Decision Point

So few choices, so much time laid out in front of you. We only change at the precipice. Like when you're staring down the barrel of an endless, unflinching destiny, and you're not sure you like what you see.

I tend to believe you can just will your way through it. But this takes enormous effort, and more energy than can be sustained for long. But I keep on going. You've got to keep moving. If you stop swimming you die.

How close do you let yourself get to the ground before you pull the ripcord?

Behavioral Patterns

Sometimes I miss doing technical work. Then I remember that I hated every minute of it.

Finding a solution to a problem was (temporarily) fun, but none of the actual work, turning wrenches, writing code, or performing experiments was worth the effort. It didn't help that the technical work I was exposed to served little other than the self-gratification of the purveyors of some antiquated science, one that would probably serve the world better if it went the way of Latin. That and cost the American taxpayer a truly exorbitant amount of money under the guise of "serving the warfighter" while accomplishing, in fact, the exact opposite.

To my unending surprise I left the technical world and entered the world of project management, fully expecting to hate this world more than anything that came before. What can I say, I'm a masochist? For some reason taking everything you've worked on for a long time and burning it to the ground appeals to me. Something about seeing all those years of school, all that time spent building up your technical expertise, and all that sweat poured out of your skin to do a good job go up in smoke just makes me smile. Charges at the base of the Burj Khalifa would have been my personal finishing touch. Good thing I'm not an architect.

What I discovered is that people are much more interesting to work with than machines and computers. I've come to realize that people operate in an eerily similar manner to those machines I used to program. They all follow a set of behavioral patterns that have been ingrained into their psyche. All you have to do is get in there and see what gears are turning. By and large, people follow a shockingly predictable path. However, people can adapt and surprise you. People you think are hopeless can step up and unexpectedly impress you. People that seem rock solid can crumble like tinfoil. It makes your job a lot more interesting when you don't know what's going to happen next. That very uncertainty has gotten under my skin, and I have come to enjoy being forced to react to situations on a daily basis.

This is all highly irregular. I used to hate talking to people and would do pretty much anything to avoid it. Now it's the cornerstone of what I do. I never thought of myself as a leader either, but that seems to be where the tide is taking me now. Life is strange indeed. When I think about going back to technical work, at least for now, it's like thinking about returning to a slow-paced, uninteresting drudgery. Like voluntarily stepping into quicksand. Maybe this is the reason it felt so good to leave that all behind, and means that I was never meant to do technical work in the first place. After all, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. If that's the case, I'm glad I finally saw the light and got out when I could.

I wonder what turns await in the future . . . .

Back from the Brink

Total comp time hours earned since November: 80
Total overtime hours earned since January 1: 30
ND-V for Vendetta? Priceless . . . . . . at least when it finally comes

Been away from the blog for a while, so I haven't thought of anything particular to rant about. I guess since it's Snowmaggedon and I drove up 95 two days after the storm on a sea of slush/ice I could go into a long discussion of how poorly protected we are from natural disasters. I spent my time while driving on 95N at a whopping 5 mph to think about how amazingly crippled Washington D.C. was when it snowed 26" in a day and a half. Then I wondered what I would do if something big went down in D.C. while I was stuck in the traffic and the city was pretty much shut down. At least I had my dive knife and plenty of water. I suppose I would have had to hoof it back to Ashland along the railroad tracks. Such are the places my mind wanders when I get bored. This track of thought lasted until I found myself debating the lethality of a dive-knife tipped spear. But I digress. . . .

I've been working too much. 15 hours a week of OT gets pretty tiring when you're actually working the whole time. Pulled an 18 hour day last Tuesday to get a product out the door in time to meet a deadline. Repeat for a while and you'll lose your mind. I've got to get back to some hobbies. Maybe kill a tree or two. Get back into swimming or some other form of cardio. Running tears up the knees too much.

Also, this little experiment in continued destabilization of our climate has shown that Katy and I really need to put together an emergency plan. Get our rally points planned out. Contact methods, challenge-reply phrases, all that good stuff.

Guess I have another hobby to start . . . . .

36 miles to go . . .

I'm closing in on 500 miles this year. Gotta run 4 miles each work day to make it the remaining 36. Will be up for a big New Year's celebration if I make it. . .

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Almighty Dollar

I often find myself sitting at my desk, staring in disbelief at the work I am performing, and wondering just how and why I ended up here. Furthermore, I don’t understand why I work so particularly hard at it. Why am I wasting my time working all the time? For that matter, why am I in this city? What particular good is all this crap doing me?

The answer is shockingly simple. I have to come to work day in and day out to make paper. Paper to keep the house payments up to date, paper to keep the lights on, and hopefully enough paper to buy a sufficient number of distractions to keep you, if not happy then numb. If you can’t do that then there are numerous prescription drugs that can numb you to reality, just ask your doctor.

People always say that you should find something you want to do, and that will make it all better. But do you know a single person who truly does what they want to do for a living? What person all full of sunshine and daisies comes home from work and says, “What a great day! I love my job! I can’t wait to go back tomorrow!” Just for clarification, people who hate their family and use their job as an escape don’t count.

Even if you find a job that is interesting in the short run, soon enough you’ll be doing the same thing over and over and over and over, and it’s back to feeling like work again. The same old, same old drab nothingness of a gray dawn. Just 25 more years until you can retire, if you’re lucky.

I guess that’s one reason why some people are religious. They’re so fed up with real life that they create a new, “eternal” life that will somehow be everything that the one they have is not. Others drown in their booze. Some run marathons. A few power through it all with hopeless optimism. Any way you slice it, they all show deep discontent with the way things work, the way things are.

In the end we will all end up just as industrialized generations past. The cycle repeats over and over, crushing the souls of billions each time around. You can’t fight it. Even if you wanted to you wouldn’t know who to hit. And so you’ll sit in your office, or cubicle, and when it cuts you to the core, never fear. Your paycheck will be waiting to salve your pain.

Indecision

Just downloaded the latest Carbon Leaf album. For those who don't know, it's an alternative celtic band, kinda. . Plus they were formed about a mile from my parent's house in Ashland, VA. Previewed the first song and the lyrics went:

And if I face indecision, don't let me face it alone.
Just take me straight to Virginia, back to the faces of home.

Right then I was sold. Then the lyrics got better and better:

Now my spirit and bones take me straight to a fork in the road
Now my spirit and bones take me somewhere I've never known
And if I face indecision don't let me face it alone
Just take me straight to Virginia, back to the faces of home.

The song speaks to me. That's kinda the theme of my life. I don't really feel like I've made any decisions in my life. I'm not saying I haven't had choices, it's just that in all the cases I can recall, the choice was either obvious or made for me. I feel like a cloud, moved around by unseen currents. Like a cloud, I'm trapped by and manipulated by my environment. Most of the time I am (more or less) happily floating along, but I can collide with others and unleash furious storms on occasion. It's just me. I'm here. I don't know why, and I don't really care why.

Long days, fade away
I take it in through my eyes
Sometimes, survival's the milestone
Electrified like a lighted tree
Take these spirit and bones and catapult from the ground
what doesn't throw you or burn you will surely turn you around

I've always been more of an observer than a participant. What can I say? I much prefer watching and listening to people to actually conversing with them. Looking back, time seemed to go so slowly in my wishfully not-so-distant youth, and every year it seems to slip faster and faster into the future. I've definitely been thrown, burnt, and turned around over the past five to ten years, particularly in my work life. I've seen several friends die before their time. I was nearly killed twice at Carderock. I've seen people I thought were decent turn into amoral monsters. I faced total disillusionment, for the first time witnessing first-hand the house of cards the system is.

Long days, fade away
I hope to see them again
Sometimes survival's the milestone
I may get lost but I know where I've been, I know where I've been
I know where I am right now

It's a great tragedy that we don't realize the value of time until all of it's gone. And the lessons you learn in school never matter. What matters is what you learn in the real world. Will you let it break and beat you down? For certain, no one can hold it against you if it should. There's that nagging hope again, such a base human emotion. Rationality will drive you insane if you take your limited experience and apply it to the world at large. There's so much out there. It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black. If you let it the darkness will engulf and destroy you. But if you carry on the dawn always comes.

I take comfort in the faces of home. The people I know rekindle my hope. We're all lost trying to find our way in this world. I know deep down there is no purpose except that which you create for yourself. I'm not sure if anyone else feels this way, but I suspect they do. Best of luck to everyone carving out their own path.

If the hour gets late, rest and await the dawn . . . .

Chameleon

Had an interesting talk with the German foreign assignee today. It's kind of weird to meet such a similar person from another country. We were talking about careers and getting bored.

You see, I've realized lately that I don't really fit in anywhere, and I never really have.

I definitely didn't fit in during high school. I didn't really want to go to college. In talking with Katy and Yaz and Jagibbs the other night, I suddenly realized that during the first three years of undergrad, I didn't have a single person I really considered a friend. There were some acquaintances, but no real friends. My only friend was back home. However, I never really noticed this absence of friends while I was in college. I always figured that when college ended it would be just like high school. You go your separate ways and for the most part never see each other again, except in extremely rare cases.

I did make some friends in grad school, and in my first job. Ever since grad school I've been getting better at this whole chameleon thing. I can fit in to any job in almost any surroundings, and everyone seems to love me. But I never feel settled in my work. I never feel that this is what I want to do. But looking back, there's really not anything I'd rather do, per se. To me, every job seems like a load of crap.

Last night I couldn't sleep. I lay awake in the bed trying to think hard about what I wanted to do. There was no answer. I can stay here in D.C., find a job out in the country, or move out of the country altogether. I could push paper all day, do advanced technical work, or just work with my hands in hard labor all day. I don't think it would matter. I'd still have to go to work, still have to do some other meaningless thing or the other to earn paper.

Florian said I had that look in my eye when I told him I was part Native American. Maybe I give off an aura of dissatisfaction over how this world has turned out.

It's not like it's going to get any better before it gets a whole lot worse. Time to train until I can't help but sleep . . . .

Phase III begins

Phase III:

The current weight goal is 225 by 09/01/2009, and I will re-evaluate once reaching that goal and stabilizing. My current progress is charted below. However, to reach that goal, I must implement a more drastic Phase III effort.

Phase III Exercise Schedule:

My ultimate goal is currently 220, and I will re-evaluate once reaching that goal and stabilizing. However, to reach that goal, I must implement an even more insane Phase III effort. The goal here is to crash the weight by maximizing output and minimizing input. Then, when the goal weight is reached, gradually stabilize intake to match output levels.

Here is the new schedule:

Phase III Eating Rules:

1. No dessert
2. No snacks
3. Alcohol and coffee consumption at a minimum.
   
4. Breakfast: Meal replacement bar.
5. Lunch is not allowed unless lunchtime workout produces severe fatigue. In this case, a minimal lunch meal may be ingested.
6. Dinner must be limited to a minimal portion. Attempt to use the Japanese 30% full rule.
   

My running activity since I started training again in February is plotted above. Another ancillary goal of mine is to run 500 miles this year. This would be the most running since my senior year of college in a calendar year. I am currently at 250 miles and have been running for 5 months. Putting 14 miles up a week should just about get me to the year-end goal. The lapse in activity in the plot is from the ankle injury I sustained in early July. I was able to keep doing elliptical, but had to give up on the running for two weeks. . .

PSA Number 1

TO: MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC

SUBJECT: SUMMARY OF REQUIRED ACTIONS TO ENSURE THIS AMERICAN LIFE IS PRESERVED INDEFINITELY

Over the past two years, our country has experienced a great economic downturn that has left many of you unemployed. You have witnessed misguided attempts to prop up companies that caused the downturn, and a re-distribution of wealth so staggering as to make it almost unbelievable. And yet, it continues on a daily basis. People who orchestrated your current problems are making off with your tax money as bonuses. These bonuses are just a little something extra, like a large tip at a restaurant, for them for doing such a bang-up job (literally) to buy another beach house or several imported luxury automobiles.

As if this is not enough to give, you must also give yourself to the people who have more money than you. You must toil day in and day out to get the scraps from their table. And you must do all this without question. Not only you, but your offspring must be raised to believe that they can do anything, never realizing that their destiny is prescribed by the plutocrats that control the whole of society. High society will choose which meaningless labor they will perform until such time as they can no longer line the pockets of their employer's board members.

To make these goals easily achievable, the following actions are hereby considered mandatory:

1. Never think. You are not being paid to think. Do what you are told and everything will be fine.
2. Watch TV. The propaganda machine is built around television. Therefore, watch as much of it as you can.
3. Eat more food. A stable American economy is built on huge waistlines. Make sure you don’t fall behind in the fat race.
4. Choose your poison. Immediately begin participation in a religion of your choice. If this does not appeal to your personality, you may choose to drink heavily. A properly-distracted or numbed mind is essential to the performance of your duties.
5. Vote. The true genius of our system is that there are two parties that are in the pockets of the same people. In reality, it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they are all the same, lazy, good-for-nothing crooks. But as long as you think you have a choice, you will stay in line. Your vote matters!
6. Buy, Buy, Buy! Another cornerstone of our economy is frivolous spending. There’s a new electronic device you need in order to keep up with the times, or a new dress to stay in fashion, or a new car! You wouldn’t want to keep the same car for more than two years, would you? That is treason. And the less gas mileage the better, the oil magnates need your help to feed their buy-an-island-every-year habit.
7. Buy a house. We need to re-inflate the market to unbelievable levels, so mortgage your future to the bank and pay twice the value of the home. Trust us, it is a good investment. . .
8. Live in fear. We spend a lot of time inventing things for you to fear, so be a good citizen and let it consume your life. Fear of terrorists, flu, gangs, natural disasters, anything! An additional benefit to us is the associated stress to you, since you may have a heart attack and not have to collect social security!
9. Join the service. We will pay you a remarkably low sum to risk your life for us. Anyway, what do we have to lose? Which brings us to . . .
10. Die. We don’t care how, or when. But if you could give us upwards of $100k for final care and expenses, it would be greatly appreciated. Please do this as early as possible, for your country.

Bettica Services, LLC

Dave and I have officially started an LLC, coined Bettica Services after the name of our shipduring the test in Italy. For more information, check out my old post on the Italy trial at the old web site.

I've been thinking a lot lately that negative experiences, particularly extremely negative experiences, end up making us who we are and giving us clearer pictures of our goals in life. For instance, I hadn't really thought deeply about what the hell I was still doing in my old job, wasting my life and effort away as a technical test engineer, until I was diving solo underneath the hull of the Bettica while the dry dock was half full. For those of you who don't know, half full would mean that a good deal of the weight holding the 400 foot ship on it's makeshift wooden stands was displaced while I dove into a cramped space directly under an entire warship and all its inhabitants, who were good enough to keep running heavy machinery while I was underneath the ship. Plus, the wind was bad that day, you could feel the drydock moving, and the waves were pretty rough too.

I have to say the act of tying a safety line before filling the drydock and wondering how much time I would have between hearing a crack in one of the supports and the whole shebang squishing me into human nutella to grab the line and attempt an escape. My one saving thought that if the ship came off its rocker and I survived, I would immediately exit the water, run up to the room where the test equipment was stored, and strangle the test lead with my bare hands. But I digress . . .

The fact is, that this experience, piled upon all the bad experiences in Italy and afterwards, ultimately had a very positive effect on my life. Even though it took a year of a hatred-filled haze and months of frustration, it payed off in the end. I got out of killing myself to do technical work that made other people feel good. I got a 10% raise to go to my new job that I enjoy in an environment that actually cares about it's employees.

It also provides perspective, and calibrates you to find out exactly how much you can take and still be standing.

I never considered myself a leader. But after experiencing such bad leadership, I am compelled to jump into every situation and ensure it is being performed to a level of my satisfaction and to my standards. I used to dread picking up the phone, still stuck in my old "highest-scoring introvert" phase. Now I call meetings that involve highly technical, political, social, and economic issues and feel at home doing it on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

The total incompetence of the people at my old job is another motivational tool. When I was still there, I used to believe that being the best in an environment of incompetence was enough. Now, I realize that in order to derive satisfaction from such a place, there has to be a place to go. What good is it being the best if the worthless people surrounding you are paid an identical amount? But if you find a place that actually rewards performance and does not just pay lip service to it, you can stay motivated.

Weakness is another trait of the people I worked with before. The majority of people were merely leeches on society and perfectly happy to be that way. They had lost all point in their work life. They were just riding the check for their whole lives. I can understand how you reach this point, particularly if you have no self esteem and are too weak to stand up for yourself. But how can you live with yourself, just going to work, not having any redeeming qualities, accomplishing nothing day in and day out? Even if you are working hard and producing results, all of the goals of your work were hollow, confused, and utterly pointless. Do you really want to spend most of your life in a concrete building, wasting away to nothing and accomplishing nothing except the excrement you leave in the bathroom?

I'm so glad I got out of there. But in all, my previous work experience was very rewarding in developing my new work mantra. You need to focus your efforts on your goals, and be sure that the goals you are setting are your own. You have to be strong and never hesitate. And you have to have some goal that is worth achieving in your work.

Unless I find and keep these things in my work, I can finally be happy in what I do. And of course, to satisfy my technical, hands-on needs, we have started the an aborist service under Bettica Services, LLC (see habit hobbies below). Yet another outlet to keep the dream alive.

Finally . . . . .

Habit Hobbies

Made a background for the computer at work, seen above. Started talking to people at work about their trees. It seems that we could get a lot of business if we were insured. I asked Dave to investigate immediately. Apparently, we may be starting an LLC. At least this way we can write off all of our equipment purchases.

One example of a habit hobby, one that pays for itself at least!