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| Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | | 4:40 pm |
Ha ha ha! We need more news reports like this. | | Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | | 6:32 pm |
So, as I mentioned, been entertaining the idea of going back to school. Want to reach out there in the world of teh experienced and get some more feedback. Turns out one of the supervisors at work went to U. of Phoenix and got his AA and later his BS (in business somethingamajit). He said it was a universally great experience and he was very happy with it. So that's encouraging. I THINK I have learned the difference between an A.A. and an A.S. Near as I can tell, an A.A. is universally accepted as a 2 year university degree as part of a 4 year progression, where as an A.S. can be the same, but can also be a more limited degree with a technical focus and not necessarily having all the requirements to proceed to a 4 year degree? In any event, I'm wondering if it's really worth it to do the 2 years and go after the full A.A. I mean, obviously if I'm going after my B.S. eventually, I'm going to have to clear up all those redundant GE credits that I don't CLEP out of... but since I AM working, I would really rather be taking courses directly applicable to the direction I want to go rather than taking World Religions/Critical Thinking. Also, I found that my company will reimburse me up to $5k a year for classes that it considers applicable to my job. Going to be hard to sell World Religions to em on that front. So then, that begs the further question - should I NOT do IT/Networking and try to do something I really have an interest in but has no future for me. Like... Anthropology or Archaeology... Believe it or not, this is what I've always wanted to do - that and photojournalism. The latter and former really hold not future for me though. : / I suppose, once again, these are all questions I should have been asking at 17 instead of 27. *shrugs* Oh well. The continuing battle to get in shape has started back up again. My stamina seems to be returning quickly, I did 3 miles today, and my blood pressure is going down again, I think. My buddy says he came out of Air Guard tech school with a total of 120 college credits. Maybe I should wait and just go that route. | | Monday, June 15th, 2009 | | 4:17 pm |
Making Progress...
Well, I was somewhat stymied this weekend - still adapting to the stationary life and all. I tend to get frustrated when I don't feel I'm making progress, and resettling here in Cheyenne, at my old job, is not what I'd consider progress. In any event, it hit me - if you're not MAKING progress, then go make some! As simplistic as it sounds, the "Just do it!" mentality is all I've ever found that works. Far more successful than the "Sit and Wait!" mentality that was promoted by Nike's lesser known and failed competing shoe brand Tartarus. In any event, today is day 2 of what I intend to be a restart of the exercise regimen I had down south - nothing too strenuous, but I've noted I'm still in better shape than when I left back in November. Glor's doing it with me too. Also - as most of you probably know but some of you may not - I have never spent a day as an official college student. There are numerous reasons for this, much of them money, priority and some related to me being stubborn. In any event, I have been playing with the idea of going back to school for some time now. Due to shifting schedules, class availability and the like, it hasn't even come close to happening. I had just about settled on going to classes "now and again" at the community college, when I decided to give University of Phoenix a look up. I have been considering directing my career towards the IT side of things, something I probably should have worked towards the moment I got out of High School. Specifically, I'm looking on focusing on Networking... of course there is also Web Design or general IT support. I like networking, and it's something I don't know a WHOLE lot about. I worked with our network engineer at the pole and network management seemed interesting to me at the time. Anyway, I want some opinions and advice if anyone has any experience in this respect. I'm not planning on leaving SATCOM mind you, I just want to focus my skills and have a relatively relevant degree. First, it looks like I'll need to get a federal studen loan. Apparently there are some different ones I should be looking at? Second, U of P seems slightly more expensive than some other courses - but given the time and trouble they save, and the fact they are fully accredited (as opposed to say, ITT) I am leaning towards them. Does $20K seem that excessive for a 2 year degree? In any event, if I don't get on the ball and start my life trending again towards progress, I'll never make any. | | Saturday, June 13th, 2009 | | 4:57 pm |
Dunno if I mentioned this, but since I was doing so well running every day at the Pole, I decided to get a treadmill. Well, cheapest I could find was at Walmart for just shy of $300 bucks. Bah. Okay, well, I need to pay off the credit cards, but this is kind of a health thing, right? Anyway, on a whim, I decided to send out an email at work and see if anyone had one for cheap they wanted to get rid of. Jackpot. In the first 1.5 minutes, I had 5 responses! So I just got one home - for free. Not as great as I'd HOPED, but better than the bottom line Wally World model, and it was free! So, yay! Now to use it, daily. Going to start back on my basic 14 week course, of pushups, situps and running - with the goal of being able to ace basic training requirements. | | Sunday, June 7th, 2009 | | 5:05 pm |
Pixar Wins Again
Would you like to hear a joke? A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "Hi tree! I'm a squirrel, and I forgot to bury nuts so now I am dead." The joke is funny because the squirrel gets dead. | | Friday, June 5th, 2009 | | 4:26 pm |
Gaaaaaah! JUST missed it! If I took off right now, I couldn't even hope to keep up. The following, CLASSIC hook echo is now about 30 miles north of me, by the time I noticed there was a Tornado Warning. Still. It's perfect. Perfect. Perfect! (click to englarge!)  | | Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | | 5:58 pm |
Let's crunch numbers, shall we? $588 dollars will get you a week in a motel outside of Omaha Nebraska, depending on when you book. Or. http://www.chinaspree.com/china-tour-package-itinerary.asp?tourID=2009025$588 dollars will get you 7 days in a first class hotel in Beijing, minutes from Tiananmen Square. And pay for a round trip ticket from San Francisco to Beijing and back. Hmm... Though I don't usually go for the whole "tour package" thing, this web site has been tempting for me. I'm especially tempted by the Silk Road trip - 18 days from Beijing to the west side of China at Kashgar, all the way back to Shanghai and up to Beijing for $3500 including air fare and all meals and lodging. In other news, though I enjoy my boss and coworkers far more than I did, now that I'm in a new department... I feel like I'm basically in the same spot I did when I left. >.> | | Sunday, May 31st, 2009 | | 6:49 pm |
| | 11:07 am |
| | Friday, May 29th, 2009 | | 7:12 pm |
Broke the computer out of storage. Amazing! It works! Hurrah! It's still running XP and everything on it feel so so so old. X D | | Thursday, May 28th, 2009 | | 6:24 pm |
I donated plasma for the first time today. It wasn't in bad in some ways as I anticipated - however I did get kind of dizzy and out of it in the middle. I was fine by the end though. Perhaps next time It'll go a bit better. For now - sleeps. | | Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 | | 11:44 pm |
I just had a bit of an epiphany. I don't know if I can explain it, but I'll try. Maybe one's goal in life shouldn't be to succeed, but to make excellent mistakes. Rather than spending one's life avoiding mistakes like the plague - maybe we should only avoid making STUPID ones. A mistake or failure made in the face of planning, in the face of daring, in pursuit of a great victory should be no more feared than the success thereof. Because we've learned more from the excellent mistake - we invested ourselves, we used our resources and our intellect and yet we've failed, but in so doing we've discovered where our failings lie and we lost in honourable pursuit of a grand dream. If we spend our life in the safety of our own cocoon, making mistakes that can only be attributed to lack of attention or motivation or care - have we gained anything at all from them? So heck. I'm going to screw up plenty either way. So maybe we shouldn't concentrate on succeeding in our goal, but instead concentrate on making our screw ups along the way mean something. | | 12:11 am |
Email...
I just noticed that a bunch of my email addies are out of date. If anyone needs to contact me... I check devonpike(at)gmail(dot)com quite often. | | Friday, May 15th, 2009 | | 6:17 pm |
We're back in Wyoming! And I got our internets back up. Mmmm... over 5 mbps... delicious. X D More, later. I start work on Monday, gotta get ducks-in-row. | | Thursday, May 7th, 2009 | | 9:13 pm |
So... sorry for the lack of updates. I've been here in Indiana for a week or so now. Still working on getting on back on at the old employer - they've been dragging their feet excessively. I was approached about the possibility of taking a position with another company in Augusta Georgia... But... yech. Georgia. >.> So I should be back in Cheyenne within the next week or so. I need to get back to work - running out of funds. But yeah - what else? Oh, I inherited the rest of the coin collection from Glor's grandparents. I wasn't initially much into numismatism but my collection has been growing pretty exponentially, and I really enjoy the history associated with it. The collection I have is not particularly valuable, (though I've only roughly ebayed a few things, and it's not been valued since 1965) but there are some really gorgeous coins in it and I'm learning quite a bit. Photos and coin geekery behind the cut! ( Read more... ) | | Friday, April 24th, 2009 | | 7:05 pm |
Well, Walmart called me today. They just wanted to make everything right. "Here! Come on down and have $140. Oh and sign these waivers. " Ha ha, whatever, the shop said the Jeep was fine, so I'll take their money, even if I have to sign the waivers. Makes up for the $500 bill for new tyres. Kinda. Okay. So I leave for Indy in about 2 hours. 17 hour drive eta. At least I have some audio books and lots of Red Bull. See y'all on the flip side! Also, big huge thanks and hugs to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tekroo for putting me up for far longer than I originally intended. Never a truer friend. I'm too indebted to ever make up for it, but I hope I can try. | | Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 | | 9:28 pm |
Quote of the day: "If you can't eat charred red meat, you might as well HAVE cancer." | | 5:46 pm |
Apended
So, I took the Jeep to Wally World today to get some new tyres put on and the oil changed. The other places I would have taken it to were all really crowded being that it was lunch. So anyway, after 2 hours of me walking around town - Barnes and Noble - The Mall - Chick Fillet, I return and scan my little bar code that tells me the status of my vehicle in the price scanner. "Apended" Huh. Never seen that one. "In bay", "waiting", "service completed" I know well. Never seen that one. So I get there, and friendly like ask "So... who here knows what 'Apended' refers to?" They all stare at me, fear quite evident in their eyes. I even glanced down to make sure my sidearm was still concealed. The manager steps forward and leads me into a back room and closes the door. This can't be good, if I didn't know better, I'd thought I was going to get detention. "We pulled the wrong bolt when checking your transmission fluid and dropped some pieces down into it." Long story short, they towed my Jeep to a local garage where it awaits the transmission being pulled and the parts being taken out, etc. All on their dime of course. I was quite nice about it. They were all panicked that I was going to blow up and strangle them! Accidents happen, no big deal. Admittedly I probably won't go BACK for this purpose, but yeah. At least they're making it right. The guy that actually did it was on the verge of tears when he was apologizing to me. He had to sit down and drink water. o.0 So, now I am sans car. | | Monday, April 20th, 2009 | | 11:33 pm |
I would like to share something with you all: I LOVE Onion Blossom flavoured Pringles. That is all. | | Sunday, April 19th, 2009 | | 4:19 pm |
bird and rabbit
I just saw a pheasant and the side of the road hiding in the grass. Also first jackrabbit in over a year! Hop! |
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