I am sitting passenger on a bus full of strangers. On all sides of me I see faces I don’t know. The bus is traveling down a highway. We aren’t traveling very fast because the highway is packed with buses exactly like my own.

I don’t know where I am going but I do know I was told I needed to go somewhere. I have a wife and child to support and the only way I’m going to do that is by riding in this bus; along with everyone else till we get wherever it is we are going.

-BAM- A crash is heard and nothing else. I look behind us in the direction of the crash and see one of the buses smashed to the size of a small car slowly sliding to a stop. It pushes several other buses aside as it slides.

 

Nobody says a word, nobody reacts, nobody stops. The other buses recover and we continue our slow creep forward. I suddenly begin to feel doubt in our choices. I begin to worry.

 

-BAM- Another bus suddenly reduced to rubble, nothing resembling of itself other than its color and the remains of its disfigured face.

 

Again we all sit silently, moving forward. Nobody speaks to anyone else. I try and seek the source of the impact to the two other buses but I can’t see anything past the rest, slowly moving forward unburdened by the chaos that had just taken place.

 

-BAM- Just like the times before; nobody responds.

 

Am I the only one seeing this? I begin to worry for myself, the people around me, my family. Who would take care of my family?

 

I recognize everything I am doing, everything my fellow passengers are doing, is wrong. We are going the wrong way. We don’t even know where we are going. We are all just following the same highway to satisfy the instructions of someone else.

 

-BAM-

 

I begin to speak up, I tell my nearest co-passengers of what is taking place all around them. None of them even look up at me. Their dead-to-life stare looking forward and nowhere else. Suddenly one of two in front of me looks concerned.

 

-BAM-

 

She turns to the man beside her. He’s middle aged, balding, wearing a suit that looks like he has worn it hundreds of times before.

 

“See, I told you something was wrong!” She pleads, “We need to tell these people, we need to stop this before it’s too late!”

 

He remains silent and continues to look forward.

 

-BAM-

 

She begs with him again, this time he briefly looks to her and speaks before returning his view forward.

 

“No way, we can’t tell anyone. If we do we will never get there”

 

-BAM-

 

The crashes are getting closer, more frequent. The crowd of buses remain undeterred as we continue our creep. I begin to imagine my son and my wife’s faces. I wonder how I could get to them, if I will get to them. I worry they too may be on one of the many other buses.

Suddenly my bus takes a turn onto an exit. For a moment I’m struck with relief. I begin to recollect myself and take heart that we have arrived to our destination.

Ahead on the exit shoulder I see a coffin, and before it a woman all in black. Her arms raised in the air she woefully orchestrates to the audience before her with words of pain. My heart begins to sink for her.

My phone rings and I answer; it’s my boss. He tells me I am needed elsewhere immediately. He tells me there is no time to go home first; no time to delay.

I answer with one word only, “Ok”.

Every first level attempt to improve something will likely fail. If only to ensure your conviction to the goal.

The first intention of every action I take is to do a better job than anyone before me, my second intention is to succeed.

***

Development of a better system comes from having a passion for the work being done in the first place. We will get no where by standing passively on the sidelines waiting for someone to explain the objective. We’ve got to drive what we already do to a whole new level.

We need to not only work through the existing volumes of expectation but to exceed at doing so unlike anyone else. We need to master the art of interpretation by first understanding the perspective of the people we serve. Our position as technical superiors only gets us so far before we’ve got to climb down on our knees and look through the same door that everyone else is using.

Proof is in the purpose. To some extent it can be argued that ability is under the mercy of provision. I disagree, there is no act that is beyond the actor, there is only the actor themselves and their desire to do what is being asked of them.

Moving forward requires not only planning, and tools, but also a headstrong will to succeed. If we are not that will then we have already failed.

***

Intelligent training – Focused on the function first, the exceptions and conditions later. Details come in layers, if they are all put together on the first layer the result will be a shallow discord.

Standard expectation – Every system operates with a pre-defined series of variables. The machine functions by a process that is measured and calibrated in advance. Refinement can always be done but you cannot make these types of changes until the pieces have been logically arranged. The work being done is not throttled by limitations of the machine but the quality pieces used to build it.

Sometimes I rant…

What the crap happened to my Open Office document editor? *Need to fix*

The formatting is probably crap and a lot of it is inside jokes or internal references however in short we began our debate vocally discussing the efficiency and proper defense of an attacker wielding a chainsaw. This was the discord that followed….

King of Bother:

A pole weapon or pole arm is a close combat weapon in which the main fighting part of the weapon is placed on the end of a long shaft, typically of wood, thereby extending the user’s effective range. Spears, glaives, poleaxes, halberds, and bardiches are all varieties of pole arm. …

New York City O’Malley:

The halberd is the one that usually comes to mind for me

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Glaive!? Isn’t that a two sided knife!?

ILLIDAN OWNED YO SUCKAS

New York City O’Malley:

I think Blizzard takes creative license with some of these

Although from what I understand the Scots did Starfall people extensively in the 1600′s

King of Bother:

The general term for a group of pole-mounted weapons usually featuring a cutting or slashing weapon on one end. …

Neiderhiser, Jim:

http://api.ning.com/files/9cJg1y6smOB8jbE-r*dZzeKvgA0xIOCmCEKD2URGY0tI7PKCoTSkeZtKI0XT11qnTArQs-*wAe-msUCqIp6sf53*vwU0gD3E/Illidan_Stormrage_by_sandara.jpg

That is not a pole arm

Cthulhuberry:

Starfall?

First Google hit for that – “A free website to teach children to read with phonics.”

Those nice Scots

New York City O’Malley:

You are correct that it’s not a pole arm….I think it’s a Bat’leth

I hate myself for knowing that word

Cthulhuberry:

_http://tinyurl.com/ybj8dfk

Neiderhiser, Jim:

It is my verdict that pole arm is WAY too generic

I hereby declare spears not pole arms

But instead they are extensions of that which is lesser than expectation

Peacemaker Wilson III:

Just use a gun and end it all.

King of Bother:

Some classes can’t use guns

New York City O’Malley:

arquebuses all around

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebuses

Neiderhiser, Jim:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blunderbuss

Neiderhiser, Jim:

You think they could put light sabers on pole arms? Like 4 ways n junk… That’d be sweet

King of Bother:

Light saber is like the futuristic chain saw

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Yea except agile and lightweight and able to slice through metal without effort

So

No

No it’s not

Cthulhuberry:

Everything in the future will be lightweight and able to slice through metal without effort

Duh

Neiderhiser, Jim:

I know this one guy who might be an expert on certain subjects

New York City O’Malley:

I hope this answers your light saber/pole arm question…_http://3do.jediknight.net/dcm/strips/07.gif

Neiderhiser, Jim:

I want my fingernails to be able to slice through metal

I’d be like a super-villain

Cthulhuberry:

They will! In the future

New York City O’Malley:

Also it can fly

Regardless

In the future

Neiderhiser, Jim:

My fingernails?

I hope that I will be able to as well

That may prove painful and/or trying

Otherwise

Neiderhiser, Jim:

if my junk were a pole arm I would go into banks and be all like “THIS IS A STICK UP!” and start ominously threatening people with it but instead of cries of disgust or laughter it would be cries of fear

New York City O’Malley:

Um

plz to define “junk”

Neiderhiser, Jim:

You know… the “spares”

King of Bother:

You would go through a lot of GF

New York City O’Malley:

GF = good fun?

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Pun intended?

I’d be like Edward from Twilight…. “I CAN’T I’M DANGEROUS” and she’d be all “I don’t care, it’s so sparkly and beautiful!” and I’d be like “Ohh nooooo it’s sooo painful and lonely”

And then I’d make a movie

And be famous

New York City O’Malley:

The painful part would be trying to look morose and soulful and pained and deep with a meticulously messed-up hairdo all the time

At once

And then Blade would come and kill you

and Donal Logue would be there

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Then some dude with light saber nipples would show up in the sequel and be like “I’m dangerous too but not in a humiliating sparkly way like this douche” and steal her

And I’d fight him to the death

King of Bother:

Would it go right through the back of the head?

Peacemaker Wilson III:

Well Jim, with your new haircut you really don’t fit the mold for the quietly weird, slightly gay, vampire.

Maybe you did before….

New York City O’Malley:

Harsh

Peacemaker Wilson III:

I can feel it caaaalllliiinnnggg in the air at night….

Did you really say light saber nipples?

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Yea and you could tell when he was angry because there would be glowing embers of nipple death beneath his shirt

Whoa dude do you know who Suge Knight is?

King of Bother:

I don’t

B-ball coach

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Peacemaker Wilson III is a freaking music producer!

This is all a front!

Well

Used to be

Before one guy got shot

Peacemaker Wilson III:

Yeah, he hung King of Bother and his buddy Vanilla Ice over the ledge to make him sign a contract.

My daughter calls me Kimbo Slice

*calls

New York City O’Malley:

King of Bother, have you now or at any time been known to cook MCs like a pound of bacon?

King of Bother:

Is that a fruit?

Peacemaker Wilson III:

U R da fruit….

New York City O’Malley:

hahahah that kind of fits…although I must say your beard is far better trimmed than Kimbo

Also I think you probably fight better

Peacemaker Wilson III:

Yeah, he got KO’d the last two fights.

What a poser….

New York City O’Malley:

Backyard fights =/= MMA

Peacemaker Wilson III:

I saw the fight when the cop beat him up in someone’s basement.

Peacemaker Wilson III:

_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Ross_%28rapper%29

Neiderhiser, Jim:

niiiiice

King of Bother:

King of Bother (Gangster Name)

New York City O’Malley:

King of Bother (Gangster Name+kaidekaphobia

Fear of the number thirteen

Neiderhiser, Jim:

if King of Bother was a rapper his name would be Orange Jubilee and after his first hit single he’d make a new follow-up single called ‘Big O’ and demand that the lady’s call him Big Orange from that day forward

Peacemaker Wilson III:

hahahaha

We would be his posse’, controlling the ho’s at the concert.

King of Bother:

O’s not ho’s

Neiderhiser, Jim:

That would be the name for his fan base

“O’s”

They’d be o-nutz when they go to his shizz-O’s

Neiderhiser, Jim:

The entire franchise would fall apart after a dry year when it is revealed that he is actually a white guy wearing an orange shirt singing about “smoking meat” and “eating fatties” rather than “eating meat” and “smoking fatties”

New York City O’Malley:

Not even the announcement of the upcoming tour with Rhymenoceros and Hiphopopotamus would save him then

Neiderhiser, Jim:

It’s ok because his “twin brother” that nobody knew about would come back harder than ever as a country singer

New York City O’Malley:

The chart-topping single “Hot Dog One” would establish him in the industry and bring him fame and fortune

Peacemaker Wilson III:

And his rival in the charts would be a new single called “Disney01″.

Neiderhiser, Jim:

There would be a love scandal involving sausage, Mickey mouse and a shit ton of mayonnaise

Peacemaker Wilson III:

A shit ton….LMFAO!!!!

New York City O’Malley:

I want to have a band one day called “a shit-ton of mayonnaise”

King of Bother:

I am officially offended here at work

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Don’t be a girl

You should go tell on me

Get me called into the office

Peacemaker Wilson III:

OK, use Miracle Whip

No mayo

King of Bother:

I’ll get you called into her oraface

Orafice

New York City O’Malley:

orifice

Mister Mickey Mouse, sausage and a shit-ton of mayonnaise over there

King of Bother:

Thanks prof.

Neiderhiser, Jim:

Goofy, two of the seven dwarves and the artist formerly known as prince will all testify against you in court. Fully disclosing the acts that you engaged in whilst covered in a shit-ton of mayonnaise

The proceeds of which lawsuit will fully fund my light saber nipples

Neiderhiser, Jim:

I’m changing all of our names for protection from the government in the event that what we said here IS in fact illegal in 48/50 states….so what does everyone want their name to be?

We still live in a primitive time, driven and controlled by fear. It fills me with sorrow, keeps me up at night instead of wrapped up warm beside my partner, makes me so full of rage that I want to grab and shake anyone who still believes until I hear their brains suddenly pop from the lack of oxygen they obviously suffer from. I feel like am a prisoner of personal liberty and civil rights. Just because I’m a Caucasian male that happens to be straight and under the age of 65 and over the age of 18 I have a promising life. I should feel exhilarated but I don’t. I look promised to share my future with a woman as open as I am to life and all things within it. I look promised to enjoy being a father and a husband, to own a home and build a family wealth of personal security both financially and emotionally. I don’t feel exhilaration because I don’t get to share these liberties with those around me. Both those that I love and those I haven’t even met are disallowed such seemingly innocuous things; by the irony of their freedom of choice.

Is being democratic is the equivalent of idealism and a disconnect with real world issues? If so then does being republican make you a racist bigot who hates everyone that doesn’t agree with you? Of course not yet still we continue with these divisions over a common goal. It would be as if every major sports team broke into two sub teams that disagreed on how the game should be played. Or if soldiers at war suddenly broke into disarray undecided who the enemy really is. I feel empathetic toward these people who would deny me choice and opportunity simply based on the color of my skin, the accent of my dialect, my choice of religion or sexual attraction. It disgusts me but still I fear offense because I would never want someone to think I was trying to tell _them_ how to live. After all, sir, the way you’ve chosen to live your life in the privacy of your own home far from my poor incapable eyes, hath offended.

From the day I was born I’ve been told by society to obey, trust and be witnessed under the eyes of a god that I was told my first day of American History that I had a choice not to believe in by the Declaration of Independence. Contradiction is the bread from which I nourish my mind. We are placed onto a conveyor belt from the age of 4 and trained that at the age of 18 we should be able to identify ourselves and our future all the while having accumulated a large supply of a life damning currency that in it’s 2 hundred year existence has become the undoing of our nation.

Without the division of social caste systems we are still no better off. We are under fire each day as we work to not offend by essentially not existing for fear of being sued. Sued by the lack of a common sense law that would hereby enforce all men and women with intent to use the law to claim a right or deny that of any other citizen to provide some sort of common sense to back up their reasoning. Instead we continue to go in and out of a constant state of cultural regression, all the while completely ignoring the fact that our children are being suffered relentlessly by our piss poor examples of “morality”. When we no longer deny one another simply because some archaic and completely off-base grandparent belief tells us to, I’ll be happy to discuss this further. Until then I don’t want to hear any more inquiries about why I’m anti-social. In the words of Patrick Henry, give me liberty or give me death.

Reactions and mundane repetition. You are the life that I pretend does not exist. I wake up and repeat. On autopilot I gaze into the nothing at the end of the hall. I do not open doors, instead I pass through them like a ghost. You, my daily routine, are the end of my existence.

[geekwar]

I haven’t abandoned the blog as my one or two consistent reader(s) may suspect. I’ve just been pretty busy trying to review my material for my Linux+ exam scheduled for the 24th of July.

I did go on a trip to the mountains in Tennessee for a weekend recently with E. and her family. It was quite a trip and I have a writeup I did about it however I’m still considering if it’s one I want to globally share or not. All and all I’m just trying to keep my focus so that I can complete something for the first time in a long while.

I’ll be back soon enough though, worry not.

I found one of my old and more occupied journals from my younger years. I had quite a few but this one is the only one that I’ve found that managed to make it through the wreckage of my young adulthood. Very few things have dates on them. From what I can put together by the context and the dates I have found it ranges from 2001 through 2005. So from when I was fifteen years old until shortly after twenty one. Some of it still holds true, some of it is barely even a memory anymore. All of it is mine however and for that reason I’m posting it here to share. There is no order to what is posted since I’ve apparently always had the bad habit of starting in the front, the back and the middle all at the same time. Blank pages are strewn throughout the midsection of the book, scribbles, doodles and one line rants. It’s a transcript of teenage angst as it develops into an adult barely from the home, sleeping in parking lots and surviving off of dollar menu meals. Some of the pages and writings have been partially or wholly destroyed by water damage or tears in the pages. The only edits I’ve made are those in the case where spelling, grammar or sensibility was required. So let us begin…

In reply to: The Problem with Sleep

So it’s been one week since my original post in regards to my intentions to alternate my sleeping pattern. At the time I’d only been going on my second day and I had actually intended on putting more time into preparing before I began. However when I overshot a nap by about 5 hours I just decided to dive in. Which is exactly why I hate naps, they either have to be extremely brief, say 20 minutes or they have to really last. Otherwise I really feel no effect from them and in result just come out of it even more tired than when I began.

So lets begin with my perceptions from the week so far…

• Socializing has taken the obvious plummet from it’s current near dead status to being fossilized and put on display in a museum. I’ve never been the most actively social person and while I joke that I am quite the elitist, in heart I am just really preoccupied with my own thoughts or engagements to consider it. Some would call me an inconsiderate or selfish person. In ways you may be right but I think anyone that knows me would agree that unless I’m put off by something you have done I will nearly bend over backwards to a direct request. That’s for another experiment though.. lets move on.
• The body is more resilient on an empty stomach. I have read an article on this and I took it to practice in the latter parts of the week. My current work schedule has me going to lunch mid-workday at 10:00 AM Eastern. This is pretty early for most but getting up somewhere between 4:30-5 AM Eastern I am by this time typically pretty hungry. (If only there was something other than nasty fast food places open at this hour) So I will eat my meal at 10:00 and not eat again until after I sleep. This does two things, firstly it permits about 12 hours between the meals making it easier for my body to adjust to the new hours. It also reduces my general need to constantly consume otherwise useless junk. I feel my appetite is more in balance with what I would expect of someone of my size, when one month ago I’d be perfectly fine eating all day if I had food available.
• I am more energized during the day, especially mentally. Before I get into my current hour metrics allow me to clarify that I have yet to have completed an entire night without sleep. This is in part by choice as E. gets home (and thus to sleep) later and gets up when I do, so she requires additional rest. I typically spend my last two hours before I must get ready for work reading in bed beside her and usually doze off. It is very apparent however that I am more alert throughout the duration of my waking hours both at night and at work. My body rarely feels the fatigue that it did almost daily before this experiment. Short of when there is some social event on a particular evening, I have as much sleep as my body decides I need each day. I still like to stretch as any good-feeling creature does and I yawn when I rise or spend too much time sitting at a mundane task but not out of exhaustion.
• With the mental energy has come some very vivid dreams and experiences. Again it is a personal hobby of mine to passively work with meditation, lucid dreaming, OOBE’s and the sort. As a constant interest of mine I personally feel very sensitive to certain behaviors in my body that are instant signs of some sort of activity. Both myself and E. have experienced very detailed, vibrant dreams seemingly daily, let alone every time we fall asleep. I have yet to start keeping a journal like I used to, in part due to the sensitivity of my transition and in other out of sheer procrastination. Of greater personal interest I actually felt the vibrations commonly associated with projection last time I slept.

While the first two days and three nights were questionably discouraging, by Saturday I feel I’d near fully acclimated to the new schedule and truly began to enjoy the lesser amounts of pressure I felt with my time. At the risk of better experiment results I returned to a normal sleeping pattern for Sunday only (which I later realized I could have probably worked with) since E. has a particular schedule every other Sunday. Fortunately now Tuesday morning I am back in rhythm only mildly feeling the effects of missing a full daytime sleep.

I hope that once I have become fully adjusted to this new schedule that I will be able to sleep at a relatively flexible schedule and bounce back the next day with little effect.

Current schedule:

(Every day I began sleeping @ 4:00 PM Eastern)

Monday 5/11: 8:40 PM Eastern
Tuseday 5/12:  9:00 PM Eastern
Wednesday 5/13: 10:30 PM Eastern
Thursday 5/14:  11:11 PM Eastern
Friday 5/15:  11:20 PM Eastern
Saturday 5/16: 10:30 PM Eastern
Sunday 5/17:  (slept ‘normal hours’ 9:30 PM-4:45 PM)
Monday 5/18:  7:00 PM Eastern