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April 8, 2022 – My New Travel Backpack

April 8, 2022 /

February 2015, I purchased a new Swiss Gear Backpack to replace my company issue Dell laptop. While not at the end of it’s life the end was near. Most of all, I spent a lot of time in China and I felt very subconscious advertising Dell in a third world county. While nothing ever happened, I really felt like something less conspicuous would be a better choice.

I only used that backpack for a few months before the company gave me a new backpack with the company logo on it. At that time I felt compelled to wear the brand and switch. The Swiss Gear went into backup mode for a few months until my nephew needed a replacement and he used it to the point of destruction.

From the day I switched, I regretted it. I thought maybe it would grow on me but it didn’t. Every time I looked at it and more so used it I was reminded of my poor decision. Even the embroidered company brand promise was a lie ”Technology Made Easy and Effective”. A more fitting brand promise would have been ”Difficult to Work With and Needlessly Complicated”.

The bag itself was well made with quality materials but poorly designed. Access to the main compartment was choked by the opening only allowing 1/3 of the compartment. The internal volume barely allowed my computer, notepad, charger and a small accessory bag. Travel with anything more than a book to read basically filled the bag to capacity.

Fortunately, I didn’t do much business travel while it was in service. Lately, I have been doing quite a bit more, so I got a replacement. I wrote about my day bag I bought about a year ago. My requirements for that were maximum flexibility. I wanted it to hold whatever without much care for dedicated organization. Translation, I wanted one big pouch. I could add organizers if I wanted, but mostly to hold what I wanted.

My business bag is different. I work out of it, I travel with it. I keep all of the things I need to do my job when I when I am not in the office. For those of you that dont work on the road, there are different sized bags for different laptops. I happen to have a 17” laptop which means I need a bag on the larger size (or at least to fit). I wanted it to be tough, professional and have diminutive branding.

Since I have new computer glasses, I wanted a place to keep those safe. I wanted some minimal organization for office supplies. And I wanted enough room to add a book and some travel extras like if I chose to stuff a jacket or lunch. There are some good places to look like REI or Sportsman’s Warehouse, online selection is nearly limitless. Trying to even see the features of a bag online are often impossible because they don’t show scale oftentimes only the front and back without the interior pockets.

I settled on an Ogio brand. Sometimes their logo use is garish, this one is OK. At least I don’t tend to recognize it as a logo when I see it. I have an Ogio duffle bag that is 20 years old and has worn like steel so I feel good about the durability. There is full access to my laptop and my iPad in a TSA full zip pocket and it is a little bigger than my old one.

All is not roses and my glasses case does not fit into the specified pocket. There are several other small organizers thar are advertised for a phone or other small item. Those pockets are too small and I don’t tend to leave my phone in my bag, so kind of useless. The dirty little secret is that the more of these do-dads that don’t work there are the less overall volume there is. In a way making the bag less functional.

End Your Programming Routine: This is my first trip with the bag. As much as I hated the old one, everything had a place. I am still getting used to what pocket is what and what zipper to use. It definitely has more space and a better potential for efficient organization. Maybe it is the thought of not looking at the old bag that is better but I am still happier with my choice.

April 7, 2022 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

April 7, 2022 /

A few years ago, I had a varmint problem. I will be vague because what I did was technically not legal. Nevertheless, a few years before that I had purchased an inexpensive Crossman bb/pellet rifle. That rifle did the job. The only complaint that I had was a followup shot took ten additional pumps to get the right pressure.

I have used that rifle for the same purpose several times since. However, I am always extremely leary of doing so because if the first shot doesn’t do the job, there is a wounded animal on the loose and I really don’t want that. I also bought some subsonic 22LR and those were very quiet. I have never used those because I haven’t had the opportunity since I purchased them

A word about urban shooting. This needs to be done with extreme caution. It is illegal to discharge an air rifle (and 22LR for that matter) in the city limits. A person needs to be extremely cautious about where that shot is going if you miss. I don’t worry much about BB’s, they can bounce off hard surfaces and tend to be very inaccurate. But, pellets can penetrate fencing, 3/4 plywood and even be fatal.

I have had my eye on a spring piston pellet gun. With one pump, there is more energy than that ten pump combo rifle. Of course it is also four times as expensive. I recently purchased a Crossman Optimus to do this job (on the left).

One thing to note is these rifles need some break in. You will see in my target the progression of the days. The center target was my first day, then I moved to upper right, lower right, upper left and then finally lower left. I only messed with the scope on the center target. Right now, I am shooting until the groups become consistent, which I think they are after 50 shots. Then I will sight the scope in.

I read that older rifles needed more in the range of hundreds to thousands of pellets to become consistent. I have also read that the break in time has gotten much shorter. I am still function firing right now. I have my pellet trap setup at 10 yards in the basement and I fire a few rounds during the day. It is a nice stress reliever.

This rifle is in 0.177” bore diameter There are 0.22” and 0.25” which are technically much better at pest removal. Remember that energy is mass * velocity * velocity. That means a bigger pellet is going to have more energy at the same velocity. The good news is that smaller pellets are easier to deliver faster. And you can see by the equation that velocity has a much bigger effect on energy than mass.

My decision to go to the 0.177 was to share pellets between the two rifles. I don’t like stocking multiple calibers if I don’t need to. The one downside to the rifle is that it is very loud when it fires. The spring mechanism is unexpectedly noisy. Since air rifles are not firearms, there are many models that have integrated suppressors, mine does not have that and the pellets are firing supersonic anyway which significantly reduces the efficacy of such a device.

End Your Programming Routine: If you read the journals of Lewis and Clark, you would know that they used a pre-charged pneumatic air rifle to kill all kinds of game including bear and elk. Those are making a comeback as well but they require a SCUBA tank to fill the reservoir. I wanted something simpler and less dependent on another input. I am rather enjoying my mid-day marksmanship sessions.

April 6, 2022 – Leak Testing

April 6, 2022 /

When I worked in environmental chemistry. We has an entire lab filled with instruments that used scientific grade gas 24/7 whether we were running tests or not. We had an entire bank of cylinders because we wanted redundancy and not to come in on the weekends.

A leak meant lost analysis time, wasted money and potentially even a compromised sample. They weren’t common but they did happen. When we changed cylinders we did them three at a time. Leaks are serious business in chemical manufacturing but they are something the regular person should know about as well.

What is driving this today? This is triggered by my keg testing. One of the simplest, cheapest and best ways is to do this is use a soap solution. Of course, the this is only works when the piping is under pressure. The good news is that vacuum lines are pretty rare.

When new plumbing is installed, the system is first sealed and pressurized. The system is left overnight and pressure loss is measured overnight. Any amount of loss is clearly a leak. What happens next? You have to find the leak.

The first place to check is all of the fittings or joints. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a leak is sourced from a poor connection. Glued in joints have to be cut and replaced. Screwed in fittings may have too much tape or not enough or are not supposed to have any thread sealant. Compression fittings may be tightened to much or not enough depending on whether they have rubber o-rings or not. Ferrule type fittings sometimes the ferrule is not seated properly. Those have to be replaced.

There are gas detectors for propane or natural gas. Liquids are often observable as drips. As I said above, my go to is a soap solution. The one in the picture below I purchased because I wanted some kind of applicator so I didn’t make a mess all over the place. You can look up recipes online but essentially is is a very dilute soap and water solution. Escaping gas forces bubbles to form at the location of the leak.

To use, open the bottle. It has an applicator brush like PVC cement. You simply wipe the solution around the fitting or suspected area of a leak and look for bubbles. I wanted to check all of the fittings around the regulator and gas lines because I was unsure as to the viability of all the gaskets and O-rings. Turns out that I didn’t find any leaks.

End Your Programming Routine: Leaks can be expensive. But more so than that they are inconvenient. Gas suppliers are open Monday through Friday, 8-5. Imagine that you are in the middle of your party and you lose your CO2. That would be a bummer. It would probably be a good idea to get a second tank for that reason. But again, this is still an experiment at this stage. If I decide to make a full commitment, then I will definitely get a second tank.

April 5, 2022 – Keg Testing

April 5, 2022 /

My beer is ready for kegging. It has been lagering for four weeks. However, I don’t even know if this system works or leaks for that matter. The last thing I want to do is transfer my time and money into something that is not going to work.

This last weekend, I got my CO2 cylinder filled and I also learned something. Cylinders are pressure tested every five years. A refill is $18 but a pressure test is another $20. My cylinder was last tested in 2017, so of course it was expired. It wasn’t quite the deal that I was hoping for, since the homebrewing store charges $36 for a cylinder but hopefully this will be the last time in the next five years that I have to recertify.

I disassembled everything and checked the cleanliness, at least that was good. I connected the regulator to the cylinder and that was leak free. The Cornelius keg held pressure. I filled it up with water and pushed it through the system. Everything checks out. I have some monkeying to do with the pressure coming out of the regulator but I don’t want to do that until I do it with the beer.

Before I connect the beer, I want to replace the tubing to the tap. There is some residue dried inside. I went to the store to buy replacement tubing, but I didn’t find an exact match. The current tubing is 3/16 inner diameter (ID) and 7/16 outer diameter (OD). This is pretty thick stuff. So, I thought I would order it.

Looking at the replacement connections, they are 1/4″ hose barbs. This means that the nipple sticking out is sized for 1/4″ ID tubing, not 3/16″. This is doable, generally you can force a smaller tube onto a larger connection, but why? So, I am going to purchase the proper sized tubing which will make maintenance much easier in the future.

Looks like the original tubing is rated at 75psi. I am going to go with the larger diameter tubing because the regulator is pushing out 12 psi in this case. Pressure is a measure of a given mass of material in a set volume. It is the regulators job to allow a certain amount of gas to pass until the set pressure is reached. If I were to have multiple kegs attached, it would take more mass (of gas) to pressure two kegs, but it would still regulate at 12psi. It just might take more time.

End Your Programming Routine: Looks like things are perking up for the Cinco de Mayo inauguration. Let’s hope that the beer stands up to the hype and effort. I tasted it this weekend and I was not as happy as the first tasting. I do feel like it was too cold because it tasted like flat beer. So, I will be messing with temperature and CO2 as well as getting the menu ready.

April 4, 2022 – Smart TVs Suck

April 4, 2022 /

In my long term plan, I am going to hang a TV on the wall of my office. I have an eye out for a deal and I am not in a hurry. It is mostly to keep my techno-junk working and other experiments in audio and video. I plan on connecting it to my desktop in my office as a second monitor.

Because my space is small, I am am looking at 32-40″ range TV. It seems like 40″ is no longer a thing and they are either 32 or 43 inches (new) now. My preference would be 43″ of the two but I think either would be fine. I don’t want it bad enough to spend $150-200 at this point. This keeps me looking on the second hand market.

We got our first smart TV in 2009. It was a Panasonic plasma. I think is measured 55″. We still have it and it still works great for the most part. When we first bought it, I think it was rare and a more expensive option to have a smart TV. The applications worked for a number of years with a low number of issues. About 2018, the support started ending for some of the applications and now, none of them work.

Our second smart TV was an inexpensive 32″ Magnavox TV. I think this was purchased around 2012. Originally, we thought it was ideal that we could have the smart capability without a second device at an inexpensive price. Applications for this TV were less stable than the Panasonic and they started not working around the same time.

Today, it is pretty rare to see a TV that is not a Smart TV and that is not a good thing in my opinion. Our last TV was a black Friday special. In my opinion, it is a POS. When I was trying to get the Super Bowl going, I couldn’t get it switched from the apps to TV. It is not infrequent that you have to pull the power from the cord because neither the remote or the power button will shut off the TV.

From this point forward, I am solidly in the camp that I don’t want a smart TV again. My searching in the new category, I find it difficult to see anything that is not smart. Just on a whim, I searched ‘why do smart TVs suck?’ It would seem like I am not alone in my opinion. It is one thing that the apps become unusable, but it is completely another when the device does not even function properly.

I actually found this article posted by a local electronics store.

After reading this article, now I don’t even know that I am interested in an inexpensive TV (new at least). It is not like I have state secrets or anything, but I certainly bristle at the idea of Google collecting data and potentially allowing the Chinese log into my devices.

Yesterday, I was listening to the Fine Homebuilding Podcast and they were talking about some smart appliance whereby an incorrect software update was sent. Now that particular appliance is essentially broken requiring a service call to fix it because it can no longer connect to the internet or even run the appropriate software.

End Your Programming Routine: As a person employed in the software industry and having some direct exposure to the Internet of Things (IOT), I have personally watched things not go smoothly in this area for years. The reality is the industry is hell bent on pushing this just like cars will electric. This supports the planned obsolescence model and will simply keep accelerating. I side with Benjamin Franklin “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

April 1, 2022 – Marking Another April Fool’s Day

April 1, 2022 /

Along with Festivus, this might be in the AltF4 collection of recognized holidays. In tradition, I am supposed to play a prank on you guys. However, I have never been into playing practical jokes. I suppose it is my one areas of empathy.

I like jokes but not so much pranks. I think the difference is the physicality. When I was in college, some of the guys thought it was funny to pretend to trip and dump an entire 32oz drink all over you. It only happened to me a time or two, so no big deal but it wasn’t so fun for the person getting drenched with soda. About ten years ago, one of my coworkers bought donuts and injected them with horseradish (or something). I was out of town that day so I missed that one.

A few years ago, my wife played several tricks on my sons. She froze the milk in the cereal bowl (and a couple of things I cant remember). That triggered one of my sons to go whole hog on April Fools. Two years ago, he setoff some kind of stink bomb in our room in the middle of the night and then tried to saran wrap the door. It didn’t fully work but the prank was definitely not appreciated.

I could probably go for some kind of hidden camera ‘What Would You Do?’ type prank. Not a prank, but some kind of skit, sketch or otherwise unusual public behavior would be funny by me. Alternatively the video below has very harmless pranks. We have tons of videos of pranks and examples. It was one of the premises of America’s Funniest Videos.

End Your Programming Routine: The thing for me is that both parties should be able to laugh. Waking up to a house of burning sulfur for hours is not my idea of a good prank. In the end, you know your friends and family and yourself. So, maybe they like getting a 32oz soda dumped on them but I doubt it. Have fun and let me know what you come up with.

March 31, 2022 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

March 31, 2022 /

I finally finished sighting in my shotgun that I started in December. I had a free day last week and I figured with trap starting, I was going to have to postpone several more months. I thought that it was worth sharing the results today.

If you remember where things left off, I didn’t understand how to adjust this sight as a result, I shot all of my ammo and the sight stopped working. I think that I solved all of those things before I went to the range this time.

First, the battery was not dead. I didn’t change the battery because it was working when I got home. On my second shot, the sight stopped working. I tightened the cap and the sight came back on. Lesson learned that the cap has the potential to loosen due to recoil.

One thing to note is that a red dot sight is not a precision optic. The more you pay, the better it is, but this particular sight is rated at 5 Minutes of Angle (MOA). I have previously stated that the math is complicated but simplistically, 1 MOA is roughly an inch at 100 yards. In theory, the best this sight can do is a five inch group at 100 yards. That is what you call combat (or field) accuracy.

I was shooting at 50 yards, so my theoretical accuracy should be 2 1/2″ group. My last shots were in the second ring. Exclude the one bullseye, that was my second shot I think this shotgun is about as good as it is going to get.

Now, look at the two holes at the bottom of the target. I switched from the rifled barrel to the smooth barrel and was shooting rifled slugs. That is the graphic illustration of why scopes need to be sighted to the load you are going to shoot. I also tried the field barrel with some different chokes and none of those made the paper even.

I even tried a half assed buckshot patterning. The results of that were inconclusive as only a handful of pellets even hit the target (out of 10 shots). This was barrel and choke agnostic, meaning that they all did poorly. Part of my experiment design was to sight in with slugs and then validate the shot pattern after sight in. I am pretty confident about sabot slugs in the rifled barrel and rifled slugs in the 18″ barrel, but the rest of it I am not. I will have to spend some more time patterning at ranges closer to 50 yards as these tests were inconclusive. Let’s be honest, this is not the best tool for long distances, it was more of a matter of convenience that the target was setup.

End Your Programming Routine: Just like I was talking about yesterday, you can only analyze data when you change one variable at a time. Truthfully, I probably have some refining work to do but at least I feel like I am in the ballpark now. Someday, when this ammo shortage is over I will go back and spend more time to make it better.

March 30, 2022 – Computer Glasses?

March 30, 2022 /

As a trained scientist, I suppose that experimentation is in my DNA. It comes to me naturally. At least part of what I do is to see if I can figure things out or do them just out of curiosity. Part and parcel with experimentation is observation. Data needs to be collected to support the experiment and make conclusions.

Since I started working again, I have noticed that as the day wore on, I was getting very fatigued, like ready for bed by the time the work day was over. Interestingly, I didn’t necessarily feel the same way on the weekends. My hypothesis of the situation is that my office usually starts at 60-65 degrees and will heat up to nearly 80 most days if I don’t crack the door. I was thinking that the increase in temperature was causing me to become more sleepy as the day progressed.

Recently, I was at the eye doctor. We talked about the fact that I could get computer glasses if I wanted to, but if it was not a problem then it wasn’t necessary. I asked him about the fatigue and he said most likely. I decided to perform an experiment on my favorite subject, myself.

I picked up my glasses Friday afternoon. The first thing I noticed is that things are definitely clearer close up. When I look beyond a couple of feet, things are definitely worse than with the glasses off. So, these are to be truly worn for reading and screen work. I put them aside to be tried on Monday.

I have two days under my belt now and I have to say that I have not experienced the fatigue and the temperature is 80 while I type this. Two days of data is not conclusive but it is definitely a nod toward a positive conclusion. I should probably document my experience for a week wearing the glasses and go back another week without them.

I am very aware of the placebo effect. When I first started taking Vitamin D, I was very skeptical. I have been taking it for probably 10 years now and I can actually see physical changes when I am not diligent about being consistent. I will be watching this experiment as well. I can see fine without them, I just can see much better with them on.

A proper experiment would have a control and a statistically appropriate sample size. So this will never be anything other than anecdotal observation. But, the principles remain the same. The main emphasis are propose a hypothesis, define the experiment, measure the data and make a conclusion with the data.

End Your Programming Routine: Not everything is rosy. I think I have to push these glasses up every minute of the day. So, it would seem like adjustment would be in order. I am happy that my vision is good enough that I can get by without glasses. I am also glad that at the end of the work day I am not ready to go to bed.

March 29, 2022 – The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back

March 29, 2022 /

I tried to do some research on the origin of the phrase and I couldn’t really suss out the meaning. I was trying to derive the significance of the Camel to the phrase. I did find out that this idiom has a long history which dates back to the 1700s and it has several variations from straw to feather and camel to donkey. It would appear that this is indicating a load bearing animal and it is one item too much.

Originally, I thought that I was going to title this the ‘fall that broke the camel’s wrist’ as a play on words for reasons that will become obvious later in this post. I was thinking that the camel was a stubborn animal and that it was more than just a plain, gruesome act. But it doesn’t seem so.

To say the least, this has been a difficult time since my father-in-law has died. I have written about this a little bit and for obvious reasons, not explicitly. To state it bluntly, my mother-in-law is dying, not capable of caring for herself and refusing to accept the situation. This has caused a strained relationship with her children and has driven wedges between my own marriage.

This is just a small flavor but she paid a down payment on a puppy. The children all agreed that this is a bad idea. My wife even spoke to the owner of the puppy not to sell the dog to a person that is living in a travel trailer and cannot walk more than a few yards un-assisted. I am sure we can all use our heads on what the possible problems are here. This lead to a huge blow-up where my wife blocked her mom and I had to become the middleman in constant conversation for two weeks. The words were nasty and hurtful.

That situation came to an end two weekends ago. They were all supposed to stay in a beach house for a week. My wife wanted nothing to do with her. My sister-in-law and her family didn’t want anything to do with her. I was supposed to drive my mother-in-law to the beach house but I couldn’t get ahold of her. A few hours later, I got a call that she had fallen and possibly broke her wrist. She was in the ER, already at the coast.

I told my wife and she unblocked her to communicate in the situation. They ended up spending the planned four days at the beach but that wasn’t easy either. I had multiple phone calls about how my mother-in-law was behaving and I don’t have words. I prayed.

I am not claiming to have a command of the best Christian behavior. Quite frankly, I would just as soon not have anything to do with her either. It would make my life a lot easier. But, that is not the way of Jesus. I certainly didn’t want to be the middleman or even try to get deeper into the situation. But, this is a time of need and our my beliefs would tell me to forgive the sinner.

I think that the broken wrist has made a thaw in the relationship. For one thing, we moved her into our apartment last weekend. The travel trailer is getting moved before the first and it will likely be her last night there. I haven’t had a direct conversation specifically, but I think it was a wakeup call that today is the best day that there will be.

Fifteen years ago, before podcasts I used to listen to Dave Ramsey a lot. One of his recommended books was Boudaries. I never got around to reading this book but I maybe it is not too late. I think we could all use some help in this situation.

End Your Programming Routine: From my observation, this is the reverse of raising a teen. They are trying to resolve the desire to become more grown-up and yet not quite ready. This situation is trying to get the person to realize that they cannot do the things they did even a year ago. It is hard and we have no legal standing to stop it in most cases. Keep all of us in your prayers.

March 28, 2022 – More Techno-junk

March 28, 2022 /

My kids have been into music for a little while now. Recently, they have shown a big interest in vinyl. In fact, the record player I talked about a few months ago was spotted by my son at a second hand store. They have been talking about having their own hi-fi setups in their rooms. During Spring Break, we stopped into a local record shop and one of my son’s bought a record. My other son bought a record at a second hand store.

One of my sons has a periodic appointment. If I get the chance, I slink away to the local Goodwill while I am killing time. There is a lot of junk but there is also some really good deals on vintage audio equipment. In this era of sound bars and Bluetooth speakers, quality equipment is passé. I have seen many of stereo receiver for $15-$25, literally pennies on the dollar versus original cost.

I have my eyes open for some alternate speakers and since I don’t really need them, I am being very choosy. When I see the right deal, I will eventually buy them. I have lately been thinking that since my kids are interested, that I could build them their own systems, one piece at a time. I saw this turntable marked at $12 so I thought it was worth a chance.

The last time I hesitated, I missed out on a Technics turntable that only needed a stylus (needle). It was pricey at $100, but I have seen many of them for sale at at least double the cost, depending on the model. So, I grabbed this one when I saw it. Goodwill does a minimal amount of testing. They make sure the device at least powers on. I figured that the price was pretty low risk if it didn’t work.

It turns out, this one also needed a new stylus. I bought a replacement at $22 and then I went for the real test. Setting it up, I found out that the other problem was two of the four rubber feet were missing and the remaining are rotten (bad rubber). That is why I have the clippers wedged underneath the table. I am planning on getting some replacement feet in the $10-$20 range and this old turntable will be back in business.

It played great. I put on Tom Petty and my son’s records and everything was perfect. I suppose all in, this will be a $50 purchase but a vintage player in today’s dollars is a way better than anything I can buy new at the same price.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose I am in now on building individual stereo setups. This player won’t work without an amplifier. I need a receiver and some bookshelf speakers. Those are both much easier to find than a good turntable. Now, I am in the market for a third turntable as well.