It has been a hectic week.
I’ve tried to stay ahead of it all, but I have failed miserably.

I must have sat down a dozen times to write this post, just to be called away for something else, some other task, some other issue needing my attention.

Andy Gabrielson, aka Find the Tornado, was killed over the weekend by a drunk driver, just a hour from my backyard.

He died, coming back from doing what he loved: chasing a storm.

I can’t say Andy and I were close. That would be a lie. However I met him on roughly a half dozen occasions when I first started as a storm spotter. We met for coffee and chit chat as he gave me some insight. We had met via twitter. He was a good man, with a love for the chase and a eye for video and pictures. You have probably seen his footage on countless Weather Channel shorts and news work across the country.

Andy was the real deal.

Last year his truck was flipped with him inside (the last 45 seconds of the video if you want fast forward to it)

Andy did his best to get good footage, which he more often than not succeeded in. He also gathered good data which was very important to meteorologists.

His work, his candor, and his will to do good for people was practically legendary. Last year he picked up Joel Taylor of Team Dominator fame from the side of the road after Reed and Joel parted ways. Andy was always, always willing to help.

As tribute over 500 storm chasers came together to honor Andy, in a way that can only be seen on the Radar screens that we watch, haunt, and stare at for hours. He would have appreciated it I think:

The world is a lesser place, and this storm season won’t be the same without him

 

If your in the area, or you wish to make a donation to Andy’s family, or attend his service, that information is after the jump.

 

God speed Andy, and where ever you are, ride the lightning.

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Tags: Andy Gabrielson, extreme, Fatality, Find the Tornado, Severe, Storm chaser, Stormchasers, Storms, Technorati, Tornados, Weather, Weather Channel

So I’m taking two classes in Project Management.

And this week at work? I’m Taking Program Management.

So effectively I have 8 hours of Project and Program Management criteria, theories, and systems only to come home, put my mangled foot up, and spend another 3 to 4 hours reading Project and program Management criteria, theories and systems.

If I dream of Net Present Value formula’s tonight I’m gonna not be a happy camper tomorrow.

Tags: . PMI, Overload, Project Management, Random shite, School, Technology, Technorati

Never again am I allowed to utter the words “I just can’t catch a break….”

I was walking off my porch to head for work yesterday and for some reason I guess the “Walk This Way” portion of my brain stopped working. So I made my last step on the outright side of my foot, versus the bottom like every normal sole. Needless to say Mr Pain paid me a visit almost instantly and I proceeded to “Oooh!” and “Ahh!” in a enthusiastic fashion all the way back in to the house. I ace bandaged the hell out of it yesterday and wore a pair of my high top hiking boots to give it some support and made it through the day. I wasn’t going to be doing any suicides at the gym for sure. In fact I had to skip the gym.

Today its swollen the size of a small baseball. Going to use the same recipe today and cut out after lunch. I’ll probably see a doc since my graduation ceremony is next week and I kinda need to walk…..
That doesn’t make me very enthusiastic about this as I have already mentioned my previous displeasure with the medical profession.

Trouble comes in three’s the say. I think I’m up to about 9 or 10 now however.

Tags: Ankle, doctors, graduation ceremony, injury, medicine, Technorati, walk this way

A long time ago I was a IT Mercenary. That was my joke.

I worked for anyone, for the highest bidder. Took all sorts of zany contract work. It’s one my reason my background is so wide. The downside is I could literally have 13 employers in a year. Thats no joke. My wife and I’s accountant used to charge us $25 extra just because of the amount of paperwork he had to slog through to get ours done, between the W2′s, expenses, gas, mileage, equipment, etc it just took forever. We didn’t complain.

The only complaint we had was I had no benefits, no retirement, and my work was literally feast or famine. I would go months without a job and unemployment only goes so far.

With this constant in and out of work, our bills suffered. My credit rating was just above a joke, but its somewhat better now. We have been able to afford things that we weren’t able to before, like my daughters school, and even going out to eat.

My wife has the steady job. Almost 10 years with her company. Her’s was the steady income while I played the telecom, tower and cable monkey going across the country.

Today that changed. On March 9 her job will be eliminated. They are going to do what they can too move people around in to other jobs, and she can fall back in to a hourly position easily, however she’ll take a very sizable cut in pay….over $400 per month.  She’s not the only one. Most of the supervisors and management team in her location are being downsized.

We’re told that they will all be individually briefed, and moves will try to be made. Thats nice and all, but we’ll be preparing for the worst just to be safe. We can’t afford that kind of a pay cut, frankly.

And unfortunately that puts us in a quandary. I just started school again, and while I can cover a lot of our bills I can not cover them all. Not to mention the large quantity of competition for jobs these days.

A lot of things will be changing. There’s a good chance I will have to move my daughter to a different school, and that could cause not only problems for her but logistical issues for my wife and I as well.

I’m getting used to Roller Coasters.

But I damn sure don’t like the ride.

Tags: Home, Hope & Change!, Job, Jobless, Market, Middleclass crush, Rollercoaster, Technorati, Wife

The Irish and the British will always have issues because the British never remember, and the Irish never forget.

It’s a hot button issue in Ireland.

At the time, and now to an extent, many feel that the over 5,000 Irishmen who left Ireland to fight against Nazi Germany in World War II were  and are criminals, or deserters.

They left the Irish Army, leaving Ireland who was neutral, to fight to stop the Nazi’s in World War II.

Today, there is a possibility they may be pardoned.

The Starvation Orders were the orders to blacklist those 5,000 troops upon their return. They could not get jobs, welfare, pensions or any assistance what so ever, some of them made a go at it. Others left the country yet again. Whats more the orders extended beyond just the individuals, but their families as well. It’s how my own family ended up in America.

Five thousand Irish soldiers who swapped uniforms to fight for the British against Hitler went on to suffer years of persecution. They were formally dismissed from the Irish army, stripped of all pay and pension rights, and prevented from finding work by being banned for seven years from any employment paid for by state or government funds.
One of them, 92-year-old Phil Farrington, took part in the D-Day landings and helped liberate the German death camp at Bergen-Belsen – but he wears his medals in secret. Even to this day, he has nightmares that he will be arrested by the authorities and imprisoned for his wartime service.

“They would come and get me, yes they would,” he said in a frail voice at his home in the docks area of Dublin.
And his 25-year-old grandson, Patrick, confirmed: “I see the fear in him even today, even after 65 years.”

Mr Farrington’s fears are not groundless.

 

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Tags: Army, Family, Ireland, Military, pardon, Starvation Orders, Technorati, World War II

As a boy things were pretty rough at times. Before we moved down to Taylorsville, GA our family home was a 2 room cabin in the hills of Big Creek. Our running water was a spring out front, our heat was a pot bellied wood stove, our bath a 50 gallon washtub and a bathroom that was as big as all out doors.

The military was a slice of heaven to me.

You learn to adapt. I don’t begrudge those things above, in fact in someways I miss them. I miss the cold mornings warmed by a cup of coffee listening to nothing but the trees and naught but Charles Dickens to keep me company. I miss the simplicity, and the quiet. I miss the peace. We were “off the grid” before there came to be such a concept. In those days “off the grid” just meant “poor”, but you couldn’t tell us that.

I spent the evenings after home work lost in Robinson Crusoe, As I Lay Dying, and Go Down, Moses.  You didn’t need electricity for books.

In many ways I have often considered that song to be a story of me. The cabin is gone now, my father has built his own house on the property. It’s been a long hard road for us. Trials and tribulations. I have a education I thought I would never get, and I am still traveling that road. My daughter does not lack for things to have, and truth be told is probably spoiled.

I have a few regrets, who doesn’t? Some dreams lost to the wayside. I have made many mistakes in my youth, as we all do.

So it goes c’sera sera, or as my grandfather would say: De reir a cheile a thogtar na caisleain. It takes time to build castles.

The year is almost over and the new year solstice will be celebrated, as it should be with friends. Consider me with you in spirit. Try to think of the good things that have came your way, find grace in the things you could not change. Most of all have a Happy New Year, from all of us at Registered Evil. We are thankful to have you, dear readers, among our friends.

Tags: Happy New Year, Home, irish, New Year, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Sharecroppers Dream, Solstice, Tecvhnorati, Thankfull

My Bachelors degree beat me home, today.

So back in the 1990′s when I walked out of Cass Comprehensive High School in Cartersville, GA I had tried to go to college. I was accepted to Piedmont College, but my folks were so broke and I was so (to put it delicately) inept in my studies that not only could I not fund my college experience, I couldn’t even pay for the gas to get there to have their Financial Aid department attempt to work their magic.

I had used my HOPE Scholarships attending North Metro Technical Institute (Its changed names about three times since then…it’s now Chattahoochee Tech), but at the time I had no idea what in the hell accreditation meant, and they didn’t have any. They did help me graduate high school though so don’t read that statement as a bitter one, because I am not.

Anyway long story short, college quickly became a second consideration versus “What in the hell do I do with my self now?”

Sitting by Allatoona Lake drinking beer with the boys worked real well for about a  month, but it didn’t take long for me to figure out I couldn’t build boat docks for a living.I bummed around Nashville for about two weeks thinking I’d be the next Alan Jackson or Neil Young. I made $20 bucks one a street corner for my efforts. Intro family tradition and the Army recruiter stage right. I swore one day I’d never be so broke my kid couldn’t go to college when they had the chance.

It may not be a “traditional” school, but my University of Phoenix education was not a walk in the park, and I busted my ass for my degree. The turn over rate in students is pretty high, so to be one of the last folks standing makes me pretty happy. Anyone who says its a worthless degree, or a easy school, ask them if they graduated: If they say yes, congratulations on being smarter than me. I’m an adult I can handle it. If they say no…well…I guess it wasn’t so easy was it?

But it’s time to go traditional. I start classes January 17at Missouri State University.

If someone had told me those years ago that I would one day be gunning for a Masters Degree I’d have laughed at them.

I guess my mentor, Randy Armstrong was right. I really could do anything I set my mind to it.

I just wished it hadn’t taken me so long to figure it out.

This one’s for you sir. And for anyone who spent any time in Acworth, GA back in the 90′s.

Tags: Acworth, Cartersville, Cass Comprehensive high school, Chattahoochee Tech, Graduate, Masters Degree, Milestones, North Metro tech, Piedmont College, Randy Armstrong, Technorati, University of Phoenix

I started back to school in 2008.

Most of my high school classmates got their degree’s long ago. I took the Army route instead, and set out to see the world. When that ran out I went cross country climbing cell towers, eventually working my way up to doing work inside the shelters and finally management.

It was a rough, rocky and long road.

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Tags: Education, Motivation, Self, Technorati, Travel

I won’t be able to watch the game this weekend. I have tickets to the Northwest Arkansas LPGA Championship

Critter has taken a liking to golf so she gets priority, even over my rampant fandom

Tags: College, Football, Golf, LPGA, NCAA, NWA Championship. Critter, SEC, Technorati, Tennessee, Volunteers

I don’t ask of many favors from my fellow bloggers or Tweeters. I’m asking one now. Please spread this story and help bring these little girls home – BS

15 miles.

Thats all that separates my home from the town of Exeter, Missouri. Population 700.

It’s a small town. Smaller than I graduated high school in. Compared to some towns in Southwest Missouri, however, it is practically a metropolis.

It is also not the sort of place where crime happens.

Unfortunately, in the case of Abby and Isabella Chapman, thats exactly what has happened. A crime. One that is breaking their hearts of their mother and family, and shocking southwest Missouri.

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Tags: Amber Alert, Chapman, Danger, Exeter, help, Locate, Matthew, Missing Children, Technorati

Last night possibly the worst storm in 29 years rolled through the south east.

More than 200 people are dead across five southern states following what the National Weather Service is calling the deadliest wave of tornadoes since 1974.

Five southern states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia — are reporting fatalities, with officials reporting at least 141 dead in Alabama and eight in Virginia.

This storm barely missed my town of Smyrna, and we were lucky.  Too many people lost their lives, and I struggle to find a reason for it.

Last night around 8:00, I started getting ready for the worst.  Mind you, I am rarely uneasy about storms, but this one seemed different.  It was just so hot and humid outside, and with a violent thunderstorm on its way, I knew this is what breeds tornado’s.  Unfortunately little else is known about why tornado’s strike with very little warning.

Fear sunk in as I watched the radar and the swirling red and yellow approaching, it was very sobering as I looked around our humble home and chose which of my valuables to save.  I packed a couple bags, of course the diaper bag for the baby with diapers and a change of clothes, milk, and juice.  Then I looked to our personal valuables.  I packed our firebox with priceless jewelry, some files, birth certs and marriage licenses, social security cards.  We took our baby’s book which had all the first memories, first hair clippings, and my computers and backup hard drive.

While looking at our bags, and got ready to start taking them down to the neighbors basement, I wondered how many by daybreak won’t even have these few things left.

Every time I hear of a storm, virtualy just wind and rain, 2 of the things that supply life, that is taking lives I have to wonder….

Why does this happen? How is it that 2 of the most important things that sustain human life kill so many people?

Bloodspite said it best when we talk of tornado’s, “They are the literal Finger of God”

I pray for the families that lost loved ones and of the families that lost their houses and businesses, nothing left to do now but to pick up the pieces and move on….

–v00d3W

Tags: America, death toll, Finger of God, Registered Evil, Severe Weather, Technorati, Tornado, unanswered questions, violent storms

A long time ago my cousin of the female persuasion was staying with my first wife and I. She was, and still is a shapely lass if I may say so, and raised manu eye brows of the local boys. She still does.

I have many friends. Some with unique and otherwise alternative lifestyles. One such friend made a comment regarding her being of age and pondered to me if she wou?d be intrested in exploring said lifestyle with he and hois wife.

I never wanted to strike a friend as much as I did in that moment. I am that way with my family.

Years have passed. I have grown older, and wiser about somethings. I am still naive about others. Such is the way of the world I reckon.

In my orientation at my new employer I made the aquaintance of a gentlemen, let’s call him Mike. While Mike has no alternative lifestyle he is somewhat viewed with warisome eyes by some.

He is Iranian.

He has long been from his homeland, years since he has seen its earth as it were. He left at a young age, moving to Spain, then Canada, finally setteling here barely 2 years ago.

My Arabic is rusty. How rusty was soon made evident after I greeted him formally. To his credit he laughed and corrected by enunciation, and he has continued to do so since.

A student of Christian theology, he does not follow the Quran. He has little interest in politics, he is content to raise his family here in the land of the free.

We have struck up a regular luncheon. Each day we meet and talk of our jobs and general social matters.

Working in IT we have a large number of Hindus whom regard us with suspicion, a caucasian and Iranian conversing in mixmash of English and Arabic.

I have in the years aquired another close friend who does follow the Quran. He views extremists as being as hard as a Catholic sect whom is reknowned for self mutilation in their piety. Both misinterpret their religions in his eyes.

The point of all this being as I lay down last night was a thought that permeated my brain, keeping me awake most of the evening.

People hate without reason.

There is evil out there, of that I have no doubt. I have seen it myself. And there are those whom would change thr very definition of it given chance and time.

Diversity is here to stay. Better to understand, comprehend and embrace change versus fight the inevitable.

As for me I prefer to with hold my judgement on people until I learn more. Act as needed. Learn first.

Wether an act of maturity, education or of naiviety remains to be seen.

Posted from WordPress for Android

Tags: diversity. stories of home, Technorati

Been a loooong week.
And here it is good Friday all ready.

The week has gone well. It’s also been a excellent learning experience. Folks from my old employer are contacting me, asking to use me as a reference which I will gladly oblige.

My old job was good in many ways and nightmarish in others. The biggest issue however was the complete lack of basic human understanding. The implied desire of implicit servitude they seemed to want out of their staff.

My new job? Not so much. My hours are my own as long as I do at least 9 of them.

The biggest challenge for me right now is trying to find a pace, a rhythm, to keep up with everything. Work, school, family and this site mainly.

Done a lousy job of keeping it up dated this week, and V00d3w is also buried it seems I have not spoken to him recently either.

Anyone want a job blogging?

All said and told the new job has been spectacular. I have a gym membership now, so perhaps I can knock a few pounds off the old waistline.

And I’ve went a entire week on a tank of gas. Something that I did in 2 days with the old job.

I’m hoping good thinks are on the horizon. I just have to keep it all in perspective

My daughter loves all things great and small.

Countless zoo’s, walks in the woods, instead of kiddie movies she gets Imax video’s on nature, underwater exploration, and endangered species.

We’ve tried to make learning something fun, basically.

As such she loves nature, and has a deep fondness for animals especially.

Unfortunately there are some lessons she is learning that are hard for her to understand.

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Tags: Critter, Death, Gaining Wisdom, Life, Nature, Sparrow, Storms, Technorati

No April Fools here. Totally Dead Serious, and is the wrap of events culminating that I alluded to both here and here.

During the course of my career I received the minor reputation as a bit of a madman.

Long hours were my hallmark. The ability to sleep under ones desk and work at a computer station for over 48 hours can not be under rated when talking about project support. The ability to subside purely on coffee, nicotine, and finger nails is a survival ability needed in very few occupations, but practically second nature when on a IT Roll out spanning the entire country.

I have worked almost every position that can be had on a roll out. Field Tech, Help Desk, Help Desk manager, Project coordinator, Project Manager, Logistics, SME, QA Inspector even Safety and Field trainer. I have worked in 38 states. 4 countries. Thats not even including the places I went in the service. Over 1,000 projects, and who knows what the monetary value of all the projects I have worked on would be if I even tried to add them up. I wouldn’t mind having 1% of that, heh.

Now I have been given one step below my dream job: Roll out Specialist. However it’s not just the job, but with who. The number one company on the Fortune 500 list. No other company has more roll outs, and does it on less money than they do. No one. period. You can’t find a bigger, or better, challenge than that.

It’s a corner stone for me, a turning point, and as pilots refer to it: Bingo.

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Tags: advancement, blog, Blogging, Career, goal, Information technology, Life, Point Bingo, Privacy, projects, Registered Evil, Technorati, techography, telecommunications

That’s right my friends, I have not only found my daily cigar, but the perfect combo.  Here it is:

CAO Brazilia Gol and a brand of Birch Beer only available up north:  Weis.

How I came up with this killer combo?  When I enjoy a nice cigar, I like to have a beverage with me to keep my mouth moistened, and my palate clean.  This past weekend, I was headed out to the porch to savor my newly found favorite moderately priced stogie, when I went to the fridge, I noticed I had nothing worth drinking, then I spotted my wife’s stash of Weis Birch Beer, and figured “what the hell, I’m, an adventurer”  and out I went.

I fired up my cigar, and took a few puffs, then opened the can, and what ensued was a barage of flavor, and distinct enjoyment.  The flavors of both the soda, and the smoke combined in what I can only describe as an erotic dance.

Now if you will excuse me, I am off to find a distributor of the Birch Beer, as I live in Georgia, and not up north.

Till next time, Happy Smoking.

-v00d3W

Tags: America, Birch Beer, Brazilia, CAO, Registered Evil, Technorati, Weis

Hello, this is the long lost soul.  I have been a stranger here, but I finally have a chance to breathe.

A lot has happened in my absence, and here is a brief update.

First and foremost, my son started walking, and forced me to lock all the cabinets in the house, as he appears to be a little terror already.  Another  thing he has started doing is shaking his head no…I wonder where he got that one from.

Another new event is the introduction of yard work to my weekends.  For the first year of our marriage, we lived in an apartment, and there was no outdoor maintenance there.  Now that we are in a house, and the landlord said to me “Do whatever you want to with it, make it your own, paint walls, take down doors, and rip up shrubs if you want, we dont care…”   Yea, I have done all of that, even remodeled the kitchen a bit 

With that said, I have taken out all of the shrubs, and tiny trees that were making the front yard look like a bit of a jungle, and constructed 14′ flower beds on both sides of the porch, and the wife and I have planted about 40 flowers in there.

One of the most noteworthy ventures of late, is that I have quit smoking cigarettes yet again, and have repleced them with fine cigars.  The little one is starting to mimic everything I do, and I dont want that to be one of the things that he starts because he saw me doing it.

Aside from all that, I have been extremely busy at work, as I have made the move to an IT position in my growing company, it keeps me very busy.

Well, thats all the updates for now, stay tuned…

-v00d3W

Tags: America, changes, Home, IT, Life, Registered Evil, Technorati

This story was first published by myself on March 3rd 2007 at Techography. I republished it here in 2010. – BloodSpite

On Easter Monday, shortly after noon, Patrick Pearse and a band of ill armed and ill prepared poets and romantic patriots rose in rebellion took control of the General Post Office in

central Dublin and several other strategic sites around the city. The Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin, and the insurgent Tricolour suddenly broke upon startled eyes flying from the flagstaff above the General Post Office in the very heart of the Irish capital.

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Tags: 1916, Dublin, Eamon Ceannt, Easter Monday, Easter Rising, General Post Office, History, Ireland, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett, Patrick H Pearse, Revolution, Sean MacDiarmada, Technorati, Thomas J Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh