the animal's journal

[Western Red Cedar]

Beautiful photography - thank you for sharing! Are you open to different locations for a future cycle tour or specifically interested in returning to the SW?

[theanimal]

I'm generally open to cycling anywhere. Mrs. Animal and I would like to bike Mexico north to south and we're planning on doing so this past fall, but baby animal arrived. I'd also like to bike across the length of the southern US, near the border and Gulf and I think a ride along the Appalachians would be enjoyable. Do you have any suggestions?

[Western Red Cedar]

I think biking the islands around the Salish sea would make for a great trip. You could use it as a "trial trip" to test your gear and the viability of a longer distance trip elsewhere. It is a little closer to your home base and offers a nice balance of access to nature and communities of different sizes. It has a connection with the geography of the southern Alaskan coastline that I think you would appreciate. You could also adjust the trip length based on your respective schedules - anywhere from a long weekend to a few months. I've added it to my bucket list after talking to some cyclists on the ferry from Victoria/Surrey to Anacortes a few years back. Vancouver Island would be pretty amazing in and of itself.

You wouldn't have access to the same amount of public land and would have to manage with the rain, but the scenery and beaches would be pretty epic. I think the local community would also be quite supportive with warm showers, recommendations, and good will. When you spend some time in PT you'll get a feel for that environment and can probably ask around about touring through the islands and into Canada. Just remember that summers in the Puget Sound are drastically different than winter and early spring.

[theanimal]

@WRC-Thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to look further into that. I was reading about the Olympic Discovery Trail a few nights ago. It'd be fun to find a way to connect that for some type of trip around the islands.

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@AxelHeyst was gracious enough to invite me on his podcast to chat and we had some fun. In case anyone missed it, here is the link

My PFD year experiment ended right around $6,800. Nearly double what I was shooting for but about half the expenses I had last year, so overall a success. Transportation was my biggest category by far, with much of the costs resulting from the expenses of our trip. These will almost certainly be lower next year, but I will have the added expense of renting a cabin in Pt Townsend for 3 months. Either way, with lower travel costs and health care costs, next year's total expense should be far lower than this year.

Not much else to report. We spent time with family, then I drove back across the country solo to WA. With baby animal, each day is full. Days that would have been very lackluster and boring in the past are now fully satisfying. We are very lucky!

Mrs. Animal and I started a tradition a couple years ago of going on self guided taco tours. There have been 6 so far in Mexico, Chicago and California. We only do them in areas with large Mexican populations and try to find small, authentic, hole in the wall places. About a week ago, we went to Pilsen (Mexican neighborhood in Chicago) for the second year in a row and this tour was the best one yet. Mrs. Animal had some friends of mine join us as a surprise for my birthday. Tasty tacos, a mariachi band and good company as we walked through some very fierce winds. I focused on getting good at making pizza last year. This year I plan on getting good at making Mexican food.

Speaking of pizza. My mom got into making it earlier this year as well and we had a friendly competition last week with the rest of our family as the judges. We made 4 pizzas a piece, all of which were very well received. The main difference was in crust texture. My mom used a pizza steel which resulted in far crispier crust than I was able to achieve with a baking sheet and cast iron. It was a lot of fun and we are looking forward to doing it again.

I finally arrived on the west coast today, sans baby animal and Mrs. Animal who are visiting other relatives on the east coast. We will be apart for the next month, which I am not excited about.

I would like to focus more on improving communication this year. I think both in terms of quantity and quality. This has been an on and off again focus for maybe a decade now. I come from a long line of stubborn men and am trying to be more open. I think I am getting better with it. I am going to revisit some books I've read on the topic and make more of a deliberate effort to put their methods to practice. I listed some of them below:

-Nonviolent Communication
-How to Have Impossible Conversations
-How to Be Wrong
-Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me
-How to Win Friends and Influence People

A happy new year to all and I wish you all health, love and prosperity in 2023. Thanks for reading.

[RoamingFrancis]

I love Pilsen. I know some people in the artist community down there. Have you been to the Museum of Mexican Art?

I listened to your podcast interview and enjoyed it very much. Lol'd at "the odds are good, but the goods are odd."

It is cool to see how low your spending is. I have not been tracking mine recently because I have been focused on other things. Should probably get back into it but I need to figure out how to do ADHD-friendly spreadsheeting that is easy on the executive function. Maybe I can find a software that doesn't use right angles for the boxes where I have to put in the numbers.

I consider myself to be good at communication, for the most part. I also consider myself to be stubborn. I think that tapping into your feminine side is helpful for most men when it comes to interpersonal skills.

[Frugalchicos]

Pilsen is pretty cool. Lagunitas Brewery is a very nice tour too.

We recently went on a tour to the Goose Island brewery and it was a blast.

Congrats on your year expenses. I know they are double of what you wanted, but they are still crazy low compared to an average family in the states.

[not sure]

I would like to focus more on improving communication this year.

I recently read "For Women Only" by Shauni Feldhahn with DH and found it very eye-opening. Definitely improved my comms with DH.
The author has a companion book, "For Men Only", I have not read it but may be a good addition to your list

[Ego]

I would like to focus more on improving communication this year. I think both in terms of quantity and quality. This has been an on and off again focus for maybe a decade now. I come from a long line of stubborn men and am trying to be more open. I think I am getting better with it. I am going to revisit some books I've read on the topic and make more of a deliberate effort to put their methods to practice. I listed some of them below:

1. This morning Mrs. Ego forwarded the Gottman's Marriage Minute email newsletter to me. She may or may not be trying to tell me something.

https://www.gottman.com/marriage-minute/

There are so many small changes you can make this year to refocus and renew your relationship. Today’s small change: pay attention. 

Successful couples are mindful of bids for connection and pay attention to them. These bids might be a look, a question, or an affectionate stroke on the cheek, anything that says, “Hey, I want to be connected with you.” Pay attention to your partner more than you pay attention to your phone & TV. Less screen time, more face time. Pay attention to a look, a sigh, or a comment. Most bids happen in simple, mundane ways, and if you’re not receptive, you’ll miss them. Pay attention for the sake of passion in your relationship. Couples who notice more moments of connection report more feelings of love and contentment.

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2. Sometime back in the 90s Mrs. Ego and I were waiting in the border line after visiting her family for a holiday. I asked her a series of questions about family issues I thought were somewhat important. She repeatedly answered, "We didn't talk about that."

After the fifth or sixth such answer I blurted, "For people who talk so much, you say so little."

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3. We have been on a thirty-year quest to match our communication needs/wants. Work in progress.

I haven't asked her, but I suspect she would say that the answer to your issues is not in a book. The answer is to put down the book. But she may be thinking of me when saying it.

While I find myself giving similar advice on the forums often (practice vs theory), I don't particularly like that solution for myself.

Lately I have focused on training my subconscious mind to identify telltale signs of signal (vs noise) and then paying attention when signal is detected.

If you are interested in seeing how well that is going, goto 1.

[7Wannabe5]

(practice vs theory)

In addition to "doing" vs "thinking", there is also "being/feeling." So, (given that 'other' actually wants attention from you) usually you just have to "think" about what you can "do(inclusive of "say")" to make other "feel" more "cherished" or "respected." However, in order to figure this out, you have to first get in touch with your own core of emotional needs.

NOTE: This is coming from my own experience as female who is most often locked in "thinking" when interacting with men who are most often locked in "doing" or "feeling", so may not translate well.

[Henry]

If you want to spend worthless hours reading self-help books, exploring your subconscious and having interminable Abu Ghraib level of tortuous conversations, that's your prerogative. But if you'd rather be out fishing, hunting flying, planes or whatever the fuck you do out there as opposed to being dragged across the tundra by your short ones like your Prince Harry of the outback, let me give you some advice. Number 1. Don't learn how to be wrong. Learn how never to be right. Winning an argument never has anything to do with being wrong or right, and it's more true in a marriage. Not to mention winning a spousal argument is about as Phyrric a Victory as surviving testicular cancer by having your balls cut. Number 2. The three most important words in a marriage are not "I Love You". They are "It's my fault." It's not stubbornness, it's pride, and your pride is fucking with you. Just do like the rest of us, stuff that shit down so far down you couldn't find it with a team of huskies and hope you don't end up on a true crime anthology.

[mountainFrugal]

+1 on Gottman. We found going through the exercises in this book together helpful: https://www.gottman.com/product/the-sev ... iage-work/

[theanimal]

I love Pilsen. I know some people in the artist community down there. Have you been to the Museum of Mexican Art?

Yes, we went last year and very much enjoyed it. I'd like to go again. Perhaps when I am in Chicago area again we could meet up there? Thanks for listening and the suggestion!

Maybe something like Mint could work for you for tracking expenses? There are no spreadsheets involved , if I remember correctly.

Nice, I haven't been to either of those places. And thanks. To be clear they are the expenses just for me. I don't know Mrs. Animal's total but last year she was around what I was this year and she definitely spent less. Baby animal's expenses were right around $300 off the top of my head. So probably somewhere around $13-14k total? I'm very pleased with the total and we certainly aren't wanting for anything.

@not sure- Thanks for the recommendation.

Points taken and thanks for the reminders. I generally find that I get a whole lot more out of doing things than reading about them so I suppose this should be no exception. It makes me think of this response Jocko has for questions like, "How do I take cold showers?" Take cold showers. Or "How do I do more pull ups?" Do more pull ups. So in this regard, how do I get better at communicating with Mrs. Animal and others? Communicate with Mrs. Animal and others. Obviously there is a bit more to it than that but I figure I will make a lot more practice by communicating more rather than reading about it first. Our recent trip offered plenty of... let's say, opportunities for that.

That being said, Mrs. Animal and I have read a couple of these books together though and have found it a useful practice. We read How to Have Impossible Conversations as well as Gottman's 7 Principles shortly after @mountainFrugal first recommended it. Those are practices that bring us closer together, I could see how diverting my attention to read a book about communicating could end up achieving the opposite of that.

If you want to spend worthless hours reading self-help books, exploring your subconscious and having interminable Abu Ghraib level of tortuous conversations, that's your prerogative. But if you'd rather be out fishing, hunting flying, planes or whatever the fuck you do out there as opposed to being dragged across the tundra by your short ones like your Prince Harry of the outback, let me give you some advice. Number 1. Don't learn how to be wrong. Learn how never to be right. Winning an argument never has anything to do with being wrong or right, and it's more true in a marriage. Not to mention winning a spousal argument is about as Phyrric a Victory as surviving testicular cancer by having your balls cut. Number 2. The three most important words in a marriage are not "I Love You". They are "It's my fault." It's not stubbornness, it's pride, and your pride is fucking with you. Just do like the rest of us, stuff that shit down so far down you couldn't find it with a team of huskies and hope you don't end up on a true crime anthology.

I'm glad to have you back. It's not so much that I am trying to win arguments. I think most of the hang ups are due to a lack in communication. Not everything that I think of manages to escape my head so I end up thinking that other people know what is going on even though I didn't enunciate it. It works about as well as you'd imagine. Then compounded by pride like you say until I get my head on straight and realize what's going on upstairs. The being right/stubbornness is more with other people. Although, I imagine Mrs. Animal would likely say otherwise.

[RoamingFrancis]

Yeah I would love to go on an adventure there. We can meet up with the Aztec Dancers =D Thanks for the suggestion! I will check it out.

[Henry]

This communication thing is a complete ruse. No one gives a shit what you have to say. It's a bait and switch in order that you walk away having listened to what the other person has to say. If your marriage has survived the honeymoon, I would bet my balls that there is some irrational, picayune bullshit that Mrs. Animal goes off on like you're the US diplomat who left the nuclear football in a North Korean brothel. In my household it was folding bathroom towels after I dried my hands. You would think washing your hands was good enough. Maybe in yours it's bringing a Moosehead into the house before you drained all the blood out of it." Whatever it is, do it a few more times. Make her head do that 360 Exorcist swivel while she screams that you don't listen to her and you just stand there looking like the Platonic idea of a complete fucking simp. Then one day, bring in a bloodless Moosehead. She'll look like she's in a Spielberg movie. You've accomplished two things. You have (a) lowered the bar so low that only a legless midget can limbo under it (b) you've "communicated" with Mrs. Animal.

[bostonimproper]

Totally unsolicited recommendations, so feel free to take or leave it, but a couple pieces of media I’ve really enjoyed on communication:
1. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most. Was required to read this for my first career job, felt like it was really helpful for being a better collaborator vs arguer. Though I would guess the concepts probably overlap with other books on your list.
2. Couples Therapy (Showtime show). Follows over the course of a season the couples therapy sessions for 3-4 real couples. Kind of highlights how some couples recreate the scripts/patterns/dynamics of relationships from their childhoods (very systems theory/psychodynamics-focused). The therapist on the show is so excellent on picking up subtle ways each person in the couple has formed these competing narratives of their relationship that intersect in weird ways. My husband and I really enjoyed watching this one together.

[theanimal]

@Henry- I get that. But by communication I mean figuring out more what scenarios are likely to be bloody moosehead situations in advance. That way we can ideally skip the whole exorcism bit and continue on happy as clams. That's kind of what we have been working towards and it has been working well so far.

@BI- Thanks for the recommendations!

[Henry]

In that case, my suggestion is to forget the books, the conscious raising and the sensitivity training and just record everything Mrs. Animal has to say. Because the second she says "Animal, pass me the oven mitts" and you stand there looking like you're trying to remember the first capital of Mesopotamia after she told you where they were the week before, none of that Barney bullshit will help you.

[theanimal]

Woodworking Class Week 1 of 12
I started class this week. After short introductions, we got to work on our first project: a three legged stool.
We started out by whipsawing a more workable sized round out of a large douglas fir log. After we got our round, we used wedges and a sledgehammer to break it up further. Then a froe and cudgel to break them further into billets (workable piece of wood).




We then spent a day or so on the shavehorse, working to make our billets square with a drawknife and spokeshave. We worked them to 4 sides, 8, then 16 and eventually into round pieces that we would use for the legs and stretchers of our stools.


The seats were made out of blocks of Alaska Yellow Cedar and we laid out the shape of the seat and the hole locations for the mortises. Using a bandsaw, we cut the seat to shape and then worked the top of the seat with a inshave and travisher to make it slightly concave and smooth. We also used an auger to drill a counter bore on the bottom of the stool and then followed with a throughbore for the legs of the stool.


During and after this process, we also spent time making our tenons on the legs.


Once those fit, we moved on to the stretchers, which took a bit more precision with their smaller size.


Using a spokeshave we cleaned up the legs and stretchers into smoother and more aesthetically pleasing shapes.
After drilling holes in the legs for the stretchers, we did some finagling and got everything set in place. We drove wedges into the ends of the tenons on the stretchers and legs, sawed everything flush, cleaned it up with the spokeshave and leveled the legs by sight. And voila, we had a completed stool.


Most of us finished earlier than expected so we had the opportunity to do some more advanced group projects. One group set out to build a Windsor ish style chair and I along with a couple others worked to build a bench. We used many of the same practices as before, but with some slight variations. We came close to finishing it today. All that remains is planing the top surface smooth and cleaning it up a bit.


The class is enjoyable so far and at least up to this point, has definitely been worth the cost. There is very little lecture time and lots of emphasis on hands on application with plenty of opportunity for feedback.

And finally, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that another regular forum member is in my class!

[ffj]

A nice start.

I assume they start you out somewhat on the primitive side and advance to more complicated projects and techniques. Is there an end goal or project? Will you be sailing off in a Viking ship?

You should take pictures of the tools used as you go along, something I would find very interesting as well as your projects of course. That and how they teach you how to sharpen everything. I'm curious if they incorporate any Japanese tools or techniques.

[jacob]

And finally, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that another regular forum member is in my class!

Wild!

How did you drill the right angle for the holes in the stool? Drillpress? By hand? Auger? Forstner? Bradpoint? Either way, how did you line it up correctly. I find drilling holes at a [correct] angle (other than 90deg) to be an absolute pain.