Category: Observations Page 30 of 90

Lance Cpl. JuanCarlos Aglugub, a Light Armored Vehicle crewman at 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion in Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Marine Week shows a young Cardinal fan what it's like to be hold a machine gun outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis June 21, 2011. Marines from all across the Corps came to St. Louis for Marine Week to show the city who they are and what they do. Photo by Lance Cpl. Chelsea Flowers

Every gun-related death is preventable

On January 5, 2016

“We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one?”

Believe what you want about guns and rights. Believe what you like about President Obama, the Second Amendment and the NRA. I am not going to try to change your minds. I won’t.

What I want is not to lose any of you to gun violence. I don’t want to see a Facebook update about how you were gunned down last night.

I don’t want to get a call that you were murdered while seeing a movie, going to church or being black.

I don’t want your family to mourn your death. I don’t want you to be a loss your family commemorates. I don’t want you to be reduced to a memory and a grave stone or a sprinkled pile of ash.

I want you to be alive. I want you to be well. I want you to live and breathe and make the most of your life. I want you to enjoy the life you were meant to lead. I don’t want you to die.

I don’t want to die. I like going to the movies. I used to regularly attend church. I drive my car and use public transit. I don’t want to get gunned down as I go about my day.

And I want the same for you. I don’t want you to get killed. I want you to live a long and full life. And I want to enjoy the same.

I own a gun. I don’t think about it. It’s not a part of my life. I have the right. But I don’t need to carry it around and keep it on my person at any given time. I understand those who feel the need for a firearm for their own safety.

But I am not that person. I don’t feel unsafe. If I walk outside and I meet a gunman and it’s my day to die, then so be it. I don’t believe if I were armed I would stand a better chance in living through the encounter.

I write this as a I watch President Obama’s talk on guns tonight. I know he’s a controversial figure and anything he says will draw fire from all sides.

He is not coming to take our guns away. He is not trying to infringe on our rights as Americans or gun owners. He is asking why we allow gun violence to be a daily problem in our country.

Watch President Obama Share the Steps He’s Taking to Reduce Gun Violence.

“Maybe we can’t save everybody but we can save some.”

It seems like a reasonable idea.

The Administration is proposing a new $500 million investment to increase access to mental health care.

Part of the President’s plan has nothing to do with guns themselves. But to invest in treatment for people with mental health issues. These issues can lead to homicide, but also suicide.

I fully support helping people with mental health issues get the care they need. This will take the guns, pills, cars and knives out of their hands and allow them to live a happy and healthy life.

Let’s keep people safe and keep them alive. I support life. I support people getting the help they need. I support making it just a bit harder to get a gun immediately. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind. I’m not trying to. I watched this talk tonight with tears in my eyes as I thought about all the children, parents, teachers, and friends lost to needless violence.

I support less death. I support trying to do something about gun violence. Doing nothing is not the answer. And I don’t know what the answer is. But what we’re doing now isn’t working. So it’s time to try something new.

The Virginia Tech shooting will always be a part of my life, as long as I live as my wife was a student at Tech when it happened, and I covered it for our college newspaper. The pain of a death doesn’t end at the day of death.

Header image from Flickr: Young Cardinals fan and a machine gun

Tacky Light Tour 2015

By Carl

On January 4, 2016

In Observations

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is driving around to look at lights people put up to celebrate. After living in a high-rise building for the last few years, we’ve not had an outside front door or place to hang lights. So this year we changed that.

We have some lights and a small tree shining in front of our house. It’s not much but it makes me smile when I come home and see its warm light. Our artificial Christmas tree will stay up until February or March. I think it made it to spring last year.

This year, no one else in our townhouses put up anything more than a wreath. The neighbors in our community hung some lights and it was nice to see. But overall, there was nothing up.

A couple of nights we drove around and didn’t see any lights anywhere near us. There was one house near us that had some major decorations. But most people didn’t put up any lights at all.

So we did what any sane couple would do. We drove two hours South to Richmond, Virginia and the Tacky Lights Tour. This has been an ongoing listing of tackily lit houses for 26 years in Richmond.

I knew we only had one evening to do this so I wanted to get the most out of our trip. Being the nerd I am, I turned to Casey Liss’ Tacky Lights Navigator.

I took his original list and looks at a map view of the houses and listed them from North to South and we made our way through them.

It was a great night and we had a blast. Most of the houses were amazing. We caught a few unlisted houses and some of the ones on the list weren’t participating this year.

We saw about 30 hours in the 5-ish hours we drove around. Below are a few of the photos we took along the way. They don’t do any of the houses justice, but I hope you enjoy a bit of Christmas cheer in this new year. Click them to see the full-size version.

Empty box of chocolates. From http://gratisography.com/

Consumer

By Carl

On January 3, 2016

In Observations

I consume as much as the next guy. I constantly refresh Twitter hoping for something new to show up and give me a few seconds of delight.

I scroll through Facebook past the Likes and Stories Commented On to find the little nuggets of people’s lives I’ve chosen to keep up with.

I go back and forth with Tumblr trying to decide if it’s purely a place to read about Destiny and silly memes. Or if I want to follow writers, photographers and artists. Presently, it’s a mix of both and I’m liking it that way. It’s not too heavy I feel the need to skip reading it until I’m in the proper mood or mindset to get something out of it. And not to silly that I still feel the need to go there and catch up.

I’ve consumed a lot. I sit and I pour hours into video games and joking with friends and I’m sure I could be doing something more productive with my life. As a gaming friend said to me last week, “If I quit Destiny, I could write a book.” And while I have no plans to quit any time soon. I am going to make more of an effort to contribute to the world of consumables this year.

This isn’t a resolution. It’s nothing new. But I am starting to get a few things going that have come together around the same time. Here’s what I’m going to be making in 2016.

March 2 March

My March2March project reached the end of the year. I wasn’t sure if I would get this far but I did and I’ve had fun with it. March2March is a daily photo project starting March 1 instead of the first of the year.

Once I hit the March 1 again, I’m not sure if I’ll do it again for 2016-2017 or if I do something different. I’ll decide when I get there.

Buddycast

I’ve started a podcast with a few buddies from a Slack room I hang out in. The show is called Buddycast. The idea is a show about technology, games, movies, TV, and whatever we feel like talking about. It doesn’t have a set release schedule nor roster. There’s a core group of four potential hosts and whoever is available on the day we decide to record is on the show.

I appear on episode 1: Technology as an Enabler and the recorded-but-not-yet-released Episode 3. Which may or may not be all about Leisure Suit Larry 4.

It’s been a lot of fun to be on the show and the whole idea behind it is no-stress, no business plan fun. We’re not trying for sponsors or to make money from it. We’re just looking to have a good time and share our conversations with anyone who may be interested in them. We a geographically diverse cast and a great collection of accents. I’m staring at the token white guy.

Origin Story

I started a project about the origins of the names we use online. Origin Story has been on hiatus as I lazily forgot to send out requests to more people for interviews.

I have three in the queue I’m ready to release but I need to collect some more so I can keep it going instead of posting a few, having months of nothing, then posting a few more.

It’s going to come back in 2016 and I’m going to try to keep it going more than I did last year.

Book

I’ve sat on a small book I wrote a few years ago called Beyond the Reboot. This is the year I do something with it. It’s a series of essays about customer service and tech support and what it takes to be a good tech.

This is the year I take the text files, get them professionally edited and release it to the world for a few dollars.

What Else?

I’ve really enjoyed podcasting. I can sit and talk and I don’t stutter and stammer as much as I tend to in life. I have every Monday off with my new job so I’m more flexible this year.

I’d love to partner with someone else on a project. I don’t know what yet. I’m a terrible idea guy. So if you have an idea and if you’re looking for a partner in crime, I could be your co-conspirator.

I don’t have any coding skills but I’m a passionate customer service and advocate for the user. I’m a recovering advertising major and former graphic designer and semi-decent photographer.

If you’ve got ideas I could be the one to help you see them through. Let’s talk!

Dial-up Fibers

By Carl

On January 2, 2016

In Observations

We are all afraid of being alone.

We all went to the web to find out if the question we all had in our heads was true.

Am I alone?

Does anyone else feel like I do? Am I the only one who feels this way?

No.

We aren’t alone. That’s what the Internet was able to show us.

Back when it was the Information Superhighway or the World Wide Web. It was a big, flashing neon sign attracting nerds like flies.

I was one of those nerds. I was drawn to the flame. I craved the warmth and acceptance of other people like me. But I had no idea where to find them.

One School

I grew up in a county with one school. One middle school. One high school. One.

I went to high school with about 500 other people. I graduated in 2000 with 167 peers.

It was a small place and in that place I was the freak, the outcast. I was big enough to be the ideal football player. With no interest in being a tackling dummy.

I quit the varsity basketball team because it would mean missing our final Coffee House, which our Literary Magazine put on a few times per year to promote our publication and raise funds.

I knew who I was and what was most important to me. But there were not a lot of people like me. Later I learned there is no one like me. No one is like anyone else. We’re all our own people.

Lit Mag

Literary Magazine was a safe haven for me. I was able to be with artists and writers and musicians. I was able to share parts of myself that weren’t congruent with my 6’5″ and 250 pound frame. I was able to be myself.

I wasn’t the person I looked like. I wasn’t the stereotype people assumed.

I was my own person and that was a strange beast in my home town.

The Web

The web was a revelation. It was a place to go outside of my high school. It was a place I could be myself.

The web is about ideas. The web doesn’t care who you are or what you look like. The web is about information. Not appearance.

That’s what drew me in and why I keep going back.

I’m 34 now but I still feel like the same freak I was in high school.

I’ve never felt comfortable in my own skin. I skip around and follow wherever I see as the best path at a given time.

I used to feel like I knew who I was. But the deeper I look inside the less I feel I know myself.

But I know one thing. The friendships I’ve made online are keeping me going.

Some of my best friends are avatars. And those avatars are wonderful people I wouldn’t know what to do without.

From dial-up to fiber, the web is my home.

Leaving DOL

By Carl

On December 9, 2015

In Observations

I’m leaving my job. Friday is my last day. It’s been a good two years with the Department of Labor. I started here one day late because the government was still closed back in 2013.

I walked into the job and three days later my co-worker was let go. From then, I worked alone (with a lot of help from others) to get me into the position where I was able to support the department’s WebEx events without failure.

I was a one-man support team until Jan 2015 when I finally got some full-time help. Then we were finally a two-person team again. Then that person left suddenly in October and we hired a new person who I’ve poured all of my knowledge into and left him with a pile of documentation and as much training as I could cram into our few weeks together.

He’s knowledgeable, excited and hard-working and I know he’ll keep things going once I leave and continue the tradition of success I’ve worked so hard to build.

I tend to disappear from jobs without so much as word as I did from NIH in 2013, with my two-weeks being entirely during the shutdown.

This time, I setup an auto-responder to all new email to alert people who I was leaving and to email the group email address and not me directly as they’d gotten used to when it was just me.

I’m terrible at goodbyes but it’s nice to know your hard work didn’t go unnoticed which it can so often feel like when working in a support role. I got this email earlier this morning from a person I’ve worked on countless events with over the past two years.

Carl – I just learned you were leaving DOL this Friday. I wanted to say thank you so very much for all you have done on behalf of OCIO and the IT Modernization Team to support learning events, All Hands meetings, committee meetings, etc. – you were the glue that helped make these events work seamlessly as a norm. And if there was a hitch you had a quick remedy.

Your expertise and service-oriented way of being have been greatly appreciated and valued by all on our team. Knowing that someone with expertise and knowhow was available to assist in the less visible parts of the work removed a lot of stress.

Your departure is a tremendous loss for DOL and OCIO. I wish you the very very best in your next endeavor and hope your new employer understands the contribution you can make to their work.

So with this, I leave contracting to the Department of Labor for a contract job with the Food & Drug Administration.