Airline Disaster Part II

The plane was going down. Everyone knew. Those who had known what happens when planes crash with people inside of them, had all ready strapped on parachutes and jumped off. At some point I became distracted by the beutiful bright sunshine. It was much warmer outside than it had been, and a cool spring breeze poured over me as it teased my hair and deafened me while it roared by in all directions. My attention was then again on the plane. It was becoming ever smaller as it headed into the distance, shooting flames from all sides.

Had I been blind to what was going on? It seems in my careful documentation of what was to come, I myself had not strapped on a parachute and taken the jump. Yet, I was now outside of the plane, shooting towards the earth. It was obvious now. I had been pushed off of the plane. Perhaps I should have planned for this event. Still, as I plumeted toward the ground I did not fear death. I had been freed. Granted, I would soon crash into the ground never to be found or heard from again. But what would my outcome have been in the plane? I looked again at my surroundings. I had the whole world beneath me, and I was free.

With confidence, and a smile, I begain to strap on my parachute. I would not become a victim of the crash. The plane was now out of sight, and out of mind. Would I hear it crash in the distance? It no longer concerned me. Or did it? Smoe of the people on that plane weren't so bad. Perhaps they were victims of the pilot and each other. Would things have gone the same had they all been in the plane together? Focus! The earth was qucikly approaching me. My parachute on, I grabbed the cord.

I've never parachuted before. How soon until I pull the cord? Careful planning is in order. What will happen next?

Progress

It was tough dragging my ass out of bed this morning. I was in no hurry to start another week of working the day job, then running to the part time gig immediately after. The good news is that I am "sitting" as a student in another SuSE class this week. It's nice, because it gives me time to study and maybe even goof off a little bit when the instructor is covering stuff I know all too well (like right now!).

I had a lovely three day weekend for Easter, and man was I looking forward to it. I had the night off from Best Buy Friday, and so I called off my day job since I had only taught two days earlier in the week. I had a list of things that needed done and I think I got most of that accomplished. Foolishly, I left my laptop in lock up at my day job Thursday night. Then I remembered that my desktop PC back home hasn't worked in weeks. I either have a bad processor, or a bad motherboard. Reguardless, it's trash now. I hadn't used my little old buddy lately (my old iBook) so it was good to show her some attention and drag her around all weekend. Friday morning I got started on finishing the kitchen floor. I began tiling it a few weeks ago, and since then I have had a refrigerator in the middle of my kitchen, and torn up vinyl shit covering one third of the room. My wife has been kind not to bother me about it (I have been working a lot), but I know it had to be bugging her. So while it's still not done as of Monday morning, I just have some grouting to do and it's a done deal!

I had also planned on getting the Bug back on the road. It's been sitting in my driveway with an "electrical problem" for the past few weeks. Meanwhile, I have been keeping the Honda all day long and leaving my wife locked up at home. After screwing around an hour or so with a multi-meter I found that my semi-functional light in my car was probably the root of my dead battery problem. I unhooked it, and wrapped it with tape. Now ... I have to let it sit a day or so and try to start it again. Wish me luck.

I did a bit of studying over the weekend too. I got it in my head that I need the CISSP certification. I have tossed around the thought of getting it just for resume use and bragging rights. But as I get closer and closer to the door (quitting this job) I realise how important it will be to have it. Doing a search through a good search engine like indeed.com (thank you Poe) I found all the jobs that I am interested in. But hell, do I really want to work for another corporate entity? Not really.

I think ideally, I want to work for myself. I have bumped into some instructors recently that I used to work with, and they make some seriously good money. It seems, I can make several hundred bucks a day doing the same thing I do now, which is teach. Sure, there are downsides like ... staying in work. And not having health insurance. Of course, with this new "plan" that my company is on, I am paying all my own medical bills anyway ... plus $150 a paycheck for the so called "insurance". It has been hailed as "insurance for people who don't use insurance". I think that's pretty accurate.

What would it take to be self employed? A few months, and a leap of faith I think. As of now, I am trying to catch up on my mortgage payments. Once that's been done, my income could be a bit more flexible. I would also need to make some arrangements with brokers, and training centers to set up some work relationships. I can't very well do that now, or I will certainly be sued for breaking my "non-compete" agreement. You know, I wouldn't want to bite the hand so to speak. For that matter, my employer may not want me to leave. If they don't want to release me, that non compete agreement will still be good. I think I may just be able to convince my employer that releasing me from my employment here and hiring me when they need to will benefit us all. My utilization here has been so low lately, that they are usually losing money on having me here.

So, I can see some of you are anxious to see my 21 day play. I think it may be more of a six month plan. Not because I am procrastinating, but because I am realistic. In the next 21 days I would like to have studied enough to go out and take the CISSP exam. I've heard of people that have worked six months to get ready for this test. That seems excessive to me. I think a month or so is plenty of time to absorb it all. I need to also convince my employer that they need to pay for it. That shouldn't be tough. They have talked about having me teach security related courses anyhow. This will be a good investment.

Real Life

So what's going on in real life? You know, the life that I have when I am not working. Yesterday my wife and I celebrated our 10 year aniversary. We didn't do much to celebrate. But then we are having a party in mid April. Originally, my mother was going to watch my kids so that my wife and I could go out Saturday night. That fell through. It didn't upset me, because my mother has been going through some medical issues. I would later learn that she called off the sitting job, to go to the zoo with my sister for some "easter bash" where you can watch gorillas eat hard boiled eggs. My wife was a little ticked off too.

I'm a little worried about my mom right now. She found "a lump". It wouldn't be the first false alarm that she has had with lumps. But this one is in her breast, and her doctor didn't seem to think it was a cyst. She is going Wedneday to get it checked out and I am a little nervous about the news I am going to get back.

Aside from my mother's scare, my wife is going through termoil with her mother who can't care for herself. She has rendered herself completely helpless with obesiety, and there aren't a lot of answers for "what to do with her". At the same time, her grandparents are having what I consider to be 'genuine' health problems.

We all got together for the usual easter celebration at my wifes grandparents house. It was a bit uncomfortable, and there were a few nasty words between the grandparents and my wifes mother. I can feel for the grandparents. They are in their upper seventies, and beginning to have some health issues and concerns of their own. Yet, they have to worry about what their daughter is doing with herself, who is in her fifties. She has become a victim of her own doing, and they know it. She plays a victim every chance she gets, and digs for attention. She definitely has some mental health issues, but the family has tried to help her for years and they are all sick of trying.

Aside from what my wife called "the grumps", it was a nice time. The kids got to do their easter egg hunt, and we took some nice pictures of everyone. I would like to share some with my Blog vistors, but as you can tell by the stripped down appearance of my blog ... I am 'between' web hosts as of now. My wifes grandparents also bought a gigantic aniversary cake, which will take the next six months to eat! It was very thoughtful.

That's all that's new in my world. I had better get my head back into this class now. Or back to the books if this class doesn't move forward sometime this century. I have quite a bit of reading to do.

Losing My Religion

Over the past few weeks, I have been deeply depressed with my job. Since I haven't been teaching, the only day I have come to my day job on time all week was Tuesday ... because we had a meeting and I would be missed. I was supposed to be in Best Buy Sunday morning for a two hour meeting there and I completely blew that off. After drinking the majority of a 5 liter mini-Coors Light keg the night before, I just wasn't in the mood to get up at 6:00AM and drive across town to learn how I can better sell service plans (and other retarded duties that have nothing to do with my work there). I found out last night that one of the Geek Squad guys showed up to the meeting late, and caught hell about it. There was talk about punishing me too, but it seems to have been forgotten now. I never heard a word about it.

I sat down for lunch Tuesday afternoon with an old friend, Matthew Curtin. Matt taught me some basic things about UNIX and C many, many years ago when we were both much younger. These days Matt runs a very interesting company titled Interhack (interhack.com). As founder and CEO, Matt has built a company that sells security. And by "selling security", I mean that his team shows up to your front door and installs everything needed to secure your company. Also, being an expert in his field he is often called upon by government entities to tell them what they should be doing. Neat.

I long to work for a company like Interhack. It sounded like a YMCA for adult male hackers. As much as I wanted to come up and see his office, I didn't want to intrude and I had also run out of meter time. As I walked to my car, I found that my meter time had run out ... and I had a nice $20 parking violation to pay. Woops.

I later e-mailed Mr. Curtin explaining that I would love to come work for him if he could ever find a place for me. Knowing that I am completely unqualified for the job, I threw out a couple of words like "internship", and "cheap labor". Who knows. If nothing else, I would love to have lunch with him again. Next time I won't have to search for the place and I can bring more meter change.

Looking back, I think the timing of my meeting with Mr. Curtin was not accidental. I imagine if I were a religious person, I would wander into a church and talk to a priest through a screened booth. But, I have no faith in any religious entity. My lack of faith is in no way spiritual. I need a technological priest. Perhaps this is why I sought out Mr. Curtin. He had given me faith once in technology and I was counting on him to do it again. At the same time, I was looking for a way out of my two jobs. I am at the point in my career where I am ready to drop everything and walk away.

Aside from going to the eyedocter, having lunch with old friends, and avoiding my job, I have been preparing to teach a class next week. Last week I taught a beginner SuSE Linux course which was pretty tame - and lame. This next week I was slated to teach the "Advanced" SuSE Linux course. And it actually is advanced!. My experience with SuSE is slim to none, and learning this material for the sake of delivering it ... really stinks. While I have learned a ton, and studied insanely I don't know that I am ready to teach this class.

Halfway through the week I was told that a guy from Novell was free next week, and was coming to co-teach my class. As I attempted to get details about what was going on I found that no one has any idea of what is happening with this class. Today I finally was able to get a phone number for this guy and I gave him a ring. It seems he was planning on teaching the class. No help from me. I am overjoyed. Now, I can sit in the class like a student and see how he is going to teach it. I'm glad I forced myself to prepare to teach this class. If I knew that this guy was going to do the class, I probably would have been goofing off all week. Now, I can coast through the lessons and "play student". The next time I actually teach this class, it will be much easier, and the pressure will be off! I can look forward to the weekend. God Bless.

And so ... what AM I doing with my career? Other than updating my resume, and pouring over job sites I have made zero progress. I know I can't count on someone handing me a job. But the more I look for a job, the more discouraged I become. I seem to have the wrong collection of job skills right now. I need to stop, and refocus my studies (security, databases, etc). Perhaps I should be looking for a job that would have tuition benefits so that I can work on a college degree! Look! I'm planning something!

Allow me to take this moment, to thank the many random Best Buy customers who buy iPods and don't understand how to use them. Thanks to you all, my music collection is always growing. This week, I have been listening to some classic "The Who", and I will leave you with this ...

"But my dreams they aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free"

- The Who [it rhymes - so it must be poetry! {inside joke}]

My Happy Journal Entry

My wife and I went out to eat this past weekend with her aunt, uncle, cousins, and their husbands. The food was great, the wine was plentiful, and many great conversations were had. At some point during dinner, one my my wifes cousins brought up their late grandmothers journals. Aparently, Tess had filled quite a few journals in her lifetime always documenting her day. She said the journals were very repetitive, often just spoke of the weather, the dog, gardening, etc. But it seems every entry was a positive outlook. As if, she were her own source of inspiration. She spoke of how she admired such a quality. To always find something kind to say at the end of her day. Her cousin then went on to say "I've written some of the things I put in my journals, and they're all negative!". I couldn't say I disagreed. Looking back at some of the things I have written you would think I walked around miserable all the time.

It's strange how we use our journals to vent, isn't it? And so we concluded that we could all learn from Tess. Her positive outlook on life, in death, has had us all questioning the words we leave for others to stumble upon. What will they say about me when I am gone? Probably nothing nice. In fact, here I go abusing this journal once again ...

Where Has My Career Gone?

It must have been about 10:45PM when it occurred to me. I have hit an all time low in my carreer (if you can even call it that). Here I was driving home to my angry wife who had decided not to wait up for me. No wait, I need to take the scene back further ... say, 8:00PM. Like any other night, I was at the counter wearing my dirty blue shirt. Having been on the job since 5:20 or so, I had probably only speant 10 minutes or so working on computers. The entire time I had been on the job I was answering phones, checking returned items, sending vacuums to service, having customers yell at me about cell phones .. the usual. I was about at the end of my patience when the computer department manager came hopping up the desk.

The computer manager asks that I come back to the computer department and help a few customers. I was quite against the idea, which he was not happy with. I questioned why I should leave a full load of work (around 15 PC's waiting to be fixed) to go stand around the computer department. He said "my guys need help, just keep the customers busy for 7 minutes between sales!". I, am not a salesperson. I guess he wasn't aware. So I told him I was not a salesperson. That didn't seem to matter. "I know nothing about what we're selling, I don't think its a good idea", said I. "You can read the tags, can't you?" he asked. By this time, my disobedient nature had set him off. His eyes were popping out of his head, and his nostrils flaired a little. "So you want me to read the tags to customers? I don't think thats a good idea". To make a long argument short, I finally agreed to help out. My blood pressure was much higher than normal today, and I'm sure it was starting to show.

As I waltzed in and out of the aisles of the computer department, there wasn's a single person to help. I approached a couple of asian gentlemen, who didn't really want any assistance and hurried away when they saw me coming. I was done. I headed back to my bench to prepare for a new set of idiotic chores that don't involve actual PC repair. "Thanks!", he says, "was that so bad?". I knew it wouldn't end there. I knew I had angered the manager of my corner of Blue-Shirt-Topia.

About the time my co-worker and I were scheduled to leave, the angry sexually frustrated manager returned. He had decided that this would be the night that we were to clean the floors! Not the usual sweeping. We would MOP tonight! It seemed to be strange timing. Since I had been employed, the floors had never been mopped. And when I say "never", I'm talking several years. I gladly headed to the warehouse, filled a bucket, and got right to work. Playing mind games has never really bothered me, and this would certainly not be the night that I had a nervous mental brakedown. I decided that this would be the cleanest floor this store has ever seen.

Over the period of the next hour and a half, I slowly moved items long, restacking all of the customer repair items, pulling out buckets of cables, and removing shelves. Having done half of the area, I returned to the warehouse and refilled my bucket with clean water to do the other half. I felt a bit bad for my cohort, who was stranded with me. He probably could have left. It seemed strange that he had to hang around and watch me mop a floor. But then, if he went home, it would seem as if I were being punished in some silly fit of hostility from the manager. This was clearly not the case! This floor simply had to be cleaned, and it had to be tonight!

After finishing the floor, and admiring our good work, we headed into the parking lot. That floor mopping had cost the department about $28 of labor expenses in all. I think we made it worth their dollar. As I climbed into my car I remembered that I had needed a jump to get my car started earlier and so I hollared to my cohort to wait around and make sure I got away okay. Thankfully, I re-hooked my battery and started up no problem.

As I drove home this evening, I took a good long hard look at this mess I have put myself into. Every day, I go to work to a job that I will never advance in. Making pay that will never increase. When I am done there, I slap on a blue shirt so that my coworkers can make fun of me, and then head out to my second job where I choke down sinus pills and aspirin to make it through a night. I think that brings me to mopping floors.

Who am I doing this for? It's not for my family. They don't see me. I'm a stranger to my children, and my wife has practically given up on spending time with me. I am a run down, miserable, mess. A heart attack waiting to happen. An involuntary muscle in a blue shirt. I have abandoned all sense of pride, and my esteem disappeared a long time ago. This cycle has got to end.

It's time to find a new job. One job. One that I enjoy, and one where I only work 8 hours a day and then come home. I need to catch up with my family. I need to take time out and do something fun. I need to get a hold of my life.

Drinking and Testing

I spent most of the past few days studying for my next exam. My employer has asked that I become certified as a Novell Linux instructor. Being that they have been dropping the ax at the rate of once per week, it was an offer I couldn't afford to refuse! Besides ... when they finally fire me, I will have one more certification to my name, right?

So I have two immediate goals, one of which is complete. To obtain your Certified Novell Instructor status (for Linux courses) you must obtain either the: LPI, SuSE, or RedHat certification. You then send your proof of certificate-ship to Novell along with proof that you are a "real teacher". That base is covered. I have been a Certified Technical Trainer for many years now (now owned by CompTIA and called "CTT+"). I scanned that certificate and mailed it. So then it was onto one of the three Linux certs.

Since I had complete freedom in the Linux cert I chose, I went with the most vendor neutral; "Linux Professional Institute - Level 1". There are two exams one must pass to be LPI certified. After doing a couple of days of studying, I thought I was about ready. Plus, I needed to get a move on. They want me to teach a Novell class the week after next! I scheduled it for Friday afternoon.

Friday morning I came to work and got to studying as usual. Around noon I stood in the cafeteria and choked down my reheated lunch. And then ... I guess it was back to studying. With only a few hours left, I was starting to get that pre-exam anxious feeling which I hate. I really needed a beer. Then I saw some of my co-workers getting ready to leave for lunch. They were going to the Red Door Tavern. For those who don't know, the Red Door Tavern is a run-down, filthy, smelly old resteraunt up the road. The food is awful, the prices are outragous, and the service is downright disrespectful. Yet, they seem to turn quite a bit of business. I would never dare eat anything there, but I REALLY needed to get out.

So I followed the work gang off to the Red Door with one thing on my mind. A beer. Once we got there I could see that the selection on brew would be slim. This place actually had two bars (only one functional) and about five taps. Not wanting the usual beer I made a few requests. "Guiness?" Nope. "Becks Dark?" Nope. "Anything dark?". "Yes", the waitress replied, "We have Columbus Dark Nut Ale". Yum. Give me a big one!

Over the course of the next hour and 15 minutes that it took my cohorts to get their food, I slowly consumed 24 full ounces of dark stout ale. It was all of delicious. A full meal in itself.

After heading back to work, I began to see the err of my ways. My mind was filled with cob-webs. Had I consumed too much alcohol? Ah hell, of course not! 20 minutes before it was time to take the exam, I was beginning to get worried. I was ready for a nap. So I did what any beer-buzzed exam taker would do. I drank two consecutive mountain dews. But they could not compete with the dark ale which was consuming me.

As I stepped into the exam room, I was a bit worried. The test was said to be 65 questions, yet I learned it was more like 90. The extra questions were random "beta questions" which would go unscored. That's a lot of beta stuff. So I buckled down, and hammered through it. About 45 minutes in, I was all ready done, having answered all 90 questions. "Damn! That was simple!". I figured I aced it. Imagine my surprise when I exited the exam room to learn that I passed it by a hair. 500 points of 890 were required to pass, and I scored a 540. Whew! Close one!

The moral of the story: Friends don't let friends drink and test!

Oh shit! I'm about to be late to Best Buy. Bye! Miss me.

Earn a Free Mini Mac

i was shocked when the free iPod deal actually turned out to be legit. And I was still a little shocked when my free iPod arrived on my door step. Thank you all who signe dup under me and helped me achieve my five referral goal. If you have *not* yet signed up to recieve your free iPod, you should do so using this link. In doing so, you will be referred by (and fill one requirement of) one of the fine people who helped me get MY iPod.

And now, I can't resist signing up for a free Mini Mac. Knowing that the program works, I am buckling down for another set of referrals. It's a little tougher than getting a free iPod. You still have to complete one of several offers (cheap and easy). But you must refer TEN others to also complete one offer. It's not impossible, but I imagine it will take considerabely longer than it did to earn an iPod. I am thinking I could probably print up some photocopied shit and hang it around my local neighborhood. I bet I could pick up one or two referrals that way.

But if you are remotely interested in getting a free Mini Mac for yourself, please use me as your referral! You can sign up using the link below.

http://mac.gloop.net

If you haven't yet, I would suggest signing up for the Blockbuster online deal. At $15 a month for 3 movies at a time (as many as you can watch and return) and two in-store rentals it's a damned good deal.

Ray Get's a New Old Dell!

Yes, thats right. I was offered a chance to turn in my Dell and trade it toward a 'different' Dell. So what I figured was that I was getting something much newer! It ended up being a slightly newer model, but without all the pimped out features. For example, my previous model was cranked up to 1GB of RAM, while the trade in only had 512MB. I switched the SO-DIMMS. My old model had an 80GB drive, and the trade in only had a 30GB. I switched the drives. The old model had a much better display, and built on ATI video. Okay ... I couldn't switch that.

So what did I gain exactly? It's a pound or two lighter. It still weighs in at 12 pounds or so (versus 14). It lacks a floppy drive (there's the two pounds). But now I have a DVD-ROM AND a CD burner. Working without a CD burner has really sucked! This will be a welcomed addition. The last notable perk was the 802.11G wireless card (integrated). I have never been permitted onto the business network because they only allow G cards on it. Not a problem you say? Well you can't run a land-line connection to the business network from the training areas (for security reasons). And I LIVE in the training areas. So now, I can actually get to the business network and get things done when I want to. Yay!

Oh, did I mention it's faster? Now my model (when plugged into the wall) get's up to 2.66 Ghz. A hair closer to 3Ghz than what I had before. While it has some things I could live without, I think I will get used to it. The keyboard is 'sub-standard'. It's got the delete key at the bottom, and buttons like "print screen" become function keys. They glidepad is HORRIBLY touchy. So in the middle of typing a document, if your thumb slips, you end up typing over things. Love that feature! Thanks Dell! But here's something nice ... the network cable plugs into the BACK. Yeah, you would think that's natural. But on my old Dell, it plugged in at the front around the side. It was awkward. Aside from the keyboard being mini, at least I can see the keys now. They are not rubbed off yet! Thank God for small favors I guess.

Right. So maybe I will Blog later when I have something more interesting to talk about than my new old Dell.

One more thing ... is anyone else creeped out by this image from Microsofts web page?



I mean, not that their web page is ever any 'good', but this shit is disturbing. It's one thing to give tips about protecting your kids. It's another to slap some wierd suggestive image on the public site that looks like "Chester the Molester". I'm sure the parents of that child are happy to know that their stock photography shoot was cropped up and used to insinuate child abuse. I bet if you saw the photo full frame, you would have a nice family eating ice cream and enjoying a park or something.

Microsoft: You people are fucking wierd.