Author: jared

Blood Meridian Book Review

Posted on October 5, 2021 by jared - Book Reviews

Blood Meridian is incredible. While at times hard to follow, dense, and somewhat difficult (but nevertheless beautiful) in its wording, it very subtly poses questions without explicitly asking them; and after you finish you need to think about what it all even meant.

I suppose it makes sense to start by talking about the ending.

After I closed the book, I was left in utter confusion. Followed by minutes of frustration. And then days of absolute wonder and amazement.

Blood Meridian isn’t just a novel of historical fiction; it’s a deep, enriching, and frightening exploration into the human condition. Into destiny. The struggle of humanity made bare on the plains and mountains of the Old West.

But before digging too deeply into that, I want to break down a few things:

The Title of Blood Meridian

What is a meridian? The dictionary gives various options:

late Middle English: from Old French meridien, from Latin meridianum (neuter, used as a noun) ‘noon’, from medius ‘middle’ + dies ‘day’. The use in astronomy is due to the fact that the sun crosses a meridian at noon.
As an adjective, can mean the apex, or height, of something. a high point (as of development or prosperity)

I think ‘meridian’ as used in the title refers to a line being crossed, just as the sun crosses the line of midday; a line of blood being crossed, hence a “blood meridian.”

And before we get to “blood” in the title, let’s take a quick look at the subtitle: “Or, the evening redness in the west.”

I don’t think it’s describing a literal sunset, but instead possibly a reference to this ancient saying:

Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
Wikipedia

Perhaps the evening (night) redness is the delight of violence (red blood being shed); the eventual shedding of blood by the main character one fateful night?

Speaking of blood, it’s first mentioned when they meet an old Mexican man in a cantina-

“‘Blood’, he said. ‘This country is give much blood. This Mexico. This is a thirsty country. The blood of a thousand Christs. Nothing….
He made a gesture toward the world beyond where all the land lay under darkness and all a great stained altarstone….
I pray to God for this country. I say that to you. I pray. I don’t go in the church. What I need to talk to them dolls there? I talk here.’
He pointed to his chest. When he turned to the Americans his voice softened again. ‘You are fine caballeros,’ he said. ‘You kill the barbaros. They cannot hide from you. But there is another caballero and I think that no man hides from him. I was a soldier. It is like a dream. When even the bones is gone in the desert the dreams is talk to you, you don’t wake up forever.'” (pg 108)

I think the “another caballero” who no man can hide from is the judge, so let’s talk about him.

Who (or What) is the Judge?

The judge is certainly an enigma. Descriptions give him small hands and feet, no hair anywhere on his body, a very tall height, expertise in various scientific fields, and fluency in many languages.

We’re first introduced to the judge on page 6 when he interrupts a preacher’s sermon. The preacher, shaken by the interruption, even says about the judge- “This is him. The devil. Here he stands.”

The judge has an interesting view of the world and of himself. He declares, “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent” and that “in order for it (the world, life) to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation” and finally, “The freedom of birds is an insult to me. I’d have them all in zoos.” (pp 207-208)

He talks at length about the nobility of games and war, especially when a player’s life is at stake- “War is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it brings them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.” (pg 267)

Is the judge actually Mars, the Roman god of war? Or is he Death personified? Perhaps he’s the Devil after all?

I don’t think he’s any of those, not literally. Instead, he’s more of a force for or symbol of corruption; disease and decay (which feed on and break down life), evil (which seeks to control it), and destruction (tearing it apart).

Part of the etymology of “corruption” is

directly from Latin corruptus, past participle of corrumpere “to destroy; spoil,”

He could also be an allusion to The Erlking, a Dutch myth about a monster who killed children. Goethe has a poem about a child who is at first tempted and then killed by the Erlking; note too that the judge speaks Dutch fluently, and the chapter heading for the last chapter includes “Sie mussen schlafen aber Ich muss tanzen” which means “You must sleep but I must dance.” In the Bowring translation of Geothe’s poem it has the line:

“My daughters by night their glad festival keep, they’ll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep.”

(Side note: considering that chapter headings are written for the reader, isn’t it a bit creepy to consider that perhaps McCarthy wrote this line in the chapter heading as the judge breaking the fourth wall and addressing the reader?)

Another interesting note is that if we look at the etymology of the word “judge” early in its history, around 1300 AD, it was used to mean:

to form an opinion about; inflict penalty upon, punish; try (someone) and pronounce sentence.

Is the judge someone whose purpose is to test/try people and inflict a penalty on those who are corrupted? And in this case the person who becomes corrupted is the main character, the kid?

I’m not sure, but let’s now look at the kid.

Who is the Kid?

Despite being the main character, we don’t know much about him, not even his name.

We know that he ran away from his poor, motherless home and constantly drunk dad in Tennessee at 14, and was “pale and unwashed. He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for mindless violence. All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.” (pg 3)

I love that last bit- as children grow up and become adults, so too will the kid grow up and become a man. And he will be the father (figuratively- like a creator figure) of the man he becomes.

Consider too The Road (also written by McCarthy) where an anonymous “man” tries to teach his son (also an anonymous “kid”) what to do: to “carry the fire” (be good) even after the man passes on.

And note the author’s description of the kid: he already has a taste for mindless violence. But is he mindlessly violent? Will he become mindlessly violent as a man?

It says after he runs away: “His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world’s turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man’s will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.” (pg 5)

I think that is the crux of the book: what will he become, and why? Does he have a say in the shaping of his clay heart? And if he does, what shape will he choose for his heart?

The next important development about the kid is a card he picks at a firelit fortune-telling session early in the gang’s journey: the Four of Cups. According to John Sepich, who was a friend and biographer of McCarthy, the upside down/reversed Four of Cups could mean:

A more inclusive grouping of the fours, and so of the four of cups as well, is designated, in kabbalistic interpretations of the tarot, by the Hebrew word “chesed,” which is translated “mercy” (Wang 78)….McCarthy has twice associated the kid with a card whose symbolism suggests a divided heart and has generally associated him with the quality of mercy.” (emphasis mine)

Extending the question of the Kid’s destiny and the shaping of his heart, does the card suggest that the kid is provided with multiple attempts to kill or hurt others, but despite his taste for violence instead shows mercy (hence his heart being ‘divided’? It’s never made explicit that the kid participates in the violent massacres later in the gang’s travels; there’s ambiguity about his involvement in those, but there are many examples where he chooses to show mercy. Perhaps the kid will be faced with a choice—a test—of mercy as the fourth cup being offered to him as shown in the tarot card, which is often represented as being offered by a divine hand?

Now that we have some background on both the judge and the kid, let’s explore how they become intertwined in the story.

Connections Between the Judge and the Kid

They first meet on page 6, when the kid has gone into a preacher’s tent during a rainstorm. The preacher’s saying, “Don’t you know that [God] said, I will foller ye always even unto the end of the road?…He’s a going to be there with ye ever step of the way whether ye ask it or ye don’t,” and then is interrupted by a large man, the judge, coming into the tent. The judge says the preacher has no official priestly credentials and is guilty of terrible crimes, riling up the audience who (presumably) kill the preacher. It’s later revealed the judge lied, making up his claims just to have some fun.

Later, the kid gets into a fight and ends up burning a hotel with another character, Toadvine. As the kid flees the town on his mule, the judge, who had been watching the fire, turns and smiles at the kid.

On page 99 after the kid draws the Four of Cups the judge “was laughing silently. He bent slightly the better to see the kid….The juggler kneeling before him watched him with a strange intensity. He followed the kid’s gaze to the judge and back. When the kid looked down at him he smiled a crooked smile.”

I wonder if the judge knows the kid has mercy in his heart, and wants to see what the kid will become in that harsh environment; many times we’re shown the merciful acts of the kid.

For example, when Brown, one of the gang members, is shot in the leg with an arrow, the kid helped remove the arrow when no one else in the gang would help (note that the judge explicitly refused to help Brown! See pp 168-169). Later, members of the gang draw lots to determine who has to stay behind and deal with a mortally wounded gang member, Shelby, before the tribe following them catches up and kills him in a gruesome way. While drawing lots, the kid has his hand on one arrow before “he saw the judge watching him and he paused. He looked at Glanton (the gang leader). He let go the arrow he’d chosen and sorted out another and drew that one. It carried the red tassel.” (pg 214) And at one point a man kept trying to touch the kid’s pistol while the kid was eating, until finally the kid “drew the pistol and cocked it and put the muzzle against the man’s forehead….After a while the kid lowered the hammer and put it in his belt and picked up the bowl and commenced eating again.” (pg 313)

Also important is the kid has opportunities to kill the judge near the end of the book; while being followed by the judge and the “idiot” whom the judge is taking care of, the kid and the ex-priest Tobin disguise their tracks and the judge and the idiot pass them by; with the kid pointing a gun at the judge Tobin says, “You’ll get no such chance as that again” but the kid doesn’t shoot.

The judge even walks back and says, “There’s a flawed place in the fabric of your heart. Do you think I could not know? You alone were mutinous. You alone reserved in your soul some corner of clemency for the heathen.” (pp 310-311). Note the similarity between “clemency” and “mercy.” The judge is telling the kid that he knows there’s mercy in his heart.

A short time later, after having given the judge the slip, the kid and Tobin arrive in San Diego and the kid is arrested in a case of mistaken identity. The next morning, he finds the judge outside of his cell.

The judge tells the kid that he told the soldiers that the entire violent escapade was the kid’s fault; that he was “the person responsible…it was you and none other who shaped events along such a calamitous course….But even though you carry the draft of your murderous plan with you to the grave it will nonetheless be known in all its infamy to your Maker….You came forward,” he said, “to take part in a work. But you were a witness against yourself. You sat in judgment on your own deeds. You put your own allowances before the judgments of history and and you broke with the body of which you you were pledged a part and poisoned it in all its enterprise…Yet even so you could have changed it all….For even if you should have stood your ground,” he said, “yet what ground was it?” (pp 318-319)

Remember that fundamental question asked about him after he had ran away from home to Texas:

“Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are becoming remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world’s turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man’s will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.” (pg 5)

So, who is the shaper? Does man shape the world as he chooses, or is man shaped like clay?

The judge says, “A man seeks his own destiny and no other…Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that self-same reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man’s destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. This desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone.” (pg 344)

The Role of God

The book has several allusions to God (or a lack thereof).

Years pass after the kid escapes from jail and leaves the gang and the judge behind, during which time the kid travels from place to place taking on various jobs; he even “had a bible that he’d found at the mining camps and he carried this book with him no word of which he could read. In his dark and frugal clothes some took him for a sort of preacher but he was no witness to them….He saw men killed with guns and with knives and with ropes and he saw women fought over to the death whose value they themselves set at two dollars.” (pg 325)

Perhaps the kid believes in something divine being out there in the world- why else carry a book he can’t read during his wandering?

He eventually comes across an old woman, kneeling, surrounded by a group of massacred “penitents” or religious pilgrims and worshippers. As he approaches her he gently offers to help her. He even starts spilling a confession about his misdeeds and the bad situation he’s put himself in. She doesn’t respond, and the kid nudges her, only to find she “was just a dried shell and she had been dead in that place for years.” (pg 328)

Note that her shawl depicts “stars and quartermoons” which could be an allusion to Our Lady of Guadalupe who also looks down, wearing a shawl of stars, standing on a half moon.

So, in effect, it’s possible that McCarthy is suggesting that God is dead and/or unwilling to help. The kid even asks, right before reaching out to touch her, “No puedes escucharme?” (Can you not hear me?). Contrast that with this prayer to ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’:

Never has it been known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided….
O Holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer us. Amen.

The kid physically reaches out to a representation of a divine intercessory figure, possibly hoping for a chance to redeem himself, but receives nothing in return. Like the old Mexican man said earlier in the book: “The blood of a thousand Christs. Nothing.”

This is also reminiscent of The Road which I mentioned before; a character named Ely (similar to Eli, Hebrew for “my God,” “high,” or “elevated”) is met on the road by the similarly titled “man” and “kid” and Ely tells the man, “There is no god and we are his prophets.”

From here on out in Blood Meridian the kid is referred to as “the man.” Did that interaction with the intercessory figure complete the kid’s change into manhood?

More years pass and he’s on the plains heading towards Fort Griffin, which was “full of whores…set up to be the biggest town for sin in all Texas…as lively a place for murders as you’d care to visit. Scrapes with knives. About any kind of meanness you can name.” (pg 332)

The day before arriving there, the man is approached by a group of teenagers on the plains who tell him what they’ve heard about Fort Griffin and its “meanness.”

The man considers their descriptions of Fort Griffin while poking the fire with a stick and then asks, “You all like meanness?”

The children reply that they don’t, however one of them, Elrod (which is Hebrew for “God is the king”), asks a lot of pointed questions about the man and ends up antagonizing the man, who asks how old Elrod is. It turns out Elrod is fifteen, and the man says,

“I was fifteen year old when I was first shot.”
“I ain’t never been shot,” comes the reply from Elrod.
“You ain’t sixteen yet neither,” says the man.
“You aim to shoot me?” replies Elrod.
“I am to try to keep from it.” (emphasis mine)

Unfortunately, Elrod keeps antagonizing the man who stands up in anger and tells Elrod’s friends, “You keep him away from me,” he said. “I see him back here I’ll kill him.” (pg 335)

This is fascinating. One minute the man is saying he wants to avoid shooting Elrod, who clearly reminded him of himself at fifteen, and then a few minutes later is giving a threat (promise?) to shoot Elrod if he shows himself again…which he does.

The man kills Elrod, someone so much like the man when he was himself a kid. In a way, the man killed both himself and God (or the divine, the mercy, the good within himself).

My guess is that the man was on the precipice of his future, or as the judge would say, his destiny: “The arc of circling bodies is determined by the length of their tether,” said the judge. “Moons, coins, men.” (pg 257)

Even though the man was already on the path to Fort Griffin, I think his withholding mercy and killing the kid (who was both God and himself) was his blood meridian. I could be wrong, but that’s the moment when he no longer shows mercy and the first time we are explicitly told he takes a life.

Remember how often the kid had often shown mercy before, and note how the nature of his merciful acts evolved from helping someone in the gang to resisting an urge to shoot an old man. The kid also didn’t kill the judge even when presented with multiple opportunities, and he refused to kill Shelby, the wounded member of the gang, even though it would have been considered an act of mercy (irony can be pretty ironic sometimes).

To kill Elrod instead of showing mercy continued the cycle of “the child the father of the man,” or, the broken child growing up, and creating more of himself. Randall, Elrod’s younger brother and now alone in the world, is hinted at following the same path as the kid/man.

Either way, it seems like the divine is not going to help the main character, and that leaves him to deal with the consequences of his actions (enter the judge again) on his own.

The Ending

As promised, we return to the end of the book. On page 337 it describes the kid (man’s) approach into the bar house: “He looked back a last time at the street and at the random windowlights let into the darkness and at the last pale light in the west (note the book’s subtitle- “the evening redness in the west”) and the low dark hills around. Then he pushed open the doors and entered.”

Perhaps I’m reading into things too much, but did he know it would be a last time? Was he wondering whether to turn back, but then decided against it?

Inside, he is found by the judge. What follows is a strange series of events where a girl and a dancing bear perform on stage, and an audience member shoots the bear. The judge calmly explains, “A ritual includes the letting of blood” (pg 342) and my guess is that the judge somehow knows of Elrod’s killing and is preparing to induct the man into the ranks of the corrupt.

The man stops talking to the judge and has a liaison with one of the prostitutes, then heads to an outhouse where he enters and is embraced by the naked judge. It’s unclear exactly what happens, but some time later that evening two other men are looking for the girl whose bear was shot, hoping to pay for the pelt, but she’s missing. They approach the outhouse, and someone is standing nearby. It’s not clear who is standing by the outhouse, but whoever it is suggests they not look inside. The men do look and are shocked by what they see, though we aren’t told what was inside- is it the man, killed by the judge? Or is it the girl, killed by the man?

Then, inside the saloon, the judge dances naked: “His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.” (pg 349)

What it Means: Good, Evil, Influence, and Choice

I don’t know what it means and probably no one other than McCarthy does either, but I’d like to hazard a guess.

I don’t think the judge is the villain of the story; while he is certainly bad, the point of the book isn’t to show that good triumphs over evil, that we’re all hopelessly destined to be corrupted, or that bad people receive justice in the end (far from it). Instead, the kid/man no longer shows mercy, crosses the blood meridian, and perpetuates the cycle of violence, allowing the judge to continue dancing, to never sleep, to never die.

The kid fulfilled the tarot card; despite showing mercy several times he finally rejected an offer to show mercy, and ultimately embraced corruption (made literal by his embrace from the judge in the outhouse).

The themes are similar to those presented in The Road– namely, can goodness and kindness survive despite terrible and horrendous circumstances? Perhaps this book serves as a foil to The Road; while the kid in that book also had a violent father, that violence was used to protect the kid and the father many times showed his love for his son, whereas the kid in Blood Meridian had a drunkard, emotionally absent father from whom he ran away, following various leaders along a path of violence. Blood Meridian‘s kid lost the fire when he became a man, whereas the kid in The Road might still carry it into manhood.

In closing, Blood Meridian requires the reader to reflect and wonder: am I the shaper of my heart, no matter the terrible things in the world? Can I find out if my “own heart is not another kind of clay” and break cycles of violence and sadness? Will I reject opportunities to provide mercy or will I provide help where I can? We therefore decide on what side of our own blood meridians we will be.

An Ode to Desks

Posted on February 15, 2021 by jared - Piquant

Desks are the fields and factories of our time.

As civilization turned to cultivation, mankind moved from forest to field. As the industrial revolution overtook farming, mankind moved from field to factory.[1]

And as civilization turned to corporations, mankind moved from factory to furniture.[2]

Desks play a huge role in our lives. You’re at work? Probably at a desk.[4] In school? Desk. Arrived at a hotel? Check in at the front desk.[5]

And even within those desk activities you can notice various displays of intra- and interpersonal behavior; the obsessed desk decorator from HR, the kid doodling the cool S thing on a school desk, that weird feeling of having your personal space invaded when someone stops by and leans on your desk.

So below will follow a story—my story—of desks.

When my older brother left for college and I moved upstairs to his old room then a tall, dark wood desk with many drawers and shelves became mine. It smelled like a countryside cottage, not old but well seasoned; it contrasted sharply with its location in a suburban home’s upper floor. Further, it was stately and grand and quite unlike anything else I’d had.

I proceeded to make that grand desk reflect me and my interests; action figures, my Lego creations, awards, interesting finds from the nearby river and woods, and other odds and ends adorned the desk and its attached shelves.

Some of my favorite memories from the time I spent in that room include that desk; sketching, drawing, writing, playing music or a riveting game of Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri or Medieval: Total War on the Pentium 4 computer at its center. Snowy days looking out the window by that desk watching the evergreens in the backyard blanketed white and heavy.

Then seasons changed. Snow days turned to summer days and with the change of the seasons comes the passing of years. As my older siblings had left and I’d inherited the desk, so too I left and passed the desk on when I went to college. I don’t believe I’ve seen that desk since.

College dorms aren’t known for their magnitude, and I got used to a small rickety end table that was lying about being a desk. A bad sneeze would have knocked its legs off.

Then a few years later, while walking to my slightly larger newlywed apartment, I found an old desk put out for the trash. It had a certain charm that my particleboard desk lacked, and I spent an hour lugging it the rest of the way home myself:

*The desk in all its glory. In hindsight, I should have left it for the trash.*

We took that desk with us across a few states but ultimately had to leave it on one coast when we flew to the other (sadly, I wasn’t in love with that desk enough to pay for movers).

So to fill a hole in my heart the size of a desk, I looked around in the garage for some spare wood. I challenged myself to make a desk without buying lumber; it was a true Ultimate Scrap Challenge. Plus, I had the added challenge of not having any woodworking tools other than a drill and an old circular saw which I had to borrow from my parents. And as you’ll soon see, I didn’t have any woodworking experience, either.

Making this desk was…a good try. Yeah, we’ll call it a good try:

*Ignore my (lack of!) cable management. And my lack of skill.*

Fine. It was merely a try. How that desk never fell apart I’m really not sure (especially since I had not yet discovered the magic of pocket hole screws).

About two years later I saw this picture and decided to do something like it for my kids:

*If I build them a desk, they’ll do their homework without me asking, right?*

It resulted in my first trip to IKEA, which is an interesting place (the meatballs are extremely overrated). ALEX drawers for the win!

Soon after the kids’ desk then I made a desk for my wife to house her PC and the printer (which was either on the floor or took up half of her desk space before I made her this desk):

*Not too shabby- plus my skills are improving!*

At this point my rickety desk was starting to wobble and I started looking for a replacement before it collapsed entirely. I longed for a grand desk like what you’d see on Downtown Abbey, and reading A Gentleman in Moscow intensified that desire- who wouldn’t want a stately desk, full of history, with secret compartments for gold coins?!

After looking into grand desks I realized they weren’t as appealing as I thought, in part due to their cost but also their immense size and weight. Of course, if gifted such a desk I’d gratefully accept it and baby it, but buying one was out of the picture.

So with three years of woodworking experience that followed my first desk creation attempt, I was ready to make another try.

What resulted is this:

I’m writing up the whole process of creating this desk, but it’s an amazing thing to have completed for someone like me, who was still fairly new to woodworking.

May your desks be strong and your productivity high!

[1] This is a generality; of course not every single person moved from one to another. There are still forests, and farms, and factories.

[2] I would have said “mankind moved to desks” but I had to keep going with the F words.[3]

[3] That F word is NOT what I meant!

[4] I see retail/food checkout and service areas as long desks.

[5] I used to work at the front desk of a hotel and I still don’t know where the other desks are. Is there a back desk? A side desk? No one knows!

Why I Don’t Set New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 1, 2021 by jared - Practical Philosophy

While a regular cadence for setting goals and a cultural movement to improve oneself are good, the once-a-year frenzy about New Year’s resolutions falls short of addressing the real factors that drive personal development.

Happy 2021! I think everyone’s hoping this year is better than 2020 (insert ‘lowest bar in the world’ joke here).

Given it’s a new year many conversations are ablaze with the topic of New Year’s Resolutions. And as you’ve probably surmised from the title, I don’t set New Year’s Resolutions.

No, it isn’t because of things like this Calvin and Hobbes comic strip about resolutions:

*Sometimes it’s hard to argue with Calvin though*

I don’t set New Year’s Resolutions because too often they seem thrown together with too little thought, and then too quickly they’re abandoned and life returns to normal. This defeats the purpose of a resolution for change.

Instead, I set small goals every week which support long-term plans in my own system extrapolated from Getting Things Done.[1]

I’m definitely not an expert at personal development, but I am a student of it. From Marcus Aurelius to Benjamin Franklin and beyond I’ve noticed a common thread of personal examination and self improvement. And while there’s certainly some survivorship bias involved here, improving one’s self is worth pursuing.

I intend to go into more of my thoughts and see how they evolve in future posts (which I’ve started in yesterday’s post called Kanamits and the Economy of the Mind), but for now I’ll just say that most resolution-setting in popular culture doesn’t take into account the work required to achieve the desired result, and resolutions without a plan for the work involved are almost always going to fail. Hence the image up top of muddy work boots.

To illustrate my thinking I’ve made some examples in this table:

Goal	Bad Resolution	Better Resolution
Be more healthy	“Lose 20 lbs”	“Track calories via {app} and walk between dinner and watching TV”
Improve my financial situation	“Earn more money”	“Go for a month without buying {thing you want to cut back on, perhaps junk food?[2]} and ask for a raise at my next performance review”

The ‘better resolutions’ are more tangible and concrete; specific changes are called out which makes measurement (and therefore motivation) easier, and habit changes are included (which helps the long term changes stick).

Of course, you still need to do the tangible, specific things but this gets you started more effectively in my experience.

So I hope this helps with your New Year’s Resolutions for 2021 and beyond.[3] Best of luck this year!

[1] David Allen came to Google in 2011 and taught an entire day class which I was able to join! I still have the pen he gave class members.

[2] Notice the opportunity for hitting two goals with one resolution.

[3] Saw this meme and figured I should specify: no evil resolutions!

Kanamits and the Economy of the Mind

Posted on December 31, 2020 by jared - Practical Philosophy

“The cycle of going from dust to dessert. The metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone’s soup.”

During a treadmill run before the pandemic started I watched an old Twilight Zone episode featuring the above voiceover, which has stayed with me.

The episode is To Serve Man. Aliens, called Kanamits, visit Earth proclaiming good intentions, and after some initial skepticism humans embrace their assistance. Soon war, hunger, and all doubts about Kanamit intentions disappear.

A Kanamit book was left at U.N. headquarters and a crypto team attempts to decipher it. They quickly discover the book’s title is “To Serve Man,” but the rest of the book is more difficult to decipher. In the meanwhile, Kanamits generously announce they’ll provide humans with free vacations to the Kanamit home world.

The twist comes as the protagonist climbs aboard a Kanamit ship just as his coworker on the deciphering team (and love interest) shouts from behind a fence that she finished deciphering the book, and that it’s a cookbook for humans. Unable to leave the ship the protagonist ends up on the Kanamit homeworld, where we watch him at first refuse, and then give in, to Kanamit attempts to fatten him up.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that the story has more relevance than dark sci fi humor.

There’s an economy of our minds that translates into success or failure; we can get sucked into poor investments of time via appealing servings of mental stimulation just as readily as we can with poor investments of money. I call these traps “Kanamits of the mind.”

I’m as guilty of these as anyone. I’ve watched shows I wasn’t interested in just to have a cultural connection, for example The Walking Dead. Despite it being immensely popular I quickly became frustrated by its dependency on an episodic cliffhanger formula: instead of catharsis/resolution the viewer became hooked for the next episode.

Compare this to The Mandalorian, which while pursuing a broader storyline successfully surfaces and resolves “side quests” within each episode while still making tangible progress towards a successful resolution overall.

*I’d love an entire movie, Shrek-style, with Mando and Baby Yoda*

Ironically, the show about zombies became something of a zombie itself as it kept going long after its popularity waned (did other people notice this annoying formula and stop watching too?). Bring forth the illustrative meme:

*Katanas are cool, but why? So many questions.*

I have the same frustration with certain video games. I bought Overwatch[1] and enjoyed it…for a while. After three months I’d log in Monday night, play ‘Arcade’ games until I unlocked all the free loot boxes for that week, and then sign off until the next Monday night.[2] After a few months of this I realized the game was a chore, not a game, and I never logged on again.

As I look back on time spent watching shows that I couldn’t stand, for which I was more relieved there was an end than how it ended, or playing games that served up only more chores, I wish I’d invested that time elsewhere.

Recently I preordered Cyberpunk 2077, planning to take time off of work to play the day it was released. But I instead decided to cancel the preorder and instead spent that time designing and building my own Mandalorian nativity scene.[3]

Could I have kept the preorder and also built the nativity scene? Probably. It’s all about balance, right? Good things like stress reduction and making friends can come from playing video games or watching TV; a psychology journal just published research saying that video games “are now more important than ever for socialization, feeling autonomy and control during an uncertain time, and just de-stressing.”

These days I still play games and watch TV (in much smaller amounts than before), but I’ve recognized a need for other forms of fulfillment; the happiness of dusting cobwebs from my creative side, and the satisfaction of working with my hands. So if you feel unfulfilled by games and TV, try mixing things up for a while and see how that affects you.

Be careful of Kanamits of the mind. They claim to serve you, and that they will do; but they might instead serve you to their advertisers and shareholders, and sell you short of your full potential, without you realizing it.

[1] When Overwatch came out I was probably above their target age demographic. My interest in the game was the result of my browsing reddit and imgur and being inundated with memes from the game, as well as funny videos on YouTube. No, the irony of purchasing a video game because of my time spent viewing memes and funny videos is not lost on me either.

[2] Most of this was due to the toxicity of players, even in Quick Play. I hated playing Ranked games since I was afraid to cost my teammates SR, which would have further increased the toxicity. I was also afraid of using voice chat since the only time I could play was shortly after putting our kids to bed and I didn’t want to wake them up.

[3] A note on balance: you should absolutely relax and take breaks, and not go all out on self improvement or home improvement projects all the time. Just be thoughtful about it. Don’t let the pendulum swing too far the other way!

DIY The Mandalorian Nativity Set

Posted on December 11, 2020 by jared - Piquant, Woodworking

The Child is Born

This project was a lot of fun to do, not only because The Mandalorian is an amazing show, but because I had the extra challenge of keeping it a secret from my family while I built it so it would be a fun Christmas surprise.

And not only that, in true Ultimate Scrap Challenge fashion I only used leftover wood in my garage to make it!

So let’s dig into the steps I took to make this Mandalorian Nativity Set:

First, I got the season 1 Mandalorian toy figures and laid them out on an old coffee table I’m going to upcycle into an entryway table. I spaced them out where I wanted them and measured for what size of a base I’d need.

*High quality figures at about 4 inches high, they’re perfect!*

Once I had those measurements, I poked around in the garage and luckily found a base piece that was the perfect size!

The base piece was a tiny bit uneven so I used my electric hand planer to even things out. I then looked around at the wood available in my garage for the rest of the nativity set.

I found several pieces that had been cut off from the sides of 2×10 boards I’d used for the top of a farmhouse style kitchen table I’d recently finished for my sister, and when placed together on theirs sides it would look rustic which was perfect.

*I know, I know. What a beautiful mess!*

I cut them down into front, size, and back pieces using my miter saw (use a guide so you get perfectly matched cuts) and then glued the first layers onto the base piece.

*This is a dry fit; before gluing I sanded the top of the base piece to look nicer*

Once they dried I kept gluing more pieces on until I had all of the walls done. I also decided to changed things up slightly mid-build to add windows on the side:

*Rustic windows are perfect for a Nativity long ago in a galaxy far, far away*

I then set up the figures again to make sure the spacing was what I wanted, as well as to dry fit the roof pieces (I didn’t want Mando to hit his helmet on the ceiling).

For the top, I found an old cherry piece that would cover the top perfectly when cut into 4 pieces which were then grouped into a rectangle.

Since the angle was going to be tricky, and the length a tiny bit less than ideal, I found a thin piece of leftover oak and used that as the apex of the roof:

*Plus I love the contrast of cherry and oak*

I used my orbital sander with 80 grit sandpaper to give the roof pieces an angle by clamping it and going to town.

*This clamp saved my hands from the 80 grit sandpaper*

I put supports under the roof pieces and glued the roof together (but not to the walls yet).

*Supports and pencils and screwdrivers oh my!*

After the roof had dried, I placed it on its back side on top of some spare wall pieces which I’d glued together and then traced the outline of the roof onto those wall pieces. I then used my jigsaw to cut the outline which gave me a piece to fill the gap between the walls and the roof on the back wall.

I then glued everything together- but Baby Yoda needed a manger!

For this, I grabbed the leftover cherry from the roof cuts and cut it down into the manger pieces, legs, and side supports.

*The Child reaches out with the Force for Mando*

I glued them all together and then sanded down the bottoms of the legs so it would sit better without tipping over.

*This new ‘glamping’ is all the rage: “glamorous clamping”*

Once the final touches were done I sealed everything with a few coats of Minwax clear satin polyurethane (I used the spray since I wasn’t up for doing all the nooks and crannies with a rag).

I did a final test fit and was blown away by how good it looked!

*“I can take you in warm, or I can take you in cute.”*

Then I grabbed some hay from a bush in the backyard and set it up inside the house for the family to see!

*I added the Star of Alderaan to the top*

Here’s a close-up view of The Child in his manger:

All in all, making this Mandalorian Nativity set took less than a week and needed nothing more than scrap wood and tools/supplies I already had from previous projects.

This is the way!

DIY Wood Google Home Mini Stand

Posted on October 8, 2020 by jared - Woodworking

Adding some style and utility to our Google Home Mini

I won a Google Home Mini from a raffle at work and it’s been a huge hit with the family. Who knew a robot could make fart jokes?

The only downside to it was our struggle to find an optimal location; it seemed designed to sit either flat on a table, desk, or counter, or to be mounted vertically on a wall.

However, we preferred to place it at a 45 degree angle on the kitchen counter so we could better see its aesthetic design, have it in arm’s reach, and avoid adding holes to the wall.

A few weeks before we received it, I had been looking around for a phone stand and came across this version that resembled a Viking chair:

I thought this wooden phone stand design looked awesome, and decided to make a version of this for the Google Home Mini to rest on.

I started out with two .25″ thick pieces that I intended to stain later on. I sanded them down and then made a .25″cut on both going halfway through and combined the cutouts on each piece like this:

After placing the Home Mini on it, I realized that the power cable would look messy just hanging out the back:

*Don’t let the cable management folks at PCMR see this*

So I decided to make a box to go on the back that I could use to route the cables into, then back out again to the outlet:

Then once it was glued together I put it on the counter for a test:

Some of the sharper-eyed among you might have noticed a cut into the front where the Home Mini sits or rests. I did that after worrying that it wouldn’t sit on a flat surface and could potentially roll off.

However, tragedy struck when I dropped the holder and it broke right where I’d made that cutout!

*The broken piece on top of some replacement pieces*

After briefly considering glue, I decided to just start over. I luckily had some nice-looking dark brown wood left over from a toothbrush holder project I’d done a few months before that would be perfect.

I cut the dark brown wood down to the same dimensions as the original holder and then cut notches into both sides.

*I think it looks even better than the first one!*

The test fit was encouraging:

Once the main holder part was done, I cut more pieces down to fit the cables in the back and drilled holes in the front and back to thread the power cable:

After letting it dry it was done! Here it is on its new home on the kitchen counter:

*OK Google, who made the best Google Home Mini stand?*

Looking good!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out, and am providing a list of the pieces I cut so you can make your own:

Cut to:	#	Part/Reason/Placement:	Cut?
58in x 8.5in	2	Bottom part of stand
23.75in x 8in	4	Middle parts of the supports
?23.75in x 3in	1	Top of cable holder box on the back
3in x 4.25in	2	Side pieces for the cable holder box on the back
3in x 4.25in	1	Back piece for the cable holder box on the back

Scrap Wood Bench

Posted on June 11, 2020 by jared - Woodworking

Remember when I built the sturdiest chair in the world, and then the subsequent tactical cancellation of that project? I was able to re-use a bunch of the wood from that project to make this bench!

When we bought our house the garage wasn’t finished. A few months after moving in I installed insulation batting, but it was a few years before we finally had the drywall done.

Once the drywall was up I started various organization improvements, like installing garage shelves from scrap wood and designing my own movable miter saw stand.

However, one area I’d overlooked was various outdoor supplies that were haphazardly grouped in one corner.[1] I decided to make something that would organize the space while looking nice (well, nice for a garage at least).

This was very soon after I had cancelled my kitchen chairs project and while I was in the early stages of building my custom-designed bird cage stand for our parakeets, so there was a ton of wood to choose from:

The leftover 4x4s from the kitchen chair project would serve as great legs for the bench, plus they were already cut to about the height I was thinking of.

*Just barely high enough to fit the fertilizer bags underneath*

After dry fitting a few possible combinations, and debating the exact form and function I wanted, I settled on using six of the leftover 2x6s and one of the 2x8s from the chair project, since they were the perfect depth of 16.25 inches that I needed to fit in the space between the concrete stairs.

Spreading these pieces out gave me 40.5 inches in length, which was perfect since the maximum space was 45 inches.

I decided to raise the bench’s top height a bit by adding 2x4s across the side corners, which also added stability:

*Notice the extra holes? Reusing wood FTW!*

I screwed these in with 2.5 inch Spax T-Star drive screws. These require no pre-drilling, which makes projects like this a breeze.[2]

I then cut two 1×6 pieces (which I’d gotten for free on Craigslist) to 40.5 inches each to go across the front and back corners. This way I could put the top pieces on:

Then I placed all of the top pieces on for a dry fit:

And notice the trimmed corners? These are the same two seat pieces from the prototype kitchen chair that I built! Plus I thought it was a nice touch design-wise.

I clamped 2x4s across the top to hold things in place so I could go underneath the bench and use 1.5 inch Spax T-Star drive screws to attach the top pieces to the front and back 1×6 supports without having the screws show on top.

Note that I had considered using pocket hole screws to attach the top pieces[3], but ultimately decided it wasn’t necessary for a garage bench. I might have gone ahead with pocket hole screws for the whole project if the bench was destined for inside the house (e.g., front entryway or family room) but it’s fine for a garage.

I then sanded everything down and prepared for finishing:

View from the side:

Note that I had to sand down the corner wood a bit since I didn’t account for the trimmed corners on the top pieces, but it looks fine to me!

I finished it using some Minwax polyurethane spray I had laying around; if this was a more formal or interior piece I would have used something else.

Test fit of the finished product!

And here it is in use:

If you are interested in building this for yourself, here are the cuts you need to make (along with a column you can use to check off as you make each cut):

Cut to:	#	Part/Reason/Placement:	Cut?
58in x 8.5in	2	Bottom part of stand
23.75in x 8in	4	Middle parts of the supports
?23.75in x 3in	1	Top of cable holder box on the back
3in x 4.25in	2	Side pieces for the cable holder box on the back
3in x 4.25in	1	Back piece for the cable holder box on the back

[1] Yes, I know storing gasoline and fertilizer so close together isn’t a great idea. They’ve since been moved.

[2] Spax T-Star drive screws are my absolute favorite screws. No, I am not sponsored to say that…but I’d be open to it if you’re listening Spax!

[3] They’re so awesome, so why not?

The One Thing: Book Review

Posted on May 19, 2020 by jared - Book Reviews, Business

A solid reminder to focus and prioritize, but avoids important nuance which might limit its usefulness.

I heard about this book from Tim Ferriss’ 5 Bullet Friday email a while ago and was able to pick it up at the library before COVID-19 closed my local library, woot!

As I’ve grabbed time to read it through I’ve taken notes (below) and thought how to apply it.

Overall, the most important lesson I learned was that few things are actually important, and we should find what those things really are; and if you think it will be an easy process, you’re probably wrong 🙂

Note that if you want to read the book but are out of luck given your library being closed due to COVID-19, then you can read most of The One Thing here (use the “Next Post” buttons at the bottom to go through the subsequent chapters).

Here are my takes on the book, both good and bad:

Key Takeaways

Focus on fewer things; find what you need/require for success and then remove all distractions
Not everything matters equally. Figure out priorities and stick with them; see Pareto’s Law aka the 20% rule
Multitasking doesn’t work. Focus!
Discipline has to be limited to the areas that are critical for success; develop one habit at a time for 66 days each (I don’t set New Year’s Resolutions so I thought this was interesting). Also, be accountable for your goals. If not, nothing will get done.
Willpower is a limited illusion. Use your mind less and you’re more likely to stick with your better options.
Do the important thing when it works for you; the book suggests “early” as in morning but adjust as needed. Literally block out time on your calendar, planner, whiteboard, whatever.
Just get started; break down complex things into small tasks.
Demand more from life. A poem by JB Rittenhouse called “My Wage” really hits home. Also, don’t let others demand more from you. Failure is certain when you try to please everyone.
Think about the focus of your life overall, and the focus of your life right now. What should you do now to get to the overall goal? What about 5 years from now, a year from now, a month, etc?
The Begging Bowl story. The moral is that happiness doesn’t come from wanting more; the metaphorical bowl will become a bottomless pit of human desire and greed. I thought this was a clever way for the author to say “expect less and you’ll be happier” which is true in many cases.

Things I Didn’t Like

Overall, the book was too “rah rah rah” for me, like a cheerleader who’s gotten stuck on the same chant and tries to break out of it by smiling harder and yelling louder. Some pep is good, but too much makes the experience feel cheap.
Many concepts were repeated multiple times, almost to the point of redundant redundancy. I understand that repetition helps readers remember, but it annoyed more than helped me focus on the concepts. Why not instead set up the book with the top goal and then break it down into the pieces, like he suggests we do with our life goals?
I really hate the printed-in underlines on the pithy statements. Let ME mark up the book if I so choose! (Though I would never do it, because I don’t buy books- I use the library!)
“Balance is a lie.” I greatly disagree! The author claims “counter-balance” is a better approach, but his description of counterbalancing just sounds like “finding balance with extra steps.” I argue finding the right ratio in everything is what’s needed; while the title of the book is The One Thing, we all know there is no such thing as One Thing in life- there will always be many things to do, competing choices, and many trade offs. Searching for a healthy ratio among Those Things helps keep people on keel, and trying to argue that “balance doesn’t exist so you should juggle via counterbalance” is counter-intuitive, confusing, and misleading.
“Big is Bad is a Lie.” Was the author really serious when the chapter ended with “And see just how big you can blow up your life”?
Retelling A Christmas Carol to give a pithy reason for why our purpose determines who we are felt…weird. While I agree that purpose is important, I felt there are much better stories out there people can relate to than an 1800’s Christmas story.

So overall, it’s a great book that has helped a lot of people–and can help you–find success in life, but I’d consider some of the caveats called out above as you read and apply it. Good luck!

Making a Simple Miter Saw Stand from Scrap Wood

Posted on March 20, 2020 by jared - Woodworking

“What good is a miter saw if you’re unable to saw?” said in the voice of Agent Smith to Neo

Last summer I was swamped with projects, including the bird cage stand and super sturdy kitchen chair. I didn’t have a ton of space to work in the garage, and was constantly moving things around to have a work surface.

For example, if I wanted to cut wood with the miter saw then I had to move the wood on my desk that was being glued together somewhere else, and later move the saw onto the floor to make room for the next stage of a separate project.

It was clear I needed a dedicated place for the miter saw, and started thinking about making a miter saw stand.

I had recently added this RIDGID shop vac to the list of things on the garage floor, and there was a perfect spot for it next to my work desk:

As I planned out my miter saw stand I realized I could save space by placing the shop vac under the stand. I then looked around at what other folks had done and found a few ideas for inspiration:

My other requirements were pretty simple:

I had to be able to remove the shop vac easily (so I could vacuum out the car or use the vacuum’s blower function after mowing the lawn)
be able to move the stand around for longer cuts, and
it had to fit in the space next to my work desk.

I also needed 4 inches of clearance from the bottom of the miter saw stand because of cinder blocks that stuck out partway from the garage wall (see the above picture). Since the wheels are 2.75 inches tall I decided to use 2x4s (with an actual height of 1.5 inches) bolted to plywood so the base would sit higher than the cinderblocks.

I had about 2 feet next to my work desk so I started with those dimensions and worked my way backwards.

I grabbed some extra plywood that was laying around and cut one piece to 23×22 inches for the base and another to 24×22 inches for the top (I wanted a bit more space at the top, and this gave me an extra half inch on the right and left sides).

I screwed in the 2x4s to the bottom piece of plywod with Spax screws:

*I screwed in from the top of the bottom piece, then flipped it over for the next step*

I then added these awesome rolling wheels with locks to the bottom so I could move the stand as needed:

I did a test fit and things were looking good:

For the legs on top of the base, initially I thought I’d use 4x4s (left over from the ultimate chair project) for each corner, however there wouldn’t be enough space to take the vacuum out from the front of the stand:

Instead, I ended up using 4x4s in the back and 2x4s in the front which allowed me to easily get the vacuum out.

I then used pocket hole screws to connect the 4×4 legs and 2x4s with some spare 1×6 boards:

*I have an unhealthy love for pocket hole screws*

I then attached the legs using even more pocket hole screws to the base:

*Hooray for kettlebells! Keeping things sturdy since the 18th century[1]*

After the legs were on, I attached the top with more Spax screws[2]:

I then added some 2x4s and a scrap 2×6 underneath the top piece for additional support:

Then I placed the miter saw on the stand, tested the wheels and locking function, and it worked!

I love that I could easily move the miter saw stand out to make cuts and then back into the corner when not in use.

Here’s a list of cuts so you can make it (and adjust for your own space as needed):

Cut to:	#	Part/Reason/Placement:	Cut?
58in x 8.5in	2	Bottom part of stand
23.75in x 8in	4	Middle parts of the supports
?23.75in x 3in	1	Top of cable holder box on the back
3in x 4.25in	2	Side pieces for the cable holder box on the back
3in x 4.25in	1	Back piece for the cable holder box on the back

As a final detail I got some ruler tape and attached it to both sides to make measuring for quick cuts a lot easier:

In the future I might add collapsible sides, but so far I haven’t needed them (plus the saw came with some removable side supports). If I do add collapsible sides then I’ll probably make a larger top piece so there’s space on each end for the collapsible ends to fit underneath.

Let me know what you think!

[1] It’s true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettlebell

[2] I love both pocket hole screws and Spax screws. I know, it’s weird.

Something Something Coronavirus

Posted on March 6, 2020 by jared - Market

I originally thought about titling this post “Obligatory Coronavirus Post” but then realized it isn’t really obligatory, is it?

I’m watching the news, articles, reactions, and memes about COVID-19 with fascination.

In early January[1] I saw a few memes like this one:

I laughed, upvoted, and then forgot about them.

Then on January 11th the first coronavirus death was recorded, and within a few weeks the new virus was sweeping the world (figuratively and literally).

It’s shaken the stock market, emptied grocery stores of toilet paper, and gripped our collective conscience like few other things have in recent memory.

During this time I’ve read various arguments on both sides of the “stocking up on masks and TP” debate as well as stock market and supply chain effects; this made me review my recession indicator dashboard and dividend investing strategy with some caution.

As I’ve gone through these topics, I wondered if we’re on a similar path to a broader economic recession in ~1 year as we saw in 2007-2008.

That is, it won’t be the virus that directly causes a financial crisis, but the ripple effects that surface after, when the economy is weakened- just like how the housing market’s decline set the stage for imploding derivatives and banks later on.

To illustrate: there are reports that shipping is decreasing, and areas that are heavily dependent on shipping could lay off workers since there are fewer things to unload. That ripples across the supply chain; e.g., truckers have less work since there are fewer things to ship from the boats, and other workers have less to do since they aren’t receiving shipments from the truckers, so all of the workers spend less on cars, food, clothes, etc. which results in lower demand and therefore lower profits at the companies that make those goods, so more layoffs happen and then the cycle continues…those who are laid off miss payments, loans default, and highly leveraged assets become unstable.

I’m not saying this to panic or get you to panic; instead, I’m trying to look at things logically, in part based on books I’ve read about the what lead up to the financial crisis and trying to prepare for what may happen now.

I’ll note that this time around the Fed has eased quickly (compared to 2007/2008), however given their accommodative policy over the past decade I do wonder how much that will help by itself…so prepare for more QE perhaps?

[1] The timestamp of this meme is January 4th. Uncanny.