My Uncle Chuck died the other day. Apparently he had a heart attack in his sleep and passed quietly in the night.
To be clear, Chuck was in no way related to me by blood. My parents got married in graduate school and had a ridiculously close group of friends there. Chuck was someone I grew up calling 'Uncle' because he was the kind of man my parents trusted to be a part of their infant son's life. I also grew up calling his partner Jerry 'uncle' as well. Having my formative years in frequent contact with an unashamed and openly gay couple certainly informed my outlook on why their lifestyle was no less natural than a heterosexual couple.
Jerry died almost 20 years ago of complications to AIDS. He was diagnosed in the early 80s and to my knowledge was one of the first few thousand cases in the USA. I can remember, at 5 years old, visiting Uncles Chuck and Jerry and overhearing them giving a sermon to my 16 year old brother about how important condoms are and how much pain they would cause him if he didn't keep one on him at all times. Of course, I had no idea what the hell a condom was at that age, but I recall hoping fervently my brother would forget to carry his so I could see him get in trouble.
I learned how to play Charades with Chuck and Jerry and attribute my current mastery of this noble sport to their tutelage. I uttered my first word (moon) around them. I most certainly inherited my desire to have a group of friends I could call 'family' from observing their interactions with my parents and seeing how loving and welcoming these people could be to me.
The first time I cried at a funeral was when we poured Jerry's ashes in the Pacific (it was a windy day and all the adults joked about the contrary bastard blowing back in our faces just for the laughs). I doubt I'll be able to make it to Chuck's funeral and share with the survivors of that family how much Chuck touched my life. But I can type it here and leave it etched in the Eternal Google Cache.
So until the death of the internet or the electrical storm that vanishes this record from the world - Uncle Chuck; I love you. I'll miss you. You'll always be family. Say hi to Jerry for me.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Friday, March 06, 2009
Blowing the dust off
Oh yeah. I have a blog.
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and decided to use this space to rant in about it. If you feel so inclined, respond to your heart's content, but know that I am pretty much spewing into the ether without seeking any specific response.
So I got laid off in December from what might have been the best job I ever had. I was great at what I did, even if a lot of what I did was slack off. I lost the job and tumbled into the cracks of the recession with about a third of the Country's population. I've been collecting unemployment ever since whilst searching, sometimes frantically, sometimes weakly for other work. In the midst of this very real crisis of income, I started coming up with alternatives to another 9 to 5 job that I could feel comfortable and complacent in.
I mean fuck. I was supposed to take over the world, right? Corporate drone, even for a gaming company is still dying in obscurity, having made no impact on my environment.
So I started looking into school. Maybe another Bachelors Degree, maybe a Masters. I could get some basic skills retraining and pick up some computer science or administrative course work free of charge, thanks to the Worker Retraining Program (I think it's national. Go google that shit up). A bachelors or masters is beyond the scope of this 2 to 3 quarter program, but what are another $30,000 in loans among friends, right?
Anyway, I started doing research on my options - where I would go, how I would make ends meet, how would Athena and Emily fair having to deal with me doing homework again - the whole 9 yards. In my research, I started talking to people whose opinions I value greatly. Not everyone I consider wise, mind you, just a handful of folks I wanted to bounce ideas off of.
One of those people gave me a real knock on the head the other day. He told me that the retraining and masters programs I was looking into would probably be a waste of my time. A waste because I don't have the right mind for computer science - specifically programming. I got to thinking about that statement and I can't agree with him more. I don't have the head for tracking variables across equations or seeing the flaw in a buggy piece of code. There is no short term benefit to picking up these skills because even if I were to pass the courses, I would be a sub par programmer. Crappy code monkeys don't last too long around here and I wouldn't be taking a step up income or life-satisfaction wise.
So I looked back at my long term goals. Why did I want to pick up CS training anyway?
There is a doctorate program at the University of Washington where they are researching neurobiology and behavior. Some of the research coming out of the program has to do with human/machine interfaces - which has been my pet technolust for over a decade now.
I looked into the program and was told I'd need a solid background in biology, chemistry and computer science before I would be a strong candidate. The computer science portion was easy enough to manage (so I figured), I simply needed to take a handful of courses and learn some fundamentals.
Somewhere along the way, that blossomed into some crazy ass degree. Now, I am sitting here trying to decide between seeking one of those degrees or taking another lame ass job I'd be good at and feel complacent in. The shit of it is, at the end of the day, both options seem to push me farther away from the goal of entering this doctorate program. Either I get my ass back to the office or spend a year learning skills that will get me into different kind of office. Neither option gets me the chem and biology I truly need to get my shit together. Somehow I have backed myself into a corner where my only two options get me nowhere near my goal.
You know, I can't say I am surprised I am here. After all, if I made real progress towards polishing my eligibility for this doctorate program, I might end up face to face with a pile of rejection letters, or even worse, find myself unable to complete the prerequisite work so I could apply.
I have such high flying dreams, but at the end of the day I take the path of least resistance.
I need to provide for my family. I need to feel a sense of fulfillment with my life. I need to feel wanted and useful by those around me.
Do I put away childish things like big dreams of changing the world? Do I simply run the numbers on what choice will bring the greatest income to my family? Do I throw our fortunes to the wind and try to change the kind of person I am, change the way I think and process?
Or do I keep turning to others for solutions, waiting for something better to come up and taking the path of least resistance?
Somehow, I don't think this story ends with me in the White House or making some breakthrough that sparks Singularity. Some nights, I fear this story doesn't even end with a full life and caring family coming together to bid farewell to my corpse in 50 years.
I think I've directly fucked up my life and I'm out of do overs.
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and decided to use this space to rant in about it. If you feel so inclined, respond to your heart's content, but know that I am pretty much spewing into the ether without seeking any specific response.
So I got laid off in December from what might have been the best job I ever had. I was great at what I did, even if a lot of what I did was slack off. I lost the job and tumbled into the cracks of the recession with about a third of the Country's population. I've been collecting unemployment ever since whilst searching, sometimes frantically, sometimes weakly for other work. In the midst of this very real crisis of income, I started coming up with alternatives to another 9 to 5 job that I could feel comfortable and complacent in.
I mean fuck. I was supposed to take over the world, right? Corporate drone, even for a gaming company is still dying in obscurity, having made no impact on my environment.
So I started looking into school. Maybe another Bachelors Degree, maybe a Masters. I could get some basic skills retraining and pick up some computer science or administrative course work free of charge, thanks to the Worker Retraining Program (I think it's national. Go google that shit up). A bachelors or masters is beyond the scope of this 2 to 3 quarter program, but what are another $30,000 in loans among friends, right?
Anyway, I started doing research on my options - where I would go, how I would make ends meet, how would Athena and Emily fair having to deal with me doing homework again - the whole 9 yards. In my research, I started talking to people whose opinions I value greatly. Not everyone I consider wise, mind you, just a handful of folks I wanted to bounce ideas off of.
One of those people gave me a real knock on the head the other day. He told me that the retraining and masters programs I was looking into would probably be a waste of my time. A waste because I don't have the right mind for computer science - specifically programming. I got to thinking about that statement and I can't agree with him more. I don't have the head for tracking variables across equations or seeing the flaw in a buggy piece of code. There is no short term benefit to picking up these skills because even if I were to pass the courses, I would be a sub par programmer. Crappy code monkeys don't last too long around here and I wouldn't be taking a step up income or life-satisfaction wise.
So I looked back at my long term goals. Why did I want to pick up CS training anyway?
There is a doctorate program at the University of Washington where they are researching neurobiology and behavior. Some of the research coming out of the program has to do with human/machine interfaces - which has been my pet technolust for over a decade now.
I looked into the program and was told I'd need a solid background in biology, chemistry and computer science before I would be a strong candidate. The computer science portion was easy enough to manage (so I figured), I simply needed to take a handful of courses and learn some fundamentals.
Somewhere along the way, that blossomed into some crazy ass degree. Now, I am sitting here trying to decide between seeking one of those degrees or taking another lame ass job I'd be good at and feel complacent in. The shit of it is, at the end of the day, both options seem to push me farther away from the goal of entering this doctorate program. Either I get my ass back to the office or spend a year learning skills that will get me into different kind of office. Neither option gets me the chem and biology I truly need to get my shit together. Somehow I have backed myself into a corner where my only two options get me nowhere near my goal.
You know, I can't say I am surprised I am here. After all, if I made real progress towards polishing my eligibility for this doctorate program, I might end up face to face with a pile of rejection letters, or even worse, find myself unable to complete the prerequisite work so I could apply.
I have such high flying dreams, but at the end of the day I take the path of least resistance.
I need to provide for my family. I need to feel a sense of fulfillment with my life. I need to feel wanted and useful by those around me.
Do I put away childish things like big dreams of changing the world? Do I simply run the numbers on what choice will bring the greatest income to my family? Do I throw our fortunes to the wind and try to change the kind of person I am, change the way I think and process?
Or do I keep turning to others for solutions, waiting for something better to come up and taking the path of least resistance?
Somehow, I don't think this story ends with me in the White House or making some breakthrough that sparks Singularity. Some nights, I fear this story doesn't even end with a full life and caring family coming together to bid farewell to my corpse in 50 years.
I think I've directly fucked up my life and I'm out of do overs.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The best person in the world
Better late than never - here are the first pictures of my beautiful daughter, Emily Jade.
More to come.
More to come.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
And we're back!
Howdy folks... (Does anyone even check this thing any more?)
Been a while, I know. Life has changed a lot in the almost 2 years since my last post. The biggest and latest news first, hmm?
My girlfriend is pregnant, we are going to have a baby in September!
Heavy, I know. We were not expecting this, to say the least. After a lot of serious talking we have decided to move forward and make this happen, together. My girlfriend's name is Athena (yeah, her parents named her Athena) and we have been seeing each other since January. We met on the flight back from GenCon last year and became fast friends. In the 6 months that we have known each other, we have discovered a wonderful and ever growing list of the ideals, life views and interests we have in common.
We'll be moving in together here in House Prime next month. We'll be taking over the lower living room and converting it into a private space/living area. The room down there will be converted into a nursery. We'll be putting a door up at the bottom of the stairs and moving a bedroom set in, it'll all be very home-y.
Are you waiting for me to tell you it's all a joke? Keep waiting.
In other news, I quit my job at Overlake School in December after some bad stuff happened in my classroom and my bosses made some very bad calls. While I wont go into detail, I will say that one of my students assaulted another a number of times in a very serious fashion and the steps to protect the classroom were not taken. So, I left as to not be a part of a continued tragedy as it unfurled. I am currently engaged in trying to find a job as a beta-tester for Microsoft. I hope to hear something from them next week on this point.
There are a number of other life changes that have gone on in the house at this point, up to and including getting a dog named Ghengis (he rocks) and Joe and Sandy having a baby named Zoe (pronounced Zoh-ee) last month. The baby is healthy, eating, sleeping and grunting a lot. We are all looking forward to a second child joining the fracas in a few months.
Everything else will have to wait for another post, hopefully in a couple of week opposed to two years from now.
Hope to talk to every soon.
~Schwa
(Edited to fix the kind of mistakes you make at 2:30 am and don't catch til noon)
Been a while, I know. Life has changed a lot in the almost 2 years since my last post. The biggest and latest news first, hmm?
My girlfriend is pregnant, we are going to have a baby in September!
Heavy, I know. We were not expecting this, to say the least. After a lot of serious talking we have decided to move forward and make this happen, together. My girlfriend's name is Athena (yeah, her parents named her Athena) and we have been seeing each other since January. We met on the flight back from GenCon last year and became fast friends. In the 6 months that we have known each other, we have discovered a wonderful and ever growing list of the ideals, life views and interests we have in common.
We'll be moving in together here in House Prime next month. We'll be taking over the lower living room and converting it into a private space/living area. The room down there will be converted into a nursery. We'll be putting a door up at the bottom of the stairs and moving a bedroom set in, it'll all be very home-y.
Are you waiting for me to tell you it's all a joke? Keep waiting.
In other news, I quit my job at Overlake School in December after some bad stuff happened in my classroom and my bosses made some very bad calls. While I wont go into detail, I will say that one of my students assaulted another a number of times in a very serious fashion and the steps to protect the classroom were not taken. So, I left as to not be a part of a continued tragedy as it unfurled. I am currently engaged in trying to find a job as a beta-tester for Microsoft. I hope to hear something from them next week on this point.
There are a number of other life changes that have gone on in the house at this point, up to and including getting a dog named Ghengis (he rocks) and Joe and Sandy having a baby named Zoe (pronounced Zoh-ee) last month. The baby is healthy, eating, sleeping and grunting a lot. We are all looking forward to a second child joining the fracas in a few months.
Everything else will have to wait for another post, hopefully in a couple of week opposed to two years from now.
Hope to talk to every soon.
~Schwa
(Edited to fix the kind of mistakes you make at 2:30 am and don't catch til noon)
Thursday, August 25, 2005
The New
Hey,
If any of you are on Google's new instant messenger, let me know so's I can add you to my as of yet empty contat list. They say it'll be compatible with Jabber messengers soon, which recently revealed that it was going to be compatible with AIM, which means that we can all use the google talk thingy and move one step closer to total desktop domination by the former "search engine only" barbarians that have now crossed the Rubicon to sack our proprietary city.
I think that little logic line is what they call "Webcest", at least the parts about various messengers.
Anyway, it's early. Off to work.
Later!
If any of you are on Google's new instant messenger, let me know so's I can add you to my as of yet empty contat list. They say it'll be compatible with Jabber messengers soon, which recently revealed that it was going to be compatible with AIM, which means that we can all use the google talk thingy and move one step closer to total desktop domination by the former "search engine only" barbarians that have now crossed the Rubicon to sack our proprietary city.
I think that little logic line is what they call "Webcest", at least the parts about various messengers.
Anyway, it's early. Off to work.
Later!
Monday, August 22, 2005
Or you know, now...
Well, I guess "later in the week" means 10 minutes later...
GenCon ruined my sleep schedule so here we go.
GenCon was, well, terrible. Horrible as all hell, filled with stupid drama and even stupider people. Details are unimportant as the people I'd be willing to discuss them with are already aware of what transpired.
Anyhow, here's a look at life in the Emerald City for yours truly right now.
Schwa's big list of random resolutions:
1. Limiting myself to 2 afternoons and part of 1 weekend day of WoW a week.
2. 1 guaranteed intensive outdoor experience a month. Examples include: paintball, rock climbing, full contact spelunking, urban hang gliding and inverted sea kayaking.
3. Seeing all the great friends I have in the area that I've been ignoring because I am an antisocial punkass.
4. Finding some new music to listen too. Any more techno and I'll need to start dropping E tabs to stay sane...
More on that list as it develops.
I'm also actually working on a long term project, developing a Role Playing Game system and Way to Sell It with a handful of trusted compatriots. As above, more on that as it develops.
Ok, enough for now.
Keep it real.
GenCon ruined my sleep schedule so here we go.
GenCon was, well, terrible. Horrible as all hell, filled with stupid drama and even stupider people. Details are unimportant as the people I'd be willing to discuss them with are already aware of what transpired.
Anyhow, here's a look at life in the Emerald City for yours truly right now.
Schwa's big list of random resolutions:
1. Limiting myself to 2 afternoons and part of 1 weekend day of WoW a week.
2. 1 guaranteed intensive outdoor experience a month. Examples include: paintball, rock climbing, full contact spelunking, urban hang gliding and inverted sea kayaking.
3. Seeing all the great friends I have in the area that I've been ignoring because I am an antisocial punkass.
4. Finding some new music to listen too. Any more techno and I'll need to start dropping E tabs to stay sane...
More on that list as it develops.
I'm also actually working on a long term project, developing a Role Playing Game system and Way to Sell It with a handful of trusted compatriots. As above, more on that as it develops.
Ok, enough for now.
Keep it real.
Word
Yo,
Welcome to my 2nd take at a blog. I'll try to keep this updated and post regularly so's I can keep in touch with folks and all that. Expect something of content and value by week's end.
Until then.
Welcome to my 2nd take at a blog. I'll try to keep this updated and post regularly so's I can keep in touch with folks and all that. Expect something of content and value by week's end.
Until then.
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