one of many in the wild, wild net.

I’ve always had loosely-held opinions.  I figure, I’m no expert on what I’m talking about (most of the time), I just know what I’ve read and decided to accept as true based on other information I’ve read and decided to be true.  But the other day I was reading Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand.  From what I’ve gathered, Mr. Brand is an old environmentalist and has been for a long time.  Decades.  Long enough to remember what the beginnings of the popular environmentalism movement.  Anyway, apparently alot of environmentalists have knee jerk reactions to things like the trend towards urbanization and nuclear power, to name just two.  He’s been around since the beginning, noted what his hopes for the environment were when he was young, and is old enough to know how those hopes panned out, what was right, and what he could have done better, and over the course of decades he’s seen enough to change his stance on some important positions with regards to the environmentalist movement.  If ever you want to stand on the shoulders of a giant, this is the way to do it… by reading this book.

Anyway, one thing he said about his opinions was that they were loosely-held.  I used to hold true the aphorism: “If you don’t stand for anything, you’ll fall for anything.”  It was the only piece of knowledge I’ve encountered that seemed to speak to me… and how I needed to just pick a position and stick with it.  But Mr. Brand, I think, has a very valid counter-opinion in that loosely held opinions means you are open to discussion and learning…

Excerpt from Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand:

… my opinions are strongly stated and loosely held–strongly stated so that clients can get at them to conjure with, loosely held so that facts and the persuasive arguments of others can get at them to change them.  My opinion is not important; it’s just a tool.

When I read this, I had to stop and think (really, to thank God).  I am open to discussion.  I am open to learning.  I consider discussion and learning the most important methods in which mankind will grow and progress.  When we close ourselves off from discourse, we stop learning, and we stop growing.  For myself, I am painfully aware about how little I know about our world and our Universe.  I could hold 10 PhDs and I’ll still feel this way.  There is always something new to discover, and until I am divinely blessed with the boon of knowing everything there is to know about everything–ever–I will keep myself open to opinions, counter-opinions, and–most importantly–facts.

-TJ

I’ll go out on a limb and say that one things my friends know about me is that I’m self-conscious (among other things)–about certain things.  I highlight that last bit because I’ve been known to give impromptu rallying speeches and random public performances (prom query, high school senior production, OTS) given the right conditions, so I figure folks know I’m not 100% self-conscious all the time.

That said, I mention it because I don’t put up alot of the things I want to say on my  own blog, for fear of future reprisal or disappointing people who I consider near and dear (think: family, mentors, friends that for one reason or another put me on a pedestal).  I’m considering changing this policy on my blog.  One of the reasons I went from olaes.net to ockets.net was because I initially wanted to restart my blog and remove my name, but one thing I am not is an anonymous coward.  Not to brand all anonymous posters on the internet, mind you.  It’s just that, when I expend words–verbally or in writing–it’s after they pass internal decency and sanity filters.  The result is… I don’t speak a whole lot because I’m usually watching, considering, forming opinions and counter opinions.  But most of the time the process happens in my head, and some of my curiosities don’t see the light of day.

I guess for the past few years, I’ve been trying to write to this and other journals as a method to find out who I am–to see my soul.  But seeing as how I only write stuff here that pass my filters, and how the majority of product resulting from the firing of neurons in my brain never see the light of day, I think that I am not taking this space to its full potential.  I am trying to decide whether or not I should publish my unfiltered thoughts.

I am afraid of many things if I do this.  A few things come to mind: people (and I) will see my demons, and will subsequently think less of me.  I am afraid that uncensoring myself on my own blog will jeopardize my career and future careers, not because I would reveal some sort of illicit activity, but for subtler repercussions that I can’t begin to fathom.  I am afraid–quite irrationally–that my parents, siblings, and close friends will “kick me out of the house”, so to speak, when they find out that they have only known a subset of the true me.

But as people change, opportunities present themselves.  Within the last few months I’ve been getting bolder in my own life, and with that I’ve been slowly learning how to give less of a crap about what people may think about me, and learning how to care less if people don’t agree with me or don’t like some aspect of my personality.  And despite all these fears, I’m still drawn to the idea of going forward with this plan because I think that once I confront my demons in a public place and air my supposed “dirty laundry”, I can allay my fears of what might happen if I speak my mind.  The true state that I want–to be known for who I am, and neither who I want people think me to be (my perception) nor what people independently regard me (your perception)–can finally be achieved.  I think in doing this I can move forward with… well, moving forward in life.  For one thing, I can stop beating myself up for aspects of who I am that I often consider the “failure parts”.  I can stop wondering if people will accept me and put me in greater positions of responsibility.

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I think I’ll do it.  You may not like me hereafter, but if it’s because you learn something about me that you don’t like after I reveal it, I think I can live with that.  I’d rather you abhor me for who I am than venerate me for what I am not.

-TJ

I woke up today at 6AM, went to work at 9:30AM, and found out at about 10:10 that they closed the base.  In the timeless words of Homer, “Woohoo!”  Homer Simpson, not Homer of Greek literary renown.

I drove around today, and via a circuitous route I wound up at Barnes & Noble next to the mall next to my apartment.  I browsed around for a book that I eventually found out was just released today (The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr by Ken Gormley).  I instead bought two books that I thought might be interesting to read based on the reviews on the back of the books… I know, not very good indicators, but indicators that served the purpose well enough of enticing me to spend money to read what they have to say.  They are Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think by George Lakoff, and Have You Seen My Country Lately? by Jerry Doyle.  The former written by a UC Berkeley Cognitive Linguistics professor, and the latter by a conservative radio talk show host… trust me when I say that I try, in my own quite possibly misguided ways, to look at truly fair resources for reading material, and when I can’t find it I try to balance out what I hear so that I get more than one side of a story.

Anyway, I got into Moral Politics, and after getting through the first chapter I put the book down and started thinking about my own political aspirations.  I’ve toyed with the thought of running for office some day–most likely when I retire from my current office in 15-20 years.  It’s been in my head for a few years now, and I’ve told it to Law and my Dad.  Since I commissioned, I’ve gotten to be involved in stuff that has required interaction with Congress–I’ve never done anything that I could consider “interacting with C0ngress”.  I’ve never even thought that in my lifetime I’d be doing something that could be considered “interacting with Congress”, let alone doing something now.  Suffice it to say, I’ve realized in this last year that I’m alot closer to Washington than I previously thought.  I also realized this last year that the real power apparently is in the Legislative branch of our Government.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but Laws are made in Congress, both at the Federal and State levels.  Anyway, I’ve narrowed down that if I run for office, nationally I want to be a Congressional representative in either the House or Senate.  Local government, I wouldn’t mind running for State congress or even mayor of a town.  As I understand it, these are full-time obligations but not full-time jobs… so definitely I would have to have a source of income other than being in the government.

Blah blah.  Anyway, I was thinking I should, at some point, start keeping a page of what my platform stances are on today’s issues.  I feel I need to declare as soon as possible what my stances are, as that’s something I want to get on record as early as possible so that if I run for office in the future, I’ll have something to point to.  As my views change, so will the page, with narrative explaining why that view changed.

If my speech betrays a politically naive person, consider this–by education, I’m an engineer, and as a private person I tend not to research things I don’t have much interest in.  My knowledge of things not related to engineering is severely lacking but ask me about possibilities and I’ll talk all day about them.  I’m ultimately not interested in what we can’t do, but what we could do–we as a city, a state, a country, and a human community.  As each day comes and goes and I learn a little bit more about my world and my society, and at some point I realized that to effect the greatest good I’ll have to do something that will test the limits of my capacity to make things happen.  I think that working in the Legislative branch will test these limits, while at the same time I can provide the input that I want to give to the leaders of our Nation (or perhaps become one?).  There’s alot I want to say, and I don’t type or speak fast enough to communicate everything that’s whizzing around in my head.

Anyway, more on this later.  I’m at a B&N, it’s 8:30PM (close to my bed time), snow is still coming down, and I have to eat something still.

-TJ

How Christian Were the Founders? – NYTimes.com.

I’ve been hearing about this for a while, the article is mostly about the Texas public education school board setting the curriculum for the rest of the country’s public education system.

Whatever school my future kids go to, I’ll be sure to supplement their historical information so they get true history, and not the parts that the public school system allows them to see.

- 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.

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

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

So I haven’t mentioned any progress on my health endeavors as of late. Just a quick update, I hit perfect attendance about a month ago, I think. I feel like it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been going to the gym 5 times a week consistently, but it may just be 2. I discovered hash running 2 weeks ago, did run #1 at John Bryan State Park here in OH lead by a duo dubbed “Penishead” and “Bermuda Triangle”. Met alot of good folks that day, and discovered that some of them I’ve seen around on base but never really took notice… imagine my shock when we meet a guy named “Bitch Whisperer” and he waves me down at the gym during the subsequent week… I had to think really hard when that happened, but I figured out who he was. Good guy. Good guys and gals. All of them.

What else. I had a running joke for about a week when I told my friend RG (here at WPAFB, not at PAFB) that I lost 2 inches off my waist during a Saturday workout, then subsequently told him again that I lost 2 inches off my waist during a Saturday workout not even an hour later. When he told me “you lost 2 inches off your waist? Yeah, you told me that not even 30 minutes ago,” then it became a joke to tell him a few times a day, sometimes twice or three times in a row… I harass people up here, it’s what I do.

Anyway, life’s been overall good. I worked out with my PT last week (or maybe it was 2 weeks ago?) and she changed up my regimen. I’m also taking some whey protein before going to the gym now. I remember I used to live with a girl who was a former body builder, and she was all into this stuff. I used to look at this barrel of whey powder and think she was nuts and/or hardcore at body building. She was, but the powder itself is just protein, and just a highly efficient way to take in nutrients at that. So now I just drink 1 serving of this stuff about 45 mins before I work out, then I work out when all the protein is floating around in my blood… or something. I don’t know quite how it works, despite RG’s best efforts to explain it to me–I was paranoid at first because I saw the word “creatine” in the ingredient list and I thought I’d be ruining my liver if I didn’t take this stuff correctly. Anyway, no allergic reactions, no blood in my pee, so far so good.

I think my next step is to get organized, then go to school. I need to start planning out my next long-term plan. Having commissioned just this last February, I achieved something that I previously thought was not within my reach, and now I really don’t know what to do with myself. People tell me “school”, “masters”, “vectoring”, blah blah blah… I’m going to do this on my own terms, as I always have. I work with a bunch of great, bright people, and they’ve been giving me insights to officer development, and there are some interesting things out there that I may be looking into in the future.

That’s it for now. I’ve got to go to bed… tomorrow, as every day, I’ll be learning a bit more about defense acquisition. This is one charlie foxtrot of a system we have, but it’s the best we can do, and only through learning about it as it is now will I be able to contribute to streamlining and improving it in the future.

-TJ

Hay-soos. So if life was an MMO game, then I “dinged” 7 hours ago. Yes… today is my 29th anniversary of life. I’m waiting to see the text message from my cousin who probably has my birthday on some automatic reminder, followed by a couple of relatives calling me–the only time the whole year they ever do.

Anyway, enough lamentations about yet another forgotten birthday… to be honest, it’s expected. I don’t tell anyone, I don’t celebrate it–at least in the “get drunk” sense. But every year on this day, I review what happened during the last year and see what kind of progress I’m making in life.

So, to recap:
Sept 08 – to borrow an old phrase by RG, “getting short” back at Pete (a.k.a. “senioritis”, short-timers syndrome) in anticipation of OTS. Each morning I was taking a long look at Pike’s peak, thinking about what challenges the next 12 months held. I took a trip to Vegas on my motorcycle, with a tent, sleeping bag, and 4 days worth of clothes strapped to the back. I still wish I took that road trip with friends, but opportunities for adventure wait for no one, and I’m still glad to have made that journey… even if Vegas sucked $800 out of me.  Girl status? Zero prospects, one mad at me.  What can you do?

Oct 08 – I drove home, experiencing a busted tire on an interstate in Denver during rush hour and having to change it out with my spare… one of the scarier things I’ve done in life. Same drive home, I actually ran out of gas on a desolate stretch of the I-70 in Utah… right in front of the only gas station for 20 more miles in Thompson, UT. If that’s not proof that God exists, I don’t know what is. I literally coasted on neutral to the pump. The rest of this month was spent at home, not thinking about “the switch” or worrying about anything really. By the end of the month I was ready to go and get drilled down to be built up for the second time in my life.  Girl status? Zero prospects, life is undergoing a tumultuous change, probably not practical to be looking for a relationship right now.

Nov 08 – Saw the first black president elected, and the next morning I was an officer trainee at Maxwell. And… that’s that, because apparently the first rule of OTS is you don’t talk about OTS… and I’ll observe that custom.  Girl status?  A few prospects, but really there’s nothing sexy about OTS.

Dec 08 – Training, actually went home for christmas for 2 weeks.  Was a nice break, but when you’re in training you get wound up real tight, so I was extra careful not to do anything to jeopardize my chance of graduating on time.

Jan 09 – Training… saw Pres Obama get sworn in by an absolutely awful oath-giver.

Feb 09 – End of training… graduated 24 Feb as 2d Lt with a developmental engineer AFSC, drove up to WPAFB on the 25th, signed in on the 26th, found my new apt the following Monday

Mar 09 – Found myself getting thrown into the fire immediately… I lucked out and got assigned to a team that was just getting into some major contract action.  Where alot of 2d Lts will complain that their work is so boring, or there’s nothing to do, I found myself trying to get up to speed with the terms of the current contract, what the current requirements were for my system, etc.  Still working on that to this day… 12 years of history to cover, original contract was signed in 1997.

Apr 09 – ASBC!  This was the first time I’ve been to AETC and it was actually not such a big pain in the ass.  I met all sorts of people, and had a great flight.

May 09 – ASBC ends, sad to part ways with such a great group of people, but that’s military life… you make friends, then you leave them for the next assignment.  Or in my case, back to Wright Patt.

Jun 09 – CORONA TOP, got to hang out with a bunch of CGOs of varying experience and rank, escorted a Colonel-equivalent civilian… was pretty easy overall, even though I was messing up alot of stuff due to lack of planning or anticipation of what-could-go-wrongs.  Live and learn, then do better next year.

Jul 09 – Discovered premature ventricular contractions… checked in to the ER trying to figure out what these thumps in my chest were.  Apparently they’re normal, and some people never notice them.  Mine went away after a week.  This kick-started me into going to the gym and running more, though, so thank God for that.  Hired my personal trainer Marjie from the gym in area B, and she gave me a path to follow.  I’m 60% on that path as of yet, mostly due to failure of diet, and I’m hitting 60% attendance at gym.  Also paid off my car!

Aug 09 – FAM 103, aka my tech school.  Got to hang out with old friends, make new ones.  Also found out one of my ASBC flightmates was coming up to WPAFB.  Girl status? I hadn’t even been thinking about this until lately… too busy with the rest of my life.

Sept 09 – Work is great, and I discovered I can bullshit with the better-than-average of them.  Went to the bar with some friends, and was the only one who even struck up a conversation with a girl I didn’t know.  It was one conversation, but that’s 1000000000000% better than nothing.  Also… I think I’m getting looked at more.  I don’t think I look any different, been going to the gym at least 3 times a week.  But I find I’m not self conscious anymore when I leave the apartment. Girl status? Zero prospects, but, as it is every year, I look forward to what this next year will bring.  It’ll happen when it happens, and if it doesn’t… then that’s life.

I think my resolution for year 29 is to resolve my problems.  If I’m not happy with something BIG in my life, then I’ll take steps to cut that BIG problem down to small bite size pieces, or I’ll take hacks at the BIG problem and whittle it away over time. Right now my frustrations are:

- Girl status.  God help the lady that falls for me, and God help me if I ever find her.  At an age where more and more of my peers are getting married and having babies, I’m still living single wondering when my time will come.

- Gut status.  So gym seems to be working… it’s funny, the other day I was at the gym doing bicep curls, and my upper arms felt strange, so I peeled back my sleeves and saw a bump, it looked like my muscle was bulging… I thought something was wrong initially, then I reailzed that I was working out, had been working out for a few weeks now, and that this is actually what was supposed to happen.  I didn’t realize how alien muscle building was to me until that moment.  I never realized how much I’d like lifting weights, etiher.

- Art status.  So I don’t watch TV, because I don’t want to pay for cable since I’d only watch news and I don’t need yet another reason to be a couch potato.  So to my detriment I find I’m missing popular cultural references of the day.  I play alot of WoW at home, too, because I love game mechanics and exploring game content.  I bought a YPG-635, a “portable grand”.  I went to Guitar Center the other day and fell in love with this thing… it’s a keyboard but it has piano-weighted keys.  It felt the best out of all the keyboards I touched on.  Now I have to go find a piano teacher, or find some sheet music.  Anyway, “art status” I’m remedying by attending orchestral concerts, probably will visit the museum in Indy in the coming months.  Might not help me with the popular cultural references, but at least I’m getting some creativity into my brain.

- House status.  Thinking about it….

Thinking about this though, I think my goals for this year match how I’ve lived my life up to now… expanding my horizons.  I started playing with computers when I was a kid because I didn’t know about them.  I ran a marathon at 15 because I had no idea how hard it would be.  I invited friends to run with me at 16 that year because I had never had friends over my house (I went to a public school in Cerritos while living in LA, I wasn’t supposed to tell people at school about my residential situation).  I had girlfriends in high school because I had no idea what having a relationship was like.  I serenaded my prom date at 17 just to do it… graduated college just to do it, joined the military just to do it, started riding motorcycles just to do it, and commissioned just to do it.  Now I’m working out just to do it, learning to bullshit and casually talk to girls just to do it.  I want to skydive just to do it, get my masters and a PhD, learn to drive a manual transmission rice rocket, get on a sport bike, and stay fit through one year.

And I have to say I’m thankful for this life I live now.  There were times when I had no idea if I’d ever make it to a point where I could consider myself “well off”, but now I feel I’m living comfortably.  Dropping a G on a piano?  No sweat.  Couldn’t have done that back when I was programming for a living.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  We’ll see how I go towards these goals this year… it looks like there’s alot on my plate, I should probably get started.  Like, now.

-TJ

That’s right! I can run for 30 mins now without feeling winded! It’s exciting because I think the last time I felt this way was when I was 16 running greens back at Whitney. I used to like running, but after 10th grade that all went out the window with the mandatory PT class.

I’m by no means fast, but I actually felt wind while running indoors near the end of my 30 min run. And now when I wake up the next day I don’t feel sore in my legs and I feel like I can do it again. I think this is thanks to going to the fitness trainer… guess this hard work is paying off.

Next step: eat better.

-TJ