Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

Category: Personal

  • A Good Zen Quote

    An action committed in anger is an action doomed to failure.

    – Genghis Khan

    This quote is especially thought provoking to me, especially as someone who has anger issues and a diagnosed mental illness. But I am non-violent. Anyhow, I’ve made many decisions in the past based on anger and they have always been ones I have regretted.

    I’ve left jobs because I was angry at coworkers or management only to find a new, and sadly, worse job. I’ve lost friends over anger. I’ve lost opportunities too. Thankfully, I have never lost my freedom. I am learning to deprogram the anger through therapy. Although the process is long and hard.

    While Genghis was a master military strategist and student of Sun Tzu, he knew very much that he was anger prone. He learned to step away from making any decisions when emotionally charged. These are lessons I want to learn myself. I am angry at my present employer and co-workers and found a new job.

    This time around I am going to a company that is a known quantity for me so I am hopeful that history will not repeat. I’m ultimately leaving for all of the right reasons however.

    While anger can be a motivator, it should never be the primary reason for a decision. Hell it should never be a reason for a decision that must necessarily be made in a neutral frame of mind.

  • Changing Jobs Soon

    I have my last 6 days at OPS Security Group and I would be lying if I did not say I feel a bit of mixed emotions. I do like the people I work with but $17/hour is just not enough money. I will miss my colleagues very much, but in a capitalist society, money talks and bull$h1t walks. Unfortunately, OPS as a company has enough bull$sh1t to fill up a large septic tank. The owner does not want to pay his people what they’re worth and as other companies offer more, few people will stay. Employees feel insulted by things like rewards points, pizza, and other gimmicks. They don’t come to work for these things. It’s literally f*ck you, pay me.

    I am excited to start for Allied Universal Security Services again. Yeah, I know they are a mediocre company but they are large and they have plenty of decent opportunities. Employment is more apt to be stable with them than a fly-by-night like OPS. I am grateful to OPS for helping me restart my career in security when it was difficult to get anyone to give me a chance. But that much said, the gratitude quickly wore off when I saw my hard work being rewarded with such low pay. For what I am doing, I am getting scraps returned to me and poverty sucks.

    I decided to take 3 days off in between the end of OPS and the beginning of Allied Universal. That reminds me, at some point I am going to have to sign on to Allied Edge and see what computer-based training modules I need to take. I am sure there are a few out there and I’d originally planned to knock them out (unironically) while on shift for OPS but I am simply too tired right now to think about it. And tomorrow I have to get up early to be back in to work for a 4 hour stint.

    I am hoping that I hear from my friend Matt Yoder tomorrow. I am hoping that he is doing better and thinking of restarting his business. I want to help him out with some IT infrastructure that will not disappoint. That is, if he will even talk to me. I don’t think I am numero uno in his book at the moment.

    I am really ready for this new opportunity. I am just going to embrace the change offered to me and do a decent shift’s work for 22.00/hour. I cannot wait for the weekly pay and even the days when I have to work on a holiday so I can sap up that extra money. Maybe with less financial stress, I’ll be less tired and more idea driven and have more motivation to work on a business. Only time will really tell.

  • My Biggest Dream

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s your biggest dream?
    View all responses

    My biggest dream is to become my own entrepreneur and escape the life of working for major corporations. I am tired of having my labor exploited for only scraps in the way of salary returned. I am also tired of the dictatorial nature of working for a corporation. I want more freedom and self-determination. Some of that comes with running your own business. Of course I know that I am trading the security of a regular paycheck for said freedom. This is a tough move in a good economy, a poor one notwithstanding.

    I would like to eventually open my own IT training academy but with a twist: making the program longer to include training above and beyond simple vendor certifications. The idea is to train students to be very strong in the reference implementation of internetworking technologies so that when it comes time to become certified in a vendor technology, they are more skilled and capable than someone who simply went the route of CCNA or simpler.

    Since it is impractical for an IT academy to be done virtually right now and a brick and mortar facility is too expensive, I will begin building my brand through content creation in the form of 15-20 minute videos on introductory computer networking and systems administration. I believe this is a good start on the journey and I am encouraged by it. I have a domain name that is only active on email. I want to get a basic, simple website up with YouTube video embeds. I have a web cam and video recording and editing software. I just need a good desktop microphone or I can use my high-quality wired gaming headset; don’t know which just yet.

    But alas, like all ideas that I have had, I’ve never really gotten them started. In fact, I’ve always been long on ideas and short on follow through. Part of that is the corporate life is so exhausting that when I get home, I am tired beyond all recognition. Is this what corporations want from us? Do they want us so tired that we have no energy left to pursue other avenues? Sometimes I think they truly want us, for the lack of a more perfect word, married to them.

    The thing about this dream though is that it really appeals to me in a way that no other dream I have ever had did. I love computers when I can get hands on and experiment with them. Ironically, this idea came to me while I was lying in a hospital bed suffering from a pulmonary embolism, bradycardia, and low blood pressure.

    While in soft tears about my mental and physical health and bemoaning the loss of my information technology career, I asked myself what it was I loved about IT. The answer was and is when I get to tinker and experiment. Corporate IT abhors risk so there is no experimentation. It dawned on me that experimentation is actually encouraged in an academic setting. Wouldn’t it be great to have some impassioned students where everything we do is hands on and we incorporate the theory while being hands on?

    This is the way to go. The students of today tend to be more interested in tactile learning. They don’t want to read and memorize textbooks. Today’s students rebel against traditional education because they kind of know intuitively that the model does not really work. Learning is done best when one eats, sleeps, and breathes it so to speak. An advanced beginner to intermediate that is entirely hands on would really build the future generations of IT professionals.

    I need to come up with a firm start date for the content creation phase. It just occurred to me that by making these videos, it will help me build a cohesive curriculum to teach instead of being so scattered. I am an autodidact which means I taught myself IT. And I taught myself IT by doing, not by reading.

  • A Bright Spark

    Things have taken a turn for the better this week. Yesterday, despite feeling physically sick and quite tired, I was very happy to have received notification that I would be attending New Employee Orientation at Allied Universal Security on Thursday, July 16th at 10:00AM. While I know that AUS has its warts, a devil I know is better than a devil I do not. I think I have to make peace with security being my bread and butter for the foreseeable future. That’s fine because it forces me to define myself by who I really am, not simply by what I do for a living. At least AUS is a big company, and as long as I do the basic job without infractions, I’ll have work as long as I want it.

    I am also relieved that I will be able to give notice to my existing employer. Yes, I have been indoctrinated. I just don’t know whether I should because my existing employer, OPS Security Group, is (in)famous for showing people the door when they give notice. My new role won’t begin until July 30th and I need the money so maybe I don’t give notice until about 2 days beforehand. So I will probably make the 27th my last day at OPS to give me some rest time. I want to be rested and ready for the new role at $22.00 per hour!

    I really don’t know whether or not to give the courtesy of 2 week’s notice. OPS hasn’t treated me well or with that much respect, and given their proclivity for paying less than the average, I don’t think I would come back here. Management is mostly terrible and mismanaging what could be a good company to work for. At least AUS is a known quantity and free sharp-looking uniforms. Maybe I’ll pick up some vacation time after one year. I think after two years, you get something like 2 weeks but I don’t know.

    Still some good things are in the works and I’ve reason to be excited and reason to look forward to the immediate future

  • The App Eating My Screen Time

    Daily writing prompt
    What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it?
    View all responses

    The app eating my screen time the most has to be Mastodon. Mastodon is a micro-blogging platform similar to Twitter except that it is completely open source and decentralized. Mastodon is an app that participates in something called The Fediverse. The Fediverse is, as the name suggests, a federated platform that no one person or corporation controls. Anybody is free to stand up their own Mastodon server and participate or to join one offering memberships. By memberships, I mean free ones of course.

    I don’t feel bad about it because I learn so much. Mastodon attracts the politically very left, high technology, and very capable computer user. Therefore all kinds of interesting things happen from art and music to writing, photography, and everything in between. It’s the polar opposite of the anti-educational and anti-intellectual platform that X.com has devolved into. It is possible to learn so much and connect with a highly diverse population with stratifying interests.

    I do have to remind myself not to get too lost in it though because my wife matters me to very much. I don’t want to lose her of course or grow to resent me so I have to be careful.

  • A Book I Have Read The Most

    Daily writing prompt
    Which book have you read more than any other?
    View all responses

    This is a fun one because the book I read the most is The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl. Before I launch into my reasons and an analysis of the text, a little about Roald Dahl. Dahl could nominally be considered one of the “OG” subversives. And the cool thing is that he was able to bump right up against the line, cross it, and come back without anyone in power being the wiser. Dahl was smarter than they are/were. May you rest in peace and in power, sir!

    As a child I loved this The Fantastic Mr. Fox it’s an exciting page turner full of adventure and almost heart-stopping moments. The read was genuinely exciting to me. Reading it as an adult, I see a totally different perspective which makes the book equally as exciting. Roald Dahl was truly before his time.

    When the Foxs’ home was destroyed, Bryce, Bunson, and Bean, the wealthy farmers, they were forced underground. In return for being forced underground, they built secret tunnels to the farms so they could steal the farmers’ produce. Mr. Fox completely justified this by hollowing out a community – think communism and socialism here – dining room. A crew would then steal from the evil wealthy farmer an amount of food to live on. Mr. Fox saw no qualms about stealing nee reclaiming resources necessary for life.

    Roald Dahl placed his extremely left political views into Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox ensured that vegetables would be made for the rabbits and animals that are not carnivores. In effect, the subtext suggests that everyone should be taken care of without artificial means testing. When I read this book, I am in awe of the message he’s sending and that he was able to do it in a highly conservative time where anyone needing assistance was seen as “less than human.”

    To this day I still read the book about once a year and pick up on something I missed. That is the depth of Dahl’s writing. The same can be said for his other books like Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and The Great Glass Elevator. In the latter, Roald Dahl rather openly criticized the United States’ Government which was tantamount to heresy at the time it was published. Yet the criticism was so implicit, few picked up on it. They assumed it to be just like a comic strip. But in reality, it was a very harsh criticism of the US Military Industrial Complex.

  • High Anxiety Morning

    I’m having a bit of a high anxiety morning and I do not really know why because typically a dose of THC does much to alleviate this. So this must be situational anxiety rather than chemical. I received an offer letter from Allied Universal for a security officer and I completed the background check and drug test agreements. I was supposed to get an email after the background check completed so that I could schedule a new employee orientation. This has not come and I need this job so my anxiety is high.

    Not even being in my home lab has done much to alleviate the anxiety. I managed to fix a problem with zero down time and zero data loss. That in of itself was an achievement. At least I am still good at one thing: computers and networks. And I am just good … not an expert by any means. Working on a home lab has taught me just how much more I need to teach myself. 😆

    So I have to figure out how to bring my anxiety down somewhat. I figure that if I tell myself that this is something I cannot control that I can relax a bit. On Monday, I will call the local branch office of Allied Universal and figure out what the next steps are. Sometimes a little bit of proactivity goes a long way. The office local to where I live is Claymont, Delaware. It’s a quick and easy bus ride to the New Employee Orientation.

    I really need this new job! I need to get out from under the present disaster I am in. Ugh! It’s putting me on edge every time I walk in to work on the weekdays. I rather like the weekends because I rarely deal with anyone. I simply work.

  • An Animal For A Week

    Daily writing prompt
    If you had to be an animal for a week, which one would you be and why?
    View all responses

    This particular writing prompt spoke to me from both an interest and a mental health stand point. I have to admit that it kind of made me smile. Anyhow, if I had to be an animal for one week I would like to be a cat. I think my blog kind of gave that one way though. While I certainly neither have the dexterity nor the survival aptitude that a cat has, I have always considered myself cat-like when it comes to certain behaviors, tolerances, and daily living.

    Let me begin by stating that I am on the autistic spectrum and I have ADHD. So the unofficial lingo is that I am AuHD. I am very sensitive to sounds, noises, smells, and general environmental stimuli. Cats are also this way, and in fact, it is generally believed by experts that our house cats’ paws are so sensitive that they can detect an earth quake coming. Their sense of smell and hearing are vastly better than our own. So much like a cat, I can become easily overwhelmed by environmental stimuli. When this happens, I feel the need to escape and escape quickly or clamp my hands over my ears; anything to reduce this overwhelming sensation.

    Cats are also highly intelligent animals. They learn from their environment very quickly and I tend to do much the same. I love their fierce sense of independence and the way they form bonds. Since cats lean towards independence, when they form bonds they are psychologically very strong and hence devastating when they break. It took me several years after my engagement fell through before I could begin seriously dating again. When my engagement never happened, I was seriously bereft.

    Cats mourn loss deeply and privately to avoid predation. In the face of loss and grieving, sometimes I retreat as well. I get cats and they get me. Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t a feline in a previous life if such a thing were even possible in the first place.

  • Technology Here To Stay

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years?
    View all responses

    I am convinced that the Internet, TCP/IP Networks, and computers are here to to stay and they will be around in 20 years. The Internet has changed lives and mostly for the better. We have unprecedented access to information and ideas. Granted a lot of it is mis and disinformation so extra care has to be taken to sift out the wheat from the chaff and we have to use some critical thinking skills. That much said, the Internet has helped to discover hobbies that I would otherwise have not discovered nor really taken an interest in like ham radio.

    The Internet is modern equivalent of the movable type printing press. Those that choose to be luddites risk being left behind. We are also living in particularly interesting times with regards to the Internet. The Internet itself is starting to again resemble its early days of introduction to the consumer and business marketplaces. Corporate control is starting to wane in favor of people creating their own home labs, hosting their own services, and leaving the cloud and corporate offerings behind.

    I have moved all of my stuff out of the cloud, including email. I host everything out of my own home on a business class desktop with good quality hardware that I own. I make regular backups like the olden days of computing. And I am free from the perennial subscription models to boot.

  • My Good Habit

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?
    View all responses

    A habit that has really improved my life is a commitment to life long learning through engagement in a hobby. For me, learning is a far better antidepressant than the ones that Big Pharma have come up with. My hobby is my home computer lab where I tinker, break things, and learn. While sometimes frustrating, this is all part of the learning experience and ultimately leads to a sense of accomplishment when a problem gets solved. I make it a part of my day to build, grow, and maintain my home lab.

    Learning is also a love as it truly has to be. I pity the people who only learn when it is a requirement; they lack hobbies or interests. The neat thing about learning opportunities is that they can be found in many places. I discovered the home lab hobby at one of my local libraries that has a technology center. I visited the technology center and saw what people were doing. The next thing I knew I was diving in head first into the next learning opportunity.

    I recommend more people try out a hobby that will help them grow and learn. Hobbies and interests that engage you will improve your life as they have my own.