Thinking the plan through… I need more of that.
Yeah, so I apparently don’t think things all the way through. I was talking with Alvin last night over my new netbook (HP mini 311, upgraded to hell), and up to now I’ve been slave to my impulses. I quit Facebook on a whim back in January, without thinking there were people I actually communicate with via that website. I deleted my website last night on a whim thinking I was going to retool it from the ground up. And today, I fumigated my bathroom without really considering how far the poison gas would spread in my apartment… I sat two rooms away for about 3 hours. Granted, I shut off the vent, closed the door, and thought that it wouldn’t travel through my heater system, but now I’m feeling just a little bit off. I’ve been out of my apartment for about an hour now, having gone to eat and sit here at Panera Bread surfing the web. I feel kind of yuck, though, I don’t know if it’s because of the pesticide or for want of sleep… I went to sleep last night at 4AM. Woke up this morning at about 8AM, so it’s not like I lost that much sleep… 2 more hours and it would be my norm.
Anyway, when I get back home I’ll be disposing of that can and airing out the apartment again. Actually, I wonder if I can just get away with turning on the bathroom vent for half an hour.
Ugh. I can’t wait to move into a house.
-TJ
Finished reading: The Year of Living Biblically
Just finished The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs. Pretty good book. I recommend it to anyone open to new perspectives on religion and faith. Website is here: http://www.ajjacobs.com/books/yolb.asp.
-TJ
Bill Harris – remembering him
Today I said goodbye to a friend.
I worked with Bill at Wright Patterson for about 9 months. In those months, I met a guy who had truly lived a life less ordinary. He was a man who spoke the truth, especially when it needed to be spoken. He was an awesome friend that I wish I met when I was younger. And now, he is with God.
I didn’t know Bill all that long. But I learned two things from him. The first, I need to be honest with people when it comes to negative feedback. Especially when it comes to negative feedback. Problems can be avoided in a professional setting if differences are resolved quickly and early on, instead of letting lots of petty minutiae pile up until it becomes a mountain of festering resentment. That wasn’t Bill’s problem, but he told me a story where someone had these problems with him and affected that person accordingly.
The second, I need to see as much of this world as I can, while I’m still here. Bill took trips down to NYC when he lived in Rhode Island a long time ago. He knew NYC so well, it seemed to me that he had lived there, but he never did. The short of it is that I will be taking 8 trips to NYC this year, and I will learn it well while I’m still young.
All I can say now is I wish I knew him better. I kept putting it off, and now I’ll have to wait until later.
Ah well. We will all see each other in the end. In the meantime, goodbye Bill.
-TJ
(Read his obituary here: http://www.legacy.com/Dayton/Obituaries.asp?page=lifestory&personid=138944416)
It’s been an interesting week
It’s been quite a while since I’ve went from one weekend to the next feeling like alot has happened. I went to Melbourne FL for business this week, and when I wasn’t predisposed to meetings I took the time to get out of my hotel room and shoot pictures. I shot about 120 pictures, but I only have about 8 worthy of sharing. Alot of the pictures I took were of birds and trying to capture them doing something cool, but apparently I need a bigger zoom lens to shoot good wildlife pictures.
Yesterday, though, was pretty cool. I had a flight out of Orlando at 9:54 AM, but due to weather and mechanical troubles I ended up getting rebooked for another flight. My options were either to make a 5PM connection (instead of 1PM) in Atlanta, which would have left me sitting around in the Atlanta airport for 4 hours, or take a nonstop to Dayton at 7:17PM. I ended up going with the nonstop, because I thought that was the only way I’d get a free roundtrip ticket that they were actually offering all of us Dayton travelers.
So I started thinking about what I’d do in Orlando for the next couple of hours… I effectively had about 7 hours to kill at that point. I contemplated getting a cab to go down to International Drive, but I was holding a laptop bag that was particularly heavy and a backpack with some real estate books and my camera, and I honestly didn’t want to walk around town carrying all that crap… it would have been a screaming “MUG ME!” sign.
I had lunch at the Airport, and while I was figuring out what I could be doing, I saw red cross workers leaving the restaurant area and remembered that there was a relief effort at the Airport. So, I figured… what the hell.
I ended up helping the team at Orlando with making sure refugees got tickets and made flights to their relatives for 7 hours. It wasn’t all that stressful, but now I think I will sign up to be official on the Disaster Relief Team. I think at the very least it will help me learn to deal with managing an emergency response, and I think as an Officer that would be a good experience to gain.
-TJ
Just to get the word out
http://picasaweb.google.com/psychogears
I’m putting pictures here now.
New Years Resolutions
- Plan ahead, organize thoughts, lay out a strategy to engage in any problem that comes my way.
- Lose my gut Go to the gym and sweat 5 times a week to become stronger, faster, and more durable.
- Buy a house – consult with USAA, make a plan on how to do this by April.
- Enroll in grad program for Computer Science and Engineering, or something close to it.
- Eliminate any reason for me to frown in public. I should be having the time of my life, why do I feel lost? Again?
- Buy the goddamn Rosetta Stone for either French or Russian and learn a new language. Finally.
- Don’t get paralyzed by the act of planning. Make a best effort, then execute.
12.14.09It’s coming.
One day, I’m going to wake up. I’m going to look in the mirror. And I will look my age.
Before that happens, I need to do everything that I want to get done while I’m still young. I need to make more friends, do more things, get out more. I need to hit on more girls, get rejected, and learn to deal with it. I need to grow a thick(er) skin.
Pretty girl never fell for timid man.
-TJ
11.10.09Not fair, and not balanced.
I had a whole article written out to point out the discrepancies between two accounts of essentially the same thing–Ft. Hood coverage between cnn.com and foxnews.com.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/09/fort.hood.shootings/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573547,00.html
Read it and see for yourself… I miss objective news with just the facts. CNN does a better job of this than Fox News in this case. CNN’s sources are official, Fox News uses anonymous sources and digs into the guy’s past to find a man relaying a certain perspective of the Major. Personally, I think this is just a case of a man who lost his shit and happened to be Muslim. In any case, I would pay attention to Fox News if they spent more time backing up their statements with facts and less time quoting hearsay and opinions from the background while making sure the word “Obama” is posted prominently next to each piece of negative press they have, no matter how unrelated or unattributable that news piece is to our President. (“Obama Ignores Terror at His Own Peril” appears right next to a bunch of Ft. Hood articles on Fox News–I assume that’s deliberate article placement and not just a website design coincidence.)
Anyway, I have to go to work.
-TJ
The Men Who Stare at Goats… I don’t recommend it.
So I watched this movie, and I only have a few things to say about it:
- There were a couple points in the movie I laughed, not because it was funny, but because there were some random “What the Fuck?” moments. If you see this movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
- It was obvious that, for a movie about a secret Army project, they didn’t have a military consultant. The movie opens up to a man with two stars on his collar, and the words “Brigadier General” in subtitles underneath his name.
- Finally, the whole movie is pretty much anti-war. There’s a really good point in the movie, though, where one of the the protagonists, who is American, apologizes for a shooting that happens in an Iraqi friend’s town, and says that he hopes the Iraqi doesn’t think that all Americans are like that–in turn, the Iraqi man apologizes for a recent kidnapping, and hopes the Americans don’t think all Iraqis are like that… I personally liked that part. Army soldiers on LSD in 2009… not so much. (This isn’t the view of the Air Force… just a view of one guy who happens to be in the Air Force.)
Anyway, I don’t recommend this movie to anyone. Good night.
-TJ
I talk too much.
Not enough action. This weekend, it will be about action.
I’m devoting this weekend to improving my quality of life. I’m cleaning the crib, and organizing all my personal to-do list items. I’m spending too much time procrastinating, not getting anything done. End post.
-TJ