Favorite Things

When the dog bites, when the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad

I simply remember my favorite things

And then I don't feel so bad

JULIE ANDREWS, My Favorite Things

I strive to not be a materialist, but I do live in a material world with material needs. Some of those material things become favorite things. Here is a list of some of my favorite things.

1. Overshirts

When I met my wife, her modest attire made me want to elevate my game. I was into T-shirts, cargo shorts, and sandals at the time in the uniform I now refer to as "douchewear" because this is how douchebags dress today. I traded that look out for workwear which includes a button up collared overshirt. I have a collection of these shirts which I wear year round. My T-shirt has gone back to its historic position as underwear.

2. Coffee

Every man has his vice. For some, it would be cigarettes. For others, it would be cigars. Then, there is whiskey and other adult beverages. I don't have any vices except strong black coffee, and I am keeping it. I appreciate coffee as both a morning drink and an evening social drink that makes you friendly and talkative without making you stupid or costing you a DUI conviction.

3. My house hoodie

I have a black Carhartt hoodie that is a decade old that I wear around the house when it gets cold. I like it because I can cover my melon when its gets chilly and stick my hands in the front pocket. I never wear this thing outside of the house unless I am checking the mail. It is too casual to be a part of my daily uniform. But it is comfortable on cold winter days.

4. My Sony Walkman

I have owned this radio for almost 20 years now. The belt clip got broken, but that doesn't matter. It sits by my bedside almost always where I listen in the nighttime hours until I fall asleep. I also tune in the morning news and the weather band. It is my favorite radio.

5. Melon covers

I have male pattern baldness, and I shave my head. Naturally, I am a fan of hats which I call "melon covers." They come in three varieties--ballcaps, boonies, and beanies. The ballcaps are the default, but I will wear a boonie in the summer for walking and working in the yard while the beanie comes out when the temperatures become brain freezing. Otherwise, I wear ballcaps that most people recognize as "dad hats." I don't wear hats for fashion but for their utilitarian function.

6. Safety razors

When you have as much cranial real estate as I have, you need a quality razor that doesn't cost a lot of money. I made the switch to safety razors from cartridge razors in my forties, and I have never looked back. I can never understand why men abandoned safety razor shaving for expensive cartridge razors. Your grandpa got it right.

7. My wife's boombox

My wife wanted a radio for the kitchen, and I bought her a Sony boombox that also plays CDs and cassettes. That is one of the best purchases I ever made because it makes her happy. The happy wife equals a happy life. This boombox is the most played device in our home. She enjoys listening to oldies and eighties radio stations, Reader's Digest CDs, and the mixtapes I make for her. I confess that I enjoy listening to her tunes, too.

8. My wife's Chromebook

My wife had a Windows laptop when I met her, and she hated that thing. I stealthily bought a Chromebook for myself knowing she was going to steal it from me. And she did! She mocked it at first as a "Gameboy" and not a real computer. But she tried it that one time, and that was all she wrote. She was hooked and is now a huge fan of the "toy" she once derided. She doesn't care to own an iPad because she likes a keyboard with physical buttons.

9. Books

I have been a regular reader since picking up the habit in kindergarten. Books are tops for me when it comes to personal entertainment. I would rather read the book than watch the movie. I read slowly these days because of the fatigue from my TBI, but I am grateful to God that I am still able to read and able to see to read. Books have been good friends over the years. I also use an ancient Kindle.

10. My camouflage backpack

I own three backpacks. One is a very used backpack from the thrift store that belonged to a school kid. This is my "rat bag" I retain for carrying food and water for traipsing outdoors. Another one is an almost new blue JanSport backpack I got from the thrift store, but I keep it for future use. Until then, it remains in the closet. This leaves my primary backpack which is a camouflage hunting backpack made by Fieldline I bought from Walmart in my thirties. It still looks brand new which proves that you can buy good stuff from Walmart. I have never hunted anything in my life.

11. Taco Bell

It has been years since I have eaten fast food. I never go anywhere. When I do, I pack a lunch. When I do have to eat out, Taco Bell is where I go because they are friendly to my plant based diet and to my wallet. I hear their prices have gone up a bit in these inflationary times. Subway used to be a strong number 2 for me but fell out of favor for me with the end of the $5 footlong. Chipotle and Moe's are other options, but I find them too expensive relative to Taco Bell.

12. My Klean Kanteen water bottle

I own four Klean Kanteens, but the primary product for me is the water bottle I take with me when I go for a walk or a trip to town. It is also by my bedside. I drink from this thing all day long. I have owned that thing for more than a decade. It might be time to clean it.

13. Bic mechanical pencils

These are disposable pencils, but you can put new leads in them for a fraction of the price of a new pencil. You can't do this with a Papermate. A more expensive pencil like the Pentel would make sense except for the tiny eraser underneath the metal cap which is aggravating to use. The Bic eraser is not so good leaving smudges instead of erasures. Papermate wins on that score. Overeall, I think Bic is the best value for your writing dollar.

14. Georgia Giant workboots

I bought my first pair of these boots in my early thirties from a Quality Farm & Country store in my town that vanished a few years later. Georgia Giants been my number one workboots since then. I tried a pair of Wolverines that caused me pain and grief. Once you find your boot, you don't want to switch. I am now on my third pair of these boots.

15. Mysteries

When I was a kid, I enjoyed reading Encyclopedia Brown mysteries. As I got older, I graduated to The Three Investigators and the Hardy Boys. Finally, I got into Sherlock Holmes and watching Perry Mason on television. I also love Agatha Christie books and movies. My favorite detective of all time is Columbo. I just find the solving of crimes to be great fun.

16. Coast to Coast AM

I'm not sure when I started listening to C2C, but I remember listening to Art Bell sometime in the 2000s. You can still catch old Bell episodes on the radio on the Somewhere in Time show that plays on Saturday night. I have always enjoyed the show as cheap entertainment, and it is something my wife and I enjoy. These days, I don't stay up to listen to the show but listen to the free clips podcast.

17. Pocket calendar

I use a 2 year pocket calendar that I buy from Big Lots. I still use the original black plastic folder that came with the ones I used to buy from the office supply store in my town that went out of business. I hate electronic calendars. I prefer paper.

18. My flip phone

I am famous for my smartphone hatred, but I do love my flip phone mainly because of the form factor. I owned a candybar phone in the ancient past with the dreaded butt dial, and I was happy to get a flip phone. I have stuck with those flip phones to the present day. I was amused to discover that smartphones brought back the butt dial. If I am ever forced to get a smartphone, it will be a foldable one that fits in my pocket.

19. Douay-Rheims Bible

I am not a fan of Catholicized Protestant translations of the Holy Bible. One of my Protestant seminary professors said that there was no translation without interpretation. I agree which is why I prefer the Douay-Rheims translation. It is the Catholic translation.

20. Charlie's Blog

Most people have social media accounts. I don't. I tried Facebook and left. I tried Twitter and left with massive withdrawal and some relapses. The blog remains. The blog has evolved over the years, but it remains my favorite way to reach out to the internet world.

This is not an exhaustive list of my favorite things but just a list that I pulled from the top of my head. The only thing these things have in common is that I like them and appreciate them for what they bring to my life.

Slow Jogging Versus Fast Walking

DISCLAIMER: I am not a physician, healthcare professional, or exercise trainer. Consult with these experts before beginning any fitness program.

72 year old marathoner and life time runner.  I love to run, but encourage anyone looking for cardiovascular health or calorie reduction to stick to walking.  Running for most isn't worth the increased chances of injury.  Unless you really enjoy running, stick to walking.

BANANAMAN

When it comes to finding solutions and strategies in life, I find my research brings me to two final options--the hog option and the pig option. These labels come from the old and famous dictum that "pigs get fed while hogs get slaughtered." When I was researching radios for prepping, I found that ham radio was the hog option while CB radio was the pig option. With investing, I found that Warren Buffett value style investing was the hog option while the John Bogle index fund investing was the pig option. With the fitness thing, I find that slow jogging is the hog option while fast walking is the pig option.

Slow jogging burns more calories per minute than fast walking. This is because jogging causes a lot of bouncing like jumping rope. Slow jogging also exerts more stimulus on the cardiovascular system. The downside of jogging is the risk of injury. You have to burn more calories per minute with jogging because you probably won't be doing it for very long.

Fast walking is not as intense as slow jogging, but the reduced risk of injury makes walking the more sustainable option. In other words, the pig who walks is getting fed while the hog who jogs lies slaughtered on the couch with injuries. As someone who has done both jogging and walking, I believe walking is the better choice.

One of the problems people face when they choose the pig option is seeing some lucky hog living it up without getting slaughtered. This happens. I have settled for average returns as I have watched Warren Buffett make a killing. This regret is a false regret. I am not Warren Buffett. Most people who attempt to be like Buffett end up underperforming those index funds.

To be a well fed pig, you have to ignore the hogs. This is what I do when I see a runner in the neighborhood usually with a look of pain and misery on his or her face. I think this is needless suffering on their part, but they made their choice. I have made mine. I choose the pleasant walk. I have not regretted this choice.

The Midrange

That’s when the midrange and distortion began to fill out the sound of the band. I’ve always been a fan of that.

ADAM CLAYTON

The genesis of this post came from a YouTube video from U2's Adam Clayton and a custom amp he was promoting. In the process of that promotion, Adam Clayton gave his philosophy about playing bass. For Clayton, he didn't want the quiet almost silent bass playing you hear on many records, but he also isn't Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. With U2, the bass fills the role that a rhythm guitar plays in other bands. This sound and foundation is what Adam Clayton calls the "midrange." I think it is a genius strategy, and the midrange concept has spilled over into my thinking on other areas of life. I will now elaborate for the Gentle Reader.

Little Caesar's is a cheap pizza but on the low range. Mellow Mushroom is on the high range with its gourmet offerings and high price tag. Pizza Hut is the midrange. This pizza analogy captures the midrange concept.

Now, I am not a midrange type of guy. I don't eat pizza, but I used to eat pizza. When I was paying, it was Little Caesar's all the way. But I appreciate the midrange.

I find that the midrange captures the sweet spot of what people want. This would be Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Nike, and Levi's. The midrange is where people return again and again. Some people despise the midrange, but I don't. I rarely choose the midrange option, but I am not going to throw shade on it either.

The secret of hitting the midrange is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If you give people three options, they tend to choose the one in the middle. The general public doesn't want the extremes of things. You see this in music, cars, movies, and on and on.

The problem with the midrange is the boredom thing which leads to a crisis of confidence. This is how Coca-Cola becomes new Coke. This is why U2 strives to not sound like U2 except they end up sounding like U2. This is why McDonald's will branch out into new restaurant concepts only to come back to being McDonald's.

I value consistency over novelty, so I never appreciate it when a midrange whatever tries to change the formula. At the end of the day, people want their Coke to be Coke. They don't want Pepsi with a red label.

As I said, I am not a midrange guy. I don't drink soda pop but water from the tap. I buy store brands and generic brands most of the time. I listen to AC/DC instead of U2. I find that all of my choices on things tend towards the cheap, the gritty, and the blue collar. I find that the midrange appeals to people from the middle class not the working class.

I encourage people to embrace the midrange and not apologize for liking it. You might be derided as a "normie" because haters gotta hate. Whatever. It is said that Kurt Cobain utterly despised Phil Collins. Cobain also painted a ceiling with his own brains. Phil Collins is still awesome. There is no shame in the midrange. Stop apologizing for it.

The Boring And Addictive Internet

The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.

CAL NEWPORT

The inspiration for this post comes from my wife who has recently been focused on living a life that she calls "analog." Essentially, this means spending the daytime hours away from the internet and getting things done while enjoying old school pleasures like the radio or a physical book. Neither of us possesses a smartphone, so we live a relatively distraction free lifestyle. It is not an internet free lifestyle.

The dumbphone guru Jose Briones admitted that ditching his smartphone did not end his addictive attachment to the internet, but it certainly lessened it. He replaced time on his smartphone with time on his computer. It may surprise some Gentle Readers, but you can still access the internet with a desktop PC or laptop computer. These devices are how I use the internet while I use my flip phone to call and text.

Other people on the dumbphone reddit choose to dumb down their smartphones because they still want to access email, Google Maps, and other apps they find necessary to function in life. They mostly choose to delete social media apps.

I do not believe the device is the cause of the problems of the internet so much as what is on the internet. I had a Twitter addiction while using a desktop PC. Having a smartphone on me 24/7 would have been catastrophic. Regardless, Twitter was the problem and not the device.

Social media is part of what I refer to as the "addictive" internet. This is opposed to the "boring" internet that I use which would be my Gmail account, Google News, and my Inoreader feed reader. I read mostly news content. Beyond these three services, I use YouTube and Spotify to find new content like podcasts or gardening videos. This audio/visual content would bore most everyone else to tears.

I got on the internet sometime in the late 1990s. I never regretted it. By 2007, that changed. Facebook was becoming a thing. Before that time, I was into the boring internet. I did not realize that I was becoming hooked to the addictive internet. At some point, this frog jumped out of the boiling pot. I had been scalded and vowed to never let it happen again.

I stick with the boring internet now. I have found that the addicting part of the addictive internet is the social interaction. We post things and then recheck to see if it was liked. People crave this feedback. Likes are small doses of validation. Dislikes are hits of adrenaline. Realizing this, I practice anti-social media with this blog. I have no clue if the Gentle Reader likes or dislikes the content here. If I go down that road, this blog will be nothing more than memes and cat videos.

Because I use the boring internet, I tend to not go on it much except to read email, check the weather, and catch up on the news. This usually happens in the morning for a brief bit and after 8 p.m. each evening. The rest of my day is internet free with my wife's radio filling my mental space. I am not intentional on this whatsoever. I just don't find the internet that interesting to waste my whole day on it. That is the power of the boring internet.

I think it is a great idea to trade in your smartphone for a dumbphone. An even better idea is to delete all of your social media accounts. That kills the addictive internet. This is what happened to me when I kicked the Twitter habit. I have not had a problem with wasted time on the internet since then. I don't have pangs of remorse and guilt over countless hours wasted on the internet.

I also don't have FOMO because I am not missing out on anything. I read the news daily. I do not have a reddit account which some consider to be social media. I just read the reddits I find interesting on my Inoreader. Without the account, I post nothing, so I have no compulsion to visit the site. I just consume the content the reddit community produces for free. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, this content is useful. Reddit reminds me of the old school messageboards I used to read back in the day.

I encourage the Gentle Reader to reject the addictive internet and embrace the boring internet. The first step is to quit social media. The next step is to get a dumbphone or dumb down your smartphone to essential tools and apps. The third step is to push time on the internet to the margins of your day. For me, this is first thing in the morning for an email, news, and weather check then deeper reading after 8 p.m. each evening. Finally, if you find yourself doomscrolling on YouTube, this is essentially the same as channel surfing on television. Turn it off and go to bed.

When you embrace the boring internet, you will become calmer in your mood. You will have more quality time in your day. You won't worry about missing anything because it will be waiting for you when you get back like a book with a bookmark. And, it will be boring stuff. It won't be the FOMO of what your friends are doing on social media. It may take some time to kick the habit, but it will be worth it.

Libraries

Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.

ANNE HERBERT

I am into books. I am into decluttering. Saying those two things together is like saying you are into eating steak and promoting animal rights. This is because books clutter your life. The same can be said for other forms of physical media and even digital media. These collections of media are libraries. I am making my peace with libraries.

Minimalists are notorious for not having libraries of physical media. They hide their media digitally on their Apple products and the iCloud. This seems wonderful until a hurricane knocks out your grid, or you forget your password. For myself, my personal libraries are both physical and digital. I have physical books, an ancient Kindle, and a hard drive with PDF files. On top of this, I have CDs, DVDs, and hoarded links to various articles, podcasts, and videos. My supply of content is diverse, redundant, and limitless. I doubt that there will ever come a time in my life when I will run out of this content even in adverse circumstances.

I don't own much stuff. I have an eclectic collection of tools, clothes, and supplies. I don't pursue hobbies which generates most clutter for men. The closest thing I have to a hobby is this blog which is a digital creation occupying no space in my life. My life is very spartan except for books. I have a decent supply of books on hand. My wife also has books.

I am not a book collector. I don't go chasing rare first editions or any of that. I am also not an audiophile or a cinephile. I don't have a collection so much as a supply. My library of content amounts to a pantry for the mind. That is my best definition of a library.

Libraries are storehouses for supplies for the mind. I do not declutter food unless it has gone to rot. Similarly, why should I feel shame for not decluttering books? If I were a minimalist, I could pare down to just food, water, shelter, and clothing. This is known as existing. This is not the same as living.

Libraries are for living. The life of the mind is second only to the life of the soul, and the two are intertwined. As a Roman Catholic, much of my reading material pertains to my faith. When I read these things, I am loving God with my mind. Consequently, books are indispensable to working out my salvation.

I do declutter books that I have read. I donate these books to the Friends of the Library or the Habitat for Humanity thrift store. I hang on to those volumes that I may need for future reference, but I tend to declutter the fiction once I reach the end.

I feel stress over my reading list as if it were a To Do list, but this is not accurate. I listened to a podcast recently that advised thinking of your reading list not as a bucket but as a river. You dip out what you need for the moment, but you don't try and drink the river. It should reassure us that our reading options will never be exhausted. There will always be more to read.

The best way to limit content consumption is not by supply but time. I tend to do my reading at night during the hours the TV networks call "prime time" which is 8 to 11 p.m. I watch very little television, so I read a chapter from a book and the news from the internet. 10 o'clock is my cutoff. It's not a hard cutoff, but I am tired by then. I cannot do the binge consumption of anything now. My damaged brain won't allow it.

The main point for me is to make peace with my libraries of content and to see them as a supply for the mind instead of clutter in my space. I am selective and restrictive in what I choose to consume, but the supply remains limitless and always will. I will now accept this and embrace this. I will leave decluttering for actual clutter and not for my supplies.