Mr. Polehn writes

New series of monthly (my intentions at least) things I'm really enjoying... Ride Report Ride Report  is an app which uses your phone's location data to automatically keep track of your bike rides.  For each ride it asks you a simple survey "How was your ride."  After collecting enough survey data from rides Ride Report can generate a map showing the worst and best rides for a city.  Some cities are even using this data to make better transportation decisions.   I'm not sure if this app will work at a smaller scale for a city like The Dalles, but the idea is very cool.  The more people the use it the more helpful it will be.  At this point I've only ever said my rides were great and being the only user in town this is very unscientific. I highly recommend using this app for fun and better city planning or at least better informed fellow cyclists. Libby Libby is an app which allows you to borrow ebooks through your local library....

  Near the end of 2017 I did something I hope becomes an end of year tradition.  I planned out all the books I’m going to read in the next year.  I read some great books last year and I hope that having a plan will make this year even better. Why would I plan out a year of reading? Last year I was able to read a lot more than I have before.  However, there were still long periods throughout the year in which I wasn't reading anything, and some of what I read was just whatever was in front of me, not what I really wanted to read.  Like most things in life, I suspect, having a plan will help align what I do read with my goals.  There are several subjects I’m interested in, and didn’t read about.  There are authors I want to read more of, but haven’t made time to.  And modern fiction?  What is that?  (I  think I read one new book last year) I made a realization a few months back.  My pile of books I want to read is much tall...

In 2017 I was a lot more purposeful about reading. Actually, one of my goals for the year to read and write more. I failed at my goal of writing a lot. However, I can say 2017 was the year I read more books than any other in recent memory. Here are some of my highlights from a year in books. Scouting For Boys I wrote quite a lot about this in an earlier post. Reading what is essentially the original boy scout manual is a lot of fun. It has a lot of practical camping, hiking and tracking instructions as well as a whole lot of scouty chivalry and yarns by Lord Baden Powell. It I’m not much for horror books or horror movies or horrible musicals (maybe horror musicals). But It is just about one of the greatest novels I have ever read if not the longest. The characters and setting King created are extremely believable, especially thanks to the “Derry Interludes” which document the sordid history of the fictional  Maine  town. It’s an excellent book which I should ...

Some background First off, I should explain why I, a grown man living in the United States in the early 21st century decided to read a book written to British boys at the beginning of the 20th.  A few times I told someone I was reading this book I got a queer look (or innuendo about what “scouting for boys” meant).  So here goes. My oldest daughter had just started to be involved with Girl Scouts .  She had been to a few meetings and my wife and I were discussing whether she should really be involved with one more activity.  That’s probably the opposite of how things should go, but it is the sort of thing that happens more often than not in our house. Anyway, this led me to reflect on my own experiences with Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.  While I didn’t last very long in Boy Scouts I realized that Cub Scouts was probably one of the most important things in my life at the time.  There were a lot of good memories from the kids in my Webelos group. ...

Earlier this year I made a few goals for myself.  One was to run .  A lot.  The other was to write , a lot more than I have.  Sorry to say I haven’t kept either of these really well.  Sometimes life get in the way, sometimes things don’t work out the way you hoped, sometimes you set the wrong goals and sometimes you just plain fail.  I’d like to say life got in the way and things just happened, but I have to be honest. Running Major failures in the running department.  As you can see from the graph below, things were going pretty well for a time.  Right on track.  However, around the 30k per week mark I started to have nagging shin splints.  Not so bad that I was ready to give up running (the proper cure for shin splints) but bad enough I knew I should back off.  So I did, only to later end up with shin splints before during and after every running session.  It was finally bad enough for me to realize I needed to lay it off...

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is probably one of the most cynical takes on American history ever written.  It is blatantly and openly biased, intentionally seeking to tell the stories that the author feels aren't told through the traditional narrative of US history.  Despite being openly antagonistic A People's History is full of citations from first hand and second hand sources as well as quotes from other published history texts.  In other words it takes many of the bleakest points in American History (chattel slavery, native genocide, worker suppression) and does a great job proving that, yes, things really were "as bad as all that."   On the whole I'm happy to read a starkly different telling of US history, especially in relation to our foreign policy.  Zinn leaves little doubt around the imperialistic ambitions of many of the United States military conflicts (especially the  Mexican American and Vietnam Wars).  He i...

  Recently I came to the conclusion that I should write more often.  That is, I believe, I should start to consider myself a "writer."  That's the main reason there's been a bit of an increase in publishing to this blog (going from zero over the past few years to a couple times a month is a pretty huge jump).     I, like most humans, have thoughts and opinions which are a product of the times and places in which I live.  I figure I can do my part for future historians and write a few of them down.  I also just might have enough creative juice to pump out a story or two. This blog   I'd like to post to this blog at least once a week from now on, or at a minimum once a month.  Really, anything at all would be better than what I've been doing.  I'll mainly write about my life, family, interests, and opinions about, current events and local and state politics (I'll try to steer clear of national issues for my own sanity).  Pretty...

  I don't normally do new years resolutions.  I typically keep a long list goals in my head; I'm sure some of them fall out every once in a while.  But I figure it is not bad to write  some of these goals down and put a 12 month deadline on them.  Writing down, publicly stating and setting deadlines for goals is like some kind of weird magic sauce that makes you actually want to get shit done. Pay mortgage down to $110k   Having a 30 year mortgage with a 0% down payment we essentially started out behind and only making slightly more than the minimum monthly payment has not given us much progress.  Even with adding on to our house we are still under water. As it sits now the mortgage is at about $129,700.  I'd like to get that number down to $110,000 by the end of the year.  That will set us up nicely to be able to refinance and start saving for another house.  According to my lender if we keep making the normal payment I will b...

Ender's Game follows Andrew "Ender" Wiggin and his two siblings Peter and Valentine, though you may be able to guess from the title primarily Ender. Ender is a child prodigy in warfare who is brought to an academy for children to learn to be soldiers.  Its  required reading in a lot o of schools but I don't recall it being in mThis is partine, though i can't say i would u have read it if it were. Ender's Game is set in a future in which a united earth has narrowly repelled an invasion by an insect like race of aliens known as the buggers.  Earth has spent the last several years preparing for the next invasion. Ender is put through a series of lessons/tests by his "teachers" all in the form of games.  Starting with video games and progressing to a zero gravity competition between different "armies" of children.  Ender is quickly made a commander one of these armies pitting him against much older kids.  Things are unfairly stacked again...

    I have only been seriously investing for about sixth months now.  I say "seriously" because I have attempted to invest for about 5 years but it looked a lot like this ...  So my only successes have been in investing in index funds.  Which If you don't have the time or energy to pick your own investments is the best way to go, in my opinion.       Almost all of my "education" has come through reading a handful of books. The Richest Man In Babylon     The Richest Man in Babylon comes all the way from the deep dark past of 1920's America.  It is series of stories and parables set in ancient Babylon and designed to teach financial wisdom.  The book stresses discipline and prudence, consistently saving, avoiding debt, not investing in risky ventures etc.  I have to wonder if people in the 1920's had taken his advice if the whole financial mess that followed wouldn't have happe...

    I've been reading  Winnie the Pooh  by A. A. Milne to my almost 2 year old daughter over the last couple of months.  I'm not sure if you could so much call Pooh a novel as a series of short stories (though the stories are connected somewhat).  One thing I did not know before reading the book was that it is a series of stories that Milne wrote for his son Christopher Robin.  Reading the book knowing this gives a perspective making the book even sweeter than just some cute, whimsical stories being written for just any child.     I really liked the book.  I can not say for sure that the book is great for children or anything.  I mean my daughter liked it but I think right now she just likes it when I read anything to her.  But the stories are definitely simple and entertaining.  There are some bits of the book that I think might go over the head of children, the subtle arrogance of som...

    I like literature.  For the last several years however I haven't been reading much of it.  Probably due to the complete lack of schooling in my life.  Which I have to say I do not miss at all.  However, I wouldn't mind a little more literature, it's just nice to sit down with a cup of coffee and a book that is hopefully both entertaining and thought provoking.     I want to give my self a little education in good literature.  I figure the best place to start if you want to learn anything about literature is to just read.  But what to read?  Obviously the best works of fiction out there.       I'm particularly interested in novels from the 20th century.  The 20th century arguably is one of the more interesting in history and one from which there is a plethora of good literature.     I began by searching for "the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century."  I figured that would be a...