Out from the TV Rebound

January 4, 2011 · Filed under finances, personal value

I think I rebounded out of the television withdrawals I was having a few months ago.  It is interesting for me to read that post now:

There’s less background noise (both audio and visual) that either needs to remain silent or requires an increased amount of conversation. It also requires finding new mind-numbing idleness or totally eliminating them.

Another alternative is to find more outside the house events, and possibly spend “the cable bill” on alternative entertainment.

In fact I did just that.  I created a big list of books I wanted to read (and for me, reading books spawns an out-of-control* desire to read more books).  I have so much “to do” — which is now damn near my entire library’s economics section (if you’re keeping track at home, circa 330 in the Dewey system) of books — that I’ve forgotten about television as an outlet.  Of course, I still watch movies, play boardgames, and high five, so I’m still keeping it real.

*Out-of-control in terms of exponential growth, unrelated to the withdrawal and rebound chemical dependence theme in these two posts.

My main conclusion is that it’s easy to not watch television by focusing on the positive alternatives it allows: for me, gettin my literate on!

More generally, I think the easiest way to make a drastic change is to focus on the positive alternatives which align more meaning to one.  Sure, cutting cable for 25 years can allow me to have $132,000 in the future.  But for what, to buy 27.5 years of cable television in the future?

Many see cable as a luxury and some see it as a waste, like in the link above.  But, the link above does not answer why it is a waste.  For me at this time, it’s a waste because television is a less engaged life.

Specifically, I think I will get more out of learning a new subject that interests me than watching an infinite stream of football games, pop culture, etc.

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Oten Results

December 29, 2010 · Filed under personal value

I had 4 goals for Oten (the year 2010), recorded here.  My goals were broken into four compartments: learning about electricity, qualifying for the Boston Marathon, setting a budget, and reading 4 big books.

I’m not sure what my impetus for these goals was.  However, I know my driving force lately has been to feel more human: that is developing skills and knowledge, over just experience.  Maybe I had a Jonathan Livingston Seagull moment.

Electricity

I’d like to think my interests here are that electricity is becoming less of a want and more of a need.  So I think now, while electricity is relatively cheap is a good time to learn about it*.  Also, buying simple mechanic devices without electronic controls is becoming a novelty, thereby increasing my desires all the more.

My biggest efforts here were getting Technician and General Ham radio certifications.  I made it about halfway through studying for Extra Class before I let life get in the way.  I really enjoyed studying for these tests, as it provided a refresher and practical application in electronics.

On the practical scene, I learned how to solder.  I replaced the original wire nuts in my aquarium light switch with soldered connections.  No big deal, if you can draw you can solder.

Overall, I’m pleased with my progress, but I admit it lacks anything with depth or creativity.

*Somewhat related, here’s a neat Doomsday prediction gone wrong article.

Boston Qualifier

Here my goal had a slightly more than ego-basis.  This year I found that one gets a much more solid understanding after trying to implement what he learns; that is practical experience is as valuable as theoretical.

I failed in the end result, but I think I became a much more knowledgeable runner this year.  In terms of end results, I did PR in the 5k and half-marathon.  I’m happy with my efforts and learning. My favorite running book this year that helped increase my knowledge just as much as it helped my motivation is George Sheehan’s Running to Win.  (Terrible title, but very practical information.)

I won’t be trying for a BQ any time soon, but I don’t plan to put this goal to bed forever.

Budgeting

Serendipitously, I read Your Money or Your Life soon after making this goal.  I think this book creates a logical framework to ensure that you’re in a good feedback loop with one’s spending: that is not too much or too little, but a nice Goldilocks amount to ensure efficiency yet maintain personal growth.

4 Big Books

This past year I reclaimed my lost interest in reading making this goal a walk in the park.  If you’re keeping track, four books I would consider big (classics or dense textbook-like) that I read are:

I ranked them in my personal liking.  So, I got that going for me, which is nice.  As in the introduction to this, my goals going forward are still to acquire more skills.

Perhaps without as much structure in the goals though . . .

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The Upside Down Airplane Flight

November 11, 2010 · Filed under book report, think about it

As with most nerds that are connected to the internet, I read xkcd regularly. Ever since this comic posted, I’ve had a nagging sense to figure out the answer.

After reading Stick and Rudder, I figured it out.  Basically, once you turn the plane upside down you need to hold the yoke forward (like a dive*) to overcome both the weight of the plane as well as the (negative) lift of the wing.

*Actually, to dive in a plane you need throttle back.  Holding the yoke down will actually make you temporarily dive then you will speed up and come to a level flight, if you hold the yoke constantly forward.

I’ve always had a natural interest in flight.  If you have too and you like theoretical mechanics, I recommend reading the book.  There are a lot of things that go against common sense in flight.

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Security in the Internet

October 25, 2010 · Filed under a real trip, personal value, post-apocalypse preparation

I recently created a couchsurfing account.  The concept of having a network of strangers to share housing is quite foreign to American culture (this land is my land!).  I think it’s a great use of the internet, leveraging its strength in networking.

Probably the first thought of using couchsurfing.org is for having a place to stay when you travel.  I’ve now done this once.  However, I really enjoy hosting people in my apartment.  Hosting is a sort of way of traveling vicariously for me.

Hosting strangers also transitions my normal (boring) week night into a more interesting social scene.  I can’t say I’ve learned anything profound through couchsurfing, but it seems to bring about adventurous, down to earth people.

Here are two pictures from my couchsurfing stay in Palm Springs.  The room we stayed in is a casita: literally meaning a little house in Spanish.  Without a question, I would rather couchsurf at this location than stay in an isolated hotel room.

 

http://adventuresinmissingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/new-york-010-003.jpg?w=398&h=298

In our host's backyard, overlooking the San Jacinto Peak during a fall sunset.

 

 

 

http://adventuresinmissingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/new-york-010-004.jpg?w=280&h=373

Our bed for the night in the casita.

 

In addition to the location, we had great conversations with our hosts.  One was yoga instructor really into the law of attraction and positive thinking.  The other is an economist for a Spanish speaking television station in Palm Springs, where he puts “everything in terms of how many tacos one can buy.”

I concede that up until now I have presented a convincing story advocating couchsurfing.  What lacks is the backstory that my couchsurfing.org contact is a Palm Spring’s all male, clothing optional, yoga instructor.  Sometimes you need to take a risk though.

I think it’s a low risk to take because of the accountability on the site.  You can rate your past experiences . . . one bad rating and I don’t know how much longer you would be able to use the medium.

For anyone looking to surf, it’s generally expected that you bring something in exchange for the place to stay.  I cooked dinner for our hosts in Palm Springs.  People will often bring a bottle of wine, beer, or something as a token of exchange.

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Life Without a Television

October 20, 2010 · Filed under personal value, think about it

I’m now living for the first time without a television*.  I’ve always been anti-television, for myself personally.  The main reason is that I don’t have the attention span and interest for it.

*Technically, there is a television that we use for watching DVDs, but there isn’t any reception — cable or even an antenna for local broadcasts.

However, I’ve always had roommates that like television.  So while most of the time I live without the television, I have also watched it on rare occurrences (like once or twice a month) when I am brain dead or feel like watching a sports game.

I’m noticing that not having the comfort of television is a significant difference.  There’s less background noise (both audio and visual) that either needs to remain silent or requires an increased amount of conversation. It also requires finding new mind-numbing idleness or totally eliminating them.

Another alternative is to find more outside the house events, and possibly spend “the cable bill” on alternative entertainment.

I wrote this after reading Seth Godin’s post today.

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Why I Hate Trail Runners

October 4, 2010 · Filed under runnin

Since I’ve taken the last few months off from trail running, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to reflect on good memories of trail running.  Alternatively, here’s what I’ve learned that I hate about it.

  1. Trail runners don’t have any allies. Trail runners look down on both mountain bikers and road runners.  A minority might participate in mountain biking or road running; yet in a group setting, trail runners will transform into elitists.  I think they side best with hikers, only because hikers don’t bother nor threaten the trail runner.
  2. Like an American is doomed to side with either the Beatles or Elvis Presley, a trail runner can only respect Dean Karnazes or Scott Jurek. Slow trail runners naturally side with social inclusion in the sport (Karno).  Faster runners believe in a sort of sports as a form of one type of religion (Jurek).
  3. Trail runners like the idea of the outdoors, but they are ignorant to the physical reality or risk of it. Trail runners rarely carry the 10 essentials, have much back country skills, and tend to rely on others heavily (aid stations for hydration, nutrition, and safety like ham radio operators).
  4. Trail runners don’t understand the term “TRACK!!!” If you use this on a road run, you are much more likely to have a person instinctively and *quickly* move out of the way fast.  Whether you are  joking or serious is all in terms of use.  Trail runners are subject to the much more inefficient, “On your right/left,” and hence are much more lame.
  5. Salt tablets. Salt tablets are only used to help laborious efforts in sweat shop like conditions.
  6. All trail runners are old. There’s just not a lot of fresh blood in trail running.

I’m excited to get back on the trail and become lost in the delusions again (and hate roadies, again).

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Worm Harvesting Optimization

July 25, 2010 · Filed under personal value, post-apocalypse preparation, sustainability

I get one of those “the most fun things in life are free” type of euphoric buzzes whenever I’m working in or talking about my worm farm: “I GOT WORMS!”

For a brief background, I built a container to house red wiggler worms.  The worms eat my table scraps and turn it into soil.  Here’s my post on building the structure.

The concept that these worms are turning waste (which half of it is rotting or covered in mold by the time it gets to the worm bin) into lush soil, completely free of smells other than “morning fresh dirt” is simply amazing to me.

To note, the worm bin can take on a nasty, pungent rotting smell from time to time.  This is simply user error, as the eco-system is out of a nitrogen / carbon balance.  To fix this odor, add torn up pieces of newspaper, unbleached cardboard, leaves, mulch, or my personal favorite saw dust from the filter at the Home Depot saw.

The concept of worm farming is that you put food into one bin until it is full then let the worms compost the material.  Once the material is composted, you start another bin stacked on top of the full bin and allow the worms to transfer through holes in the bins.

This gets a lot of the worms out of the soil you want to harvest, but there are still quite a few in the soil.  So, you have to be a sadistic jay-hole and introduce the worms to something they hate: the sun.  The instructions I’ve seen so far recommend making cones of the harvest and iteratively pull from the top of the cones, like in the picture below.

http://adventuresinmissingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/worm1.jpeg?w=313&h=417

Being the impatient and lazy efficient person that I am, I noticed that the worms were in the shaded, cooler spots of the cones.  So then, I rearranged my piles into awesome non-linear hockey stick looking formations.

http://adventuresinmissingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/worm2.jpeg?w=261&h=348

Not the best picture, but you can see I built the mounds just out of the shade range from each other.  This still works the same way: pull one inch going across the top.  Then, iteratively repeat as the worms will keep moving downward.  When you reach the bottom of the wall, build another until efforts are futile and/or you are satisfied with the harvesting.

Also to note, the harvested soil is fertilizer for your plants.  And if anyone local wants worms, I can donate some to you.  I can give you a handful and the worms will propagate into an equilibrium population for your container in a relatively short time.

I’m also kind of curious if you could harvest this soil using the other thing worms hate, which is standing water.

For what it’s worth, it’s crazy, to me, after spending years thinking about chemical extractions and separations in terms of abstract concepts like solubility and entropy by adding a living aspect to it, namely the extraction of the worms from their soil via sun.

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Seasons of Change

July 16, 2010 · Filed under personal value

I’ve started to see reoccurring patterns in my interests that tie to the seasons.  Sometimes it’s a step change, on a certain day.  Others, it’s a slow fade in and fade out.

Summer seems to be my season of craftsmanship.  I put up new shelves the other day; so I have that going for me, which is nice.

I wonder if it’s possible to optimize your life, sort of like animals prepare for winter.  Maybe I’ll build a Unabomber-type shelter now for my upcoming introverted season.

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How To Make a Box

June 25, 2010 · Filed under personal value, post-apocalypse preparation

One thing I like about having roommates is learning from them.  My newest roommate helped me transform a There, I Fixed It submission into something a bit more aesthetically appealing.

Before:

http://adventuresinmissingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/fix1.jpg?w=398&h=298

After:

http://adventuresinmissingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/fix2.jpg?w=461&h=342

Although aesthetics improved, my drive to change the packaging was to reduce the shipping charge from $75 to within my $25 charge (of my selling price for shipping), which I did.  Another victory!

And although I have room for improvement, I can now make a box for $0.25 to pay for tape.  (Cardboard is plentiful in urban and suburban environments.)

There are two key points:

  • to make a crease going across the grains, use a 2×4 or some piece of scrap wood to make a nice straight crease.
  • wherever you want a fold, make a cut in the extended part of box, then  fold the excess to form the sides of the box.
  • (It’s basically like wrapping gifts but with a more rigid material, nbd.)

So easy they should just call it easy.

As an aside, my newest roommate’s name is Jules.   Therefore, any one thing he does is equivalent to 1 Jule.  For teaching me this, I traded 1 Jule for a six pack of his favorite beer.   A 6-pack of beer is equal to 1 Jule, Q.E.D.

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Whoot, My Compensating Beam

June 14, 2010 · Filed under personal value, runnin

I often run in the early morning, before the sun rises.  Since it’s dark, I usually wear a headlamp to keep my hands free to do what they do when you run.  I grew tired of replacing my AA batteries in my headlamp.

My first attempt to stop replacing my batteries were to use rechargeable batteries I had from an old camera.  For some reason, the rechargeable batteries would only work in my headlamp when I tested them, yet never when I needed them.  Frustrating!

I have a light from my mountain biking days.  The company that makes the light has an attachment to turn it from a bike headlight into a headlamp.  I decided I would buy the attachment, until I saw the price of $50.  That was beyond my breaking point.  So, I came up with the idea to attach the light to a visor.

http://adventuresinmissingthepoint.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/headlamp.jpeg?w=470

I used a visor that Jimmy gave me for my birthday, Whoot!  This visor (by chance) is made out of a very durable plastic; I’m guessing HDPE or delron.  The rigidity of the material makes it very easy to attach zip ties to.  I used a 1/2″ PVC pipe so that I have the luxury of moving the headlamp angles.

I thought the headlamp was going to provide too much of a moment to keep from being super annoying while running.  I wore my headlamp for 4 hours while pacing a friend on Saturday night, and luckily, I was wrong about the large moment!

In the future, I may add a strap on top of the visor.  A strap on top will change the normal load from friction to a more static load.  But, it works just fine as is right now.

It makes sense that most headlamps are not as powerful as this one.  It would be painful to read glossy materials (magazines) with this headlamp; it is also awkward to have any form of a face-to-face conversation with this powerful of a headlamp.  However, for running (and mountain biking), the bright beam is perfect.  I bet the target audience for a traditional headlamp is Joe Camper, not a trail runner.

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