Haven’t been keeping up here.

Frustrated with being on swing shift this morning, time is so frickin c ritical. I get about 3-4 hours to myself in the morning, have lunch with Tanya and then an hour to two to relax before work. Then I come home and go to bed. I’ve been looking for a day job but all of the DOD contracts are up for renewal and nobody is hiring.

Tanya broke her arm and then her mom left to take care of some business so I’m trying to help out there.

Got into FPV First-Person-Video rc planes, built my first electric plane and I LOVE IT!!

Enjoy the video!

Millie and Rhianna went to the haunted Fairgrounds together and it was good to see them hanging out. Picked up a new laptop for Millie yesterday. Drove the Scirocco to Tacoma for it and it was a good day.

Millie cooked dinner but got mad at me for helping too much…:)

And now back to the grind. Not a lot to report this week!

First, I was hired into a job that stated “Some shift work required” and within two months I was put on swing shift for “a month”. After that month I was told “No, it’s permanent, why?”.

So I began looking for another job, preferrably back at Keyport as that’s a decent place to work and you know where you stand there. But not a whole lot has been going on there due to contract bidding wars and lowballing salaries because of that.

So then I got sick, hurt my neck…hasn’t been good.

But today is a good day, sun is partially out, it’s warm.

Rhianna and Millie are hanging out. It’s a good day!

Last October I did not want change but it was forced upon me by a layoff. Now I want change. I want day shift with Saturday and Sunday off. I want to ride to work with my baby and enjoy her company at nights when I enjoy writing in my book. I have none of this right now.

So that’s where I am now, in heavy contemplation.

But all too lately it seems to have gotten closer and last night I laid in bed not able to sleep.
All I could hear were the seagulls screeching. There are no seagulls at my house but I hear it all day/night.

So that’s that, it made me laugh to think about the title.

Bad day on the stock market but I think once it recovers I will be OK, going to leave more in for investing and less to play with..

I read in the local news the other day that we’ve had exactly 78 minutes of summer, as defined by temperatures exceeding 80 degrees.

Supposed to be nice today though. August 1st. Wow where does time fly?
Well I took Millie to the space needle, then to EMP, and then to the d-derby.
We had a busy day and then I had to take her home the next day.
Cleaned house, went to work and now it’s time to focus on getting my roof replaced.

With the weather like it is I am rather looking forward to fall, cold days staying inside with a nice fire in the wood stove.

What’s going on with the stock market? Every time it goes down I jump to a gold mine to save what I lost. I thought hte market was supposed to MAKE you money not TAKE your money! I get frustrated at it sometimes.

That’s all for now!

Myself and a great many from the dojo went to his memorial service today. He was a brown belt when I was a white belt. Today I am a black belt and he is a black belt.
Shihan promoted him to black belt today, at the service. He came back about a month ago and was going to test for black belt.

His journey is complete, as Shihan says. He did great getting people organized, putting it altogether. I got up and spoke about how Kris inspired me and took it easy on me. His friends spoke.
When I was finished speaking I looked over to his friends and said “So go celebrate his life, do something you would do with him and think of him, go skateboarding if that’s what you did but go do it”.

Tonight Tanya and I had a bottle of champagne and a cigar to celebrate two things; Our passing the CISSP exam, and to celebrate Kris’s life and the little bit of difference he made for me.

Rest in peace Sensei, we will meet again..

Sensei Scott Turchin
July 23rd, 2011

But at that time my Sensei said “It’s time to kick it down a notch”. And those were pretty powerful words. Sure, I was already debt free and have  a decent lifestyle, nothing fancy but I enjoy it but waking up when I wanted to wake up, watching re-runs on TV and enjoying a new wood stove I put in started relaxing me.  As I was going to school with all the youngsters around I realized that those were happy days in my life as well, and life should be happy.

I decided I’m tired of being around cities, sirens, bad traffic. I want to buy 150 acres somewhere remote and live near a small town. I lived in a small town in South Dakota and then Wyoming when I was in High School and I really enjoyed how laid back it was. Paul Harvey three times a day on the radio, worked in the oil fields a bit, and as a busboy.

But my dream is retirement, early….therein lies the problem. Short of winning the lottery there won’t be an “early” retirement. I’d like a small house, maybe a tad bigger than my current house. Solar power, a well, a garden. What more could you want? (High Speed internet!)…
But I’m driven and I will find a way to make this happen. I am actually working on it but it’s not going as well with the market as it is, a messed up government that kills the market every time it opens it’s mouth. But in time….

So where you ask, will I retire? Canadian Texas is looking like the place. Have I ever been there? Nope, but I plan to go down there next year and sample all of the small towns and area. Ironically, the ending to the movie “Castaway” was filmed in Canadian Texas.

But yesterday I got my results back from the CISSP exam and passed!
Back in the day, say, 1998 I was taking all of the certifications I could to get a name for myself since I was relatively new in the IT field. After 12 years of working I got laid off last October and decided to go back and renew some certifications.

So as of yesterday I am holding CompTIA’s Security +, Network +, CISSP, and now I will graduate, with honors, from OC for Information Systems Security.

It pays to stay in school, definitely helps on the paycheck too.
But alas, all of that means nothing without a dream right? Right…

Stay tuned for the “Dream”….

I did set the pool up for Millie, got some ivy out of the trees so they can breathe again but otherwise I am not doing a whole lot.

The stock market is crazy, politicians are now trying to scare people into pressuring Congress to raise the debt ceiling and this is having an adverse effect on the market. Gold and Silver are up though so that’s not a bad thing to do.

As the Governator would say, “I’ll be bach..” (You be Mozart..)