So the Monitors came yesterday. Think of them as recruiters for active duty personell.  Of course, they brought computers. Of course, we had to hook them up and make sure everything was good. In the midst of running around, the monitor for my MOS stops me, and asks me to sit down. Great.  He asks me if I have a duty station preference. I said I’m not staying in the Corps. Then it began.

What followed was childish barking, basically letting me know that I cannot succeed outside of the Marine Corps., coming from 3 MSgts.  It started off “Well what’s your plan when you get out? And don’t say you’re going to school.” Why can’t I say that? Isn’t that what half of the armed forces are made up of? People who want to do their time and get the college money out of it? Is that so bad of an idea?  Especially since that’s the main selling point when the recruiter talks to you.  He focuses on the Montgomery G.I Bill, and rightfully so.

But these gentlemen were obviously afraid.  They knew there was nothing they could do.  In the past half hour, they had seen me work on their computers, fixing their simple problems, doing things so fast they had to tell me to slow down and stay away from the coffee.  They knew that we had marketable skills. And that made them scared. It went against everything they stood for.  So they resorted to scare tactics.

“If you don’t re-enlist now, you won’t be able to get back in! The Corps. has almost met its Quota!”
Great. I wasn’t planning on coming back to the Marine Corps. Perhaps Navy after a while, but not probable.

“Once you get out, you’re gonna end right back up here in the sand! You’re gonna get recalled, and I’m going to be standing there at the gate saying I Told You So. You won’t get the duty station you want, or a bonus!”
Yeah but I’ll get one LONG vacation before I get recalled, IF I even do.  And why would I get recalled if the Corps. has almost met it’s quota?

“Well I saw a DATA guy in the barbershop awhile back and he said he’d just been recalled, so don’t think it won’t happen!”
That little story would have been more effective if it weren’t so vague AND if I didn’t hear you use it on someone else about an hour ago.

I guess it just annoys me is all. These people are telling me I cannot succeed in the real world because THEY cannot succeed in the real world. And these are the people I’m supposed to look up to, to emulate? Sheesh.

A few days ago, we tore down the recreational computer system at our camp. This means I will no longer be able to communicate over any means but my email. It should be listed in my profile.

Today, our section started building our CV’s. It was on all our minds at the same time, and we just started doing it, and helping eachother out. We all have similar qualifications and our work experience can literally be copied and pasted between us. We each have our own style of putting one together, but all in all pretty powerful stuff. I never knew just how hard it was to quantify/explain my work experience and skill-sets on one sheet of paper. I guess that could be viewed as a good thing. Instead of saying I’m fresh out of college and used to flip burgers, I can put down military experience. It’s actually kind of like deja-vu. This is the exact thing I came into the Corps. for. Instead of begging a company to hire me part time and only learn one set of skills, I was practically GIVEN this job, where I’m now an I.T.-Jack-of-all-trades.

It’s a relief looking at job postings, whereas a few years ago job postings were like laundry lists of things I needed to learn. Now all of the same type job listings that I’m looking at make me look overqualified. But no rest for me, because I know that learning is a neverending process. And so many cool things to learn! So many programming languages I have yet to learn, so many server technologies, so many frameworks and api’s that I know nothing of! All opportunities for self-improvement.

I cannot stress this enough : I’m eager to get back to the civilian world.

A few years ago I probably would have laughed at the term blogosphere, in fact, I did: I think it’s a ridiculous word.  Even my spellchecker agrees with me. But think about it; most of your online news intake comes from a blog. I know mine does, as is the par for us techie types.

Today I officially discovered the blogosphere.  It was a surreal experience, and it didn’t help that my shuffle playlist decided that a Muse and Radiohead stint would be perfect for the trip I was having.  It began looking at a blog on web design and development (oh that one?) and it had a great article on a sister site, whose site had a great tip from another site etc. etc. ad infinitum.  Oh. My. Lord. I had just opened up my browser, and all the sudden I’ve got 80+ tabs open (which really isn’t unusual) and I’ve been pushing the del.icio.us button to the point where it could be sold on eBay as “Vintage”.

People been doin’ work. There’s alot of stuff out there in the “Blogosphere”, and the web in general for that matter.  And it gets so much better when you start clicking away at other sites, stuff that isn’t so cut-and-dry like facebook, twitter, myspace, gmail, etc.  Sites that aren’t all about content, rather on how it’s delivered. Sites that are creative in their use of elements, layout, design, and color. Sites that pop. Sites you might not visit again in awhile, but they were cool while you were there. Like a little web vacation, a getaway from the boring one-color-plus-offwhite drudgery.

So go ahead, take a little web vacation. Visit someplace you didn’t know existed. and stop sending me damn youtube links.
(I can’t view them out here! *Sadface*)

[Link] [Link] [Link]

And it’s you I hear, so loud and so clear.

Kind of in relation to the previous post, here was my “list of steps” that I took today to try and resolve this problem.  I put that in quotation, because I’m still actually on the first step, and the rest of it is a tangent off of it. Quite sad really. Lets have a look:

Problem: File Replication Service is having trouble talking to other servers in the domain (and immediate physical proximity)

- Verified FRS is running on [server1], [server2] & [server3].
- Verified $SYSVOL is NOT shared on ANY of the above servers.
- Found tool Ultrasound to troubleshoot FRS issues.
- Ultrasound won’t run without an SQL server. downloading MS SQL Server.
- Cannot Install SQL server. Cause? lack of a strong SA password. Solution? Compile provided C++ code and provide a strong password. FUCK THAT.
- Look up problem. Others are having problem installing MSSQL (also trying to get ultrasound to work).
- User told to upgrade DC to Server 2008, so that they don’t have to deal with FRS, instead using DFS-R. Thanks guys.  Hope – -;
- Will this work with MySQL? I have that…Nope. Not a Microsoft Product.
- Found a friend with MS Visual C++. Won’t compile, because it needs a file from a library in a previous version of Visual Studio.

All in all, it took me about 5 hours to realize that

1. I don’t get paid enough to do this.
2. I don’t have the resources necessary to obtain the tools and information required.
3. The people who get paid 10x what I do need to be doing this instead of me.

All-in-all a productive day.

That’s right. Just got a free live album off coldplay’s website, the album is titled LeftRightLeftRightLeft. Decent album, got a few good tracks, and the recordings aren’t bad, but they’re not good either. Listening to the energy of the crowd is magical. It sends shivers up my spine.

Oh! You noticed? Yeah. I’m in the interwebs. I got rid of the default theme. This should do for a while, I need to start picking away at the css and figure out how I want this thing to look. I’ve also got a good idea for a flash-based splash page, instead of the HTML one I have now. I’m using my tried old copy of flash MX (which I always hated, and I’m beginning to remember why) that I haven’t used in over 8 years. Wow. Just saying that makes me feel old. I still remember me and Ethan sitting in Mr. Cole’s Webmastering class back sophomore year like it was a week ago. That class was so much fun, mostly because I taught myself (nothing against Mr. Cole, who is among the most intelligent men I’ve had the pleasure of meeting).

Just to let you know, this blog is going to be the most consistent element on this website.  It’ll also serve as my playground for me to post up experiments (flash, java, ruby, asp.net, and whatnot) as I plan to get back into working on stuff in my spare time hardcore.  I need to learn a LOT before I enter the CivDiv, so why not use my free time to learn it all?  I’ll also (hopefully) be posting up clips of me on my guitar (and cello?) and maybe even things floating around in the tubes that I find interesting.

This blog is mainly a way for me to document the things that are rushing through my head.  It also serves as a motivator, letting me rant on and put words down on the page.  Hopefully this will get me more accustomed to writing in general. Lastly, it lets me see my ideas and thoughts in a different form. So it’s an important tool for me, at least that’s what I’m hoping.

I still need to get this whole “tagging” thing down, I still want to mess with Yahoo!’s “Pipes”, and I need to get back to work on my flash project. Damnit flash, why are you so time consuming?

My father always took all the family photos. But although they captured the subject, they weren’t necessarily the best photos. Out of focus, too dark, too bright. From an early age, I thought that I could do better, how hard can it possibly be? I started tilting the camera at all odd angles (which I still do) and trying to do my own macro photography with my dad’s Olympus (which I wasn’t supposed to touch) Goodness, that Olympus always scared me, it was such a frightening and heavy thing. It looked so complicated.

Now I’m in the mood to do something about my photography skills. I’ve gone thru 4 point-and-shoot cameras since I’ve been in the Corps. (and various cell phone cameras) and it’s really given me an appreciation for what those complicated-looking SLR cameras can do.  I’ve been searching around looking at entry-level Nikon and Pentax cameras, and lord is it all confusing.  Coincidentally, engadget had an article up today on entry-level DSLRs and lenses for budding photographers who were in the market for DSLRs, which, naturally, I read.

It had the down-and-dirty on a few of the popular lens types and what you can do with them. What was really great was the user comments, as they were filled with tons of stuff from everyday people who just so happened to be photographers as well. Still havn’t wholly wraped my head around the concepts of f-stops and focal lengths, but I think I’m in the market for a telephoto (probably a 50mm-200mm, don’t want to spend too much) and a 50mm-or-55mm “Normal” lens, on top of the kit 18mm-55mm lens. I’d like to go Pentax, because I read that their image stabilization resides in the body of the camera, unlike Nikon, whose stability system resides in their lenses (which I think they charge extra for on their lenses.) But doing a quick search on eBay, all the Nikon lenses could be had for quite cheap. Also the cameras are quite popular on craigslist. That’s a winning combo in my book.

Still more exhaustive research to do.
Informed decisions are better than impulse buys though.