Overwhelmed

School has been kicking my ass.

I have been doing homework for hours on end: building network designs and writing programs. I have fallen a little behind. This was further exacerbated by the fact that I had to work last weekend to help shut down and power back on the servers at work for a scheduled power cutoff that wound up not happening. I think that I finally have a chance to catch up this weekend. I have four programs to write (and haven't started) and I have a simple network to put Access-control-lists into. I will have to remain cut off and focused but I think that I can get myself clear before Monday.

Huntington

I am taking a computer science class where I am learning the programming language C++. The hardest part of the class is finding time to do the work. Because I am familiar with HTML and CSS, and had started to learn JavaScript, the concepts of programming make a lot of sense to me. Despite having difficulty keeping up with the assignments, I am in a position to help some of the other students. The student that I have been helping the most is unsurprisingly the one that I sit next to. This student (lets call him Jim) is eighteen years old and is going into computer science as a major. We first got talking when he was having trouble loading the text editor / compiler on his laptop because it was running windows 8 (which is still in prerelease preview). Since then we have talked a little more each class session.

This last class session we spoke about some more personal matters. We got to talking about our shared love of coffee (Jim works at a Starbucks) and I told him about how it helps me focus and keeps my eyes lubricated (I have shitty tear ducts). I also mentioned that I don’t like the addiction part of it. Jim told me that isn’t the worst part for him as he smokes. We got into a discussion about smoking and how one gets started in such an anti-smoking culture as Southern California. All this was regular small talk until he told me why he isn’t afraid of the consequences of smoking. Jim’s family has a history of Huntington’s Disease.

What more do you say after something like that. None of us know when we will die but Jim has a better guess than most. He alluded to having watched his family members go through the wasting effects of the disease and told me that he has thus far avoided learning too much about it. He is trying to focus on living his life and not think too hard about the game of genetic roulette that he is subject to. After a rough pause and some sad words we forged on to easier topics, but I have not been able to shake the thought.

This really made me grateful for my health. I know that I would react in a different way than Jim has and try to learn all I could about the disease. I would get my DNA sequenced and find out for sure if I had the gene. What terror it is to know that you have a 50% chance of an incurable degenerative disease when you reach somewhere around 35 to 40 years of age.

What an unfair world we live in.

Redeployment

My brother’s Deployment ceremony was this past weekend. The last two times he was sent off to war he was stationed in Washington so I wasn’t able to go to the ceremony if there even was one. This time I went. I had to leave early because of a test in the Cisco class that I was taking but I was there for an hour. The ceremony was essentially a block of solders sitting while some officers talked about how proud they were of them and of the unit in general. Then they sang the army song and fell out.

It was an emotional ceremony for me because it called to mind how it was during his second deployment to Iraq, when I wasn’t sure if I would ever see him again. My brother is very important to me. He has been my guide and friend and has helped me find my way more times than I can count. Anyone who knows the two of us can see how similar and how in sync we are.

This time I am less afraid for his life. I know that he will be working at a higher echelon than the last time and that he will not be on patrols. What I am afraid of is that he will be hurt, not hurt physically but mentally. I know that war has changed him. Seeing and doing the things that a soldier does and being in a place where there are people lurking with hatred in their hearts waiting for the chance to kill whomever they can has altered the landscape of his life. He can no longer enjoy fireworks on Independence Day, and he gets angry and frustrated quicker than he used to.

I am afraid that he will come back even more changed. That the scars that are already there under the surface will be added to. I am afraid that he is paying into this war with his mental health and his best physical years. I am afraid that he will come back and give in to the thought of being a career soldier and spend the rest of his life in the armed services, where things are structured and predictable.

Seeing this ceremony made me a little emotional. I am afraid that I could lose him, angry that he has to go, sad for everyone who's family has to be kept apart for this mad war. I hate seeing him go willingly to where he will be hurt again. He goes for honor and duty and because he promised he would and I would never ask him to forsake all that, so I stand by and watch it all happen again. It is hard to keep from going into a rant at this point. I want to ramble on about political will and cultural incompatibility but that isn’t the point. The point is that I don’t want to lose my brother.

Most of this is my Homebrewed Mead

Other Blogs

Blogging is an interesting thing. I have been posting in this blog for years but it is mainly for my close friends and family. I have decided to branch out with mixed results. I have trouble posting with the regularity that I intend but here are the addresses of my other projects:

My Novia and I write about roleplaying games here:

http://rpglifelessons.blogspot.com/

My Novia, our friend Scooter and I write about the plays we see here:

http://notintheatre.blogspot.com/

I have started a new blog dedicated to my craft work and as an eventual companion to an etsy store here:

http://makermead.com

Passing Througn

It is difficult some times for me to get comfortable with my job. I am the designated tech for setting up systems for new users and picking up the systems from users who are “no longer with the company.” It is an easy task but one that is not without a little bit of angst. I am painfully aware of what the turnover rate is at the company and of how some people don’t make it past a month, let alone six. I am also aware that I am the most junior member of the team and therefore the most expendable. I watch people come and go. Sometimes they are here for a couple of weeks and other times I hear about a coworker being honored for being with the company for 20 years. I cannot shake the feeling that I am not going to last that long. I may be here for years but not many.  I don’t exactly fear for my job (any more at least) but I am constantly aware that it will eventually come to an end.

I don’t fit the IT bill. The mindset of a tech is one of maintaining control and keeping the network safe and stable. While I understand and respect the need for that attitude, I am inclined to focus on innovation and solving problems. Whenever I apply out-of-the-box thinking, the response is “NO, that isn’t in the box. We don’t support that” That attitude is stifling to me. I know that I won’t make this job my career.

This brings me to the thought of what I want to do professionally. I have several irons in the fire as they say, but I am starting to wonder if I am dividing my attention too much. I am pursuing my IT career by working on earning a CCNA. I am beginning down the path to learn how to program by taking an introduction to CS class where I am learning the programing language C++. I am also about to try out selling my ceramic work on Etsy (this kind of half-in production pottery work would never have been possible before Etsy). Each of these pursuits has its own problem. The CCNA class will be useless if I leave the IT field. The programming may be out of reach if I cannot go back and get a BS in Computer Science. The pottery may be some pipe dream that is unsustainable in the real world. I have so much doubt but these are the best plans that I can come up with so I will go with them. 

Struck Down

My ex-girlfriend is sick. Last week she had a cerebral aneurism and was taken to the hospital. She is lucky in a lot of ways. Her boyfriend was there to take care of her and she had just gotten back from camping far from any hospital help. I haven’t seen her or her boyfriend but mutual friends have filled me in on some of the details. After the aneurism she was taken to the hospital and underwent surgery. They still have her in the ICU she is very sensitive to sound and has headaches. She is resting as best she can but is getting sick of being in the hospital. She reappeared on facebook yesterday which I take as a good sign but she mentioned that she won’t be posting much due to some double vision.

I knew that she had high blood pressure but she is too young to have an aneurism. She is 29 years old and in a hospital bed in the ICU. The doctors seem to think she will make a full recovery, and that is comforting but she could have just as easily died.

I am not sure what role I play in this. We were together for 7 and a half years but that was almost three years ago. I now only see her at the occasional party thrown by one of our few mutual friends. We are not interested in the same things and do not go the same places. Friday night when the news came down, I was notified by two different people and on Saturday I was updated by three different people. I am astonished at where I am in the flow of information. I am going to try and visit her in the hospital but I don’t really know what to say. She is bored but still resting and recovering. What do we talk about? Do I chat with her new boyfriend about what I know about her family medical history? Do I bring her favorite candy? There is so much history that I have been setting aside for years, and now I do not know what to do with it.

The most frustrating thing about ceramics class is when other students break your work

Back in school

In class at sunset. It is only going to get darker as Summer gives way to Fall.

Dreamlines

I have been reading Tim Ferriss's "The 4 Hour Work Week. I am finding it to be an interesting attitude adjustment. Just as Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad" re-arranged my thoughts on what assets or liabilities are, "The 4 Hour Work Week" has seriously affected my thought process on what it means to work during the best years of your life.
I understand that the concepts in either of these books cannot be widely used by the public at large. If everyone in the world (or in the country) tried to make their living in real estate or through some niche internet business, then there would be nobody to do the real actual work that keeps the economy running. These books are very first-world information-age. It may be somewhat conceited to say that I am special (and everyone thinks that they are) but I am not your average minimum-wage lifer. I am (or will make myself into) the kind of person these books apply to.
The thoughts that are going through my head now are about the whole concept of retirement and its place at the end of a long career. The contemporary wisdom is that you are supposed to work hard for the best years of your life, saving and sacrificing so that when you are old and sick you have enough money to pay high prescription prices long into your 80's and 90's. As you can no doubt tell from my word choice, I am not enamored with this prospect.
To satisfy the traditional model, I have spent a lot of time reading books and have been testing a small (but growing) portfolio of stocks for a few years. I am very dedicated to constructing a healthy retirement. I keep informed of the current financial environment and of the different things that people invest in. This approach is a slow and deliberate one. The question remains, what about now? what about the best years of my life?
Tim puts forth the idea that you don't have to work your whole life away and that you can create cashflow from a low maintenance business selling some niche good and outsourcing almost all of the work. I am not taking his approach for gospel but he still has quite a few lessons to teach about what work you need to do for yourself and what you can pass off for others to do for you. He encourages you to reach for your unrealistic goals called "dreamlines" (like timelines for your dreams). Sometimes sensibility can be a cage that you only realize you were in when you look back at it from the end of your life. I have been caught for a long time between the desire for things that seem unrealistic and the inability to make that leap of faith and give it a shot.
It really reminds me of some of my artist friends and how they are willing to work second jobs or collect unemployment in order to do the acting that they love. I have been wondering if I have that kind of dedication.
To that end, and with the added support of my currently stable job, I am going to dedicate myself a little bit more to artistic goals. I have bought a used electric kiln and will be borrowing an electric wheel from a friend. It seems that an Etsy shop is inevitable.

There is a logical break here.
I am talking first about working less and then talking about adding ceramic work to my workload. The link is that I would be doing what I love to do. Would it really be work? some people say that the best way to ruin a hobby is to make it your job, while others say that if you find a job you love you will never work another day in your life. I will find out. I am going to give some of my time to being an artist with an art blog and website and store. I already have the name and will be filling in the spaces in the next couple of months. I am Makermead.com I have @makermead on twitter and I have the username Makermead on etsy. I have been slowly collecting these things over the past 6 months with this dream in mind. I have been denying it even to myself but this is what I want and I have to try it.
The craft that I am best at is ceramics, and that is where I will start, but that is not where my passion ends. I want to do woodwork, weaponsmithing, bookbinding, painting, writing, and meadmaking. I don't know what is next on the list but I know that there will be more. I want to visit others and do write-ups on my blog. I want to show off my shop and others, my methods and the methods of my contemporaries. I hope that this project will grow from a simple shop selling bowls and cups to the foundation of a multiple discipline artistic endeavor with occasional collaborations and a community. I hope this is only the beginning.

Ceramics

I have found my way back into a ceramics class. A coworker of mine told me about a local community arts center that has various craft related classes. I immediately enrolled in a Thursday class that runs 10 weeks and cost $170. I have been having a ball making bowls and cups that I intend on giving away to my loved ones.
I have also convinced my mother to take the class with me and she is really getting into it. She has been watching plenty of youtube videos and studying some of my books on ceramics. She wants to be a pro already and gets frustrated but is doing remarkably well Here is a picture of some of my work and three of her pieces in the background. my work is the eight closest pieces that are upside down and her stuff is the small round bowl, square bowl, and the platter in front of the stacks of bowls.

Last Saturday I went in for a bonus class (for $5) and tried porcelain for the first time in years, and had fairly good results.

I am enjoying this return to the studio immensely, and am already trying to figure out how to fit the next class into my schedule. I am also eyeing the jewelry making class that they offer for some projects that I have in mind.

Scheduling

Wow, its been a while. I have been getting used to my Novia's way of scheduling things, which means 4+ weeks in advance and multiple things to do every day. We have had tons of fun doing amazing things, just a few of which are: Cirque du Soleil Iris, Getty Villa, and 4th of July fireworks. I have also started taking a weekly ceramics class. I don't know where to find time to blog anymore but life has been good and things are going well.

FTE

This past Tuesday I became a full time employee instead of a freelancer. I am now really part of the team. It has been a challenging four months to get to this point. Between being very green at my job and having a difficult boss, I had some trouble adjusting to the new position. The last few weeks have been a large change. I have had a chance to learn some things, change the way i do some things, and prove myself and my boss has realigned his attitude. Now things are good. I don't feel apprehensive about going in to work and I no longer feel like I am on the precipice of being fired. I can focus on more than just survival now. I can look forward to fun and amazing things in the future.

Networking

I just finished my final for the first in a series of four classes that I am taking to earn a Cisco Certified Network Administrator (CCNA) certification. After many days of browsing the web during class, I came out with a 94% in the class. Now I have a couple of weeks before the next class begins. I hope that this will all be worth it because the next class is on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.

Vacation

After a stressful couple of months at my new job, I am headed to New York on vacation. I have never been to New York. I am excited to go to museums and wander around the city with Novia and her friend from Canada. We plan on staying in a hostel and they already have the museums picked out. If I get ambitious I will tell you all about it when we get back but more likely I will copy/paste her account of the trip.

Work continued

It has been a few weeks now since I started my new job. It has not been a smooth ride.
My boss and I do not see eye to eye and that has been a bit of a problem. We don't use the same words, phrases or descriptions. We don't live our lives similarly and we don't relate to other people in the same way. It has been difficult to adjust myself to his expectations.
He is typically in the office at least a half hour early and tolerates NO tardiness I had gotten used to an amount of leeway in normal operations, and now I need to be there early for fear of being late. I was 2 minutes late yesterday and that was not good enough. Today I was 10 minutes early. I am allowed NO personal computer use at work. I was looking into how to root my phone and he called me on it (way after the fact). I was tracking a package and he asked me if it was work related (it was). I am the new guy and even though the other guys get there at +/- 5 minutes and check personal email, I am held to a different standard. So be it. At least he doesn't expect me to eat my lunch at my desk while working like he does.
I am friends with his boss (lets call him Dubbs) and I have found out through him that he is the only reason I haven't already been fired. I was close to being fired for these transgressions before I even knew that they were problems. My boss was ready to cut me loose after two weeks. This company puts a serious focus on interrelations and personal growth so much that they have documents outlining how to properly guide the growth of new employees by developing goals and setting 90 day growth plans. These documents are available to anyone in the company and I dare not even suggest to my boss that he read them.  I started by trying to pattern my behavior after those around me but that wasn't good enough. Now I have been given more guidance and I am trying to conform. I am worried every day that I will lose this job. I have at least 90 days as a freelancer before I have any sort of pretense to stability, but the point of no return is actually February 20 when I have to decide if I am going to drop my classes (and thus abandon my schedule for getting a Bachelor's degree) for this job.
Its like walking on eggshells every day. I like the work other than that, I get to walk around and meet the other people who are almost all nice and I am learning a great deal about computers. The atmosphere is generally positive and the amenities are generous. My team is full of competent intelligent people. I know a bunch of people that work with the company and really think that I can form good friendships there. The only problem is my immediate supervisor. I just need to apply myself and struggle through this.