Tag: Chapter 14

November 6, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 1, Chapters 13-15

November 6, 2026 /

OK, OK… seems like this is going to happen. We are on a roll now and I am doing my best to stay ahead. So far, all of that I have written about I read before I committed to getting started. So, really that is no feat. Next week will have some new reading involved to make the deadline (which I have already done at this point).

This week we see that Roark has some success, maybe. He designs and builds a gas station that leads another housing commission. Both of them are critically exiled. While the owner of the home approves of the design, his wife does not and refuses to live in it. Instead she moves to Florida.

Meanwhile there is a competition for a movie studio called the Cosmo-Slotnik building. Winning the commission is huge exposure. Roark refuses to enter and ultimately Keating wins but not without the help of Roark. Roark has one last sure thing that only required a few tweaks which he refuses to do and is no longer able to pay his bills.

Due to Keating’s success, he makes partner partially because the former partner Heyer dies due to Keating’s threats of blackmail and ruined reputation. To add insult to injury, the former partner leaves his estate to Keating because at some point he was a ‘nice boy’. Meanwhile, Dominique rebuffs Keating’s offer to marry. Keating makes partner on his ‘merits’ rather than nepotism but the hypocrisy is driving him crazy as well as emboldening his ego.

I was thinking about a time where I stuck my principles to my obvious disadvantage. There was one major life event where I can point to. Although, I cannot say that I handled it as well as Roark did. That was when I quit my job in 2019. I know that I have talked about this quite a bit, but I don’t really think in this context before.

Occasionally, I have the ability to see the outcome of decisions that seem obvious to me but not to others. It all goes back to 2014 when our company merged with a larger Canadian company. Soon after the event, I was offboarded off the project that I was working on due to the extreme amount of time and effort I had put in. It was supposed to be a reward but it turned out that it was worse in so many ways.

The larger company had a major global customer but they also had a huge problem. The mismanagement of project delivery and ineptitude of company leadership to properly address the problem. Since we were new blood, I was moved to this nearly incompetent project team. I was a resource on the project and the tech lead was going to guide us to the finish. It just so happens that this was an ESOP company that paid dividends on the fiscal year which was November. Most of the employees of the old company were large shareholders and would get huge payouts around that time to the tune of $100K or more.

To date, many of the key employees in the account got chewed up and spit out due to the higher level lack of accountability and ineptitude. My tech lead gave the middle finger to the company and I was left holding the bag. I was miserable with four different bosses telling me what to do and what I did wrong every day. I went to every level of the company and finally I realized that no matter what I did, nothing was going to change.

Fortunately my struggles and efforts did not go unnoticed and I was moved to role that had zero to do with Canadian group albeit the same ownership. I was given the opportunity to run the application support group. At first nobody cared what we did. But then, we started running circles around the rest of the company. We believed in listening, owning up to mistakes, working together and continuous improvements. These were all beliefs that I held and it payed huge dividends.

Within my group was named a ‘center of excellence’ and people started to care. They were going to transform my group from application support into managed services and this was going to be the company golden goose. The new president had done this before and went from zero to $100M in revenue in one year. Unfortunately, they hired a consultant to facilitate the transition and no longer was it my methodology.

The consultant was not my adversary nor was he my peer. I began to resent what made us successful they were trying to remove because it wasn’t conventional. Apologizing for errors made made them roll in there graves over liability. The company preferred stone faced and contentious relationships compared to doing the right thing. Because I am not Roark and I was immature in these situations, I started to crack. Ultimately, the only way out was to leave completely. I wasn’t going to be successful knowing that what I did worked and I could no longer operate in that way.

The truth is, I started throwing my success in their faces and I did some things I wouldn’t do again. I looked for opportunities to fight, I felt I was wronged and marginalized for years. In contrast, I offered to anyone including my adversaries to help with what worked. That was met with stone cold antipathy. Like Roark, even a better way is not going to help a non-receptive group.

I guess I should be happy that I got the ultimate revenge. When I quit, half of my group quit as well. The company simply could not sustain business with the staffing level that they had and the company was sold within a year. None of what was planned ever came to fruition because there was not the remaining employee buy in to put profit over people. They had lost the moral and morale war.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that I took down the company or that I am happy it ultimately failed. I had a lot of friends in the local office, I simply saw that what I thought would work worked and the failure to adopt it played a major role in the downfall. Many would say selling is different than failing, but while I worked there, the stated goal was to be the largest integration company in its space, not selling to a competitor. It is a very difficult time for me. Some very high highs and some very low lows.

May 1, 2026 – Surprised By Joy, Chapters 11-15

May 1, 2026 /

I know that it hasn’t been the most direct path, however we have gotten to the end. This week I have finished Surprised by Joy. That means if you are reading along, then you are done as well. The plan is to cover the last five chapters this week and then go over a total review next week.

If I could say anything about this week, I would say that this is my favorite third of the book. Not only did we get the details of Lewis’s conversion but the subject manner was more than dry, ancient authors, titles and fantasy land. You have a bit of a war story, introductions to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien and the final, happy conclusion.

I will save my overall opinion for next week. We will focus on the subject matter on hand. Here is a brief summary of the final five chapters. Last week we ended in what I would call high school in today’s parlance. We begin there again. There is one thing that I noticed in chapter 11 and that is kind of a change in tone. It is still primarily reading literature and poetry but an internal struggle seems to crop up. That struggle is the difference between fate and faith.

I think many non-Christians can relate to this. How can God be good and all powerful and yet bad things happen especially to good and faithful people? You hear that as a criticism to faith. That is a question that everyone has to wrestle with but I tend to side on the side of fatalism. I cannot diagnose any situation other than my own but I tend to look at it more like ‘your mission is done’. We cant see the future and only the individuals knows all of the details about their past. What may appear to be upstanding could only be a shell. I simply do not know.

Of course there are all kinds of nuances. Babies cannot be shells, right? Agreed, but it could be that death of an infant spurs some kind of reaction like starting a foundation or a sibling becomes a doctor or researcher. I simply cannot say the impact outside of the obvious ones.

From there, Lewis enlists in the Army and is eventually shipped off to the front in World War I. There is surprisingly little written about this time. It seems that this experience is so polarizing in those that have survived but it really does not seem to make much of an impact in Lewis’s life. I would characterize his attitude as ambivalent and certainly not galvanizing.

After getting wounded and subsequently discharged from the army he starts his life again, now at Oxford. The next chapters cover his life and changing attitudes as they are shaped by that experience. For example, Lewis starts to notice that Christian authors have more depth to their stories. And for that reason it starts to persuade Lewis that he needs to change his path.

I find this a little strange actually. I am not aware of many author’s religion but I cannot say that Lewis or Tolkien stories are any deeper than a lot of the fantasy I have read in my life. One reason that I stopped reading that genre is that I found it incredibly convoluted and nonsensical. Sure, I can suspend belief that magic can happen but when it comes to names, characters and events without definition or context, I simply kind of glaze over.

Another strange behavior is that Lewis admits to attending church without actually believing. I think in most cases, people lose their faith while attending church but never have I heard the other direction. The sensibility of it all is irrational. I shouldn’t have to explain that but dedicating time to something that has no significance is simply not what people do.

In the last chapter, Lewis describes that he doesn’t really know how it happened. Somehow throughout this process he became a Christian. Lewis’s description is Atheist to Theist to Christian. As a result, here is my synopsis of the book title. Joy is a synonym for faith and belief. The whole title is about being surprised to find faith despite the path to get there.

End Your Programming Routine: I would say the ending is a bit of a letdown. Based on how I started this post and where I am at, I bet that you can guess how I am going to come down next week. As evangelists, it makes no matter on how you come to faith but I find it hard to believe that reading literature written by Christians that would make it so. In fact, this might be the only documented case. Then again, people emulate those that they admire. Does that make genuine faith? I am not here to tear down Lewis. He most likely has done more good in his work. It is just that the story seems so improbable.

June 6, 2025 – In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal Protection, Chapters 13-14

June 6, 2025 /

OK, my opinion of this book is changing from what I believed before I read the book until now being almost finished. These two chapters are nearly worthless because so much has changed in 45 years. Even some of the information is no longer accurate because of technological changes. I just don’t think that you can overlay the old information with today’s new choices.

The first chapter is all about firearms choice. Ayoob recommends a two inch, 38 Special as the best overall choice. Personally, as someone who owns one, I have to disagree in today’s market. With a short barrel length, accurately aiming is very difficult. Recoil ranges from snappy to stinging, making shooting often uncomfortable. A magazine capacity of five pales in comparison so something like a Sig Sauer P365 that holds 13.

Something that I feel is definitely wrong is the lack of endorsement for the rifle as a self defense platform. The Modern Sporting Rifle (ex. AR-15), primarily in carbine configuration has a long track record in urban combat. I do not believe that it works well for the untrained and unpracticed but then again I don’t think that any of this does. Any sort of long arm is not for street carry. Ask Kyle Rittenhouse about packing around a rifle into trouble. That fits right into the Machismo of carrying a firearm.

But as far as home defense, it is amongst the best choices. As a rifle, the bullet energy of a 223 Remington is three times that of a 357 magnum. Rifles are inherently easier to aim and shoot accurately. An MSR magazine can carry 30 rounds. Last and best is that the 55 grain bullet tumbles on impact. This phenomenon tends to significantly reduce over penetration that will be experienced by almost any other choice.

When I started this series, I referenced the 1986 Miami shootout. This was a pivotal moment in self defense and ballistics theories. It was deemed that a large part of the failure was the result of 9mm full metal jacket ammunition that was unable to penetrate glass and deliver lethal force. As a result, the FBI developed the 10mm cartridge.

The 10mm proved to be extremely effective but caused an unintended consequence of swelling the grip size. The extra recoil and increased size made slighter, statured officers unable to competently use the firearms. That quickly morphed into another cartridge which is the 40 S&W. The Forty reigned supreme for twenty years in the law enforcement arena due to superior ballistics over 9mm.

But, times change and the economy of scale with the military (and most of the world) using 9mm, it was deemed more economical to use. There were also still complaining about the recoil of the Forty as well. As a result of the shootout and all of the cartridge development led to the FBI ballistics test. Note that the test is not caliber specific. Consequently, 9mm has largely overtaken the law enforcement market again due to significantly better ammunition development.

All of this is to say that Ayoob deemed the 9mm marginal which is simply not the case in 2025. Ayoob himself claimed that the ‘king’ of cartridges is the .45 Auto. This analysis is simply due to bullet diameter. Mind you .45 caliber is 11.4mm. So, in reality we are talking about a 2.4mm difference between bullets as the only real differentiator on full metal jacket ammunition.

That is all semi-automatic pistol stuff. There have been a bunch of new cartridges in the revolver arena as well. I will disregard all of the elephant rounds and say that the 327 Federal and the older 32 H&R Magnum have come onto the scene. When Ayoob says that there are no 32 caliber cartridges that are adequate for self defense, that would be wrong. There are a host of other benefits that I will not get into here but if I was picking a revolver and cartridge for self defense, I think I would look in this direction.

I want to end this by saying that I do not own a whole bunch of firearms. But, the reason that there are so many handgun choices and calibers is that there is a situation for all of them and choice is only one of them. A person could reasonable justify revolver for the woods, a small handgun for pocket or summer carry, a double stack for crowded situations or winter carry. In my mind, there is no perfect situation. A handgun is best for concealment and to keep the other hand free.

If you were to tell me that I had to pick one, I would say that I prefer not to be there when the confrontation happens. If you said that I had to be at the confrontation, I pick a long gun. If that is not an option, pick the one that you are the most comfortable with and can shoot the best. While I respect Ayoob’s vast experience in the ballistics arena, I side on the fact that a hit is better than a miss.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t mean to demean Ayoob, it is just that these chapters do not stand the test of time for reasons that is beyond his control. As a person that was alive in 1980, I can tell you first hand things are very different technologically between then and now. What if you were advising cars from 1980 in 2025? The best economical car to buy is a Renault Le Car…