Changing the game ~

A recent post/email from an online guru that I've read for years started with the line:



Don't play games you can't win.



That has been a theme of mine since I was a kid. I learned early on that others were better than me, so I had to change things up. Star Trek reinforced that idea with Captain Kirk and the crew changing the game so they could get to a better outcome for everyone involved, even their opponents.



For a long time in my career I kept bringing new things in because I knew I would never be "as good as" the old guys that didn't want to change. I remember when I developed a web-based log system for my workplace some of the old guys were still saying "nobody uses that" as I implemented it's 24/7 use. Instead of fighting against their bias and opposition I went with the people that actually wanted me to do it and succeeded. It was an amazing feeling!



I've had to do that in relationships, too. People have made assumptions about me that were wrong and pushed me away for years. Instead of continuing to wish things were different I've learned to accept things as they are and go in my own direction. I don't like the feeling of loss but have learned to accept and live with it.



The article by Seth Godin was good. You can check it out at

https://seths.blog/2025/09/system-architect-system-victim/



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Picky about outcomes ~

One of the things that I have learned about myself is that I am picky about outcomes. It's not that I'm picky about brands, it's about how they're going to act or what kind of effect they're going to have on me and my family.



When I was a kid, my mother told me that Skippy peanut butter was the best peanut butter, that the others just weren't the same, and Skippy was the best. I carried that into my adult life until late in my 50s.



If we didn't have Skippy peanut butter, I didn't eat peanut butter sandwiches or peanut butter and crackers. My wife tried over and over, she would buy the cheap stuff, the store brand stuff. I would taste it and think it tasted bad, and I would go and buy my own peanut butter.



Same thing with canned vegetables. My mother taught me that canned vegetables by Del Monte or one of the other brands were the best. The no-name store brand generic canned vegetables usually had bad stuff in them, or they weren't the same thing, they were lower quality.



I got over that one pretty quick. Green beans are green beans.



When my wife and I would travel and we had all four kids, or just three, or just two, we would always pack a cooler with ice and drinks and cups and snacks in the vehicle. Because when you stop at a convenience store to fill up with gas and four kids and your wife go into the store, you end up spending 50 bucks in the store on top of the gas that you bought. Money was tight at times because kids are expensive and the cooler worked out great in the car.



Now that my children are adults and they don't travel with us, I really prefer not to do the ice in the cooler deal and prefer to just stop and grab a bag of peanuts and keep rolling.



I like my green tea and because it's green tea, I can drink it either at room temperature or in the car temperature or cold or even hot.



When I go somewhere and the forecast calls for rain, I tend to take my umbrella. It's not because I'm scared of getting wet, it's because typically when we go out to do things a one-hour jaunt turns into a five or six hour ordeal that just goes on and on. And if I get wet I'm going to be unhappy! My hair will be damp my clothes will stay damp. I will be grumpy and irritable more than I usually am.



And so I carry an umbrella just in case it rains I Prefer the outcome of being dry over taking the chance and being wet.



Because I retired from a job where I was a highly trained pattern matcher I can sometimes predict what's going to happen. Sometimes way further in advance than my wife or others around me. I Just pick up on things. I've been around a while And I like the outcomes that I like.



I'm picky about the outcomes of my endeavors. I don't like to fail. I fail a lot and I really don't like it.



I don't like to look foolish even though I'd look foolish often So I do things to influence the outcomes so that none of those things happen to me. Or I minimize the possibilities of it happening to me. I'm not picky about brands I'm picky about outcomes.



Shirts have been a fascinating thing. For so long cotton shirts were the way to go and I would sweat in them and the sweat would stay and I would look foolish. So I wouldn't go anywhere or I would have to change shirts.



I discovered that quick dry Under Armor shirts don't show the sweat that I have pouring out of my body. At least not as much as cotton shirts do. And they are lighter and feel better on my skin. So I like to wear Under Armor shirts.



I prefer shirts with a button-down collar if I'm wearing a dress shirt. When I wear a shirt with an open collar it just feels like I'm in the 70s in a disco outfit and look like one of those advertising executives out on a Friday lunch. I don't like looking like that so I'm picky about the outcome when I wear clothes. I even found shirts that I really liked but a lot of them were sold as open collar shirts. So I bought a quick button attacher and I turned them into button-down collar shirts myself. It worked out great!



I don't see anything wrong with being picky about outcomes. If other people see it as a mental illness or as something that you're just hard to get along with that's their issue not yours.



I'm just trying to protect myself from what might happen if the outcome is bad.



+++

Guyana Trip Thoughts ~

I recently visited the country of Guyana. My wife and went with some friends who grew up in Guyana and some other people doing missionary work there.



Guyana is a beautiful country that is 500 miles north of the equator in South America. Georgetown, the capital city, is on the coast beside the Demerara river. The city is actually below sea level so they have a sea wall that protects the city from major flooding.



We had lots of fun there! The food was delicious, with a lot of mild curry and jerk seasonings. The people were nice, especially in the open markets. We got to ride all the way to New Amsterdam and back one day, enjoying the floating bridges they used to cross the rivers. And we got to ride all the way to Parika, known as the "end of the road". We even went on an adventure and flew to see Kaieteur Falls, the tallest drop waterfall in the world - the tannic acid filled water was beautiful, giving the waterfall a brownish hue as it flowed and fell.



I learned some things that I didn't know while we were in Guyana: :



- Some people put necklaces and bracelets on their children to ward off evil spirits.



- Almost every tree in a home's yard is some kind of fruit tree.



- Several fruits and teas from Guyana have cancer fighting properties.



- "Take it from she" is a valid sentence meaning take it from her.



- The kids call you "Uncle" instead of "sir" after getting some time with you. Nice.



- Time is relative. My five minutes is usually not the same as their five minutes.



- Many of the homes are also businesses.



- Houses are built on stilts. Then the lower level is filled in to expand living space. Not always closed in.





Because Guyana was a British colony they mostly speak English, just sometimes with a strong Caribbean accent that makes you pay attention. And they drive on the left side of the road with a lot less space between cars, motorcycles, scooters, big trucks, and horse-drawn carts than I am used to.



Guyana is a beautiful country. If you ever get a chance to visit I highly recommend it!



Map:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/GvcTYxkWmu1yHgqy6



Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana?wprov=sfla1



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Coding by hand ~

I recently read an article working through the claim that AI is writing 90% of all programming code now. The article explained the claims and then talked about how programmers end spending too much time checking and fixing the code generated by whatever artificial intelligence was used. The conclusion was that the human coders are more creative and adaptive and do things "by hand" rather than rely on the machines.



I'm not sure if I believe all of that but the story reminded me of something.



During my career as an air traffic control specialist I did a lot of things to support the operation. I earned a degree in Computer Information Systems and used it to develop small applications to "automate" some tedious things. It was a lot of fun!



A job in headquarters for controllers with programming experience opened up in headquarters. They were assembling a team from the "front lines" to develop business knowledge applications that made sense to the field facilities. A co-worker that was not a programmer applied for the job.. His justification was that they were using Visual Basic to develop the programs and he had learned how to click options in the VB menu and then auto-generate an "application". He couldn't do anything with the code after it was generated but still wanted the job.



He was selected for the job. As he prepared to go to headquarters things changed in his life and he had to back out of the offer to work headquarters. They chose me to go in his place. And I got to help develop applications that we used in feeders l facilities nationwide.



I never used the auto-generate function in VB. Because it was too much work to wade through all the junk the program generated so I could adapt it to what we were trying to do.



So I tend to agree with the conclusions in the article..



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Foreign radio ~

I grew up listening to radio. My grandmother gave me a white electric clock radio that was straight out of the 70s. It had the funny looking lines for numbers on the Art Deco clock that was tall and narrow with short hands.



I'm pretty sure it only did AM radio. And when I was seven years old I would sit in my bedroom and listen after school to Paul Harvey and Chicken Man and then play while they talked about the news and all the other stuff that the adults like to listen to.



I enjoyed hearing about the weather and I continued listening as I got older. As a teenager I listened to the pop music radio stations. I wasn't in the Future Farmers of America (FFA) and so I didn't listen to country music hardly at all.



I shied away from the heavy rock radio stations because that was supposedly satanic music that I didn't want to let in my head, even though I really enjoyed some of it. I didn't really listen to news radio. When I started driving, I got tired of commercials and so I enjoyed my cassette tapes a little bit more, but I still listened to a lot of radio.



When a good song would come on, I'd pump it up. When the news or commercials or weather forecast came on, I'd switch to a different station or turn it down. This continued on in college and as I started working.



I live in the metro Atlanta area and so traffic reporting became very important to me for a while. The route that I took from home to work and back was such that there usually wasn't any traffic and so I kind of started tuning out the traffic reporting unless I was going downtown or around on the perimeter and I avoided doing that because of the traffic.



I remember listening to Christian radio stations on AM when I was working in my 20s. I especially enjoyed Jay Vernon McGee and would listen to him whenever I could. I got into talk radio in my 40s.



I listened to some of the earlier talk radio people in the Atlanta area. Glenn Beck and his hesitation between words in odd places drove me crazy so I didn't listen to him very much. I enjoyed Neil Bortz but he was on in the mornings and so I usually only listened when I had an evening shift. Sometimes he was over the top and so I would have to turn him off. I listened to Rush Limbaugh and had a lot of friends who listened to Rush Limbaugh and they made a point of taking their lunch break every day at noon so that they could listen.



My job was such that I couldn't do that but if I could get out I'd try to tune in although it didn't work out very often. I didn't really get into Rush Limbaugh until I could download the recordings and listen to them on a device at my own choice of time and then i thoroughly enjoyed it but i missed the whole radio experience i remember when we were going to travel to europe the first time in the early 1990s i was so excited to be able to listen to radio all in europe i had my walkman and i was all set to go it was a digital walkman and i made sure i had extra batteries we got there and this was before the internet was really anything for us to use and i learned when i got on the ground in england and in continental europe that their fm frequencies are even numbered my digital tuner and my walkman was odd numbered and would not do the even numbers and so if the radio station over there was 94.2 on the fm dial i could only get 94.1 or 94.3 and had to listen to a static key signal the entire time if i listened at all disappointing but i still did it once the internet grew and became easy enough i enjoyed listening to radio over the internet streaming i would listen to french dance music and British news reports sometimes I'd tune in and stream Italian radio but not very often.



I still do that when we're getting ready to travel internationally. I'll try to find a streaming radio station or two in the area that we're going and I'll listen for a little bit just to get a feel for the speech and the language and the feel for what they're advertising.



Now I really don't like commercials and so I really enjoy streaming music with no ads. I pay subscription fees to a couple of services to make sure i don't get any ads. I enjoyed XM satellite radio for many years but I got tired of them claiming to be "commercial free" and then between almost every song that I listened to on most of the stations that i listened to I had to listen to them talk about how great XM radio was and how everyone should subscribe and check out the other channels available on XM radio. This is the first year that i'm actually going to be free of XM radio and just go streaming completely or over the air.



My wife and I are gearing up for another international trip, so I searched the internet for a couple of radio stations in South America, and I started listening again, just to get a feel for the accent and what they're advertising.



Fun!

No three-legged race ~

For a long time I felt like I was in a three-legged race in several things. Family things. With things. Church things.



Then I would find out that the people I thought I was doing these things with didn't see it that way and had left me out. In many cases they had no idea how my commitment worked and just didn't even think about me. In some cases it was a very purposeful thing.



In all of these cases I'm being vague about it hurt me deeply..I felt betrayed..I felt left out. I felt like I wasn't even thought of let alone considered.



I was often encouraged to express my feelings, but when I did and explained why I felt them things usually got worse.



I've learned through those experiences to just keep my feelings and explanations to myself when I can. Life is easier this way. And I know that God saw it and will take care of me.



Still challenging, though. After a life of living under the gun and on the edge easing back from expressing myself is challenging. But I'm trying...



+++

Tried jackfruit ~

I tried jackfruit for the first time recently. I've seen it in stores over the years. Usually one of the farmers markets where Oriental people tend to run the place. Although a lot of them were run by Mexicans and Central Americans too.



And it's funny there's one store called Nam Dae Mon. And it's got everybody in there. Africans, Mexicans, Dominicans, people from all of the Asian countries. It's amazing. I really like going there but I don't go there a lot.



I saw some jackfruit that was already cut up and wrapped in plastic and I bought a quarter of a jackfruit. A lot less messy from what I read because apparently the goo inside the jackfruit is very sticky and hard to remove. They even suggest that people doing that either coat their hands in coconut oil and coat whatever they're putting it in and cutting it on in coconut oil or even wear gloves. But buying it already cut up into a quarter of it all that stuff was gone.



Four bucks. I got enough jackfruit to make probably one meal for two people. I roasted the seeds and several of them exploded in the air fryer when I was trying to roast them. But they had a decent flavor when I tasted them.



The jackfruit itself, the petals of the flower, actually had a mildly sweet taste. From what I read, the lady described it as a cross between pineapple, papaya, cucumber, and a couple other sweet, tangy fruits.



And she was right on. It tasted really good. I tasted it raw. I cooked it in olive oil with some Everglades seasoning and some of my "David's mix" seasoning. And then after cooking it, tossing it in the oil and making sure it softened up a little bit because I wasn't real clear if it was ripe or not.



I tasted it and it actually had that mildly sweet taste. I put some barbecue sauce in a small dish and dipped it. That was amazing! All of a sudden it was the sweet tangy barbecue sauce and the sweet tangy of the fruit. I could see where vegetarians would enjoy having that as a barbecue sandwich.



I only ate a little bit because I want to see what it does to my stomach but this may be a new adventure to take my wife on or maybe even one of my adult children when they come to visit.



Fun!



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Hanging a track light ~

I completed a project recently where I made a track light for my living room. I had Hue Bloom lights on the fireplace mantle and every time my wife would swap out the decorations and pictures we would talk about how nice it would be to have a track light on the ceiling instead of the Bloom lights on the mantle.



But I didn't want to give up the color and control the Hue Blooms gave us. I shopped for track lights and didn't find any that would take a full-sized Hue light bulb, so I decided to make one myself.



I hade never done anything like this! I've made a couple of things with wood, but they usually turned out looking like an amateur made them. I didn't want that for my living room so I tried some new things.



I got a 4-foot board and some can lights, cut a groove down the middle of the board for the wires, and then spray-painted the board black. I got an electric box and spray-painted it black, too, and then mounted it on the end of the board to hold the plugs going into an extension cord.



Everything came together ove the course of a month. I thought it looked pretty good, so I showed my wife and we agreed that we could hang this in the living room.



As usual my brain kicked into overdrive trying to convince me that I was messing up. The chant in my head went on and on about how the ceiling was going to fall out, about how the lights would burn up, and how this was all going to fail. When I got the track light up against the ceiling and was ready to put the screws in to hold it up there my pestering inner voice was at full volume trying to stop me.



But I didn't stop. I hung the track light, then ran the extension cord the way I wanted to run it. Everything turned out like I envisioned, and nothing caved in at this point.



I'm glad I've learned to press through the noise in my head and get things done.