Morning Above The Clouds
This was our view from the cabin this morning: the whole valley between us and the other ridgeline filled with clouds, shortly to be burned away by the sun.
Renewal
This blog, like the chair pictured, has been broken for a while. It's in the process of being renewed. More to come.
The Least of Us
This book by Sam Quinones is a sequel to Dreamland in the way that a history of Weimar Germany is a sequel to a history of The Great War. It was not intended, no plot threads were left intentionally dangling. But the perpetual nature of history ("Nothing ever ends," in the words of Dr. Manhattan) means the story continued anyway. However, this time, Quinones clearly has two purposes: to inform as well as to encourage. As he says, during his tour supporting the first book, he received many invit … (Continued)
Teddy
"We're 4 hours from home, and you want to adopt a cat?" The second half of 2019 was a bit of a blur. In July we'd gone to Washington, D.C. for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. When we got back, Kassie had taken a turn for the worse, and we lost her on August 7th. In October, we helped host the NC state USPSA championship at the range near our house. In early November, we drove to Nationals in Florida, with stops in Huntsville and Chattanooga on the scenic route … (Continued)
Choosing contentment
The only way to be wholly content and happy doing something is if you have considered your alternatives and decided that doing this thing, right now is the highest possible use of your time. Skipping the consideration spoils it. Harboring resentment spoils it. Feeling forced to do it spoils it. Feeling guilty spoils it. Rushing to just get it over with spoils it. It does not have to be something other people would praise you for; it only matters than you know you made the right choice. It can … (Continued)
Weight on the bar
It's not very much weight on the bar. But, still. It's weight on the bar. When ego tells you "Just quit. This is beneath you." Don't listen.
Father's Day 2021
It's natural that learning to do something yourself gives you a greater appreciation for those that have already done it. Building your own bookshelf makes you realize all the non-obvious challenges of carpentry and gives you respect for everyone else that has undertaken the same challenge before you. In parallel, one of the surprising things I've learned becoming a father is realizing how very much it is a choice, at least in the modern era. Going through the process of deciding when to start … (Continued)
Project Log: Reloading Bench Drawers
Problem to be solved The reloading workbench is 24 inches deep, but I have just been using 12" milk crates to store things, and lost track of anything that got pushed behind them. The crates slide surprisingly poorly on the concrete, and don't hold that much stuff. The Solution Use the full depth, width, and height of the space under this shelf, and build two "drawers" that are just platforms on non-swiveling casters. The scrap wood pile had a good piece of 3/4" plywood to form the b … (Continued)
Contempt
Replace contempt with condolence. If they knew better, they would do better.
Discomfort
When you experience discomfort, your natural response will be to ask "How can I stop this most quickly?" Instead, challenge yourself. "What would it take for me to reach my limit of this? Am I already at it? Can I go five minutes without showing a sign of weakness? Five minutes after that?"
Never pass up a chance to admit being wrong
I spent the better part of an hour today in a Slack discussion with coworkers about how to implement a feature ticket. We went back and forth, and fundamentally saw the issue two different ways. I didn't really see any way we could reconcile the two views. Either one of us or the other would have to just accept the opposite perspective to move forward. We kept drilling down into examples and use cases, and each of us found more reasons to justify our position. Eventually someone asked a questi … (Continued)
The Power and Danger of Identities
Part 1 I was talking to a friend recently, and discussing the fact that he's managed to stick with one hobby (learning Japanese) while having another hobby that used to consume much of his time go untouched for years (recording music). What I realized as we talked, and what I said to him, was that we don't really do things because we want to, or because we have goals. We do things because we want to be consistent with the identity that have of ourselves and we put out into the world. In hi … (Continued)
Avoid Digital Ketchup
In 2004, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article which, among other things, explores why there are hundreds of varieties of mustard, but only one type of ketchup. (I first encountered it in the printed collection "What The Dog Saw" which is, I think, Gladwell at his finest. Freed from the burden of an overarching narrative, he can tell interesting stories 30 pages at a time.) Part of the story is a meditation on the soul of ketchup: what it is, how it functions, and so on. The basic idea he lays out … (Continued)
Gratitude
Today is my birthday. I've had a few of them before, but for some reason this one feels different. Of course, this is the first birthday I've had since becoming a father, but this feeling, I think, is larger than that. The best way I can describe it is synchrony. Things feel to be happening at approximately the right time in various areas of my life. I don't feel like I've waited too long to start anything, in part by charging headlong into each phase: getting married, paying off debt, buying a … (Continued)
Healthy Societies Are Built on Competiton
Eric Hoffer's The True Believer was published in 1951, six years after the end of World War II and two years before Stalin's death. Yet it presaged the current moment of identitarian tribalism (both on the woke left and the MAGA right) better than anything else I've read. Pardon the extensive quotes, but properly setting the stage of the problem to be solved is necessary to understand the solution below (emphasis mine): For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they mus … (Continued)