Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

  • Just Another Sunday

    As I get used to my new job, I am feeling more and more comfortable as the week’s go by. I am also starting to like going to work again. I know a large part of it is because I am finally earning good money for an unarmed security guard/officer. The pay is decent but still kind of low. However, $7.00 per hour more than my previous job is great! So I don’t really mind going in and I’ll have two pay periods in a row with overtime. One thing Denisse and I want is a new bedroom set because the queen sized bed we have now is kind of small for the two of us. I am still a big guy but more to the effect that I am 6’4″ and about 230 pounds.

    I spent some time this morning on Facebook Marketplace and found a likely king-sized bedroom set candidate. I just have to show it to Denisse but I have a feeling she won’t veto it too badly. At least I hope not because it is kind of my taste in furniture. I don’t like light woods. I prefer medium to darker woods. The price though is not so right. I am hoping I can get the seller to knock a little bit more off of the price. That much said, it’s a nice used set.

    I am also happy that I have only two payments left on Denisse’s engagement ring. I didn’t really have the means to spend more than $1500 at the time. I am thinking that her wedding band will be much nicer. At some point, I am going to need to buy a car and I want to get a better machine to act as a server than I currently have. There’s Christmas ahead and other things. I hate poverty.

    I also would like a motorcycle again because they’re a lot of fun. I miss riding very much and I would like to find a big ol’ cruiser like a Kawasaki Vulcan Nomad 1600! I had a 1500 when I lived in Gilbert, AZ. That was a fun bike and I enjoyed it very much. I guess I have some nostalgia from when I lived in the desert. I have some fun memories of long rides to the middle of nowhere. Well, perhaps I’ll get a bike again one day.

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  • Thinking About Self-Education

    I am thinking about doing some disciplined self-education. I saw that MIT has something that they call a “Micro Masters” program. I am particularly interested in some of the business and technoogy-related courses being offered so that I can better develop my value proposition and skills to sell. The problem is coming up with a schedule and being disciplined about it. I don’t know that I am lazy exactly or that I do not have drive but I struggle with routine and these kinds of things. Sometimes I have difficulty starting a learning journey when it comes to topics other than technology. I have to develop an interest in other areas in order to grow.

    There is time to do these learning activities. I generally wake up early and have a couple of hours before work which I could utilize more beneficially. Sometimes I am angry at the sheer amount of time that I waste that could be going to learning and self-development. I love learning but I want to expand my horizons beyond technology. I want to learn things like business and finance. Ultimately, I want to be a better and more rounded person.

    I am feeling pretty okay this morning but I am finding myself needing something personally challenging to do. I cannot explain this antsy feeling I have. It is almost like a discomfort in my own skin and I want to break out of it. This is the best way to describe it. I feel like I am destined for something better than this current life. But betterment is not in the future. The opportunities exist now in the present. I want to be mindful.

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  • Feeling Good

    My depression and anxiety seem to be in a waning phase because I am doing much better overall. The thing I hate most about my brain is that depression seems to wax and wane with me. But I will take the good news. Yesterday I was feeling really relaxed and confident at work. Maybe I am finally beginning to feel comfortable in my new role. For me, this is absolutely huge because I had a lot of trouble adjusting; to the point of having a panic attack. Now that I am starting to feel comfortable, I believe things will continue to improve from here. I am definitely enjoying the higher salary.

    I am even feeling fairly good about tomorrow because of my appointment at the Delaware Department of Labor. This will mark the beginning of my journey to entrepreneurship. I have in mind what I want to do and I plan to roll with it. It’s time to launch this IT training business and start with a contract with the Department of Labor. If all goes well, I will seek contracts with other agencies for training and education. I would love to expand this into a brick and mortar business with classroom and lab. I want to develop true professionals, not simply someone that can pass a certification exam.

    I am ready for the next path in life; one towards more independence and away from having a boss and navigating the mine field that a corporate life is. It would be so great to build Avvira Global into an IT training dynasty, sell 85% of it, and then retire with some residual income. This is going to take discipline and work but it’s a good kind of work because I am furthering my own goals instead of some organization’s. But one day at a time and living in the present is my mantra. Tomorrow will merely mark the beginning.

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  • A Rainy Saturday Morning

    I had to wake up early this morning because of a snafu at Walgreens. Despite it being a rainy morning and not wanting to take the bus to Walgreens, I did it and got that over with. I find rain very relaxing and enjoyed hearing the drops on my umbrella. There was something quite soothing about that, especially in the face of what life is throwing at me right now. My professional life is in absolute shambles. I have a co-worker that is dedicated to making my life miserable. From day one she decided she does not like me. That is perfectly okay but you still have to be civil, polite, and professional in the workplace. She is not.

    This morning I have to go into work early for a staff meeting and I am dreading it. I do not want to go to this staff meeting at all because it’s not going to be a good experience. There’s going to be stress and gripes and I just don’t want to hear it. Furthermore, I am not looking forward to what this one co-worker is going to say or do to try and sabotage me. It’s a good thing I sent an email to my manager yesterday to let him know what was going on. Hopefully he will deal with it.

    I feel exhausted and done. Again, I had a night that didn’t give me much in the way of sleep. I seem to have an easy time falling asleep but I just don’t like that I am waking up one or two times. I’d really like to sleep through the night; dead like a log. My brain is going in 360 different directions right now. I am trying to live in the present. What can I do right now to self-soothe? The most obvious thing is to listen to the Kitaro radio station on Pandora and let my mind drift away.

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  • Not Gonna Lie

    The last time I felt this hopeless, I wound up in a behavioral health hospital. So what’s different this time? I’m using my skills. I’m using my coping skills. When I was in my 20s, I had thought seriously about running guns or selling drugs because I had such difficulty finding work. My thoughts are turning back to that. I now understand Walter White from Breaking Bad. I am beyond sympathetic. I’m empathetic. What else can you do when faced with the impossible?

    I’m using one of the best DBT techniques out there: a rubber band around my left palm. It has just enough tension that I can feel. Oddly, it’s calming. My therapist taught me this technique. I may need to pull out all stops to keep calm and survive the rough patch. I have to. I have no other choice. I want to get it in gear for August 26th. I want to be ready for the important first step towards entrepreneurship. The road ahead will be long and hard but rarely is anything worth doing easy.

    If my business teaching computers happens to do well, I’m legit going to be happy because I will be out of the rat race that I am in. I’ll be doing what I love and hopefully spark a passion from my students. Eyes on the prize. Less than 5 days now.

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  • Dealing With Uncertainty

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you deal with uncertainty?
    View all responses

    This is a good writing prompt because it is causing me to think quite deeply about how I deal with uncertainty; which is to say not well. Yes, I struggle with uncertainty and it is hindering. Uncertainty frightens me and it has prevented me from starting and succeeding at business. I am also grateful for this writing prompt so that I can get my feelings documented for my next therapy session. I am trying to accept that uncertainty is a part of life.

    I am currently reading a book about starting a business and the author wisely talks about some of the mental health aspects of this journey. One of the topics he brings up is mindfulness. It is his opinion that successful entrepreneurs are mindful people which is to say that they live in the present and work in the present. Furthermore, he believes that they don’t look at their past failures and concentrate entirely on what their present business opportunity is. They do not look too far into the future either.

    So I know now that the best way to deal with uncertainty is not too ignore it but to live in the present and be mindful. I struggle with being mindful and with being my own harshest critic. I also struggle with “shiny object syndrome.” Part of said struggle is that I am not living in the present. I do believe it will be possible to get this business started and off of the ground. I see how mindfulness can really help .

    I am slowly re-programming my brain to simply accept that there are not many certainties in life. When I feel myself starting to get anxious or afraid, I am telling myself to accept what I cannot change and to let these feelings flow through me. By flowing through me, I mean simply just going by only fleetingly acknowledged. Since I have a passion to be my own entrepreneur and start my own IT training school, I will be more mindful .

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  • My Adult Moment

    What’s a moment when you realized you were officially an adult?

    I realized that I became an adult when I was handed my high school diploma and went to college. I was no longer beholden to a power structure. I felt some immense freedom but it took some time to get used to. At first I found myself asking other adults for permission. Getting out of that power structure wasn’t easy.

    To be honest though, I never made the transition to adulthood smoothly. I’ve been told nobody really does but I’ve struggled more than the average because I’m on the autistic spectrum. I’ve always been a late bloomer. But once you’re an adult the world becomes less patient with you. We may become adults but we don’t stop learning, hence we will continuously meet new situations and challenges. It’s is unreasonable to expect that, simply because someone had reached some arbitrary age, that they have everything figured out. That’s my 0.02 anyways.

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  • Shiny Object Syndrome

    I just read about this thing called shiny object syndrome in my business book. I begrudgingly admit that I have this. The phrase originated from how magpies tend to collect objects with sheen in their nests. When applied to business or real life, it means latching on to new ideas constantly because they seem like good ones. It’s a lack of clear focus and moving in 360 different directions at once. I realized this might be one of my shortcomings. Oh well, I’m grateful for the insight.

    I know that I want to teach technology to high schoolers and adults. I love technology when I can experiment with it. The segue into technology experimentation for a living is teaching where breaking and fixing systems is part of learning. This would be one way of turning my interest into a money earning one without it becoming something I hate. Plus no after hours emergencies or anything like that. Don’t get me wrong though as this kind of business has its challenges; albeit different but they are nonetheless there.

    I’ve had my idea validated that it seems to have something going for it and I can turn it into an opportunity. It is my belief that IT education has fallen short because it’s been designed to be a form of vendor indoctrination. Let’s go back to teaching people to become good IT generalists and not lock them into one way of doing things when there are many different ways of reaching a solution. We also need to teach the budding professional that Cisco products, for example, don’t belong at every business. This is why it’s so important to have good generalists.

    Good generalists understand the “reference” implementation of technology. This is the one which the standard is built around. Each vendor modifies this slightly to suit it’s marketing terminology but it’s more or less the same thing.

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  • Excitement

    Since I have been reading this book called Starting A Business: A Quickstart Guide, I have been feeling some excitement. I am also looking at life a little bit differently. Since the material is somewhat weighty for someone new to business, it has been slow going. But I learned the difference between an idea and an opportunity. An idea is just that; a notion or thought but has no value. An opportunity is actionable and has value. I’m learning to look for opportunities.

    I’m even practicing active listening and engaging with people. I’m trying to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m trying to gauge how I am being received. This isn’t always easy because people will, more often than not, not reveal their true feelings. This is a challenge for an autistic person. The best piece of advice I ever received was to be an active listener. Given my disability, this did not soak in until later in life but it’s only too late when you’re below ground.

    So during the slow parts today at work, I will be reading more of my book. Hopefully I will continue to learn. Sometimes I feel like a deer in the headlights and I do not even know what I don’t know. This simply means I need to read more so that questions get formulated in my brain.

    Nevertheless, I am excited to embark seriously on this journey with a mentor and guidance. I’m not looking to build an 8 figure IT educational empire. I’m just looking to have a reasonable income and be able to give others the same.

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  • This Is Embarrassing

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?
    View all responses

    I actually believe that the COVID-19 virus might have come from a lab in Wuhan, China. This is my belief only and I have no “evidence” to back it up. This is merely my opinion and should not be taken as disinformation. Does that make me crazy? Well, perhaps a little bit but here me out as the US has a complex relationship with China. On one hand, we trade and import goods from China. On the other hand, China is nominally at some state of warfare readiness. I am all but certain that COVID-19 was engineered as a biological weapon. If it turns out this was the case, the weapon was very effective,

    We already know that China has a complex cyber warfare program going on as I write this. I need only look at my server logs to reveal the sheer number of Chinese IP addresses trying to attack my router. It got to the point where these attacks became so insidious, I had to do a geoblock of all Chinese IP addresses. Of course the Chinese government will not officially comment on this, but since these activities are ongoing, I can readily believe that a mistake in a Wuhan biological weapons laboratory was made that caused the release of COVID-19 upon the world.

    I am also vaguely curious about how quickly the Chinese Government built a hospital to deal with COVID-19. You know it was done in practically 7 days. I am furthermore believing that there had been a plan in place to build such a facility rapidly if needed. And it certainly was needed. So where does that leave us? Let’s stop warfare and encourage peace.

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