Post Post REM

May 2nd, 2008 ryan

I awoke this morning to the click of an automatic timer closing the circuit on my vivarium’s lighting hood (1 min prior to audible alarm), only at the time it appeared as a solid screen of white on black response times from multiple instances of a probing ping -t.

Last night’s dream placed me back at Abu Ghraib pulling literally miles of strained cable out of doors, trading lurid jokes and fiber cards with members of every branch of the armed forces, and scalding skin shiny by bare-handed line trailing while checking for physical breaks. I had a multi-tool attached to my drop slung ammo pouch and electrical tape easily accessible on my flak. Two grunts, one a SAW gunner, were assigned to assist me one night in order to trail a rough mile of fiber that spanned one compound to the next. We donned night vision goggles in order to navigate the path the fiber snaked so that the encrypted connection to the battalion’s SIPR IRC could be restored.

We ran untwisted four-strand copper that night, spliced to CAT-5 which terminated at pair gain modems. Turns out a back hoe had shredded my tactical fiber line.

The dirt out there is different, minuscule and incomparable to the nutrient rich dark matter I grew up around. A gust of wind could be like dropping a paper-packed bag of flour onto your server rack. We all carried paint brushes instead of canned air, steel wool and erasers by the handful to keep our copper conductive.

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No clue as to what prompted this… flashback. Truth be told I still periodically reach to my belt for the leatherman that has been absent since I took this office job (still in my man bag, though) but it’s rare I think about my time as a sysadmin cowboy hitching rides on convoys to answer a trouble call, unscrew a node, or prep for an op.

Been catching up on the works of a certain author and this story (in its entirety, of course) came up during the morning’s commute. I don’t necessarily feel any particular need to Rule the Earth of late but seriously, I bought a spool of CAT-6 during my first week, 18 months ago, and haven’t even needed to crack that bad boy open yet.

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Hippocampul Scarification

January 31st, 2008 ryan

I was in Tucson, living out of run-down cinder block studio where I composed an award winning series of slash fiction, the culmination of which resulted in a bestselling book. Subject? The two leads from There will be Blood, pictured left. I titled the opus After Dark, the cover sporting a commissioned work of a flying toaster spewing oil.

I recall little else than red, dusty, saguaro-spotted landscapes and a sense of accomplishment at finally being a Professional Writer. My success resulted in acceptable notoriety alongside substantial financial stability, the cost of the subject matter itself didn’t take it’s toll until I left this frenzied nightmare of moustaches, miner’s lamps, and starched collars.

Surely I dream as much as the next insomniatic, periodically stabbing clenched fists to my orbital sockets upon waking in an attempt to purge what technically they have never seen. Retention of these unconscious forays in to the subconscious are few and far between and frankly this is one I’d sooner forget.

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