. To make that decision, you really have either know the book or have pre-read well ahead. Of course, I have done neither at this point but I reserve the right to change my mind as we go along.

While I haven’t read the book, it is a story line that is familiar in our culture. That being said, there are also several movies on the book that I haven’t seen either. We will see if what I think I know holds up when we get through the book. As I was trying to figure out how to break up the book, I ran across this video which I think fits here.

The reason that this story fits into the dystopian genre is that apparently there is a nuclear war that has begun. For some reason, there are a whole plane load of children that get shot down over a deserted island. As we have it, no adults survived the crash and (so far) there is no mention of the wreckage or any assets related to the airplane. Apparently, most of the kids do not know each other and so this is the beginning of the story.

To me, this chapter speaks to or more aptly against the lone wolf theory. Let me explain. The lone wolf is a predominant idea in preparedness circles. It is one individual stocking up on supplies in the event that something happens. That individual plans on taking on the event solo; not sharing supplies or working with other individuals for survival or rebuilding. This has more to do with the lone wolf being ridiculed or ostracized for their beliefs and habits and so the attitude is anti-social.

Now, of the people that I have met with this mindset, there often is a reason that they become a lone wolf. A lot of people would characterize this as tin-foil hatters. The other reason is that they use poor rhetoric when trying to persuade others to their beliefs and tend to be abrasive or secretive to boot.

I have some of those tendencies as well. I hate social media, I keep people at a distance, I have some semi-radical ideas and I would rather be home than out and about for dinner or other activities. That being said, I understand that humans are social creatures and if there was some sort of rebuilding event, we need each other to successfully do that task.

In the book, the first thing that happens is the primary characters Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell to blow on it and make noise, like a horn. This sound brings all of the survivors to the sound and they immediately begin to organize. Leaders are elected and roles are created.

This of course goes against my anarchist tendencies. That being said, in a critical situation it makes a lot of sense for voluntary association to solve an acute problem. And for that kind of situation, I am all for a temporary association. Said better, they need each other and to take advantage of the strengths that each person can bring to the table for the common goal of survival and getting discovered for rescue.

The problem of course is that these things run their course and then you end up with sociopaths seeking power and attempting to maintain it when the situation does not warrant it. The leads to arbitrary or self-serving rules that enhance power and control. I often find leadership needs change as the situation evolves. The people that immediately get elected/appointed are the charismatic ones, not necessarily the ones that are ultimately the best leaders.

End Your Programming Routine: I have a theory that there are people good at starting things and those people are usually not the best at running them. It is the difference between entrepreneurial and work a job mindset. That being said, it is natural for people to organize in a social setting, especially for crisis situations. The book is already living up to it’s premise, this is a reflection of society.

May 18, 2023 – I Am Not Prepared For This

May 18, 2023 /

Living on Main Street which is also an Oregon state highway, we occasionally get some accidents. The last bad one we had was Labor Day 2019. I remember this because it was the day before school started and several children were in the car. The person in one of the cars had to be extracted.

My neighbor is a former deputy sheriff and if they are home, they are running a police scanner. We do get a lot of sirens that come down Main Street so I can usually tell the kind of event it is by the types and numbers of vehicles that pass. There are certain trucks for vehicle crashes and different ones for fire. Occasionally I will ask him what is happening, especially if there is both police and fire involved.

Last night, I was reading the local paper and my wife was fiddling around with the TV. She kept asking me questions about what applications we needed to keep cache and we were discussing the value of why these applications were collecting data in the first place. I was looking out the window and I saw a flash.

I yelled “Holy shit, call 911. I just saw someone hit by a car”. This is the order of events. I saw a body flipping over a red car (in the forefront) while almost simultaneously a crunching thud and then a short car horn. My first thought was why would someone honk after the person got hit? My wife ran outside and as she was doing so she said “get the first aid kit”.

Trying to process all the things going on I ran into the bathroom. I was looking at band aids and spare toothbrushes thinking none of this is going to help. Meanwhile, I called 911 since my wife ran out the door and was talking with the operator so I was less focused on finding first aid and more on answering the questions.

After the short conversation I grabbed some tape and what I thought were square bandages. I later realized that it was a box of alcohol wipes when I went to put them away. I felt completely inadequate and left the stuff on the dining room table to go outside to see if there was anything better to do. My wife wanted a space blanket so I went to go get that hoping the ambulance would be there soon.

We live about half a mile from the fire station and we have occasionally have called 911. Usually, the service is pretty fast. But, the ten minutes that it took was an eternity. The kid that was hit was a teenager, he was in my son’s grade school class so we recognized him. It looked like a broken arm and leg, at least it was not worse.

Apparently, he was crossing the crosswalk (white pickup to the left) and the driver didn’t see him. Since I didn’t see the entire event, I speculate that the farther red car had stopped and the pedestrian started walking. By the time it was all over, the victim ended up just to the left of the red cars.

I could go on and on but the morale of the story is that I felt completely unprepared and useless. I probably should have a trauma kit by the front door with things appropriate like gloves, space blankets, quick clot, medical tape etc. I think that if I was confident I could respond appropriately, I wouldn’t waffle around looking to be helpful because I wasted all of my initiative trying to figure out what was useful.

End Your Programming Routine: One time I was first on the scene when a co-worker cut his fingers off on the table saw. I didn’t handle that situation very well either. But, I like to think that I learned a lot of things I would do differently for the next time and feel a lot more confident about how I would conduct myself. Fortunately, there has not been a next time. Let’s hope that this is the only time I witness a pedestrian tumbling over a car. But, I will do better if it happens again.

May 16, 2023 – Pretty Sure I am Out of Gas

May 16, 2023 /

I think that this is circumstantial more so than the new state of being but I may not get to post Wednesday or Thursday. When I talked about Hair on Fire in late April, I wasn’t kidding. We had so many things on the schedule last week that even eating fast food was at 8PM and I left work early Wednesday through Friday.

It doesn’t mean that I am not doing stuff, I am here and there. I did manage to get a little reloading done mostly in 15 minute increments. I also swapped out a faulty sprinkler head that I put off last summer. If you remember my major project was re-siding the south side of the garage. I had the sprinkler off for a lot of that and then when I turned it on, I had a geyser.

I am still cleaning up after the Mother’s Day party on Saturday. You see, I don’t always start and complete one project in a single line. I had to organize the pantry in order to fit the leftovers back in. While the coolers are drying out, I am going to put those away and with that I am going to do some keg prep. I have 15 gallons of beer that are almost ready for serving.

If it is not clear, those things are all related. One trip to take stuff to the basement yields another trip out with stuff for the next phase. My wife thinks I never get anything done. But she doesn’t realize my effectiveness of movement. It appears like I am starting something new without finishing the last thing. To me, it is all a very calculated order of operations.

That being said, I have been super busy but yes I have been doing things. What I haven’t been doing is taking photos or thinking about what to write about. I haven’t been stubbing out articles and I need that planning so that I can write when I get a chance. It is what frees me up to work within my schedule.

End Your Programming Routine: Part of why I started with the warning is I don’t know what topics I might write about this week. I think that if I did, then I probably would get it done. As I eluded, I am continuing to do small things here and there, this is what leads me to the conclusion that I am out of gas. Don’t fear, I love doing this I just probably need a short break as things are starting to clear up on my schedule.

May 15, 2023 – The Lost Generation

May 15, 2023 /

I talk about this today, but when I go back and listen to what I said, you always think about things that could have been said differently or emphasis changed in certain areas. Generation X is named so because it has no definition. Sandwiched between the Baby Boomers and the Millennials and waiting for the Boomers to step away with the Millennials fighting for the same positions it is hard to find a voice.

End Your Programming Routine: I realize that generation names do not define us as individuals. However, what is in common is a shared experience. There is an intangible feeling for how it was is common. Honestly, I don’t spend anytime worrying about whether my generation gets any credit or blame for anything. I just thought it was apropos that the voice of a generation was just a forgotten as the generation itself.

May 12, 2023 – Animal Farm, Conclusion

May 12, 2023 /

I said it a couple weeks ago, the spiders are creating more cobwebs. I have been done with the book over a month ago. Sometimes, I write ahead and queue up posts at the time. Not this time, life has been way too busy. But, no worries I took some notes about what I wanted to say.

From my research on the book, it is pretty clear that Orwell wrote this book as an observation on Communism, particularly the Soviet style. In that vein, China hadn’t even had their revolution before Orwell was dead. So what other examples did he really have? The funny thing is, Orwell was also an advocate for Socialism. That is what I would call Communism’s softer, more attractive brother.

It’s hard to blame Orwell. He really died as Communism was budding. But, he also didn’t live to see that Socialism follows the exact same path as Communism, it just takes a lot longer to materialize. That is my take on it anyway. And I should add that my perspective is coming from an American point of view. I am not talking about countries that have a history of being subjects. To them, socialism represents some boundaries to absolute power (I speculate)

The point that I am trying to get across is that whatever you call it, it is not freedom to me. Even though this was a story warning of the ills of the Soviet Union, you just have a look and see if these things aren’t happening here.

Point One: Rally the people to a common cause. If you were an adult like I was during 9/11 or the most recent pandemic it is so much easier to manipulate people when they are united. It is the unity that enables fundamental changes such as the Patriot Act. Once that is enacted, it is never going away. That leads directly to Point Two.

Point Two: A successful revolution can only happen once in a generation. Incrementalism is the name of the game. I will ask, how many people are looking to repeal the Health Care mandate now? None, its over and it is never going away. People have accepted it for what it is. No matter how radical a change is, someday it will be the way it has always been.

Point Three: When the rules don’t suit, change the rules. This was abundantly spelled out in the book. Some examples below.

  • All animals are equal. Some more than others.
  • Animals shall never drink alcohol to excess.
  • Four legs good, two legs better.

This is actually a complicated strategy. The rules are really used as a division point between the ruling and the ruled. Remember my diversion into the iron law of bureaucracy last week. The rules are to be adhered and respected by those who’s belief is the mission. It is the rulers setting the rules.

Point Four: The tools of propaganda are repetition and misdirection. If you say something enough times in the right way, it is believable. For instance, how many people think that there is a gun violence epidemic in this country? Read this quote.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included record numbers of both gun murders and gun suicides. Despite the increase in such fatalities, the rate of gun deaths – a statistic that accounts for the nation’s growing population – remained below the levels of earlier decades.

Now, read it without full of context. More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If you read further into the article, you will find this quote. Though they tend to get less public attention than gun-related murders, suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths. In 2021, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (26,328), while 43% were murders (20,958), according to the CDC. The remaining gun deaths that year were accidental (549), involved law enforcement (537) or had undetermined circumstances (458).

I am going to end this line of here. But, how many times have we heard about gun violence this year? I am not saying that there isn’t room for significant improvement. What I am saying is that be careful with the interpretation of meaning. It is true that there was an increase in deaths. Facts are facts, they are neither good nor bad.

I don’t know Orwell’s mindset here. From what I read about him and the book it seemed like this was a persuasion piece in the category of ‘for Socialism’ by contrasting how bad Communism was. It is my speculation that the story was easily transferred from the pages to the reader. Meaning, they got it intuitively.

End Your Programming Routine: If you believe my premise, then I think I made my case. America has jumped the shark on freedom. Socialism is now the name of the game. It is a matter what flavor do you want. Regardless, those tactics in Animal Farm are the same ones that we have here in real life.

May 11, 2023 – Think Your Government Doesn’t Make Mistakes… Think Again

May 11, 2023 /

Approximately two years ago, we received a letter that our kids were entitled to assistance (food stamps). I actually threw the letter away because I thought the whole premise was ridiculous. Supposedly, it was to mitigate access to food during the pandemic school year.

The first problem with the situation was that my kids should be eligible for assistance. The second part was that all of the lockdowns and the entire school year at home was a year past. So, tell me why I wouldn’t think that was anything other than ridiculous. Sure enough the card arrived in the mail two weeks later and it had about $1400 on it. You can read about it here.

Follow-up from that. We spent the money. We used it to buy food when we went on our family Thanksgiving trip to Houston. At first, I didn’t want to accept something that I didn’t feel was necessary. Once I got into my headspace that I also paid $10,000 in additional taxes to the state that year plus getting audited and paying a lawyer, I put those feelings aside. Mistake or not, I have reconciled that I pay a lot more than I take. In fact, I take almost nothing from the system.

Low and behold, we got another Electronic Benefits Card a week ago. This time it was about $400 in value. I suppose that I am not opposed to taking advantage of situation, but it does start to get disheartening that the state really has no discretion on qualification of benefits. This is what I would characterize as government waste; indiscriminate doling out of money.

If you take those lines, then you will probably understand that this was actually a mistake. My wife sent me a link to a story that said that there were a number of people that mistakenly received assistance. Once the state realized it, they took all the money back rendering some cards, like my son’s to be useless.

Hooray for government, right? You guessed it. Wrong. Aren’t there checks and balances in this process? Do they not have subject matter experts for policy and ample resources (people) to execute something properly? I have to believe that this process took a significant amount of time and effort. Finding someone to print the materials and mail them out only to find out that they made a mistake after the fact has to be something majorly wrong in the process.

I know how these things probably went. Some sort of database report was executed and that is what translated to the wrong results. What failed was the validation of the data and the quality check of the process. Mistakes happen and the government is not immune to them either.

Where I really wanted to go is that the government is always pretty quick to swing a fist. Meaning, the stance is always they are right. Ever try to re-title a car without a complete bill of sale trail? Trust me, your life is living hell trying to get previous sellers tracked down to rebuild a paper trail that is absolutely irrelevant. Trust me, only citizens have to go through the run around. Dealers don’t have to do that.

But more so than that, the government will reluctantly admit mistakes when there is no other options, particularly financial ones or high profile losses in court. Sometimes that doesn’t stop them either. For instance, I have heard no apologies for ruining peoples lives for only permitting essential jobs during Covid. I have heard justification for doing what they did, but no apologies.

The main point with this whole post is not to rail on government. I do enjoy doing so, but that you should use critical thinking when getting notifications about something they think is wrong. Just because the IRS sends you a notice doesn’t mean that they are right. You have to weigh the cost of the fight into the equation. When dealing with the government, there are no moral victories either so it simplifies the variables in the decision making.

Probably every other year I get a notice from the IRS or the Oregon Department of Revenue. After consultation with our attorney, often the resolution is to pay the difference. At $200/hour it doesn’t make a lot of sense to fight a $400 bill. But, I can also tell you that we have gotten letters saying that we haven’t paid for the year and a $10,000 bill is a different story when we have.

Along those lines, it really pisses me off that I have to have an attorney and pay more money to prove that I have already done the right thing. Whereas I know people that haven’t bothered to file taxes for years and they got no hassle whatsoever. This is not to say that the government was going to get anything out of if but that they will go after the people that they will. Dropping it.

End Your Programming Routine: Don’t be a zombie. Don’t fold because you feel you have no choice. Do analyze the situation and make moves that make sense. Do seize the opportunity when there is one. This is the definition of being an individual.

May 10, 2023 – Stop and Smell the Oregon Grape?

May 10, 2023 /

Did you know that the state flower is the Oregon Grape? It puts on some small fruit about the size of a current or elderberry. I have never tasted it, I think it is more herblike or something that is probably used in very small quantities. The truth is, I have only ever seen it in planting strips and never in the wild. I didn’t realize that it actually flowers, but knowing that it fruits, it only makes sense.

You might say that my writing is themed lately. Some might say a broken record and others might say desperate or even whiny. But, life is busy. I can’t help that it feels like our schedule is a crushing weight. So, I have to find the silver linings in things. Today is one of them.

I suppose that you can say this is a different take on adventure that I wrote about last week. My wife says that I am glass half full. Which means that when I end up helping out by babysitting, my first reaction is all the things that I cant do. I know in my heart that what I am doing is the right thing to do which is why I hesitantly commit to doing it. I don’t know why I am wired this way, it just is the way that it is.

The saying “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” is so true. It means make the best of a sub-optimal situation or even do something better with it. To me, giving up a day to entertain a five year old is a precious commitment. With a barn-burning schedule during the week I need some space to just be me.

Back when my wife and I were younger and we talked about a family, we were seriously considering having four kids. God had a different plan for us and circumstances dictated that we had two. Now that my kids are nearly adult age, I am entering my post child phase. I can see why older parents are much more laid back about kids because they know that you provide a safe and solid foundation and the rest will take care of itself.

Some kids are going to embrace and thrive in the freedom while others are going to take a while longer. I don’t think any any amount of baby sign language or pre-primary music/sports lessons are going to change that. Those things prove to the parents that they are committed to do what it takes to make their child successful, but nobody else. I do think that when parents are confident, so are the children but I am already way off track from where I want to go today.

When I commit to babysitting, I try to think outside the box. What have I been wanting to do but haven’t taken the time to do? On any given normal day I will keep myself busy all day long with all the tasks and projects that I want to do. I won’t necessarily go to the local bird refuge and walk the half mile gravel path or plan a picnic at a close by park. I won’t take the evening to walk the dog to the nearby dog park or pick dandelions out of a yard as we walk by. I won’t drive home the slow way using the ferry to cross the river.

This is the reason why I have never seen the Oregon Grape flower, because I have never stopped to look for them. I didn’t realize that I should. As much as I hate to admit this, God is giving me the message to try harder and life is more than a check-list of to dos. It sounds intuitive, right? But, this is my programming that I have to change.

Before you get the complete wrong idea, not every babysitting day is a whiz-bang trip. Sometimes, kids need to learn that adults need to do stuff that kids won’t enjoy. Sometimes kids need to participate in things that they won’t like. But, the whole thing is a balance. It shouldn’t be always one or the other and it certainly should be some of both.

During the summer of the time I was between jobs, I used to do something called adventure Thursdays. That was the day of the week that my wife worked from home so it got us out of the house. We drove around to parks in the county and waded in local creeks, explored roads, bought chocolates made by monks and just looked beyond the boundaries of our house. We stopped at signs and read them and took turns just to see where they went. It was nothing fancy, just something I wanted to do.

The whole eighteen months of me not working is starting to fade into memory. It is hard to think that I spent over a year with the freedom to take in life. I was a better and happier person while I was doing it and for doing it. I think today I would have to force my kids to come with me, not to do it by choice. I look back that those experiences were special. Not because they were grandiose but because the relationship of time and space is something we will never have again.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t fancy myself as sentimental. That is not what this is about today. But, I talk plenty about doing things; my life is driven to doing things. Often, I forget that doing things is not the whole picture of living, just one aspect of it. I took this picture because I was awed by something I had never seen. Not just never seen but right in front of me never seen because my eyes weren’t open to something greater.