majic's journal

There is this stench in our society that fumes from the fact that people who would rather persue other avenues in their life rather than college are somehow 'stupid' for it. I am one of these people that, rather than sitting inside a classroom being spoon fed some ridiculous view of the world, decided to go about life in my own direction skipping the so called 'higher education' provided by our 'elitist' schools.

I've turned out just fine and I just can't be bothered with this negativity surrounding people that don't want to sit in a classroom for 4+ years after 12 years of school. Do people really think that just because you go to college and get that valuable piece of paper called a 'degree' that you are smarter than somebody that continues their life on their own terms? From where I am in society and the view I have of it I'd say "Yes" they definitely think that if you go to college you are movtivated and smart and if you don't you are lazy and dumb. That fact alone clearly indicates the level of incompetence that fumes from every orifice in our 'society'.

Going against the grain is fun, instead of giving in to your peers you should try to live on your own.

Hmm.. where is my bobble head avatar? Where is the hungry crowd of crazy groupies? Where are my keynote speeches? Where is my VIP pass to GUADEC? Oh reality, that shit ain't gonna happen... What planet sites are gonna list me?... Where is my Ruby code at?

Nah, no Starbucks drinking, no flying around the country on some geek fantasy trip. None of that shit for me, I live in the real world... yeah the one that uses Windows. That shit ain't gonna change, you wanna work at Novell? Redhat? Or some other *BIG* company that has a linux office in the basement next to the sewer tanks and pretends to support your open source cause? You wanna fly around and pretend like you are some hotshot because you get paid to go to GUADEC and blog half the day on company time? You wanna get paid to sit in an IRC channel about your companies big shot open source project? You want 13 year old groupies that idolize you? Go for it. Pretend you are some super smart geek fanboy with your super cool Rails solution. You want to live in big cities and take public transportation to work and protest the big gas guzzling SUV's? Go for it. You wanna support Google's Summer of Code that disallows anyone that is not a *student*? Go for it... Life is not the sum of all your geek pleasures, life is not a Linux operating system. Despite popular belief there are smart people that aren't computer literate.

I'm kinda sick and tired of this new hippy geek generation with their college degrees and their uber attitudes, their superficial ego's and their magnetic attraction to planet.* sites. This new aggregation of supposed *smart* people with their *smart* solutions and their *so called* cool life in the open source community. They tell us about it in their blogs, they put pictures about their cool life on flickr, they brag about their Web 2.0 existance and preach the gospel on AJAX. Yeah you know who I'm talking about, I don't need to post any names or any websites or any channels on freenode. It's fucking obvious as hell.

Where is my iBook with my oh so special Textmate? Where are all my screencasts, podcasts and seminars on all my open source innovations? I am the community, I contribute, I am not replaceable, I am somebody. Look in the mirror.

Life isn't about your LUG and the bazillion cracker jack cookie cutter geekoids you trained in bash scripting, it's not about your presence in the Rails community or your evangelical rhetoric on how Textmate is the new Khaki (OH MY NEW INTEL MAC IS ZEN), it has nothing to do with your involvement in the Gnome desktop and your upstream patches to Ubuntu. When you're dead nobody will give one shit about your *hacking* on Firefox or your love affair and secret coding binges on the Linux kernel. Mom, FF took one more point in the browser market share, I think we are gonna push 12% next year, mark my words! w00t!! Yeah, this is the Open Sores breakout year.

Guido, please save me, your precious Python is the blood that runs through my open sores blood. Can I pretty please be a coder at Google like you? Can I be on your planet site too? I wanna be elite like you open source paid programmers... Google is zen, Google is the mother of all geeks, Google is the foundation of Life.

Blah, meh... Did somebody mention Mark Shuttleworth? Or maybe Miguel de Mono? Nah... I live in the real world, I pay bills and have kids to raise. The only open sores coding I do is for fun, not profit. I'm not a geek bobble head on planet.fuck.org, I'm not good enough, I can't find my college degree (must have gotten lost in the mounds of open sores code I've written)... No Jolt Cola awards on my desk, no Golden Code awards on my *ME* wall. I'm just an ordinary person with an ordinary job that lives in the real world, yeah the one that uses Windows.

So if you are bitching about your plane ride to GUADEC arriving two hours late and you missed your keynote speech then you can rightly kiss my ass. After all you are exactly the person I am referring to in this post. Have a wonderful open sores day, drink that FLOSS coffee for me and have a wonderful existance in your fantasy world.

This post was edited by majic on Oct 12, 2006.

I came home from Afghanistan on friday after 7 months and was greeted monday by a baby boy... His name is Braeden and he's a healthy 7 pounds. Mother and son are doing well, daughter (4) is loving her new little brother... Life is good!

My daugher and son both have birthdays in September, on the 12th and 18th respectively.

Bad news is in 3 weeks I'm going back to Afghanistan to finish my year deployment. Actually it can't really be called bad at all, it's allowed me to grow and mature more.

Life is super sweet...

The hardest part of being me at the point I am in life is the realization that I simply cannot find anyone to connect with on a purely intellectual and emotional level. Not the ordinary friendship with another human, that is not what I mean. I'm pointing towards the kind of person that understands you and doesn't laugh at all your oddities and mannerisms. The kind of unconditional love that transcends the daily shit that plagues our lives.

This life of mine seems to be filled with fuckers that walk around and jump to a beat that is canted by some arcane societal force that revolves around pop culture and worthless bullshit, material wealth and fads. I can't touch these people, they are untouchable and unapproachable, they are clueless and run around like zombies infected by an invisible but unbreakable gravity. I simply am not speaking the same language, I know there is more but yet I am alone.

Despite my lack of emotional contact, unfullfilled intellectual needs and general sense of loneliness I am not depressed, hardly. I am probably at the pinnacle of mental health that I have ever been. I am happy, glad to be alive and in a very cheerful care free mood daily. Infact I am scaring myself at how sunny my demeanor has been. I feel as alive as ever and I thank GOD for this.

Yet here I am crying out...

transform this emptiness
inhale and let go
feel it from your eyes
down into your soul
this me I show to others
this person that is in me
I can make it what I want
and project that which I see
today a man that walks alone
to a place I cannot see
a place I do not know
yet a place that sets me free
I hear a distant voice
I'll take a photograph to remember
all the friends I wish I had
can be so lonely on the outside
a place I stand to look in
see the sunrise then it's burning glow
this morning was a new start
tonight it slips away
I can feel the love around me
it's warm vibrant hold
I'll gladly participate in this life
if only you'll show me how
a thousand years separates me
from the place you stand
I'll run until I fall
to be that pinnacle in your eyes
a thousand years behind me
a second not too long
the skin is not too deep
to find out who I am
can be so unforgiving
to hide behind a moment
this inside is worth more
than the projection from this light
deeper than a memory
my feelings live in me
larger than the universe
my curiosity seems to be
two eyes gaze upon a foggy plane
a stumble upon a fall
picked up from where I left
only to realize
I've forgotten how to walk
I couldn't recognize another
if it hit me in the face
and stood outside my front door
begging to be within
the confining walls that I build around myself
until I tear myself inside
a faint whisper bleeds
yearning to live
to be connected with others

Someday, somehow...

Tonight was the dreaded night to pack all my shit in preparation for my trip to Afghanistan. Reason I hate it so much is because normally 2 bags are all you should take but 2 bags never hold enough stuff. I am seriously thinking of taking 3 bags to alleviate the problems I am currently having but that just means 3 times more chances to get a bag lost during travel. I just can't afford the risk, I'd be screwed and I don't like that feeling, been there and done that and it's not fun, especially when you have a job to do.

So tomorrow I am gonna go to Virginia to visit with parents and friends before I leave. You know say goodbye and all that sappy crap. I just can't take the goodbyes, I don't know how to react to them. I suck at showing emotion in front of people. When serious shit happens I am all quiet, I don't have any words, I'm stunned and I give the outward appearance of *not caring* but that would be totally wrong, it's just that I don't know how to express those hard emotions.

I'm going to take so many pictures on this trip that it's just not going to be funny. My boss took 37,000 pictures in Afghanistan when he was there, I don't know if I'll reach that number but that is the goal. Haha...

Time for what? Time to get on an airplane and fly to Afghanistan.. I'd tell you more but I'd have to kill you afterwords...

Wish me luck.

Maybe I'll be able to write again, I hope so... When I am home I just can't seem to get into the mood at all.... I hope I can while away!

This post was edited by majic on Feb 23, 2006.