New job!

Actually, I've been back on the military base since July but I've been a bit hesitant to even mention it fearing some ill would befall me if I did. In the words of Bruce Springsteen, I feel "like a dog that's been beat too much until you spend half your life just covering up." Life has certainly been challenging and very different since I was laid off in April 2006 so it's not like I feel this way without reason.

Back in 1987, I began my college career at UAH in the EE department but realized that I had neither the discipline nor the intelligence for the math. I took classes in various areas over the next five years never earning a degree but gaining enough knowledge to earn a decent living in computer support. After the lay-off, I was determined to complete my undergraduate degree hoping that furthering my education would provide some job security.

After looking at the curriculum at local colleges, I chose the CIS program at Athens State University. UAH's MIS program was considered but was more business while ASU's program provided more programming and networking so I headed down the interstate to Athens. At the recommendation of one of my professors, I took a support job at a local cable company that I greatly enjoyed but at half of my prior pay. Convenient to furthering my education but damaging to our finances draining my dwindling resources and forcing me to take out student loans. Sigh.

Two years later, I finished my degree but it didn't seem to help much in pursuit of more gainful employment in the sagging economy. My clearance was inactive and I wasn't certified which knocked me out of contention with many companies and the lack of a clearance kept me out of many local job fairs. In the soft economy, many companies simply didn't want to spend the money for clearances or certs when there was a surplus of over qualified applicants with them already in hand.

Four years post lay-off and thanks to a friend from the racing world, I'm back on the base doing desktop support (but still making less moolah than before) and looking at various options for upward mobility. I just completed my Network+ certification and will be taking a computing environment cert very soon. I'm hoping that these industry certifications will bolster my resume even more and propel my career forward once more. For the first time in many years, I feel somewhat confident that my luck may turn around.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost

The Wisdom of Stewart Udall

Americans must finally cast aside our notion that we can continue the wasteful consumption patterns of our past. We must promote a consciousness attuned to a frugal, highly efficient mode of living. In closing, I leave you with these thoughts, and hope you will hold to these ideals throughout your lives:

Foster a consciousness that puts a premium on the common good and the protection of the environment. Give your unstinting support to all lasting, fruitful technological innovations. Be steadfast enemies of waste. The lifetime crusade of your days must be to develop a new energy ethic to sustain life on earth.

In the 1960s, when the carbon problem and the exhaustion of the world's petroleum were still beyond our gaze, I advocated a new ethic to guide our nation's stewardship of its resources. I realize now this approach was too narrow, too nationalistic. To sustain life on our small planet, we will need a wider, all-encompassing planetary resource ethic based on values implemented by mutual cooperation. This ethic must be rooted in the most intrinsic values of all: Caring, sharing, and mutual efforts that reach beyond all obstacles and boundaries.

Go well, do well, my children. Cherish sunsets, wild creatures and wild places. Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.

Quoted from "A Message to Our Grandchildren" by Stewart Udall

More of that Fitness Stuff

I didn't make it to the gym today but I feel OK about it. I managed another 30 minutes on the elliptical yesterday and two more sets of Nautilus Incline Presses and, an addition to my routine, a set of Nautilus Overhead Presses. Tomorrow, I've got legs on my mind. Yeah, I'm talking about my wife's legs but I'm still gonna knock out a leg workout of my own tomorrow.

I just can't see myself getting a good workout doing only Nautilus Leg Presses. There is a free weight hack squat machine in this gym. I've used one many times in the past so I'll give it a try for 2-3 sets before finishing with leg presses. We'll see how that goes. It could be my imagination but I think I'm feeling better!

Weedeaters are Fun

I never participated in the great McMansion, biggest lawn tractor, biggest gas grill competition of the last few decades so I buy cheap weedeaters. I just don't see any need for Joe Blow to spend a small fortune on an industrial weedeater and lawn mower to cut his 7/8th's acre of suburbia once a week. The John Deere "lawn tractor" seems to be the status symbol of choice these days. Interesting that there's almost nothing John Deere on any of them except the name and the green paint. Most lawn tractors bought at box stores are made by only a handful of manufacturers. Same with weedeaters.

The cheap little Weedeater brand weed whackers that I've been using for the past few decades are manufactured by Poulan and have many brand names slapped on them. They're definitely not made for industrial usage but for less than $90, you can't beat 'em. To get the best performance from your own unit, you will need a Poulan carb adjustment tool to tune the fuel mixture and just a little bit of common sense and technical ability to keep it running well.

My newest Weedeater is a FL25 that I bought in the spring and it ran absolutely great until a few weeks ago. A little troubleshooting led me to the fuel filter which looked like the aluminum was disintegrating and actually left a stain in the plastic fuel tank. Weird. Of course, the guy at the small engine shop blamed it on ethanol blends. It sounds feasible but I've been running ethanol blends in everything for more than two decades and have never seen this happen before. Ethanol blends are not supposed to be stored for more than 90 days so I'm wondering if the age of the fuel may have contributed to the problem along with the extreme heat this summer.

$2.50 for a new filter and an hour spent disassembling, cleaning, and tweaking the Walbro carburetor got her back in primo condition. Stay tuned for a future entry detailing exactly how to tweak that carb!

Back In The Gym: Week Three

I missed my workout last Friday and I was afraid that today was going to be a bust as well. I didn't sleep well last night and was dead tired all morning. A quick midday nap and a Diet Mountain Dew provided the needed motivation enabling me to ramp up the cardio to 30 minutes on the Precor elliptical burning up right under 300 calories and 2.5 miles.

Although muscle soreness isn't supposed to be an indicator of progress, I've alway seemed to suffer greatly in that area and the feedback is useful. My last circuit workout, although challenging, didn't leave me sore so I decided to change it up a bit. Today, I knocked out three sets of rows and three sets of lat pulldowns with reps in the 6-10 range. I then moved on to the incline press but only managed two sets before complete failure.

My capacity for work is rather low as I'm sure the cardio is burning up some energy and I haven't even really cut the calories yet. I'm going to attempt to hit the gym five days this week on a two day split on the stength training with cardio every day. At least that's the plan at the moment. We'll see how it feels.

Say What?

"It's like a milk cow with 310 million tits."
-- Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson on Social Security

I guess he forgot that the vast majority of those people worked their whole lives and paid into the system. It particularly disgusts me considering that my father worked and paid into the system until he passed away at 60 and thus will never see a dime of that money. My mother, who was a stay-at-home mom and never paid into the system, will receive about half of my father's projected payments in survivor's benefits. The very thought that the bourgeois of Washington D.C. would endanger that well deserved check has me considering the benefits of the guillotine and I don't even support capital punishment.

Back In The Gym: One Week In

One week down. Many more to come! I completed my second workout of the week and haven't collapsed into a quivering heap quite yet. It's been the Precor elliptical machine for 20 minutes of cardio this week. I made the mistake of venturing into the gym at noon on Monday and found all of the treadmills taken. No big deal. I actually enjoyed the elliptical more than I remembered. I can see my pulse rate dropping already. Lower blood pressure here we come!

So what am I doing in the strength training area? At the moment, just a simple fullbody circuit training program consisting of two sets at the following Nautilus Nitro Plus stations: Mid Row, Lat Pulldown, Seated Calf, Incline Press, and Leg Press in that order. I don't think I can call it a traditional circuit since I complete the two sets at each station with about a minute between sets before moving on to the next exercise. It's just easier than coming back and finding someone else using the station.

As you may have noticed, there is no direct arm work. Not much need for it at the moment. The core exercises are working just fine. I think I'll punish myself for six weeks with this routine before mixing it up somewhat. I'm not quite sure which way that I want to go but I think I will be sticking with the machines this time. My shoulders actually feel good these days and I would like to keep it that way. Same goes for my back. I doubt that free weight squats and deads will be in the routine ever again. I'm looking forward to your emails. 8)

Back in the Gym

I found this cool article on NPR this morning - No More Gym? Don't Worry, Your Muscles Remember. It confirms the previously anecdotal theory of muscle memory and I'm hoping that it still applies to the guy that has now crested 40. I guess we'll see.

Except for my bulging disc shortened experience with P90X last August, I haven't worked out since I was laid off from Diebold in April of 2006. Friends of mine during my 30's would be astonished that I can actually eat like a normal human being and not exercise at least three times per week but it's true. I've been living the life of the average sedentary office geek for the last four years.

OK, maybe not quite average. My diet is still relatively clean compared to the norm and I'm only about ten pounds heavier but I've lost muscle mass as well so it's perhaps a bit more overall but less than twenty pounds overweight in our obese society can't hardly be considered average. Unfortunately, my blood pressure is in the pre-hypertensive range and the little woman is pushing for a full cardio evaluation since my father's untimely passing.

Since once again finding employment on the Arsenal, I joined the MWR and have now hit the gym three times with 20 minutes of cardio and circuit training on some cool Nautilus equipment. I used one of their lat pulldown stations at UAH years ago and it's great! I've been pleasantly surprised with my performance. Definitely not world shattering but decent for a four year lay-off. I think the new job has revitalized my body, mind, and spirit. I still need to get some more discipline in my diet but I'm happy to be exercising regularly once again. Now I've got to work on that yoga routine for my off days.

Compulsive Email Checker?

Do you find yourself hitting the Send/Receive button? Sure, your email client checks the mail at least every 30 minutes but do you just have to hit that little button only to watch some spam roll into your junk folder? I confess. My name is Michael Ray and I am a compulsive email checker which would probably be acceptable if I actually recieved something but junk on a regular basis.

At the height of my motorsports journalism days, I received upwards of 300 messages per day and spent a few hours downloading my new messages upon returning from a race. Dial-up is definitely a problem when you have 1200 messages waiting to be read. After I gave up the "fame and glory", it took a while to acclimate to absolutely nothing being in my inbox and I don't think I've ever completely given up the addiction.

Working on the military base without access to my email client may provide the needed discipline to kick the email habit. I have absolutely no reason to log into webmail two dozen times per day when the only messages I receive are notices that I paid a bill, Russian girls wanting to send me their pictures, or the latest ad for Viagra. I'm kicking the email habit! I'm done!

Long Time. No Blog.

Sporadic blogging seems to be one of my character traits yet one that I don't believe is unique to my personality. Anyhow, I'm back! Actually, there were a multitude of reasons for my lack of blogworthiness but the major factor was the day job. Working for Knology had become so self consuming that I had neither the time nor inclination to write about it, not even as self-therapy which is mostly what I call it when you're writing and no one is reading it. Everyone is probably playing Farmville or something.

Facebook seems to have become the preferred method of keeping up with friends and family and our modern busy lives seem to tolerate the short, mostly non-thought provoking comments much better although I could do without knowing everyone's location. The dentist appointment and subsequent trip to Dunkin Donuts is best kept to yourself. I can also live without Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. but if it makes your day brighter then go for it.

Really, I'm not bashing Facebook. It has allowed me to contact many friends that I haven't seen in two decades, close friends that gave me a lot of support when my father passed away last month. I can't thank them enough and I'm glad that they're back in my life.

More ramblings coming in the near future.

New Years Wisdom from Ben Franklin

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. 

Benjamin Franklin