Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Tyla and I have been part of numerous security breaches over the past couple years. I’m confident that all of our private data is floating around out on websites to be easily purchased for a surprisingly small amount of money. (Seriously, you can buy tens of thousands of credit card numbers for less than the cost of going out to dinner.) A couple months ago, I put a fraud alert on our credit reports. It’s free and it basically adds a note that says that you have to be called before any new credit is opened. That’s a good step, but it only lasts for 90 days and it’s not bulletproof.

I recently took it a step further and put a full credit freeze on our account. Nobody can see our credit report while it is frozen which is an even bigger red flag for creditors to see before they extend a new line of credit. There are plenty of downsides to it though. If we ever need have our credit reports checked (buying a car, signing up for a new cell phone, etc), we have to go through some extra steps to unfreeze the report. And oh yeah there are three credit agencies and oh yeah, two of them charge $10 to toggle the freeze flag.

Before you do anything like this, you should understand all the ramifications by reading the FTC page. Herb Weisbaum, the Consumer Man, has a good article that also talks about some of the other services that the credit agencies are offering that are more convenient (and cheaper) than the full freeze. But read the fine print and understand that you’re probably saving money because they are selling a bunch of your data. That was a deal breaker for me.

If you decide to go through with the full freeze, grab your credit card (remember it will cost you about $21 to do this) and head to these three sites:

Experian: https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
TransUnion: https://freeze.transunion.com/
Equifax: https://www.freeze.equifax.com

Each one will give you a pin which you need to keep in a safe place so you can unlock your credit report at some point down the road.

It’s a lot of work, but it’s nice to know that I’m much less likely to have surprise credit cards opened up in my name.

Tyla and I recently finished watching the Indiana Jones trilogy. It was her first time seeing any of them and she at least enjoyed them enough to watch all three. Honestly I’m not sure that I ever saw the entire second movie. I remember watching it on TV as a kid and always shutting it off at the eyeball soup part. The third one is my favorite by far. Sean Connery is an excellent addition to the cast and there are so many memorable scenes.

Logan asked me how well the movies held up. There are definitely some cheesy special effects and some laughable plot moments, but overall, they still seemed good. I’m no movie critic, but there wasn’t much of the incredibly slow pacing that you sometimes find with movies that are a couple decades old.

A fifth Indiana Jones is slated for the summer of 2019. The bar is set very low after the train wreck of a fourth movie. Disney wasn’t in charge for that movie, but they are for this new one so hopefully they do a better job.

Monopoly is back at Safeway (and related grocery stores.) I know it’s a ridiculous game and the odds of winning anything are astronomically low, but for some reason I still find it fun. And last year I did win a reasonable amount of small stuff so why not go for it again.

During the “off season”, I had spent a little time futzing around with a phone application that would read playing pieces and keep track of how you were doing along your futile journey to win prizes. I even thought you could get into a group with friends and digitally pool your playing pieces for a little better chance at winning something. I’m glad I didn’t spend too much time on that because they have improved the app that comes with the game. Not only can you scan the bar codes for the second chance prizes like last year, but now you can also scan a 2D barcode on the back of the playing pieces. It figures out what all four pieces are and keeps track of your progress in the app. You still need to keep the physical playing pieces to redeem your prize, but this automates away a lot of the time consuming part.

I’ll do another post in a couple months and let you know how it turned out this year. If you aren’t playing and want to fuel this silliness, feel free to pass your tokens along to me.

For the past few months, I’ve been getting multiple telemarketing calls per day. Some are legit-ish (the police fundraising, NRA, etc) and others are just blatant violations of the do not call registry from randomized phone numbers. The Truecaller app does help, but it’s not perfect and it’s not as good as having them not call at all. It’s time to try something new.

Lifehacker published an article written by a telemarketer about how to get him to stop calling. Ignoring the calls or hanging up after you realize what it is won’t actually help. The best way to get off the call lists is to be polite and a complete dud of a sale. This article goes into more detail, but the summary is to say “No thank you” to every question and don’t engage in any conversation.

I’m going to give this a shot and see what happens. If it backfires and my phone rings all day, you can laugh when I make another post saying that I’m changing my phone number.

I married Tyla despite the fact that she had never seen Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Lord of the Rings. I know, right? She did eventually watch Lord of the Rings with me, and now that Indiana Jones is on Amazon Prime Video, we’ve started watching that trilogy. (Despite what you may have heard, there are only three videos in the series. The fourth one is a myth.) She liked the first one well enough that I think we’ll watch the next two which is good because The Last Crusade” is my favorite.

Watching Raiders of the Lost Ark got me thinking about a bunch of my favorite movies from the 80s. Here is a list of some favorites in no particular order:

• Ernest Goes To Camp. This is my standard answer whenever someone asks for my favorite movie.
• Short Circuit
• Iron Eagle
• Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade
• The Princess Bride
• The Three Amigos
• Top Gun
• Caddyshack
• A Christmas Story
• National Lampoons: Christmas Vacation
• Back to the Future (all of them)
• E.T.
• Field of Dreams

What did I miss?

Bob Clagett is one of my favorite YouTubers and podcasters. Last December, he released his first book called “Making Time“. The book is a collection of thoughts about how he made the transition from 9-5 employee to full time maker while being a husband and dad. As the name implies, the book largely centers around making good use of time and fitting everything into his schedule. It’s a quick read and it has a lot of good insights about how to be a more efficient and effective human.

Along those same lines, I recently read a quote in a book that has really stuck with me: “How you spend your day is how you spend your life.” (It’s not a unique quote to that book but it’s the first time I think I’ve heard it.) This could be interpreted a few ways but it always pops into mind when I’m wasting time on my cell phone or sitting on the couch in the evening instead of creating something in the garage or on the computer. It’s easy to dream big for the future and have lots of great ideas, but if you’re not working on those dreams every day, you’re not going to get there.

On the Making It podcast, Bob said that this year he was going to try to stop wasting time. It’s so simple to say and so hard to do, but I bet we could all find an extra 15 minutes a day to spend in a more valuable way. Those little chunks of time can really add up to some impressive accomplishments!

Since you’re reading this on my website, let’s start with the biggest change I’ve made on this site: I quit blogging every day. Around Memorial Day this year, I stopped forcing myself to get a post up every weekday. That ended a streak of nearly 4000 weekdays in a row with a blog post. It has felt a lot more freeing to only write when I have an idea for content instead of scrambling the night before to try and fill an empty spot in the calendar. And while this is a terrible model for driving traffic to a site, my main goal has always been a kind of “life journal” that might store some interesting nuggets in the decades. To that end, I tried to write some longer articles about memories from my childhood. Those felt like some of my better posts from the year: Childhood Christmas Gifts, Baseball Stories,  Parental Albums and Sleepwalking Stories.

The biggest change for all of us this year was the loss of Tyla’s mom to breast cancer. Nancy had been battling the cancer for years but it was pretty clear early in the year that we were crossing the point of no return and in the end, it went downhill very quickly. Those weeks and months were full of a wide range of emotions complicated still further by having a four year old in the mix. I found it really difficult to be supportive both to Tyla and Elijah at the same time. For example, many times I felt like the way I could help the most was to get Elijah out of the room/house and give him a normal day, but that meant I wasn’t there to help Tyla. But we all made it through, and because all of us believe that Jesus died for our sins, I know we’ll be reunited in heaven.

I said things declined rapidly. Just the weekend before she died, we were all camping at Cape Disappointment. It’s a beautiful park right along the ocean. I thought it was healthy for Tyla’s family to spend that time together, have time for long talks, and have one last outing with Nancy. Elijah had a lot of fun riding his bike around the campground and sleeping in the tent. Whenever we ask him what he wants to do for vacation next summer, he asks to do that trip again.

Our other summer vacations included Memorial Day weekend at Discovery Bay, a week in Indiana, and our long road trip to Fort Peck, MT. Spending 4 out of 6 days on the road with a four year old turned out about as perfectly as it could (aside from the crazy car trouble at 4am as we were trying to leave.) He did fantastic and now it has us thinking about some other road trips that we might take.Between the funeral and the Brandt family reunion, we got to spend a lot of time with Tyla’s extended family. I finally feel like I know most of the kind people who send us Christmas cards every year! It was nice for them all to meet Elijah too.

At the 2016 Christmas party, Logan mentioned that it was his “man mission” to climb to Camp Muir. The guy he was talking to said, “I’ll go with you!” In the blink of an eye, we had a crew of people ready to hike up there with him. I had been there back in 2010, but it was such a great hike that I knew I wanted to do it again. Half the fun of hiking Camp Muir is all the training hikes you need to do ahead of time! We hit a lot of great trails including: Little Mt. Si, Lime Kiln Trail, Mt. Pilchuck, Lake Melakwa, Mason Lake and Little Bandera Mountain. I had Elijah in my backpack for a lot of those hikes. Next year he’ll be too big and it will be time for him to hoof it himself.

Hiking Camp Muir with a group that big and vary different schedules means that you randomly pick a date on the calendar and pray for good weather. Thankfully, the weather was PERFECT. The smoke from the wildfires cleared out and we had blue skies and perfect temperatures. I beat my previous time by 40 minute (16%) so I was very happy about that. I didn’t feel nearly as tired the next day either so I’d say our hikes leading up to this one were chosen well. The only downside to the day was that Tim was planning to come with us but he got injured shortly before the hike. So that just means we’ll be doing it again. Tim, let us know when you’re ready and we’ll put it on the calendar!

I continued on with the woodworking hobby, and in the beginning of the year, I made my biggest tool investment yet: a beefy new Grizzly table saw. That continues to be solid purchase in my book and it gets a lot of use. Projects this year included a set of wooden blocks, a plant bench, a Washington bottle cap map, an anniversary photo printed on wood for my parents, piano book shelves, a couple Mother’s Day signs, the Instagram photo frame (my favorite project of the year!), magnetic coasters, laser cut decorations for Elijah’s birthday, a cutting board, a jewelry holder tree, two wood signs carved with a router, a storage closet makeover, a wood semi with two trailers, a marquetry butterfly, and a drum. I feel productive when I read that! Even with all those things checked off the list, my project idea list has grown so I better keep going.

See you in 2018!

Previous Year In Review Posts: 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

LUKE 2

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

¹ In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

It’s been almost six months since I stopped holding myself to the “one post per week day” that I had been doing for 15 years. It has been working out well for me and the natural cadence has been around 3 posts per week.

I’ve been thinking about what led to the decrease in desire to write posts and a major reason finally occurred to me: Instagram. I love Instagram. It’s such a happy place and it takes very little time to catch up on what my friends are doing and what’s happening in communities that I’m interested by (woodworking, skiing, hiking, etc.) I post there quite a bit and I think those pictures have taken the place of a lot of the posts that I would have made on this site. So if I was to make each Instagram post be a post on this site, then I feel like my volume would be similar. The bonus is that if you’re interested in consuming all of it, it takes a lot less of your time to consume the Instagram posts.

In conjunction with this change, I’ve also cut way back on Facebook. I go there a couple times a week to quickly flip through the news feed that I’ve trimmed way down with the Facebook Purity plugin. In contrast to Instagram’s happy environment, a lot of Facebook content feels angry, frivolous or both. I’ve found that the best way to consume Facebook is to not follow very many people, but instead, just go visit various pages every once in a while and catch up in bulk. It reduces some of the Skinner Box response associated with checking your newsfeed every 5 minutes.

I’m sure that the Instagram model will break at some point, but for now, feel free to follow me on my personal account @benwmartens and my woodworking account @martenswoodworks.