Told as only a webcam-shot-in-a-pitch-black-tent-while-the-generator-emits-death-moans can tell.
This is how I sit. Pointing to some indefinable source of creativity deep beneath the cranial surface, like that magma under Yellowstone. Massive and threatening whose true impact comes only later, not now.
By the laws that govern the sacred act of BLOGGING I hereby claim that I will write more. Here, there, maybe even in public. It seems that only under the gut-wrenching strain of deadline can I exhibit even cursory production, as if that gland only cooperates when forcibly squeezed between a ticking clock and the threat of mediocrity.
Seven days seems enough time to have an opinion ripen, start to swell, and eventually burst in a wet mess across the Internet.
I’m tapping this out while in a bubble of spoken languages I don’t understand. The sun, puffed up and diffused ten times its normal size from all the airborne dust, is just setting over piles of trash, barbed wire, and filthy vehicles.
This is pretty much what I expected.
Environment aside the days are spent navigating the ever-deepening political waters of the project and cruising around supporting my gear; be it in some sweaty tent or equally sweaty wheeled monstrosity. The rest of the day is spent idling, eating, and sleeping from Home which is the ubiquitous 20-man tent. Today we set up our “office,” a largish tent in the middle of similair tents. No AC yet but it’ll be nice eventually.
I suppose one could say we are still getting settled, though half of our team isn’t even here yet, but I’ve more or less mapped out how the coming months will pan out. The big wildcats is if our peoject’s satt Internet connection ever surfaces.
Hoping to get back to running and the gym once my foot heals up. The physical anxiousness is almost as tiring as the mental. Though I did just get a fat stack of comics (in digital form of course) so those stem the tide until the tubes are up and flowing.
I’ll keep taking mundane pictures as I see fit. See this cat? Was walking around this morning meowing his tiny head off. Just look at him meow.
Connectivity is next to nil out here. What IS available is buggy, prone to outage, and outrageously expensive. The Netherlands provider I’m on allows this wordpress app but not google imap.
Started a SPotD. Why? How dare you! What the he’ll else am I going to shoot out here. Look at my terrible hat. I said LOOK.
But yeah, I’m here. It’s hot and dusty. I write emails on my phone that won’t send and take pictures of myself in bad hats. Status changes daily but for now it’s pretty austere. Spirits are maniacally high (at least mine are) and that open sore on my foot has to heal someday right?
I’m sitting here at work, on a Saturday, surfing around this limping internet connection in the double-wide trailer that is my office. I’m waiting for a group of my user base to finish a field exercise so I can conduct a follow up on how the equipment worked, receive the gear back, and prep it for the next cycle.
Guess I’m due for an update with uh, actual content.
Work
It’s been just shy of 3 months since I moved out here. In that time I’ve taken 5 trips, 3 of which were business related. I’m currently at the tail end of workups which as you might know (if you’ve any military experience) are a real bitch. 5 day training cycles back to back, regardless of weekends. The overtime is nice but having a single day off on the optional day 5 here and there got old fast.
This gig is alright but the technical proficiency required is way, way below the level most of the guys are at. As with any proprietary system maintenance becomes repetitive, troubleshooting systematically predictive.
The big news here is me having about 3 weeks left in the states. After that I have 3 months of fun in the sun overseas. Making some bucks.
School
So I’m officially enrolled in school again, 100 percent online. First couple of classes kind of shatter the MAGIC of being a student again as they are strictly introductory courses to, taking online course I guess. Work is paying for classes, GI Bill is going straight to me. Pretty sweet setup. It’ll be years before I have my degree but I’m satisfied having grabbed the chisel and started the chipping process.
Creative Output
Close to NIL. Picture of the day is treading water in a sea of forgotten folders on my laptop. I’ve at least half a dozen articles sitting in bullet form for TWG. Wacom nearly went for a quick trip out/through the window. Camera saw some action in Chitown but shooting just didn’t feel right.
Unsure what’s missing, what catalyst I left in Chicago. This here is a good start, maybe the trip overseas will provide a spark. WHO KNOWS.
Woodge
So Woodge is good but different in two ways since the move. He’s gained about 2 pounds (!!) and adopted a second personality which manifests in the first 5 mins of me coming home each day. Pretty much meows his tiny head off and will take all measures, appropriate or otherwise, to remain within 2 inches of my personal space.
Real. Clingy.
The Apartment
Next to nothing has been done, still have about 20 boxes of books and such that simply have no place to go. The field expedient flat-screen mounting and surround sound are working for now but I’ve yet to decide on a permanent shelving solution. Add the need for a workbench and proper desk to the list of things to do that’ll have to wait until I get back.
What’s Next Just about all current plans revolve around my upcoming business trip. I’ve started a pile of 3 months worth dental floss, socks, and other such mundane items as one would bring on an extended camping trip. I’ll have pretty reliable internet access for classes and an excess of time in which to prowl these internets for inspiration.
Goals while gone are hefty and involve massive workouts, a couple of DIY projects (PEGGY being the first), online courses, and the postal delivery of my 360 for remote gaming.
I’ll probably fall back on the oft-used crutch of getting some new photography gear before I head out, leaning towards a G10 for the portability/ruggedness angle.
__
Extremely pleased with the big upheaval and relocation to the PacNorthWest. I’m pretty lucky to have awesome friends both out here and the resources to have visited my old friends since the move.
Now I just need some free time.
EDIT:
Oh man, forgot to mention the fact that I’ve been smartphoneless for a week now. Left my phone in Chicago while there for Nate’s wedding.
Still alive here. S-foils locked in attack position, red hot from reentry like a meteor in its own impact crater. GADZOOKS:
Hella busy, sitting on projectS that thrash as if held under water. Felt compelled to update and am doing so hunched over a mixture of smells from the unwashed pile of dishes to my left (uncharacteristic!) with laptop perched among various dried pastas on my shiny new granite countertop. Behind me a similarly unwashed void beckons, darkness palpable in its surging pulsation as the voice of a thousand whispers cry out for furniture, any furniture, to be sacrified to the dark cause.
I need a desk, man.
But Things Are Well.
A routine is rising to the surface with visible signs of normalcy becoming more and more prominant. I’m settling in to the new job, consistently marking progress on the new place, and have been able to reinstate the workout routine. This time next week I’ll have two paychecks under my belt alongside the entirety of traveling reimbursements and my nesting will reach its zenith in a fury of spending, customization, and unhealthy scrubbing.
Immediate goals involve a return to proper writing, fitting thank you to all the peeps that made this mad sojourn such a success, and the completion of projects ranging from zero point shelving to a pair of super keen time lapse exposures set to music.
Back on the grid, not that I was ever really off it. More of a sustained single digit connection from a one-armed zip line, hurtling downwards through Tronlike extensions of the collective data lines that intersect between mobile computing and the barest of intermittent pingbacks.
I’m more of a nester, the kind that requires a moss lined cave sporting womblike ratios and angles to better fertilize emerging productivity. I’ve had the same gear with me on the road but the juices don’t rise to the surface like they do when properly entrenched. Sitting on a few projects at present that call to me in the night, begging distillation. “Finish us!” they scream as I turn frantic, unproductive circles in my rented room.
I’ve never been in this hotel before. I’ve been in this hotel a thousand times.
I feel like a humboldt, limbs tucked as I pulse and glide in bursts with telltale flashes lacking any coherency beyond an undefinable, primal, urgency.
To my right the sun is setting across Camelback Mountain, a burnt bactrian silhouette you really only see out here in the Sonoran desert. It signals the end of a day spent immersed in my new world of seemingly boundless tech and an ever-expanding comprehension of my role supporting it. In the mean time Home sits unpacked, anxious feline keeping a sleepy guard on the inert cardboard that houses the shit that only seems to matter when it’s not at hand.
Pulse and glide.
It’s been a busy yet fulfilling few weeks, hopefully those things I’ve left stewing in their own juices won’t have lost their potency when I reach back in to the brine.
Awoke to a dull ache in my right shoulder that blossomed into a glowing pain nebula after I showered. Assumptions dwell around yesterday’s lifting or a particularly unsettling dream from last night.
Despite meticulous notes and constant data saturation I spent most of the day thinking it was Tuesday. My schedule revolved around combining errand runs, coordinating a few phone calls, and writing an article. It took an unplanned conversation with Tom to discover I’d lost a day. I’m quite sure, but not positive, that this fact was not mentioned in a few business dealings. Here’s hoping.
I want to talk about some things going down but will refrain as to not anger the jinx pixies. Such ungrounded superstition is rarely my bag.
Said article was constructed entirely on my phone throughout the day. I’ll typically drop a thought in to Evernote if a clever turn of phrase surfaces or topic calls for research as there is little more maddening than failing to harness these brief flashes of inspiration. Plus, usually the first idea to strike is the most usable.
Earlier in the day I paused to inhale a mouthful of bracingly frigid air, a sick pleasure that is brief and tied more to a painful sensation than anything I can logically explain. Promptly following this ritual I hopped in Beatrice to be greeted not with ruffled purring but a flat, impotent clacking. Couldn’t secure a jump until the sun set. Think the constant GPS charging and sub freezing temps gave her a wallop, lesson learned.
The laptop has been running full tilt for two days alternating between packet collection on a nearby WEP network and a 7GB torrent of a series of workout videos.
Spent a solid half hour cleaning my SLR which, while enclosed in its costly cocoon, was screaming out from the weight of dust and disuse. It surfaced briefly to document some pumpkin carving months ago but saw little action prior. I do like the ability to harness these minute biographical glimpses with my point and shoot but haven’t felt obligated to run light through my heavy glass in far too long.
Obligated is a good word for how I used to feel about it.
Listened to the latest from Tettix a few times today. Pretty different from there other stuff I’ve heard, this one acting as a sort of halting narrative to a story I don’t need to understand in order to enjoy.
All told a perfect soundtrack for the last 24 hours.
It’s nearly 4am and I write illuminated by naught but the grey-toned glow of my otherwise matte umbilicus. Just beyond this ring of light a cascade of cardboard awaits, fat little cubes gravid with items organized and not. Today’s progress was measured in cubic feet and drab greens as I managed to turn 3 boxes to 2 performing the much needed schism between past uniform paraphernalia and tactical odds/ends. These represent perhaps the most permanent yet untouched of possessions as shelf lives extend to mid 2010, just in case. The rest, assorted books to kitchen wares, will likely last as long but remain in the realm of free agency with their decided lack of a legally binding contract.
It feels like I have too much stuff.
This is post number 300 and as such provided the brief motivation to actually write, a habit strong at this medium’s inception but less so at current. I had expected to follow in the wake of reflective postings the year’s end historically brings but I’ve yet to see any. I blame facebook.
I’ve been reading much, much less lately. This is second among the possible reasons for a lack of text, thoughts and biographical interpretation left to overly contrasted pixels and the lazily wrought, randomly spaced 140-character observations. That itch to hash diction is still there but urge to scratch more difficult to harness. I’ve come to equally enjoy and rely on certain creative obligations while, without stretching too far, come to realize I could benefit from even more. This period of prolonged unemployment was far more intentional than I previously understood, suffering from a desired ideal that was likely unrealistic. Even years later this fits a pretty common stereotype among blah blah blah.
This is not a resolutions post.
With each year that passes the inevitable glance back unearths that familiar shock, a sense of bewilderment at actions screaming of inexperience. It’s possible each day brings new lessons but I had kind of figured the pace would have slowed by my mid twenties. Not the case.
At least tomorrow I will be the smartest I’ve ever been.
Serious decisions are made on paper. It’s forever been the way I think critically, memorize, or take notes. As my favorite notebook appears to have fled production lines (no more wire bound graph paper!?) the crippling potential energy buzzing in my massive PRO/CON list of future options has gone white hot and a choice had to be made. Some smarm-ridden feedback and several cups of coffee later things have been simplified.
Seattle bitches.
Stating ambitions in a public forum is folly, especially given the lack of concrete plans thus far, but what the hell – it’ll provide the much needed motivation to NOT SUCK and get my shiz together. In Oct of 2006 plans were set in motion to head out that way but shifted Chicago-ward, 2 years later I’m done with this town and anxious for change.
My scant time on this earth has proven the power of who-you-know, hence the garbled word whoring. Previous job hunting was spent with a singular focus in a desired field. The jobs are there but not where I want them, so I’m ready to go back to tech support goon. Allow me to bullet my strengths alongside my partially-redacted RESUME.
Background – Military
3 years NetAdmin in the USMC split between normal civilian devices (2003 server, Cisco, XP) and all sorts of proprietary communications gear.
All areas covered from digging ditches to server configuration to cabling to user support to hardware.
Ran dual 24-hour help desks while managing a 7 man data shop for a total of 15 months in Iraq. Lots of mobile site support, field expedient troubleshooting.
Strong leadership and communication skills, like answering to a fucking Colonel each week.
Background – Real World
2 years as sole IT Support in a law firm environment.
Services were hosted/managed offsite so domain management was light, adding machines/accounts and modifying as necessary.
Managed PBX/AUDIX for 30 users
Gobs of user support with MS Office, XP, Blackberry/WinMobile, Citrix, Summation.
Worked with vendors for anything IT related; supplies, new gear, software, AV, server room needs.
Weaknesses
No college (1.5 years but pff)
No certs (CCNA is likely up first once I get settled)
No real formal training to fall back on, everything I learned was on-the-job training and trial by fire. So I have 5 years professional experience but no real server/cisco training, which makes technical interviews a real bitch.
While here’s hoping one of my DoD related contractor jobs will pan out I’m not holding my breath. It’s pretty easy to land a job in some outsourcing IT firm but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to throw up a digital flare here.
If you are in bed with sweet hookups and watch to share the love: ryan atovitch autolyticzombie.com
You will have my gratitude, like the sloppy makeout kind.
