Month: October 2023

Cool, Daily Life, Motivation

Take Action

A few days ago I was endlessly scrolling through YouTube. I’ve made several strategic mistakes lately. I made the unfortunate choice to search for some how-to videos related to stove downdraft vents, and an HVAC issue. Oh, and I watched a review of the best non-stick pans. What can I say, I’m a guy of diverse hobbies. Anyway, the end result is that my YouTube feed is now nothing but old guys extolling the virtues of half inch vs quarter inch corrugated pipe for venting and ads for the magic of diamond-copper-silicone infused cookware. Sigh. I need a separate YouTube account for research only so I don’t pollute my main feed.

But one video did make its way through and caught my eye. It was about taking action. Now the specific video was geared toward general preparedness, but the message was universal. Want to make a change? Then you need to take action.

The videos point was that “taking action” didn’t need to be a huge endeavor. Been thinking about putting a first aid kit in your car? Stop what you’re doing right now and go gather some bandaids, medical tape, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and a few bottles of water and go put it in your trunk. Takes five minutes and is probably stuff you already have in the house. Done. You took action and made progress.

It doesn’t mean you can’t add more or get fancier with your kit later on. What’s important is that you didn’t let analysis paralysis get the better of you. You took action right now and made a change. You now have a rudimentary first aid kit in your car that you didn’t have twenty minutes ago.

Taking action on one small thing is better than doing nothing. So many of us (myself especially) have grand plans for a project or eating better or exercise… yet we never get to it because we’re waiting for it to be perfect. Researching the right gym to join or what the right exercise program is. What diet should I do? I need to do something with that corner of the yard that’s full of weeds, but don’t know what yet.

Just take action. Go pull weeds for ten minutes. Then do it again tomorrow. Stop worrying about what the right exercise program is – go do a 30 minute walk right now. Go pick one cupboard in the pantry right now and throw out all the crap food. Stop what you’re doing and go organize one drawer in your office or kitchen.

All of this takes a minuscule amount of time and accomplishes something. And if you do it again tomorrow, and then next day, and the next… suddenly you’re productive and getting stuff done. Bonus, I bet you’ll feel better about yourself for having done it. And that’s the secret sauce. The reinforcement of positive actions. That tiny little hit of dopamine that makes us want to do that again.

I’m way more likely to do something that takes ten minutes than something I know is going to be most of the afternoon. It’s human nature.

So that’s my new mantra. I’m going to take action on one thing today. Anything else is a bonus. What small thing are you going to take action on today?

Politics

Nobody Wins

At the moment, it’s hard to envision an offramp for the tinderbox that is the situation in the Middle East. It’s obviously what Hamas wanted. Provoke Israel into launching a military campaign so the Palestinians can claim victimhood and provoke outrage across the world. It worked. Mass protests in Europe and the US in support of Palestine. The US is now reportedly pressuring Israel to postpone any ground invasion of Gaza. Hezbollah is ramping up attacks in the north and Egypt has moved a hundred thousand troops towards the border. Iran is happily stoking the unrest. Israel is fucked no matter what they do.

If they do nothing, it emboldens the muslim world to continue using terror to extract concessions. If they strike, it also emboldens the muslim world to continue using terror tactics. This won’t end. It wasn’t that long ago, in this scenario the proper solution would be to remove your enemy from the playing field with extreme prejudice. That is no longer an option. Israel has to balance every single action against the court of public opinion, which was already slanted against them. So basically Israel has to just sit there and take it.

Here’s the problem. I don’t think Israel is going to worry as much about a “proportional response” this time. And that is what Hamas wanted all along. And the US is going to get dragged into this in support of our ally. And that scares me.

We do not have a competent administration in charge. Based upon how badly we misjudged (by accident or design) the ongoing Ukraine situation, I have zero confidence that we have any reasonable analysis happening regarding the potential fall-out from a large regional conflict in the Middle East. Especially one in which we’re up to our elbows in.

If large scale missiles start flying, what then? What do you think is going to happen to the price of oil if the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz is shut down? Saudi Arabia and Iraq are still in the top 5 for US oil imports. Our strategic oil reserve is empty. We’re not ramping up domestic oil production anytime soon. Think inflation is bad now? Wait until the price of diesel doubles. Scarcity of goods will become a very real thing here. Remember the empty shelves during the blip that was covid? It’ll be a lot worse than that… assuming you can still afford to buy anything.

Think this will remain a regional conflict over there? When we start lobbing missiles at Syria, Lebanon, and Iran… picture the millions of people who’ve streamed across our border in the last few years. We have zero idea who’s in our country. You’re very naive if you think we won’t start seeing terror attacks across the homeland.

We are closer to a large scale global conflict than I ever thought I’d see in my lifetime. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be anyone capable of walking us back from the ledge. It’s truly frightening.

So now what? My gut says the die is cast. I hope not. I sincerely hope cooler heads prevail and this calms back down to a low simmer. But as the old saying goes, hope is not a plan.

It’s time to be prepared to look after your family and friends. Can you withstand frequent, sustained rolling power outages? Do you have food and basic supplies to bridge the gap if the supply chain breaks down? Are you prepared to defend against the civil unrest that follows food and goods scarcity? For gods sake, people were nearly coming to blows over the toilet paper shortage during covid. This would be much worse.

Better to have and not need, than need and not have. But you never know. I’ve been known to get a bit negative after spending too much time reading social media. There’s a chance I’m simply a weird tinfoil hat guy sitting in my basement. Biden might cancel his beach vacation and negotiate a lasting world peace. Obama may step in and wave his Nobel prize around. The ayatollah might get scared of Lindsey Graham’s chest thumping and back down.

Maybe.

Confirmation bias

Have You Changed Your Mind?

Honest question. Have you changed your mind about something? I wonder what percentage of the population has actually changed their mind about an issue due to something they read or heard? I don’t mean silly little things like, I used to hate blueberry pop tarts but now realize they’re the bomb… but big important things. Religion, political issues, social issues, and other big ticket world events. I wonder how common that is?

If you’re not familiar with him, author Scott Adams has a quote from one of his books – “One screen, two movies”. We all see the same event, yet what our brain shows us is entirely dependent upon our cognitive bias. We want to see a world that fits our narrative and our brains will do everything possible to make that happen. Add the human desire for conformity and you get masses of people who suddenly start seeing the same movie.

But how common is it to change which movie someone is seeing? As you scroll through Twitter/X watching all the screeching monkeys flinging poo at each other, have you ever been swayed by someone’s 120 character tweet? Seen a meme that made you go hmmm? I would have said Facebook, but that platform’s been turned into a weird Instagram Reels for grandmas. How about blogs, Substack, or columnists on RealClearPolitics? Have you ever read something and thought that maybe you had it all wrong?

I was going to write something about the Middle East situation and then started thinking, what’s the point? I have strong opinions – am I ever going to convince someone to abandon their thinking about the conflict? Doubtful. Therefore I’m simply writing for the handful of people who already agree with me. What’s the fun in that?

It’s kinda funny if you think about it. There’s an entire industry out there of columnists and bloggers who make a living by writing for the 90% who already agree with them and then getting further traffic from people who read them solely to get angry because they already know they disagree. It’s an odd scenario.

Have I changed my opinions on things? Sure, but I think it was more due to age and lived experience than anything I read or heard. I do like to think I do a good job of listening and reading things that I probably don’t agree with. While it doesn’t really change my mind, I think it helps take the edge off of my entrenched positions on things. I think that’s important.

So at the end of the day in this weird media environment we live in, it’s important to at least recognize that you have cognitive bias when you interpret what you see. It doesn’t mean you’ll change your mind, but it may allow the idea that what you thought doesn’t necessarily have to be black and white. And that, my friends, is how you start down the road to being a Contrarian.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go shout at Twitter/X for a few hours. Because I’m right and you’re wrong and if you’ll just look at the meme I created – you’ll change your mind.

Daily Life

Mid Week Thoughts

I’m trying to avoid another long, rambling post inspired by my Norse ancestors that discusses in excruciating detail the world history of invasion and conquest. Therefore I’ll keep today’s post to some short random thoughts.

  • Mrs Troutdog and I have been in-transit, traveling, and otherwise had zero predictability in our schedules for at least a month now (if not longer). We came home to a refrigerator whose sole contents were half a bag of shredded cheese, mayonnaise, and two eggs. We didn’t want to shop because we’re heading out again and won’t be back until next week. I made a comment of something along the lines of “whew, it’ll be nice when we finally get back to a regular schedule”. This morning I remembered an older post I’d written addressing this false feeling. It’s a crutch to think that “as soon as things calm down” I’ll get back to my routine. I’ve been using that crutch all summer. The harsh truth is that I don’t have a routine to get back to. It’s past due time to fix that.
  • I have no idea who this politician is since I’m not Canadian. Doesn’t matter – take a moment and watch this exchange. It’s a masterclass on how to handle the press. Journalism is garbage today. This “journalist” exemplifies the media establishment. He throws out vague statements like “a lot of people would say” and “taking a page out of Trumps playbook”, yet can’t define or articulate what any of those things or people are. We need people who can call this garbage journalism out and push back on the standard narrative.
  • It’s an El NiƱo year and hard to tell what the snow is going to do in my part of the world. I’m torn. I want snow. We’re also in the desperate last stages of a hardscape project in the backyard that’s going to be down to the wire to complete before snowfall. I think I’ll selfishly wish for a delayed start to the season so my project can get done.
  • Speaking of ski season, I don’t know what to expect this year. I’m having surgery to repair torn abdominal muscles in a few weeks. The surgeon says I should be able to be back on the slopes in six weeks. That puts me at mid-December. In theory I should be good to go. This will be my first ever surgery. How I managed to not seriously hurt myself before this is a mystery. I have no idea what to expect. (note to self, go re-read my first point)
  • It’s fall in my part of the world and we have leaves. Lots and lots of leaves falling. I filled up six bags plus the garbage can a few days ago. There’s easily another six to eight bags worth of leaves that have fallen since then. Picking up leaves is not among my favorite yard work tasks.
  • I find it interesting that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has produced 600,000-800,000 wounded and dead. Nobody is calling for a cease-fire or pleading to protect innocent civilian life. Israel strikes back at Hamas after being brutally attacked and there’s near instantaneous wailing and gnashing of teeth to cease-fire and protect precious innocent civilians. Why is that?
  • Speaking of Hamas, the hospital being bombed story last night was the perfect representation of how the media covers the conflict. Something explodes at a hospital and Hamas instantly accuses Israel of intentionally targeting and bombing a hospital. 500 people killed! Oh, the humanity! What sort of butcher would do such a thing? The media ran with it. Members of congress condemned Israel for it. And this morning… oops, it was Hamas’ own rocket that landed in a parking lot with an unknown number of casualties, but certainly not 500. The retractions and apologies for the false story? Crickets…
  • This is our president making a statement in a pivotal moment for a potentially dangerous and escalating conflict. It’s embarrassing and frightening. I can only imagine what other world leaders are thinking. If you voted for Biden, can you now honestly say that you feel good about that choice? Was a protest vote against Trump worth having a dementia patient in charge? The curious thing is… who’s really calling the shots? We know it’s not Biden.
  • I’m going fly fishing this weekend on one of the hardest and trickiest rivers to fish. It’s world-renown. We’re going with a guide, so at least I have a tiny chance of landing something. My single goal is to not embarrass myself too badly. There’s a reason I haven’t attempted to fish this stretch before. Wish me luck.

And that’s that. Another week and a half of travel and non-routine. Then surgery and recovery. Interesting times. Go out and do something fun in the fall colors. Winter is just around the corner!

Daily Life, Motivation, woke

Mr Rogers Neighborhood

As we sit back and watch the various wars kicking off across the globe, it’s tempting to wonder how we got here? The best summary I’ve seen so far was from a meme on Twitter (X). It said in reference to the Hamas attack – all of this could have been prevented if Israel had just put “Gun Free Zone” signs up near the border. I’ll pause a minute while you ponder that.

Normal people want to live in a Mr Rogers idealistic neighborhood. Prosperity helps foster that dream. What people don’t want to talk about is the other side of the coin – A polite society can only exist with the threat of consequences for bad behavior. We’d like to think we can achieve a kumbaya, crunchy granola world if everyone would just practice being nice. That unfortunately ignores the entirety of human existence.

Until very recently, a polite society existed only because of the threat of having your skull split was the consequence of bad behavior. Nowadays we worry more about harming peoples self-esteem than deterring them from crime. I think of this every time I see the ridiculous climate protestors who block streets and glue themselves to paintings in museums. The only thing that will happen to them is they’ll be peacefully arrested and immediately released, thus achieving their protester merit badge. They make the news and get their idiotic message out.

Now, if angry mobs of blocked motorists started dragging them by their hair to the curb and giving them a bit of a pummeling… they might start thinking twice about how to get their message across. Now I’m not advocating for violence, but without consequences for your actions you can do whatever you want.

Take Israel for example. They are surrounded by nations that openly declare the desire to wipe them off the map. They have been attacked on the regular, from all sides, for 70+ years. And every time they punch back the collective world screeches for a “proportional response”. Uhm, if you haven’t been much of a student of history, here’s a dirty little secret – a disproportionate response is how you end wars. Otherwise your enemy simply regroups and attacks again. see Gaza for the last 20 years

Hamas, PLO, Hezbollah, et al., have chosen time and time and time again to be feral animals. They have decided that the destruction of Israel is more important than trying to normalize relations and build some sort of society for their people. I suspect Hamas finally pushed the envelope a bit too far this time. As the old saying goes, if ye fuckith around, ye shall findith out. If Israel doesn’t end them, it’s only going to happen again as soon as they regroup. Let’s just hope their neighbors to the north sit this one out. I’m not sure we can put the genie back in the bottle if that conflict pops off.

My point? Much of “civilized” society today has decided that worrying about hurting someone’s feelings is more important than maintaining a functional community. As you watch brazen, unchecked looting and stealing from your local Walmart, ask yourself “how’s that working out?” When glitzy Hollywood has to be told don’t risk wearing jewelry when walking around because the police can’t/won’t do anything about crime… that’s a sign things have gone sideways. Much of Europe probably secretly regrets allowing unchecked migration. Sweden now has 20+ areas that are classified by the police as “no go” areas due to crime and rape. The US is just barely starting to wake up to the consequences of allowing the cartels to control our border. It’s hard not to laugh at the Mayor of New York realizing that his sanctuary city policies aren’t working out so well.

We’re living in some strange times. Everything seems a bit upside down and opposite. I sometimes wonder how far off we are from retreating back to tribal villages that band together to protect themselves and maintain their own customs and beliefs. ’cause that whole one world globalist thing isn’t panning out so well. But that’s a little Mad Max apocalyptic I suppose. I blame it on my blocked eardrums from a dive trip last week. I can’t hear anything and it’s making me grumpy.

But then again any society, when pushed hard enough, will eventually lash out. As H.L. Mencken once wrote:

ā€œEvery normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.ā€

Cool, Daily Life

The Men In Gray Suits

The dive boat was called the Leatherneck and she was bobbing gently at the dock. We waited to board and watched the crew getting gear together. Regulators attached to tanks and tested. BCs buckled and ready to go. Crates of weight belts waiting. Jokes were flying around in random accents as the crew was from the UK, France, and Australia.

I looked out at the ocean and was grateful the seas were calm. I had a few nerves which is not usual for me. I wasn’t nervous about diving, after all we’d dove with this same crew yesterday. What was different was the depth. I don’t have much experience with deep dives and this one was going to be to a hundred feet, down a wall.

This Caribbean island sits in the middle of nowhere, a product of tectonic plate upswelling. The end result is an island with lots of beautiful shallow water reefs that are prime for scuba diving. But if you go just a little bit further out past the reef… you reach an edge. Go over that edge and it plummets straight down thousands of feet. That’s where we were headed.

The ride out was uneventful. It was already hot and I was looking forward to getting in the water. We reached the buoy and the crew quickly tied up and started throwing out the safety lines and an emergency decompression regulator. One of the crew members gave the safety briefing and then discussed what the dive plan would be. We’d seen beautiful leopard rays yesterday and someone asked if there was a chance we’d see them again. The answer was no, they like the shallower water.

Gear on and adjusted. I shuffled to the stern and waited my turn. Received the all clear, regulator in my mouth, hand on mask, a giant stride and I plunged into the clear blue water. It’s always an odd sensation when you first jump in. Bubbles, sound, a little disorientation while you get yourself sorted out. Oxygen working. Mask clear. Octopus regulator in place. Make sure the BC is fully deflated. Check the dive computer to see that it’s working. Look around to see if I can find the rendezvous point on the bottom. I spotted the divers in front of me and headed down.

Descending down I took care to continually equalize the pressure in my ears. Checked the dive computer a few times to ensure it was tracking correctly. Once at the bottom I did another gear check. I recored a quick video with my camera to ensure it was working. We all sat for a few minutes waiting for all the divers to get down. The dive guide finally gave the signal and we all headed down towards the wall.

The reef is beautiful. Covered in colorful fans, sponges, and all kinds of bizarre looking stuff I can’t identify. Fish of all sorts were feeding and swimming by in small schools. The reef is like going through a series of hallways that kept getting deeper and deeper. Eventually at about eighty feet you could see it. The reef ended and there was nothing but dark blue water. I could see the edge.

Swimming up to it was such a strange feeling. You look down over the ledge and it’s just never ending darkness going down. Just like you’d feel on land, going over the edge goes against common sense. I’m floating and know I’m not going to “fall”… but my brain tells me something different. Took a deep breath and over I went and headed further down.

We continued down to about ninety-five feet and then began traversing across the wall. I was filming everything, while also checking my dive computer about every minute out of paranoia. The dive guide motioned us over to a crevice he was floating near. Once we were all around he took his speargun and speared a lion fish (an invasive species). I was thinking to myself, that was kinda cool since the video camera was running. The guide then pointed behind us.

I turned around and there it was. A shark slowly cruising about 15 feet away.

My oxygen intake suddenly went up about 200%. The guide then flipped the dead lion fish off the speargun and he kicked away. It took about two seconds and the shark came in at mach 2 and devoured the fish. And then suddenly, three more sharks appeared.

I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but when something out of the ordinary happens to you I suddenly have a narrator appear in my head to add running commentary about what’s happening. The conscious part of my brain was in survival mode. Check my gear. Check the depth and how much oxygen I have left. What direction is the boat? Where are the sharks? Scan behind me. Check my oxygen again.

Meanwhile, there’s a voice in my head going “am I really seeing this? am I actually diving at a hundred feet surrounded by sharks? is this real?” I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening and not something I was watching on TV.

Now if you’re a big time diver, this all sounds pretty silly. Obviously the guides deal with sharks all the time and were not worried at all. But for us part-time, every once in a while vacation divers this was a big deal. Kind of like running across a snake – the reptilian part of our brain tells us this is a situation you probably shouldn’t be in.

As we returned to the boat the sharks followed us the entire way, clearly waiting for another tasty fish. I have no idea what fabulous coral or fish we saw on the way back because I was too busy scanning for Jaws who I was convinced was right behind me.

As I neared my decompression stop, I noticed something on the inside of my mask. It looked kind of like an oil slick. Then it dawned on me. My nose was bleeding! I sat at my decompression stop watching the dive computer count down the minutes I had to stay at that depth. Meanwhile my mask was filling up with blood. Normally you’d simply clear your mask, but I knew there were a bunch of sharks swimming around somewhere below me. The last thing I wanted to do was dump a bunch of blood in the water.

I’ve never been to war, been shot at, or have been chased by an angry mob. I have to imagine this feeling was somewhat similar. Your brain is screaming at you to panic. To do something, anything. To get the hell out of Dodge as fast as possible. I could see the boat above me. I still had a few minutes of decompression to complete. The blood in my mask was now covering my nose so I was having to concentrate on not inhaling the blood – I’m sure that would not have been good.

Deep, slow breath. Check the computer. Check for sharks. Check the computer. I could feel blood going down the back of my throat. That coppery taste was making me a bit nauseous. I’m proud of myself. Those few minutes waiting were an eternity. It took every bit of willpower I had to not bolt to the surface and rip off the mask. I kept telling myself that if the navy seals can do this, so can I.

The computer finally gave the all clear and I slowly ascended to the surface. I held on to the boats rear ladder and took off my fins and handed them up to the crew member waiting for me. As I took off my mask he had a surprised look and said (in a heavy Australian accent), “ah hey mate, you’ve got a bit of a bleeder there. You may want to rinse that off.”

And that was that. I survived. No great whites attacked me. I got some great video footage of the sharks. I kept my panic under control. All in all, a successful dive. And… I did another dive an hour later. I’m a regular Jacques Cousteau. Ok, that may be a bit of a stretch. But I had an adventure and a good story to tell.

And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. You’re only here once. Might as well have an adventure or two.