www.markholder.org

I have always been a voracious reader. My mother taught me to read when I was 4 years old and it's safe to say I've had my nose in a book or on a screen ever since. A trip to Ace News, the local newsstand, in the 1970's was an adventure. Wall to wall racks of magazines, newspapers, and my interest, comic books. I didn't always get the stories of superhero adventures but I loved the format, the colors. I still enjoy graphic novels.  The more I read, the more I progressed. I read The Hobbit in fourth grade, having long talks with my teacher about the book. She was a Tolkien fan and was glad to take a moment here and there to talk about his work. I loved a good tale of adventure and The Hobbit is certainly that. Around this time I discovered DC Comics' "Sergeant Rock" comic books, which told the story of a World War II sergeant leading Easy Company in battle after battle during the war. A history buff, this struck a chord with me. Looking at the artwork, I co...

My Dad died in December of 2023. He'd had several months of difficulty breathing, especially when lying on his back. Congestive heart failure, he was told. His final weeks were spent in the Intensive Care Unit of a local hospital, his heart working harder while growing weaker. He passed suddenly, surrounded by loved ones. My sister and I were with him for that final moment, just as he and we were with his mother for her last breath in 1986. Family dynamics, I suppose.  Dad had many hobbies but chief among them was motorcycling. After a long break from riding, he ran across a Yamaha XS650 in 2007. Stored in a barn, no brakes, and priced to sell, he bought it. I had the job of riding it to his house, a white knuckle experience on a bike with no brakes. I hadn't ridden in 15 years or more. A former auto mechanic, he did the work of repair and restoration himself in his early 60s. He rode that bike for years, picking up others along the way. Dad was a fan of Japanese motorcycles, c...

 <p> I love a good pen and am currently obsessed with a Hongdian M2 fountain pen, a cheap beauty that punches well above its weight. Although sized to fit a pocket, I use it as a desk pen, one I rarely take into the plant or warehouse at work. For a more industrial environment, there is One True King Of All Pens: the Zebra F-701 ballpoint pen.  Behold the beast in all its stainless steel glory! Its knurled grip reminds me of my late father's wrenches and ratchets. It's big, it's heavy, it's an improvised defense weapon that writes beautifully.  I've had several over the years. The first was loaned and never returned; I can forgive this. Once. The second was ran over by a forklift when I dropped it on the warehouse floor. Bent but not destroyed, it holds a place of honor at my desk. My third was accidentally left in a hotel room in Copenhagen, Denmark. As badly as I want to return to ask for it back (and get a hotdog while I'm there - Copenhagen is the home...

 I've taken a few steps toward resuming writing. I've written off and on over the years and now feels like a good time to get a few pieces started, maybe even finished. I have a long habit of starting more than I finish. As a Free/Open Source Software ( FOSS ) enthusiast, I plan to build my workflow exclusively around such software. The Linux operating system will be the platform; I have a strong preference for Linux Mint . Mint is a stable, conservative sort of operating system, an Ubuntu derivative that surpasses its foundation. This would provide an enterprise-grade platform for my writing and small publishing firm (more on this later). As mentioned, I want my writing and publishing to be done on a FOSS platform. I've used Ubuntu Linux for some time and find it works well, but their parent company, Canonical, appears to be drifting toward centralization, while the Snap application packaging is proprietary software, which is the opposite of FOSS. Canonical isn't a pu...

Author's note. I've reached the age where friends and loved ones pass with greater frequency. This is my attempt to memorialize those who have gone before, the first in a series dedicated to absent friends. These are people I love and respect, whose stories deserve to be told. Mitch I met Mitch my junior year in high school. He'd transferred from a nearby school and was a year younger than I. This was a fortunate move for me, as both of my closest friends had moved out of state over the summer and I was feeling a bit lost. Marijuana and rock music solidified the friendship, and soon we were hanging out alot with the mutual friends. Our group of friends were stoners and lived the stoner lifestyle, getting high, watching too much TV, living on junk food. We’d tell the same jokes repeatedly, laugh like we’d never heard it before, only for one of us to tell it again soon after and repeat the cycle. It was like a scene in Philip K Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly,” when Bob Arctor ...

If you've spent any time at all on this site, you will have noticed I have an interest in investing. I had no interest in finance until my mid-40s, when I took a job at a printing company in which one of the partners is a CPA. I learned personal finance the hard way, struggling with credit card debt in my early 20s (it was the 90s; I blame the guitar and camera stores). After digging myself out of the hole I was in by age 27, I was cautious to avoid debt anytime I could. Investing, aside from employer retirement plans, was not on my radar. Fatherhood really spurred me into action when it came to investing. There's simply no way a savings account can outpace inflation; if you want to thrive financially, investing is the best way to get ahead. So, with encouragement from my boss, I began to study and learn. Investopedia and The Balance proved to be immensely helpful. In time, I opened an account and started buying exchange traded funds (ETFs) and was on my way. I read a few...