crisanzai

4 Things I Learned From Raising Ducks

by crisanzai · Nov 27, 2017

My wife and I purchased four ducks earlier this year in the spring at our local Tractor Supply store. We had no experience in raising ducks or farm animals of any kind, but decided to move forward anyways. Luckily we live in an area that is zoned for owning poultry and livestock (for personal use) and we wanted to dip our toes in a longer term goal/dream of having a fully off-grid property. There were several reasons we decided to go with ducks instead of chickens, primarily we went the duck route, because they are not as noisy and not as smelly (chicken feces has a distinct pungent odor). They also lay eggs (although not as many as chickens) and we thought that they were unique. How many people do you know that own ducks? Anyways since we bought 4 ducks, here are 4 things I learned from raising them!

1. Ducks are Messy!

Pictured above are the four adorable ducks we purchased. Don’t let their cute looks fool you! These are the messiest animals we have ever had the pleasure of raising and we’ve raised quite a few animals including rats (fancy and dumbo), rabbits, cockatiels, cats, dogs, and various fish. So what they don’t tell you (whoever “they” are) is that ducks require water to eat their food. Lots of water…

We kept our ducks in a bin and later when they got older a kiddie swimming pool. We filled their enclosure with pine chips and had to constantly give them water and change their pine chips out daily as they would splash water all over the place creating a huge soggy mess. We alleviated some of the mess by using a paint tray and a metal paint liner – and put the water at the end to filter out some of the debris they were tracking in their water.

2. Ducks Eat Plants

After a few months our ducks survived adolescence and reached adulthood. We could no longer keep them in the small makeshift enclosure we made for them, so we made them a larger one outside. As you can see in the photo above, there is not a spot of green inside of their enclosure aside from the bush next to their hutch. Ducks will devour just about any plant you put near them. Believe it or not the entire pen was filled with lush green grass and other plantlife (mostly weeds), now it’s like a barren desert. The ducks literally ate all of the grass. We now use straw and grass clippings to fill their enclosure with.

3. Ducks are Vulnerable

One of our ducks somehow injured their leg and was in quite a bit of pain. She was shivering and we had to quarantine her so she wouldn’t get hurt even more. My wife picked the duck up and wrapped her in a towel to warm our duck up, but noticed something unusual. The duck was crying, not wailing type crying, but tears were streaming down it’s face. It was quite the site. You may get really attached to your ducks, so be mindful of that if you want to raise them for meat.

On another note, ducks are easy prey. Once they are captured they do not struggle or make much noise, and unfortunately this vulnerability became the reason for two of our ducks demises. Unfortunately what we thought was a secure enclosure was not and a raccoon managed to sneak in and kill a few of our birds (on different nights). Raccoons are the duck’s nemesis and they will kill a duck by tearing it’s head off and eating it’s innards. It’s quite a gruesome site. We now have proper defenses against raccoons and other bandits, with a double enclosure system and we will be putting up an electric fence in the near future. Lesson learned, albeit at the cost of two our favored fowls lives.

4. Ducks take Time

If you think ducks are a set it and forget it poultry, you are sorely mistaken. Ducks require a lot of upkeep, especially if you don’t have a pond or small lake. Ducks require a lot of water, as mentioned earlier that’s how they digest and eat their food. You have to constantly change their water – at least once or twice daily as their water gets really disgusting. They defecate in their water as well as track dirt and do their general cleaning in it. Unlike chickens, you can’t just leave them for weeks at a time, you more than likely will have to have someone check in on them if you are on vacation or on an extended trip away.

Raising ducks has been a great learning experience and our little experiment of raising our four ducks will lead to our next adventure. Raising an additional 4 ducks next Spring. 3 duck egg producers and one for show (a crested duck) as well a goose to for additional poultry protection. Below is a photo of a crested duck!

Thanks for reading!

5 Things Friday 11.24.2017

by crisanzai · Nov 25, 2017

5 Things I Found Interesting 11.17.2017 Edition

It’s that time of the week again! Time to bring up 5 things I found interesting throughout the week. What will it be this week?! See below…

1. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Valerian was finally available for rent on Amazon and my wife and I settled down to watch Luc Besson’s latest flick Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. I give it a solid 4 out of 5 stars. The visual effects were out of this world on this film. I have to admit I take one star off, because some of the acting by the main characters were a bit dry (but I think that was intentional), and there were some unnecessary sequences in the film that I found were unnecessary (as they didn’t move the main story over). For example there’s a scene with an alien shapeshifter and alien king (no spoilers here – the entire film has over 1000 planets – and countless alien species in it). It definitely brought back memories of the Fifth Element with its visual effects and was very entertaining. I definitely recommend a view at least once.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2239822/

2. Gerber Suspension Multi-Tool

While everyone was up early this morning trying to get black Friday deals. My wife and I decided to finish some long overdue projects at the house. While I was picking up supplies for a flooring project, I found this little gem on sale. What I like about this multi-tool aside from the price (about $20 on Amazon or Homedepot – where I picked this up), the Gerber Suspension has a lot of things going for it. It has needle-nose pliers (where many multi-tools have block point pliers), both a serrated and straight blade, scissors that are pretty decent, and a variety of other standard multi-tool additions (Phillips head, flat head, woodsaw, etc…). What I like about it the most is the locking mechanism for each tool, which prevent each tool from accidentally closing on you. All the accessory tools aside from the pliers are available on the outside part of the tool (meaning you don’t have to open the Gerber to access them). The cons are that the knife blades and saw blades are pretty small for a multi-tool of this size, the Phillips head is a little flat, and I would have personally preferred that a file would have been included (those things come in handy).

3. Net Neutrality – An Opposing View

This is a take basically against keeping Net Neutrality and I wholly disagree with it. The broadcaster though knows how to make a solid valid argument, but his argument is not sound. He makes a lot of assumptions based on the past and basically builds a historian’s fallacy. Basically, saying because nothing happened in the past, and things improved, the future without net neutrality will essentially be the same. You should always hear both sides of an argument to understand what is true. Learning about the oppositions view will either make your reasoning stronger, or find holes in it.

4. Parasitic Worms Found In North Korean Defector

This was super weird when I first read it. A North Korean soldier dramatically makes it across the border and gets shot multiple times, while doctors treat the soldier, they found HUGE worms inside of his intestines. One of them which typically are only found in dogs. The largest worms were over 10 inches long! Imaging having that living inside of you. You hear stories of malnutrition and disease from 3rd world countries, but actually seeing the parasitic worms taken out of a person makes it a bit real. You can’t really see disease – you can see the effects of disease, but not the disease itself (unless you of course are looking at them microscopically). Seeing those worms really provokes a visceral feeling.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/22/health/north-korea-defector-parasites-health/index.htmlhttp://www.cnn.com/2017/11/22/health/north-korea-defector-parasites-health/index.html

5. Plotograph In Photoshop!?

My co-worker showed me this video, and I have yet to try it. However I’m going to experiment with it soon! I think moving images are the future of photography. I mean still images will still be around (no pun intended), but the technology for Cinemagraphs, Gifs, and the like are only going to increase. I first found out about this technology 3 or 4 years ago at Photoshop World, and now you can do it with a single photograph. Trust me (well don’t trust me, I’m terrible at predicting things – I thought twitter was a passing fad, but rather believe me?) when I say that the technology is coming for movable images to be viable. I’m talking about flexible e-paper with full color spectrum capabilities and digital displays for billboards and the like. It’s not some weird thing from a sci-fi novel. The technology is here, it’s just too expensive right now, but don’t worry the Law of Anzai – wait long enough and things get cheaper, until they don’t (think antiques).

Things I’m Thankful For! Happy Thanksgiving

by crisanzai · Nov 23, 2017

This is going to be a gratitude list

First and foremost I’m thankful for God that he would allow us to have personal relationship with him and that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16)

I’m thankful for my Amazing wife Annette, who puts up with my craziness and who’s an awesome mother for my child.

I’m thankful for my 3 year old daughter who made me realize that the heart can expand to allow more love to enter. She’s rambunctious, hard headed, curious, and always so darn happy! I love that turd.

I’m thankful for my Church family, who’s help me greatly dealing with my extreme social anxiety and who’ve been a consistent force of good for the last 5 years – lifeuc.org

I’m thankful for living in a country that allows me attend Church and have a freedom of speech to write these blogs.

I’m thankful for Net Neutrality, which allows me as a potential entrepreneur have a fair playing field for broadcasting my business ideas and business enterprises.

I’m thankful for a job that allows me to try and experience new things. Especially in the field of project management. I’m also thankful that this job is Christ centered and has a mission that I can easily align myself with which is to “Positively impacting the lives of others”.

I’m thankful that I have a home and I’m able to support my family on a single income. I just don’t know how dual income families with small children do it, they have a lot of grit!

I’m thankful for this year in general. It’s been one big learning experience, whether it’s from work, photography, church, or even homesteading projects. Owning ducks was definitely a first and a great learning experience.

I’m thankful for compounding interest (enough said about that lol).

I’m thankful that our country is rich enough that I can get any type of produce, meat, fish, food from across the world for a relatively low price

I’m thankful to be debt free. I know of many people struggling with debt and I was in the same boat too a few years back, but we buckled down and paid it off through God’s provision.

I’m thankful for my parents – we don’t always get along, but they are good people and have the best intentions! I’m also thankful for my extended family as well.

I’m thankful for my pets, they are awesome and are a great stress reliever. They entertain and delight everyday!

I’m thankful for 2017 and look forward to 2018! Exciting times ahead!

And… I’m thankful for you fellow readers! You are the best in my eyes for reading my thoughts!

Save Net Neutrality

by crisanzai · Nov 22, 2017

You may have noticed a banner when entering this site. I encourage you to contact congress and take action against the move to kill Net Neutrality.

This post is going to be short and simple. I’m by no means a political activist or social justice warrior, but this issue will affect everyone who uses the internet in the United States… which practically speaking is everyone. Please watch and share the video and the website link posted below.

https://www.battleforthenet.com/

The Pomodoro Technique

by crisanzai · Nov 21, 2017

A few weeks back I wrote about how effective time blocking could be. I typically only have a few opportunities to time block per week (due to the nature of my job) and I try to maximize that time to get all of my lagging projects finished.

One of my co-workers sent me an email about how a software vendor we use maximized their work time and increased efficiency using the Pomodoro Technique. In the 1980s a student by the name of Francesco Cirillo developed this technique, and I am seriously surprised I haven’t heard about it until recently. The basic gist of the technique (copied from wikipedia) follows s below:

Decide on the task to be done.
Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).^[1]
Work on the task.
End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.^[5]
If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes), then go to step 2.
After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.

The Pomodoro timer is basically a tomato shaped kitchen timer (which basically what the technique is named after) See pic below:

With the magic of technology you don’t even need a kitchen timer anymore. There are several apps available as well as this nifty tool dedicated to making the Pomodoro technique a lot easier to implement called Tomato Timer. https://tomato-timer.com/

Pros

I’ve only gotten a chance to use this technique once, but it seems to be very fruitful. The structure lends well to time blocking and the scheduled breaks are a great reprieve from mental strain. The timer feature also is quite motivating. I actually want to do more in that 25 minute time slot to “earn” the 5 minute breaks between the 25 minute time slots. Maybe it’s some sort of psychological trick, or some weird connection to Parkinson’s law (work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion), but it seems to work on me.

The 5 minute breaks in between is great to clear the mind and switch context if working on a series of tasks or different projects, and enough time to settle and re-evaluate if you are working on a larger project that you have chunked out. The 20 minute break is even better as it allows you to relax – knowing that you’ve done your best to maximize the 4 other 25 minute chunks of time (or 1 hour and 40 minutes of work plus 15 minutes of downtime).

Cons

While this is great for individual projects, this technique doesn’t play well with the intricacies of collaboration. This becomes more apparent when you are collaborating with multiple people on a single project. I feel like the 25 minute time limit is too short for collaborative efforts, so moving forward I’ll only apply this technique to activities or tasks that I would individually be responsible for completing.

You have to be secure in your number 1 step – meaning you need to know exactly what task you want to get done in the 25 minute Pomodoro. If you deviate from the task it can and will mess up your “Pomodoro flow” which is a term that I totally made up. This takes a lot of discipline to accomplish as there are so many distractions and interruptions that can happen. As Jim Collins states in Good to Great “A culture of discipline is not just about action. It is about getting disciplined people…who engage in disciplined thought and…who then take disciplined action.” You must have in you a culture of discipline for the Pomodoro Technique to work, or at least try to strive for discipline.

Another shortfall that I personally found using this technique is the fact that it doesn’t lend itself to short tasks. What I find helpful is to line up shorter tasks consecutively (if you have a laundry list of them like I usually do), and knock them out until the 25 minutes is up. However the technique itself seems to be geared for single overarching tasks rather than smaller process tasks that may take only 5 – 10 minutes to complete.

Overall I enjoy using the Pomodoro technique and will continue to use it and modify the use of it until I find a better way.

What time management/task management techniques do you use to get your projects done?

Thanks for reading!

The Tale of Two Crock-pots

by crisanzai · Nov 20, 2017

I asked my team today about a policy and it just so happened the CEO of my company overheard my question. This lead to a conversation about why we had the policy in the first place. The simple answer to the question was “I was always told that this was the policy”. So instead of letting the issue go, the CEO answered “but why? Why is this the Policy” and that lead to the story of the two crock-pots.

I’m paraphrasing from memory here, but here’s the basic story- A woman had a recipe for roast and her recipe included cooking the roast in two crock-pots. When asked about why she used two crock-pots, the woman replied “That’s the way my mother always did it”. One day she was curious and asked her mother why she used two crock-pots for the recipe. “well”, the mother replied “the crock-pots I had were too small and I couldn’t fit the roast into just one of them”. The woman’s crock-pots were larger than her mother’s and she could fit the roast into one crock-pot.

After this story was told, which basically causes one to think and ask “why” or “what is the root cause”, our team ended up finding out what the root cause was, took action, and ultimately changed the policy.

It’s always important to ask “why” whenever approaching a policy or even a system. Why is this policy in place? Why are you using this system? Once you find out why, you may be surprised. The reason may be something arbitrary or out-dated. Maybe someone long ago decided on a whim that what they thought was important is something that everyone should do. You may also find the opposite, where a policy or system is in place, because of an important reason you didn’t realize. Either way it’s good to know the root of these things.

More important than asking “why” is taking action if action is needed once you find out “why”. In our case we found out the “why” was because of a system issue and a process issue. We found that by talking through the process we could make changes to improve the policy. However we needed to fix an issue with our system – which we accomplished by creating a work around. Sometimes you have to be creative in order to make a change.

Once you find a problem work at it until it gets resolved. This is how great companies and great systems are created.

Thanks for reading!

5 Things Friday 11.17.2017

by crisanzai · Nov 17, 2017

5 Things I Found Interesting 11.17.2017 Edition

It’s that time of the week again! Time to bring up 5 things I found interesting throughout the week. What will it be this week?! See below…

1. Tesla’s Roadster and Semi Announcement

I have to say this is really cool and if I had an extra $200,000.00 lying around I’d probably get a Tesla Roadster! This beast goes 0-60 in 1.9 seconds without making over compensating engine growls. It just zooms. Check out the video below! This is the 2nd generation roadster and it has over double the range of it’s predecessor (the old one only had about a 245 mile range) at 620 miles! Pretty outstanding specs for an electric vehicle! The new all battery Semi Trucks boast a 500 mile range and Tesla plans on producing solar powered “Megachargers” that will charge these trucks up fast – (a 400 mile charge in about 30 minutes!). This is the wave of the future! No more fossil fuels! Now if he could only make these things affordable for us lay men!

https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/17/16655800/tesla-electric-semi-truck-roadster-recap-elon-musk

2.The Great Dictator Speech By Charlie Chaplin

I stumbled upon this while randomly watching YouTube videos. This is a pretty darn inspirational speech from Charlie Chaplin – the famous comedian from the silent film era. Someone decided to add epic Hans Zimmer music behind this speech and something magical happened! When I feel down I’m going to watch this to get me riled up!

3. Sades Spirit Wolf Headset

I needed a headset for when I work from home and a co-worker recommended the Sades Spirit Wolf Headest. Well to be fair, she recommended this one after I balked at the price of the first one she recommended (which was over $100). The Sades Spirit Wolf Headset was more in my price range (at about $26). It’s clearly a Chinese brand, but from what I read reviews I was confident it was a solid choice. So far after a week of using this thing it works great. Only complaint is the microphone is a bit sensitive (it can pick up my daughter chattering away a couple rooms down), but other than that sound quality is excellent (I mean it’s definitely not a Beats by Dre, but the sound is way better than the headphones that come with your phone). My 3 year old daughter thinks I look like a robot when I put them on and calls me “Daddy Robot” which is definitely a cute side benefit!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E8RS598/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

4. How Long Agogo

I came across this online tool when I got tired of looking at calendars and physically counting the days to upcoming events and benchmarks. This thing is super easy to use and very accurate. It will give you days, weeks, months, hours, minutes, and seconds on any date you enter – past or future. It’s a pretty cool time saver for me (I’m sure there are apps that do this too, but I’m too lazy to find them, this tool is just bookmarked and easy to access).

http://www.howlongagogo.com/

5. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is now Free to Play

What can I say about StarCraft except that is easily one of the best real time strategy games of my generation. The original game came out in the early 90s and had been played frequently and consistently in the E-Sports arena up into the release of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. With all this hoopla with Electronic Arts and their Battlefront II debacle, the folks at Blizzard decided to release the first installment of StarCraft II for free! This is an awesome (yet short) campaign and game! I can’t recommend it enough! The replay value is enormous and the story changes based on actions you take during the campaign. If you are into any type of real time strategy, I recommend getting this game! What can you lose – it’s Free!

https://www.starcraft2.com/en-us/

Thanks for reading!

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