Chris' Updates

Hey everyone! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a happy New Year! This year has been one to remember, for certain. I spent Christmas Eve last year in Iraq, being accepted into the Catholic church. Since then, I've seen another great friend get married while I was on leave, then came back home for good! I've furthered my education at CU, and scraped a 2.8 out of 4 GPA for this semester, my best grades at that school yet. I sadly said goodbye to Grandpa Doug, but have made many good friends in unexpected places. Looking forward, the time is quickly approaching for me to decide my future with the Army Reserves. I go wildly back and forth, from "I can't possibly re-up," to "I must stay." There are compelling reasons on both sides of the argument. I have made one decision, though; if I do stay in the Army, I will eventually pursue becoming a Warrant Officer of the Signal Corps. This office is little known to many outside the military, but basically Warrant

I've just finished my final essay for Humanities for Engineers, check it out! Frankenstein in Jurassic Park That's the last of my assignments, but I have one more exam tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

It's finals season once again, and that means I'm ramping up my homework production. I have four papers and a project to turn in, plus two exams, over the course of the next few days. But the end is in sight! If you've been able to follow my new Twitter account , you heard the good news that I was offered an internship with the Acxiom Corporation, and also the bad news that the project I was to work on was shut down, from what I can tell. So, I have a little more confidence that I'm somebody worth hiring, but I'm still back to unemployed. I'm pretty disappointed, because they offered me a better wage than they even advertised on the posting. They advertised $12-15/hr, and offered me $17.50, so apparently they were very interested in me. Other than that, we're gearing up for Christmas and the holidays. Ashley has been selling her birdseed heating bags at craft sales and has done quite well. Hopefully tonight, well take a little time and put up the Christmas t

It has been a very busy few weeks since I last wrote, but I'll mention a few of the big events. First, I'm sad to report that my Grandpa Doug passed away yesterday. He fell ill a few weeks ago, and went to a hospital. A CAT scan showed a mass in his lungs that was likely cancerous, but he declined to have it biopsied. If it were cancer, the act of surgically getting a sample would likely have sped the cancer's growth. Instead, Grandpa decided to let nature take its course, and come what may. He passed away peacefully in the hospital, and is out of his pain now. He was a Vietnam veteran, and was never ashamed of who he was, never let people's opinions define his self-worth. He will be missed. In other news, I've left my job with Transportation Services to try and find more fertile ground. TS has always been good to me, but many things contributed to my decision to leave. I was getting tired of working odd hours, early mornings, late evenings, starting and ending in d

More to follow, but here's a video from Iraq that I just uploaded: Fun times.

Last week was a small break from the rapid pace I was keeping up. I worked little more than my permanent hours, but had a couple of midterm exams and assignments. The midterm for my database class was interesting; it was the first item we've turned in to be graded or assessed in any way. Many people felt that they weren't comfortable at all, because they didn't know what to expect, or what sort of material might show up. I tend to agree that some homework would have been useful, but I thought the test was pretty straightforward. Then again, I haven't gotten a grade back, so maybe I just grossly misunderstood. I took the second midterm for my differential equations class tonight, and I know I didn't do spectacular, but I think I did okay. In the humanities class, we're starting a pretty focused study of Epictetus' Enchiridion and Stoic philosophy. The Stoics believe that to be happiest and most in harmony with nature, a person should basically view events in

Obviously, I've fallen behind my goal of weekly posts. All I can say is that I've been busy. School work is steaming ahead at full speed, and work has just been crazy. In the past weeks, I've taken and passed my differential equations midterm, and had numerous homework assignments in all of my classes. I just finished a project for differential equations, and wrote it within Google Docs . I've been using Docs for a while to take notes and write small spreadsheets, but recent feature additions allowed me to write a report worthy of printing and turning in. You can check it out here . Since this was for a math class, being able to insert an equation with LaTeX syntax and having it print nicely was invaluable. And I really love that I can access these documents from any computer, and don't have to carry it around on a USB drive or manually synchronize with an internet file system every time I make a change. I still hesitate to put everything in the clouds , but it wor

Life has been going well, but I find myself very busy once again. Classes are starting to settle in to their norm. Homework is a continuous thing, but I'm trying to be consistent about doing it whenever I have a few moments, and staying ahead of my deadlines. In my differential equations class, I've been doing my best to read over the book before lectures and mostly teaching myself, which has been a huge improvement over what I've done in past semesters, trying to learn for the first time during lecture. My humanities class is going quite well, and I'm enjoying the material. Our first block of discussion was over the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , his first autobiography, and more generally about freedom of body and mind, and slavery's effect on society. Now we're moving on to discussions of the Greek philosophers. Currently we're focused on Socrates, and what a jerk he was. In addition to being remembered for his deep, critical thinking on ph

Well, so far so good. The first week back at school has gone smoothly. My four classes are all reasonable, and one of them actually looks to be fun. Humanities for Engineers introduces engineering majors to something they might not get to otherwise experience; culture. We will examine many classics of literature and film, and are also required to attend "cultural events" such as live theater, jazz concerts, or (if justified and well-journalised) visiting a hookah bar. Also on the syllabus is a requirement to visit the Art Museum of Denver armed with oil pastels and sketch pad to duplicate a piece of contemporary visual art. The central theme of the course, acccording to the professor, is to explore what it means to be human and the human experience. It's something that can many times escape the mind of the engineer, who is posessed of creating new machines or chemicals or highways. Beyond classes, I've been doing lots of bus driving, and looking for work elsewhere. I&

After a long hiatus, I'm finally headed back to the classrooms of CU. Tomorrow is the first day of school. Almost everything is ready; my books are purchased, I didn't need any new supplies, and I have my parking and bus passes. I still need to file a little bit of paperwork for my brand-new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits. Luckily, in the Financial Aid department, my new status as married and a veteran means that only my own financial situation is considered, not my parents'. And since I'm a poor college student, I'm receiving a lot more tuition grants. I'm pretty excited about being a student again. Riding on my recent wave of inspiration, I realize that being pushed back a year means I'll be in a different group of student colleagues. That gives me an opportunity to change people's perception of me. I can be the guy organizing study sessions and going to review sessions and office hours. I can be the guy that hangs out in the computer lab and helps underc

Last week, Ashley and I finally got going on a project that we've been talking about even before I left last year. After Mike moved out last weekend, his bedroom was left empty, so it was perfect timing to empty our bedroom too and throw some paint on the walls. Ashley's mother loves to paint her rental property's interiors completely in ultra-pure gloss white, and it has been bugging Ashley for a long time. She says it's depressing to be around so much white. We've fixed that situation, painting our bedroom in green tones, and our new guest room in shades of red. It came out really well! We finished most of the painting in one day, which amazed me. The next day, Ashley shampooed the carpets in both rooms, so they're both nice and fresh. After all of that hard work, it was a little hard to get motivated for the camping trip, but we managed to get packed and drive up on Friday afternoon. We camped at the Cold Springs Campground in Roosevelt National Park, just

Several things have happened lately that have started me thinking. First, I found a book while browsing Barnes and Noble with Ashley during the retreat in Columbus; The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development by Chad Fowler. It's been a great read; it talks about things you can do as a software creator to not only rise above the average programmer, and not only shine among your peers, but to have a fire for your work and actually enjoy your accomplishments. Chad draws on his experience as a professional musician in addition to his work as a software engineer, and compares the skills that make artists in both fields really great. While I've never been a good enough musician to be a professional, I can see that many of his points are valid. Also, I recently sat down with some friends to watch the movie Once . In that movie, a pair of penniless musicians meet by chance and discover a wonderful connection through their music. While they don'

I've been using LiveJournal for a good long time, since I began blogging in 2004. Now, my friends, it's time to move on. I've set up a new account at Blogger, which is Google's brand of blog, and I like what I've seen so far. I was able to import all of my LiveJournal posts to the new blog (with some technical fussing ), and I'm really impressed with the advanced features that Blogger has for free. I have a paid account with LiveJournal , and it's still harder to customize to my liking. This will be my last post on my LiveJournal ; from now on, you can follow me at my Blogger site . If you've been reading through Facebook , not to worry. My posts from Blogger will be imported into Facebook notes just the same.

The Strong Bonds marriage enrichment retreat that the Army arranged for Ashley and I was a big success. We spent three full days away from home, and about two days in Columbus, Ohio. We were flown on Southwest Airlines, and I must say, I was really not a fan of their open seating policy. We stopped in Chicago for a layover, and Ashley and I both noticed the difference in the general atmosphere between that city and Denver. People in Chicago are just downright rude! I guess I shouldn't expect anything less; it has a reputation as a hard town. The hotel in Columbus was very nice, considering that this was an Army event. The Columbus Airport Marriott treated the conference guests very well. The hotel's catered food and restaurant were good, the conference room was stocked with water and writing materials, and the rooms were clean and relaxing. As for the retreat, it was presented as a seminar, with short classes interspersed with small group and couples discussions. We learned som

I've been enjoying my time back home. I've re-established myself with Transportation Services, so I've been doing a few bus runs here and there. It didn't take long to get back into that rhythm. But they don't have a lot of work at the moment, so I've been spending much of my time at home. I've been a little bit stranded, being without my own vehicle. Ashley's van is usually available, and her old sedan is still kicking around, but I still don't have a car of my own. To that end, I've been doing some shopping, and I'm getting close to a purchase. I've been looking at late '90s, early '00s sedans, specifically Volkswagen Jettas. I had a friend in high school who drove a very nice one, and I've been impressed ever since. I don't know what exactly is attractive about them; they just seem very practical, with a dash of personality and sport. I've tried shopping at a dealership, and was very turned off by the whole experien

Sorry for the long wait, but I've been a busy individual. Traveling home was a trying experience. After moving out from transient housing, we spent over 24 hours in the PAX terminal because of pushed back flights. We slept on the floors while the terminal got more and more crowded with grumpy but patient military travelers. Our unit didn't even have the benefit of our checked baggage, which had already been palletized. After that test of patience, we flew down to Kuwait. Despite some temper flares, we moved quickly through the processing and stayed only one day, which is an accomplishment. The housing for that night were two enormous tents, one for males and one for females. We had about 60 people in our tent, and the females were really able to spread out. Customs was fairly quick and uneventful, and we made our way to Kuwait International Airport and out on our chartered flight. The international flight was terribly long. If I remember right, when I took leave, the large DC-1

So, as I write, I'm sitting in transient housing, just waiting. We have basically given control to our replacements, and thank goodness for that. My replacements are good guys, and really squared away. It's almost too bad I can't spend a little more time with those guys, but I'm ready to go home. I'm ready to go back to my own friends. So we've got a couple of days now where we need to check in with them once a day to answer questions, but for the most part, we're free to wander around base as we please. The biggest downside is that transient housing is not close to anything, and all of our vehicles have been turned in. If you're going anywhere, you're either taking the packed, hot, smelly buses, or walking in the 120°F weather. And every location has different rules. To enter the DFAC (dining facility), Army personnel must have a weapon and no one can bring in any bags of any kind. At the PX, they don't care about weapons, but no bags. If you&#

Well, here we are, at the last few weeks of the tour. Our replacements are expected in at any time, and we couldn't be happier. With light at then end of the tunnel, tempers are flaring up a bit. People are not holding their opinions in check as much. I don't suppose I should have expected anything else, but it's a little sad to see. All I can say is, the sooner we wrap this show up, the better. We have a couple of days left in our CHU's before we head to transient housing. Transient housing means we're back to living out of bags in 20-man tents. Oh yeah, and we can't take our satellite internet system with us, so I'll have to give that up. I'm not looking forward to the living arrangements, but if we're leaving, I can survive that way for a few weeks. That's one thing I've learned in the Army; a person can survive any bad situation for a fixed amount of time. Running? Not fun, but we only have to do it for 16 minutes at a time (during a PT t

We've been doing well, continuing to wrap up and get ready for our replacements. I'm told they're in Kuwait already. Hopefully we'll finish up the last of the trench today, and that will be the last of our big projects. The remedial PT group has been working out diligently, but it's definitely not a hard workout. Maybe a couple days a week are really difficult, then after that we play volleyball and go to the pool. We have been running in the 5k races that are held on base. It seems there's a 5k every couple of weeks. I hadn't run in any until I was forced to do it, but they're actually kind of fun. I'm not out for any particular time, so I just run at a nice, easy pace, sweating with the people around me. I've been coming in at just over 31 minutes, so that's not bad, considering I don't enjoy running. Speaking of sweating, the temperature is definitely rising out here. According to Weather Underground , the average high last week was 10

I've been getting back to the grind again here in Iraq. Things around the office are pretty quiet; for most offices, it seems that if any major projects are left, they're either being finished now or being handed over to our replacements. In the coming months, we'll have to focus on packing our equipment and passing the torch. As one of the last big projects for our office, I was out with the guys finishing a trench for a new run of fiber optic cable. I was pretty well sunburned after only a couple of hours. I guess it's time to try and get a tan, if I want to get one. We do have an outdoor pool on base, but I haven't visited it yet. Just before going on leave, I failed a PT test, so I've been working out every morning this week. It hasn't been horribly heavy, but I'm still sore, mostly because I'm out of practice. I thought about doing push-ups while I was home, and then I'd usually get a little comfier on the couch. I've been putting more

As I write, I'm sitting in Kuwait again, on my way back to Iraq. I had an excellent two weeks of leave; it was nothing short of amazing. It's not like I did anything way beyond normal. What made this visit amazing was the simple pleasures of seeing the people I love, and doing what I wanted to do, and going where I wanted to go. I had very little planned more than a day ahead of time, and that's exactly how I wanted it. On our first anniversary, Ashley and I went to Mass together, and then joined her aunt Carol and uncle Greg for the tail end of a seminar on the Shroud of Turin . Very interesting. After that, the four of us went to lunch and had a great time catching up. Ashley and I had planned on going to dinner and a movie possibly, but that plan was pushed to the wayside. I started tinkering with my computer, and Ashley curled up on the bed, and after a while I decided to join her for a short nap. When we woke up, it was 6am the next morning! So much for living up our a

Whew! Maybe I should change the blog's title to "Almost-Monthly!" I apologize for the delay, but we've been busy bees. In the past two weeks or so, we've completed our unit's move into different buildings. And as the commo people, we've been particularly busy. When a department gets to their new office, they need their computers, network connections, phones, and printers working ASAP. That was doubly as important for the TOC (Tactical Operations Center), which is the communications hub of the unit. They had radios and e-mail in-boxes that could only be down for a couple of hours. Frankly, we worked our asses off. Things finally seem to be calming down, and we've finally moved our own commo equipment. The end of the move comes just in time for me to wish everyone a Happy Easter, and inform you all that I'll be headed home in a couple of days! I can't give you a specific time line for several reasons, not the least of which is that I don't ev

Do I use my free time this evening to: Retool my class scheduling program to use XML input Play Rock Band Why is this even a debate? Is programming really supposed to be a fun activity? ... (Sigh) I guess I'll be social and play Rock Band.

Well, it's been just about a month since my last post, so I guess I'm a little overdue. Let's see... Probably my most exciting news is that I have a date for taking my two weeks of mid-tour leave. Of course, everything is weather-dependent and so forth, but I should be home sometime around April 17th, just in time for me and Ashley's first wedding anniversary! And I should be in good time to see Kelly's wedding as well! I'm very excited, and even though I'm trying not to, I'm counting the days. Work has been treating me well. We've been busier than usual, with many offices shifting around the base. We've been running new CAT-5 cables all over the place, enough for 4 office buildings. It's definitely different than sitting around in the office, waiting for something to happen. It's nice to get out of the office for a bit, but I'm not used to being on my feet all day. All the same, it's fun. Work on my class schedule programming pro

Alright, this week seems to have been a return to my passions as a computer science geek and electronics nerd. To begin, my work planning for college has rekindled an old flame of sorts. I've had the urge to design a class scheduling program. This would take a list of the classes I want to take, and then use the class times for that semester to build the perfect schedule. Of course, that's a very general description. One of the most immediate problems that comes to mind is: what is a perfect schedule? It's a fuzzy, arbitrary goal. I have several ideas to make it more concrete, and if I get that far I'll probably incorporate them all. Another technical issue to be solved is getting the actual class times. I'll have to start by hand-entering the ones I'm interested in, but I wonder if there are better solutions. Perhaps the Computer Science department can hook me up with read-only access to parts of the school's database. Or maybe I can find a way to scrape t

Is it me, or are there a lot of birthdays around this time of year? Many, many of the people I know seem to have birthdays in January and February. Perhaps it lends creedence to all of that astrology crap, and I just tend to hang around Aquariuses. Or maybe it reveals preferred times of the year to make babies. Who knows. The last couple of weeks of work have been relatively quiet. Sgt. Rhino is back from leave. He had an excellent time while he was home, but coming back was painful, both with the emotional parting and the difficult process of making his way back to Iraq. I get that report quite often, actually. Traveling with the military is less than glamorous. Sgt. Rhino has decided to step back a bit from day-to-day office management, allowing Sgt. Antonio to make project decisions and keep track of scheduling. Also, Sgt. Rhino has blessed off on the days off scheme. I'm very happy, because I'm still enjoying my reset days. Over the past couple of days, I've been plotti

W00t! I'm happy to report that after a couple months of casually playing on and off, I've beaten Mass Effect on PC! I bought it back in September, and I scared my roommate when I cursed loudly while trying to install the game. The SecuROM DRM prevented me from launching the game until I could activate with the internet. It wasn't until a month later that I actually got personal internet and was able to start playing. (Does EA really expect me to have an internet connection in the middle of the desert?) I'll also say that it's a system hog; my new laptop, built specifically to play modern games decently, is barely able to handle the game. Having voiced those gripes, I'm very happy with the game. It's an original IP and storyline, and the backstory and plot are excellent! I was drawn into a galaxy of interesting alien races, clashing politics, and intense combat. Commander Shepard is a great lead character. The plot forces the player to make some tough dec

I've just finished watching the inauguration of our 44th president. So much has already been said about the significance of this moment in history. Even though I can't lay claim to any African American cultural heritage, I was still deeply moved by the idea that we are closer to equality than perhaps ever before. This is one of the moments in history that I can tell my children and grandchildren about: those moments when you'll never forget where you were when you learned it happened. For other generations, those moments were the attack on Pearl Harbor and the assassination of JFK. I don't quite remember what I was doing when the Berlin Wall fell, and my recollections of the Gulf War are fuzzy at best. But I do remember a fateful morning in my sophomore year of high school. In Spanish, my first class, there were rumors of news from New York. A small plane, perhaps a single-prop, had accidentally glanced off of a building. Anyway, no matter, class had to continue. But in

Now that the flurry of the holidays is over, we've been settling back into the routine. I've been finding myself less pleased about my situation. I'm still trying to stay positive and use my time and stay involved, but it seems harder somehow. Although I know I have a long ways to go, I'm definitely ready to go home. I've seen my share of this base. I'll keep plodding along, and keep doing my online courses and helping out at church, but that doesn't mean I'm enjoying my time. Why didn't I go Air Force? I'd be done by now! I've recently been reflecting on another issue: reenlistment. I told myself that I wouldn't be able to decide until I had a taste of deployment. And now that I'm here? Well, the time away sucks, in a big way. I see the same people every day, nonstop, no days off. I try not to think about it often, but I do miss everything about home. But another issue is the copious amount of BS that the military brings to the pictu

Our furry friend has become an internet meme! moar funny pictures