From the ashes of Heaven

“Home is where the heart is.”

The perception of home is a unique proposition as of late. I’m not entirely convinced that my apartment is really a home for me. Instead it feels kind of like a suite at some hotel that you’re always afraid to leave your stuff lying around lest some maintenance/house-keeping person comes in and sees how you live. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel like I’m so far away from home if I felt more welcome down here. A lot of people like to exchange platitudes but don’t go any deeper. Either they don’t care for outside relationships or feel they already have enough friends (hell, I’d take being an acquaintance).

I thought I had gotten over my aversion to social interaction and social ineptitude in college, but it seems like it was just put on hold as of late. I feel very awkward trying to introduce myself to just about anyone and despite a very considered effort on my part its very hard to get anyone to talk to me much less do something outside of the setting we were initially in. This can certainly just be a product of my own awkwardness and strict sense of propriety; something I suppose I’ll have to get over eventually.

In any case… I get to go home in a few days. I’ll be driving into Cuyahoga Falls on Saturday to spend a few days with Theresa and my Mom. On Wednesday afternoon Theresa and I will be heading down to Columbus to have Thanksgiving with my Dad and Sister. Friday I have a wedding rehearsal to be at with the wedding Saturday and I’ll be driving back to NC on Sunday… don’t know when yet. This will be a wonderful trip… and much needed.

Archangel / November 20, 2008 / Personal / 0 Comments

“Home is where the heart is.”

The perception of home is a unique proposition as of late. I’m not entirely convinced that my apartment is really a home for me. Instead it feels kind of like a suite at some hotel that you’re always afraid to leave your stuff lying around lest some maintenance/house-keeping person comes in and sees how you live. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel like I’m so far away from home if I felt more welcome down here. A lot of people like to exchange platitudes but don’t go any deeper. Either they don’t care for outside relationships or feel they already have enough friends (hell, I’d take being an acquaintance).

I thought I had gotten over my aversion to social interaction and social ineptitude in college, but it seems like it was just put on hold as of late. I feel very awkward trying to introduce myself to just about anyone and despite a very considered effort on my part its very hard to get anyone to talk to me much less do something outside of the setting we were initially in. This can certainly just be a product of my own awkwardness and strict sense of propriety; something I suppose I’ll have to get over eventually.

In any case… I get to go home in a few days. I’ll be driving into Cuyahoga Falls on Saturday to spend a few days with Theresa and my Mom. On Wednesday afternoon Theresa and I will be heading down to Columbus to have Thanksgiving with my Dad and Sister. Friday I have a wedding rehearsal to be at with the wedding Saturday and I’ll be driving back to NC on Sunday… don’t know when yet. This will be a wonderful trip… and much needed.

Archangel / November 17, 2008 / Personal / 2 Comments

Since when does a word have so much power?

Laddies and gentlemen, I give you George Carlin: “The original seven [dirty] words were, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.” Obviously, these words have specific connotations that aren’t acceptable in society, but why do they have such an effect on some people? Well, arguably because much of America is prudish, at least by world standards.

Anyone pay attention to the California general election last Tuesday? Proposition 8? Earlier this year, the CA supreme court overturned an appellate court decision banning gay marriage, which obviously allowed the marriages state wide. In this past general election, the CA people vote in favor of proposition 8, which was a general ban on gay marriage. So what happens now? Protests, lawsuits, and general stupidity. If any law was violated in the passage of this law… I’m not sure it should matter much since a large majority of CA citizens voted for it (that is assuming the accusations of Mormons from out of state aren’t true). Although, they may have considered that CA is one of the most liberal areas of the nation and if the homosexuals can’t get what they want there, they might just be SOL.

You might be wondering what the two preceding thoughts might have in common. Everything. This battle is over one word… Marriage. For (likely thousands of) years, churches have joined their believers in unions under the (presumptive) blessing of their god(s). Through the evolution of society, these unions have become known in all faiths as one thing… marriage. To a person of faith, the word marriage implies something very specific: it implies a joining of two people sanctioned by god. This implication is made even more powerful when most mainstream faiths today consider homosexuality a sin. Unfortunately, this word became much more complicated during the “New Deal” when FDR came up with a number of social programs to bring our economy out of the toilet. Most relevant, the Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service were created. Why? Taxes! The new system of federal taxes quickly realized that most married couples had children and that a married couple with children spent more per-capita than a single person so the SSA and IRS began to recognize marriage as a lawful construct so that they could use it as a deduction on taxes to that families could more easily support themselves.

So whats the problem? Churches want to maintain the meaning of the word marriage; Homosexual couples want all the rights that a heterosexual couple has (which I support – “separate but equal” was rightfully done away with decades ago); The US government has annexed the word “marriage” to mean something in law. The first two ideas are put into direct conflict because of the third.

I have a solution, and to be honest, I’m somewhat surprised no one has (publicly) proposed this. Christians have been arguing for some time to give gay couples a civil union instead of marriage. The issue for (most – I hope) Christians is maintaining the sanctity of marriage, not denying homosexuals fairness under tax and family law (yes, that second point is definitely arguable). My solution is to go through all federal and state documents and laws and perform a find/replace on the word “marriage” with “civil union”. Force everyone who wants to be recognized officially by the government as a united couple to have a civil union (and obviously grandfather all current marriages) thereby allowing churches/faiths to individually decide how to control marriages in their own faiths. Which is really how it should be… the government controlling who can be legally joined because of moral, not ethical, reasoning is akin to the government supporting religion, and we all know that is specifically forbidden.

Sorry for yet another politically related post… I’m just sick of the news concentrating on this. Although, its nice to see less of McCain and Obama.

Archangel / November 8, 2008 / Personal, Political / 9 Comments

“The exception the proves the rule.”

Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to look up the illogical phrase, “the exception that proves the rule”. It turns out… there is a reason that phrase never makes sense when someone uses it. If you don’t want to go to Wikipedia, a source which really shouldn’t be trusted, or follow any of the references provided… The phrase should really be, “the exception that proves the rule exists“, as per Cicero anyway.

Archangel / November 7, 2008 / Personal / 1 Comment

Run for the hills!

I fully intend on keeping my promise of not talking about politics… although I have a lot to say… but perhaps I’ll branch the blog and have a separate one for things like that. I would like to say I’m terribly afraid of next Tuesday. One thing is definitely true… “Change is coming.” On a lighter note, I found a link to a very humorous article[wisebread.com] that describes the American tax system in an interesting light. I would like to say, individuals would not act this way… we’re not that selfish. However, when applied to large groups, especially “disenfranchised” groups where individuals are relatively anonymous… you bet your ass we act this way.

So… Life… I’ve been asked a number of times recently how I am. The last time I was asked happened to be on Facebook so of course I responded in kind. I noticed as I was typing out my answer that I had resorted to responding with a list of events in my life, which of course doesn’t really describe how I am… so… here is my list of events 🙂

I like my new group at Cisco a lot. I haven’t really started on any projects, in fact I probably won’t get to the project they’ve assigned me for over a month, but its been a lot of fun to work with them. Igor is an incredibly smart Ukrainian with a very peculiar sense of humor. Animesh is an odd Brit with a wealth of knowledge himself. Jeff works in QA so I don’t get to talk to him much, but he is an great ping-pong player who is very willing to teach. Finally, Justin joined through Choice with me and we seem to get along pretty well, but I’ve stepped in the political pile of crap on occasion since he and I seem to differ pretty widely.

Last week I got to play with a lot of expensive hardware and configure my own lab rack. I don’t have a lot of equipment yet, but it is pretty friggin awesome that I have my own rack. This week, my group was kind enough to send me to the CCNA Bootcamp… so I should hopefully be certified in a few more weeks. Justin (who is also in the class) and I are going to study together and hopefully get each other up to speed (since the class is only 5 days, it is a bit compressed). I can’t say I’m learning a lo of networking (with the exception of learning how routing protocols work), but I am learning a lot of Cisco specific stuff, which makes me happy. It also looks like I may be able to self train for the CCNP and have that within 6 months (my group will probably pay for books too).

In non-work related news, a little over a week ago I found a friend of mine who moved away when I was 12. I had only heard from him once, which was just after his move. I’m not entirely sure why, but every once in a while I would think about him and it happened to roll across my mind a couple weeks ago. I tried looking for him directly on Facebook, which didn’t work, so I tried to cross reference his name with graduation records… still not much luck. I gave up for a little bit until it occurred to me his bother was probably around somewhere, so I searched Facebook for him. Up until recently, I wasn’t really sure where his family had moved to, although, I thought it might have been North ______, so when I found his brother’s name in North Dakota I was pretty happy. I looked through his brother’s friends to see if I could find my friend, and it turns out I was just spelling his first name wrong. Fortunately I didn’t torture him enough when we were younger to leave a terrible impression, in fact at first he didn’t remember me at all. Just to show how small this world can be, it turns out he lives in North Carolina, his brother was just stationed in North Dakota for the USAF… whats more… he lives in the greater Raleigh area about 15 miles from my apartment. We’ve gone out bowling a couple time now and I think his family will be having me over sometime soon.

Someone (other than Theresa) is finally coming to visit me! Of course I love to see Theresa when ever possible, but its nice to see others from home too. March is driving down today and is staying through Sunday night. I’m sure many antics will be had, although, since I’ve been in training all week I haven’t had a lot of time to plan much.

So… I tried to include some details to actually answer the question of how I am… but in reality I’m not 100% sure. There is a lot of good things going on in my life, things that I am very happy with, but unless I’m at work or have one of my sporadic chances to go out and have some fun… I’m just stuck at home doing nothing.

While I was editing this post as a draft, I found a really funny poem about the current election. Check it out after the jump… but keep in mind that, while I am afraid of a liberal super majority… I don’t go this far. It is just amusing.

(more…)

Archangel / October 31, 2008 / Personal / 4 Comments

1 … 8 9 10 11 12 … 43