Through the years, I have grown less enamored with Christmas much preferring Thanksgiving. I am not going to give away my podcast secrets here, you will have to listen to find out what is driving this.
The name of this podcast is inspired by George Orwell’s concept of ‘Hate Week’. This is whipping everyone up into moving into the same direction. I am getting everyone ready for the holiday season with this podcast.
End Your Programming Routine: I guess my desire is to change the course of my history. I just realized that the days my family will all be home is limited. We can go back to old traditions or start new ones or let things be the way they are. But, let us feel free to make them what we want and not feel trapped by life just passing us by.
This is the last chapter in part 2. Things seem to be no where near resolved at this point, so we will have to stay tuned for the last 400+ pages of the book.
Dabny meets a transient. He used to work at Twentieth Century Motor Company. He describes the process where the owner died and the factory was taken over by the workers. Part of the process was need based voting on wages and other issues.
“Remember that none of us may now leave this place, for each of us belongs to all others by moral law which we all accept”. One man, stood up and as he left the meeting and disappeared forever said “I will stop the motor of the world”. That man was John Galt.
After that conversation, the train stopped, the crew abandoned the train, possibly in Oklahoma or Kansas. Dabny walks with Owen Kellogg a former employee to find a telephone which is every five miles down the track. During the walk, she discovers that he is in possession of cigarettes with the dollar sign on them. He refuses to talk about the origin, but says that they can only be obtained by gold.
I suppose that these are the main two themes in the chapter. However neither is really new. This chapter is forty pages of marking time. Sure we learned the back story of John Galt and the Dollar symbol (in the book). It kind of reminds me of a podcast I heard years ago about the origin of the dollar. Apparently, the origin of the US dollar was based on the Spanish dollar when it was adopted as currency in 1792.
Kellogg draws some comparisons of the symbol, much like history or politics. There are facts and then there is how those facts are interpreted. For instance, there are those that use the dollar symbol as a weapon to mark greed and selfishness. While there are others that see it as a symbol of creativity and output.
I suspect that people that use the 1% moniker would not refuse a $100 bill if I handed them one, no strings attached. I have never heard of anyone refusing a raise solely on principal. For that matter, those same people do not work for free. So, it is not the money itself that is evil but more likely jealousy. And even more likely hypocrisy meaning who wouldn’t trade financial situations with someone in the 1% assuming that we could handle the transition?
Is everyone that rich a nice, hardworking and deserving person? I doubt it, in fact I would be willing to bet that a lot of them worked in some sort of gray area to get there. So let us look at my version of the Facebook story.
Back when MySpace was the top social media site, the internet was much more undeveloped. Because MySpace was adopted by the newest tech generation (pre-teens and teens), it drove slightly older people to Facebook. These also happened to be the population segment that had money unlike teens. Facebook used mining technology to gather information on it’s users to sell. It was a twist of fate that Facebook conquered MySpace.
As a result, Zuckerburg grew wealthy by a gray area activity. Was it legal, yes. Was it ethical, yes as long as the user agreement disclosed it. Was it proper? I dont know, I don’t use Facebook partially for this reason. Do I like Zuckerburg? No, but not for this. I don’t like the fact that Meta is in the business of manipulating speech.
Enough of that, let me remind people how you get rich. You do this by paying people less than what you make. For instance, I am not rich but I don’t pay the person that mows my grass the same wage that I make. This allows me to focus on the things that I want to do. If the price of the job ever came to my current wage level, I will quit my job right now and start mowing grass. I certainly respect and appreciate the job. They can do in one hour what takes me all day to do. But, my time is worth more to me than the cost of mowing the grass.
Whether it is the Waltons, Musk, Buffet, Gates, etc they all payed people around them less than they made so that they could use their talents in other areas. And let us not forget that there are a lot dull people employed at XMart making $18/hour that would struggle to find a replacement job that is as good. Before we get too judgmental about who did what to get where, it would be good to refresh ourselves with the the tenth commandment: ‘thou shalt not covet’.
End Your Programming Routine: I will say that I struggled today. I kept writing until something quasi-impactful emerged. It all starts with the book and this thing is starting to get a little long in the tooth. I certainly don’t regret doing this and it has definitely been worth it so far. It’s just that some of these chapters don’t add any value to the overall work. I will save the rest for when I finish.
I am a long time listener of GunTalk. One of the things that Tom Gresham says is that the first thing he does is replace the trigger in a rifle. He says that a good trigger is necessary for good accuracy.
I personally have never had an issue with the trigger on my Remington rifle. It is a little stiff, but otherwise I have felt that it is consistent. However, there was a long standing recall for faulty triggers and that got me thinking. Now that Remington is defunct, the old recall is no longer active. Given the question, I decided to try and upgrade the trigger to a Timney Trigger.
The truth is, I did it because I wanted to try it. I wanted to see if it makes me more accurate. It doesn’t hurt that it is potentially safer as well. Now, I need to resist the urge to replace all of my triggers before I get any realistic data points. At $150, it is a luxury item. I only paid $350 for the entire rifle about ten years ago anyway.
The process is pretty simple. There are two pins right above the trigger in the action. Once out, the trigger unit slides right out. The unit installs in the reverse order. If you are careful about how you do this, then this is a five minute job. I took the entire pin out which also removed the bolt release mechanism. This caused me to have to fiddle with it for twenty minutes to get the springs in the right place and put back together.
I have not shot it, nor do I have plans anytime soon. Part of me thought that I should wait out until hunting season is over just in case I get a wild hair to buy an elk tag. The realistic part of me says that I didn’t do it when I wasn’t working, why would I do it now? I have a standing invitation from my neighbors to go out with them. The season is only a week and I would have to take time off to do it. I really want to, but this is not the year. So, I changed the trigger.
I guess hunting is one of my toolbox fallacies. I always seem to be finding excuses to not do it. We are too busy, the weather is too warm, I don’t have any vacation, etc. I suspect that next year we will get our deer tags drawn. It has been three years since we did. Unless I physically cannot go, I am going next year. It might be one of the last years my dad can go, he is getting into his mid-seventies now and if we have to wait three years, he will be almost eighty the next draw.
On my dry firing, The trigger breaks a lot lighter. According to the documentation, the Timney Hunter model is supposed to be set at three pounds. From what I have read, a trigger that is too light for hunting might be a problem when wearing gloves. A heavier trigger prevents premature discharge because you cant feel as well with gloves on. I guess I have never hunted with gloves on, so I don’t think this will be a problem.
This particular rifle, I have only fired around thirty rounds out of. I haven’t shot it enough to have enough brass to reload. So, now with the new trigger it gives me an excuse to really give this rifle some exercise. It seems like something I should do anyway. So, I look at spending some quality time with this rifle in preparation for possibly the last hunt with my dad.
End Your Programming Routine: I probably should be more glass half full about this. There is no reason I can’t go with him on over the counter tags in future years. But, I guess none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. I just look at him slowing down and hobbling around a lot more. My trigger isn’t the reason I didn’t go hunting this season but it motivates me to look forward and setting plans for next year.
A number of years ago, I cobbled a shelf together out of scrap material. The purpose was to organize all of the picnic materials (mostly used with the barbeque). Hence, I hung it above the barbeque in the garage. My first version worked, but it ended up sagging a lot. About three years ago I took it down and re-enforced the sagging shelf.
Something happened while we were in Barcelona. Because when I opened the garage when we got back, I saw the shelf was partially detached from the wall and over half of the items were on the floor. I hastily stacked everything on the floor and subsequently tripped over them and cursed their existence all summer long.
The failure of the old shelf appears that the back, which was nailed into the plywood shelves had separated. Hence, the shelf sort of fell apart. Now, I don’t think it just fell apart on it’s own. but regardless I would say that it wasn’t constructed properly. Any sort of shelf backing, the purpose is really to prevent racking, not necessarily hanging. I am a little surprised that it failed despite realizing the actual weaknesses.
Now that the fall is here and so is the rain, it is time to start shop projects and inside projects. It is also time to stop getting angry every time I try to maneuver in the garage (which is several times a day). I was going to build the shelf that never failed. About a day later, I decided that I was going to get this done as cheaply and quickly as possible.
I was at the local box store and I saw shelf brackets for $4 a piece. I bought four of them thinking I would hang one shelf and try them out. The worst case scenario is that I would save them for some other project later if I thought they were too wimpy. With the World Series on in the background, I set about disassembling the former shelf. I took measurements and pulled nails.
In about two hours, I had the first shelf up and loaded it up with paper plates, Solo cups, aluminum pans etc. I had determined that this was going to be far more cost and time effective to use these brackets rather than buy lumber and build my forever shelves. Over all, I bought 8 brackets (x $4) or $32 plus about four hours total of labor.
The point here is that it kind of offends my sensibilities to use the shelf brackets rather than build something. But, from a standpoint of time savings and even cost, this is no comparison to what I should do. The work is done and the stuff is off the floor after months.
End You Programming Routine: A friend of mine used this term ‘minimal viable product’. What it means is the minimal amount of effort exerted to do the job is the most efficient. This doesn’t necessarily mean do a temporary job, but it also means don’t overthink it. Variables always change in the future and the paradigms of today are not necessarily valid tomorrow. So, trying to futureproof something is often futile.
It is finally bottling day. The wine has been in the secondary over a year. I think that it has been ready to bottle for six months or so but I have been consumed with other activities.
My first challenge was bottles. I hate dealing with bottle preparation. To top it off, I really didn’t have enough wine bottles as five gallons need two cases of bottles. I had 2/3 of a case (or eight) bottles open. Instead of spending $50 on bottles, I decided to put them in 22oz beer bottles. So this meant cleaning them.
This is a task that I don’t mind doing as much in the summer time, but now the temperature is near freezing. Soaking these bottles in sanitizer and scrubbing them with a bottle brush is drag and it is pretty cold too. I found three bottles that needed some extra attention, so much so that I actually abandoned them and found other bottles to use. They took days of soaking, scrubbing, pouring boiling water and other cleaning chemicals to try and get these clean.
I have two bottle brushes. One does not fit into my bottles and the other does not fan out properly at the bottom. I need to be in the market for a third brush so that this task is not so difficult. The real, real lesson is to not leave bottles dirty. I could have avoided all of this by rinsing them properly before putting them away.
The bottling process is not too bad. It involves a spring-loaded plunger and a gravity syphon. Essentially, while there is pressure on the tip of the plunger, liquid will feed from above until you release the pressure. I try to fill the bottle as full as I can get it because once the bottle dispenser is removed, that volume is replace with air (or headspace). Beer will utilize that oxygen to do it’s bottle carbonation. Wine really doesn’t benefit from any extra oxygen and should be avoided.
Once all the bottles are filled, they can be corked or capped. I write the page number of my brew log on the cap for identification. You can see the color, kind of a reddish-orangish color. Very nice.
When I was originally brewing this, I was planning that this recipe would make three gallons. It turned out to make five. I suspect that because I froze the fruit, most of it remained in the brew, adding volume. Had this actually been three gallons, I think it would have been way out of proportion. I didn’t actually weigh the fruit, I estimated it. To do this again, I would make some modifications, likely less added sugar.
I brewed this on a whim. A mysterious box of plums showed up on my deck one day. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a starting sugar, so I don’t know what the actual alcohol content is. But it is kind of rocket fuel. It has a distinctly plum taste to it but it is not sweet like the Asian wines. I probably need to cold crash it so it stays a little sweet and is not quite so strong. Otherwise, this is an Altf4.co success; found fruit brewed into future enjoyment. This is exactly what I wanted to do with this site.
End Your Programming Routine: Now that this is done, it is time to start turning into brewing beer again. I have four kits and two empty kegs sitting and waiting. I also want to make a decision on apple cider. I am strongly thinking that I will brew that as well. I guess now that the weather has changed, it is a good time to be working in the kitchen.
After I did my last podcast, I did some more research on the local candidates and issues that were not documented in the voter’s guide. This week. I also do some analysis of election results.
Truthfully, I was hoping to see the political wave change. Not because it would make a difference in policy but delay the inevitable five to ten years. With all of the problems we have, I have no hope that we can actually change course, specifically in this state. I don’t have the energy or the resources to fight them all.
End Your Programming Routine: I voted like a good citizen. If you listen, you can hear the results of my effort. I think it is time to start exploring the concept of ‘Galt’s Gulch’ because the looters are fully in charge. They are just going to keep voting themselves more power, money and inventing new rights. Remember that we all belong to each other – I just don’t have anymore words.
I would say happy Veteran’s Day, but I don’t really think this is an appropriate statement. I have spoken about feelings on veterans on Memorial Day. And to get more technical, a veteran is a living person that served in combat, not just spent time in the military. Despite my feelings on whether our country should have been involved or not, I can appreciate the sacrifice of service.
Growing up, we had a parade in town that was billed as the largest Veteran’s Day parade west of the Mississippi. I was in band, so I was marching in the cold and the rain every year. Since leaving home, I have never had it as a holiday so I really haven’t seen it in a long time. But, I assume this is not the reason that you are here so let’s get into it.
I had in my notes “short chapter, kind of worthless”. What happens is Francisco goes to Dabny to see if she will change her mind about going back to working for the railroad. Of course she will not. This conversation is interrupted by Henry Reardon coming in and loosing his cool.
I won’t say that there is nothing of value in the chapter, the conversation and debate between Dabny and Francisco was pertinent. There are two camps: either don’t support the looters by continuing to work or don’t let the looters win by quitting. Which side is correct? I suppose that it has to do with where you stand on confidence with your abilities, pride in outcome and stubbornness to continue.
I know which side I fall on. Maybe you can guess what it is, but I can relate an anecdote to highlight my stance. I have spoke of this before, but I once ran a program. The people above me were extremely poor running their own programs, hence I would call them looters. In fact, the company was taking money out of my program to prop up these other failing programs. In the end, it was all from the same bucket but the point was taking from me to make them look better.
These people made my life miserable. Misery at work translated to misery at home. But, I was running a successful program. I was happy with my team’s results. We were named a ‘Center of Excellence’ for the company. Along with that success came more meddling to the point where the company took that program away from me in a way. They hired someone to run and expand the program I was running, in effect pushing me away.
That move was explained to me as ‘making my life better’ by reducing my interactions with the looters. What they didn’t realize was that my fundamental success running the program was the only thing keeping me satisfied with my job. In my mind, it simply gave me no possible way to happiness because instead of making my life better, I was more miserable. I had reason to keep fighting when I had something to prove. By being relegated to team lead instead of a program lead, I no longer had that motivation.
So, I quit. The program failed within six months. In fact within a year, the company imploded. I don’t claim that this was all me. Mismanagement left a structure riddled with holes like termites in wood. I was simply a part of the structure that was no longer sound and when I crumbled, so did the rest.
It is not in my nature to quit. For right or wrong, this is one of the few things I have ever quit. I was devastated to surrender my identity but I was also at a point where staying was self-destructive. I no longer wanted to prove something, I wanted to take the whole thing down. I had no other success criteria than a total re-write of the company in my own image. That wasn’t realistic, so I gave into the looters and natural consequences took their course.
End Your Programming Routine: I think that you can see that I side with Francisco. At the time, I didn’t do it with the same intent, it just happened to prove his theory. On my last day, I walked out the door with a small box of my personal belongings. I didn’t leave a single item that was mine, including the business in which I was engaged. I choose the path of force disrupter rather than head on battle for change.
Admittedly, it has been three weeks since I went to the range and got this data. On that day, the temperature was 87 degrees. It was the farewell to summer for sure because we are finally back to normal, Oregon weather. For the uninitiated, temperature is important when gathering range data because this is about measuring results of a chemical reaction.
The warmer the outdoor temperature, the more likely the reaction happens faster. This ultimately translates to velocity. This is what leads to the rabbit hole of reloading. It is possible to develop cold and warm weather loads. For today, I am going to ignore the fact that it was warm but I will keep the data point for some other day. I do have to say, my measurements were higher than I expected by quite a bit.
This is using a 158 grain jacketed hollow point by Speer and Alliant Power Pistol powder. The grid shows velocity by powder charge.
7.7gr
7.9gr
8.1gr
8.3gr
8.5gr
1
1424
1436
1435
1459
1432
2
1420
1419
1430
1437
1515
3
1407
1407
1422
1464
1458
4
1366
1460
1440
1455
1531
5
1375
1385
1428
1491
1472
6
1367
1395
1406
1474
1424
7
1419
1420
1457
1428
1430
8
1354
1368
1391
1448
1437
9
1346
1365
1427
1459
1474
10
1388
1473
1468
1429
1493
Mean
1387
1414
1431
1455
1467
3 Sigma
26
33
20
18
34
Energy
675
701
719
743
755
Now, that is some tight data. Everything did what it was supposed to do. I base that opinion on the standard deviation numbers. Surprisingly, published velocity is is only 1078 fps. My variations from this recipe include a Winchester Small Pistol Magnum primer instead of CCI 500. I also used a standard Speer jacketed hollow point instead of a Speer Gold Dot hollow point. This was also measured from a rifle with a 16″ barrel, not 10″. So, these are some variables that could possibly make a difference.
It could also be me or my equipment. I was organizing data over the last weekend and I noted in my reloading book that my electronic balance was reading 20% more than the mechanical balance. It is very possible that these are overcharged. I really need a third source to check my equipment. Nevertheless, I am much more pleased with this combination over the last one.
I will summarize last month’s findings here: same bullet, same primer, Universal powder. The published velocity for that load was 1100 fps. I used the same rifle. I would say that this one underperformed.
5.8gr
5.9gr
6.0gr
6.2gr
6.3gr
Mean
949
932
925
943
1055
Before we declare a winner, velocity is not the end all measurement. There is also accuracy. The truth is, I haven’t even bothered to test this yet. My rifle is not sighted in and I haven’t even tried at this point. But, where I go from here is that I repeat this test on the rifle range and try to shoot groups. I can ignore velocity because I have enough data to tell me that the change is very small between starting and ending. This is the process of developing a custom load for your firearm.
What I can say from this experiment is that I have some ‘low velocity’ bullets that are not supposed to exceed 875 fps and it looks like the Power Pistol powder is not a good choice for that bullet. But, Universal probably is. The low velocity bullets are softer and exceeding the recommended velocity will cause the lead to accumulate inside the barrel.
Don’t forget that measuring velocity from a pistol should be quite a bit less than a rifle. So, it is possible to have loads that are too fast in a rifle but fine in a handgun. Aren’t you glad you just buy ammunition and live in bliss?
End Your Programming Routine: In this time of ammunition shortage which is even worse for reloading components, I have heard some advice. We probably won’t get our choice of what we want, so we just need to work with what is available. I have no hesitation substituting primer brands or bullets as long as you heed the fundamentals.
I have long had a fantasy that I would grow apples and juice them when it is time. The apple tree on the property has been in the ground many years before we moved into the house. I had plans to build an apple press, but still never did. So, I made as much applesauce as I could.
I really don’t think this tree yields as much as it should. A typical year is about five, five gallon buckets worth of apples. They have scab and 99% of them have worms. Last year, I didn’t get a single apple. I think my pruning job was too severe. This year, the yard people only pruned 5% of the tree.
I feel like I should get three times that much based on the size of the tree. Nevertheless, the quasi neglected apple tree keeps producing. This year, I got six buckets worth. Not only did we get a good yield, but I also picked up a cider setup. But, you already know that because I used it for grapes already.
Normal cider operation would be a volume production. Not in this house, I have an order to only use the good stuff. This means a lot of extra work. I have to inspect every apple and trim out all the imperfections. Admittedly, partially rotten apples don’t seem very appealing but if I only had a worm in one in five, I probably wouldn’t do things this way.
For this reason, it took me about eight hours to do all of this work. This is a lot. For my efforts I got four gallons of cider. It tastes pretty good too. I haven’t fully decided what I am going to do with this yet. Of course, I want to make some hard cider, but we drank one gallon already. I may chalk this year up to an experiment and just keep the cider in the fridge.
Now that the cider is pressed, you are not done. The juice must be pasteurized or it will start fermenting without any extra help. So, that was another evening. Fortunately, I could watch Monday Night Football and clean up the shop while the operation was happening.
This fits right into my goals. I have always wanted to scavenge apples from some abandoned or forgotten trees and turn it into liquid gold. My second day of doing this I got into a better rhythm of how many apples fill the press. Press while prepping the next batch and wholesale rejecting of apples rather than investing a lot for a little return.
In the future, I will need to split at least or augment my harvest to also make apple sauce. Ideally, I would have seven or eight gallons of juice with some to ferment and some to leave au natural. Plus, I would like to put up 12 quarts of applesauce as well. So, I probably need triple the amount of apples to make this work.
End Your Programming Routine: At the time of writing this, I still have a few, orange tomatoes on the vines. This really marks the end of harvest season. The rains have come and we could have freezing weather at any point forward. If I stumble on a deal for apples, I could be persuaded to run another batch but I am tired now. I would say that it works, now I know how much work it is.
Taste by Stanley Tucci is the June Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection. Yes, I said June. I ordered it in May. By the time the book was delivered, we were getting ready to leave for Spain. I looked at the page count and I knew that it wasn’t going to be long enough for the trip. I left it home for weight purposes and then all of a sudden I had two books to keep up with all summer and fall.
Since we missed the book club gathering in June, I just waited until I got ahead on Atlas Shrugged and didn’t have a second book to go back to. Now was the time.
I am certainly not a big Hollywood person. Most of Stanley’s movies I have never watched. The most famous include Prizzi’s Honor, The Devil Wear’s Prada, Lovely Bones and Julie & Julia. This book is a memoir of sorts that traces his life through food memories.
There are probably 25-30 recipes in the book, nearly all of them are of Italian origin. Typically, they come near the end of each chapter. However, there are sometimes two recipes in a chapter. And some, don’t have any. I would describe it this way, there is some sort of anecdotal story about a period of his life ended by the recipe involved in the anecdote.
How to be kind here? Let’s just say that unless you are a Stanley Tucci fan, this book is pretty much a train wreck. It very roughly follows his life from childhood to current day. Knowing nothing about him, the book cuts right into some situation where he talks about food and then usually punctuated by a recipe. It jumps back and forth in time with unfamiliar characters after about the first third of the book.
I suppose part of my irritation of the book is that I certainly didn’t appreciate the politics whitewashed throughout the book. I would characterized him as New York City liberal turned ex-patriate feigns interest in traditional dishes. He does talk both about Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July with what feels like contempt. I get it to a degree, you like what you like but why bring it up at all?
I started out enjoying the first third of the book. These were largely about the nostalgia of childhood and certainly more innocent and varied. The recipes were interpretations of memories. After that, the book turned into a wandering, food triggered grab bag.
He seems to have a propensity to talk about restaurants that no longer exist. It is written as if it is still available until you read the entire story and then there is a footnote that this is now closed. I think it could have been written in a more agnostic fashion such as “the best XXXX I ever had was at YYYY” and not “Go to YYYY on ZZZZ for XXXX *It is now closed”. I guess for me, New York City or Sicily is just as foreign as the moon so I don’t feel the need to follow all of his restaurant suggestions. Nor would I expect something from the 1980s to even be available 30-40 years later.
It is not that often that I am this critical about something. I personally give this a ‘not recommended’ because the book was expensive at $25, boorish and just too neurotic for me. But, to each his own.
End Your Programming Routine: Stanley bills himself a foodie. I can respect and appreciate that. It is clear that he strongly leans towards Italian food which is way more diverse that the Olive Garden menu. I am not a big pasta person at all, so I can appreciate recipes that go deeper into the cuisine than what everybody knows. We are brother’s in that respect.
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