Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

  • Dealing With Uncertainty

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you deal with uncertainty?
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    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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  • This Is Embarrassing

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a conspiracy theory you actually find believable?
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    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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  • Outdated Tech

    Oddly, I miss the pre-IoT days where people weren’t connecting their air fryers and toasters to the Internet. I miss the days of the dumb TVs. These new smart TVs limit consumers to one technology. I’d rather have a dumb TV and plug in an HDMI device of my choice to it. I also miss the good old fashioned carbureted engines. Yes, they’re bad for the environment because they do not have the fancy pollution controls that modern fuel injection has but they were so incredibly easy to work on.

    When I lived in Arizona, I bought a vintage Ford conversion van and I had so much fun with it. You can learn to diagnose engine problems by the sounds they make when the engine starts. No computers, just pure tinkering and fun. Also learning. It was a simple, logical algorithm. If such and such is happening, then do this …. A friend of mine showed me how to rebuild the engine when the head gasket went. I figured I might as well overhaul it.

    How about instead of gasoline, we use hydrogen?! It burns very cleanly!

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  • A Book That Inspired Me To Travel.

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s a movie or book that inspired you to travel?
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    Jame’s Clavell’s Shogun series inspired me to travel. After reading about his take on ancient and modern Japan, I had to go. It just so happened a late friend of mine, Brian Jarrett, and I had some vacation time to burn so we spent New Year’s in Tokyo. Ah the perks of working in Information Technology for a global airline! So both of us went on a little journey together.

    After a New Year’s celebration which I shall bring up later, we did a brief tour by train of the country side. Japan’s rural areas and the Kanto Plain looked nothing like I had imagined – it looked so much better and larger than life. The beautiful and ornate homes outside of the city were stunning. We visited art galleries, tea shops, and ate some of the finest of hand-rolled sushi I had ever eaten. I also had some delicious tempura.

    Now back to New Year’s in Tokyo. For starters, Tokyo has nothing on Las Vegas for sensory overload. It is truly a city that never sleeps. Yet for the hustle and bustle, there is a beautiful kind of order out of the seeming chaos. Also, the politeness of the older generation is exquisite. I remember the stunning fireworks, the bright neon and LCD screens everywhere. I remember staying in one of Tokyo’s capsule hotels because it was the only thing we could afford and even that was luxurious.

    Oh and I should mention, the vacation really began when we boarded our ANA flight to Tokyo from Los Angeles. Since we wore our airline IT polos, the most awesome flight attendant said, “We’ve got a space for you in first class.” OMG! That was an experience. I had steak and shrimp, fine expensive red wines, cordials for dessert … the seat was in a mini-suit with a curtain and decked out entertainment system. Our seats turned into full on beds that included pajamas and robes.

    By the time we arrived in Tokyo in the morning after what was a very long flight, we were rested and ready to go whereas most of our fellow travelers were more bleary eyed and exhausted. On our return home, we got upgraded again. Totally lucked out!

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  • My Biggest Dream

    Daily writing prompt
    What’s your biggest dream?
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    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.

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  • Dinner With a Fictional Character

    Daily writing prompt
    If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?
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    If I could have dinner with a fictional character, I would want to have a it with the infamous psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, from Silence Of The Lambs. Dr. Lecter has an intelligence that’s off the charts. He makes mensa look ordinary. I would want to learn more about his past, trauma, and political leanings. I’d like to have some very wide ranging discussions with him simply for his intelligence. Please pardon my digression here but the actor who played Dr. Lecter, Anthony Hopkins, is quite intelligent and educated in real life.

    I would like to understand his compulsion to kill and then cannibalize but not to publish a book or to further my own ends and means. It is genuine curiosity about what drives a man to do such things. I know one movie attempted to explain Dr. Lecter’s history but I want to sit down with him and ask him more questions about his family life. If World War II had not happened, would he have turned out differently? I also would be curious about his take on me. He’s far more intelligent and educated than any psychiatrist I have ever seen so I would really be interested in his insight, as twisted as that may seem.

    So this leads to the questions of what we would order at a restaurant for drinks and main course. I think we would most likely order steak. I do mine well done and I am certain Dr. Lecter would want his bloody rare. The one commonality we might share would be Chiante. Chiante, Sangiovese, and Pinot Noir, coincidentally, are my favorite wines. Desert might be a fine cheesecake with a top shelf brandy or something to that effect. Ah what fun this would be.

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  • Best Purchase

    Daily writing prompt
    What is the best purchase you have ever made?
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    I have made many good purchases and quite a few bad ones. I think I am tied for the two best purchases that I have ever made. The tie is between a Dell OptiPlex 7060 (used) for $350.00 and a brand new Logitech C920 for $10.00. The C920 has started my journey towards content creation and the OptiPlex 7060 began my home lab journey. Both were really excellent purchases because they are stepping stones towards getting out of the rut I am in.

    About 8 months ago, I had a bit of an idea that came to me while I was lying in a hospital bed after suffering from a serious pulmonary embolism in both lungs. I was on high flow oxygen and wondering what my next step in life would be when I nothing seemed appealing. I know that my passion is really computers and networks but doing this in a corporate (or even as an independent contractor) made it hell on wheels. So the idea was maybe to teach this.

    I thought about opening my own IT academy and teaching computers and networks to students. But even this would become more focused on workforce preparation. This means preparing students for vendor certifications. I have no interest in doing that because most of these certification preparation courses do not teach the broader knowledge. They’re more narrow in scope and specific to the vendor hardware. Often vendor hardware uses proprietary terminology and techniques. We all know how that goes.

    So my friend Davoy suggested that I try content creation in short form, 15 minute or less videos, that teach this stuff to people and monetize through YouTube. Eventually, I could do this through an inexpensive subscription model with the videos. On my next time off, I think I am going to dive in. The trend seems to be away from reading as a form of learning and more towards multi-sensory and tactile approaches. I do love reading and writing but I am finding writing educational content to be tedious. I believe I would enjoy video content creation a lot more.

    So yes, my home computer lab is up and going and I have the Logitech C920 Webcam running as well. It’s just a matter of doing a pilot and seeing what traction happens. I have always been long on ideas and short on follow through. Now is the time.

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  • 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?
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    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.

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  • A Book I Have Read The Most

    Daily writing prompt
    Which book have you read more than any other?
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    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.

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