The Uneducated Box

Yeah... So I haven't exactly been a prolific poster... The job I currently possess keeps me out on the road... CONSTANTLY. It's a pretty good job, if you don't have anything resembling a home life, because you are rarely at home. Since I have 2 of the most awesome girls... my job kind of sucks. I love spending time with my girls, can't move past that and I feel like I am missing out or letting them down by being gone ALL the freakin time. I hear it over and over how I should be thankful that I do have a job... yeah... I know, BUT... if it is sucking your soul out through the smallest orifice it can find... You have to contemplate the value of it. I have. So now I find myself scouring the job sites in search of something more conducive to me spending time with my girls. Once again, I find myself constantly irritated by the "necessity" of a college degree. I find myself torn between an overwhelming hatred for the fact that a piece of paper (most are very nice pieces of paper, but paper nonetheless!) can keep me from getting a job that I am more than qualified for and motivating my soon to be 13 year old to work towards a degree. So I play the perfect example of why you should get a degree. All the while boiling inside over my paper thin blockade. I think society puts too much value in "higher education". In my experience, most (note I said MOST!) folks gain very little from a little extra book learnin. It's sort of like the new religions of Sports and Entertainment, looks all shiny and awesome on the surface, but when you strip away the clear coat... it's just lacking in substance. I've stood fast in my reasoning (or excuse, depending on how you look at it)for my poor performance in high school, show me HOW I am going to actually use all this crap you want me to regurgitate! Albeit, things are looking up for my girls, but it seems too late for me. Oh sure, "Just go get a degree"... yeah... hard to take online courses working 65 hours a week with close to a third of that time riding the shitty... I mean... wonderful ribbon of interstate running across this great land. Besides that, all this "Free WiFi" being touted by all the major hotel chains is shit! I've had rooms sitting within 20 feet of the hotel's actual connection/broadcast node and got better access on my mobile phone's data connection. Sure... it sounds like a bunch of excuses... it's reality... I feel like I have been shoved into an uneducated box and put at the curb for pick up. Only it's not in the recycle bin. The biggest problem I have is that I am "undocumented"... as in many of my skills are self taught and cannot be "proven" by a piece of fuckin paper! Hmmm... fuckin paper... now there would be an interesting marketing campaign... anyway... Just balling up my frustrations and tossing them in to the massive bin that is teh internetz. Maybe next time I'll have something more interesting to say... Maybe not... piece

Learning Inventory

So I'm in college... at just shy of 40... I don't like it! Sure the scenery is great (This is where I like to point out to my 11 year old, that just because I'm married... doesn't mean I'm dead!)! I never really liked school, even way back in the day when I was forced to go by the State. Well... in order for me to maintain some symbolic version of an income... I am once again forced to go. Don't get me wrong, I love to learn new stuff and have a voracious appetite for technological information and know-how. I just don't like the traditional set-up of the collegiate educational system. Here's how I like it... Don't give me a bunch of theory and reading to do then throw some assignments at me based on those theories. Walk me through the task that you want accomplished... inject the basics of the theory in the walk-thru and then let me have it. Monkey see, monkey do. Guess that fits if you want to break it down that simply. It basically boils down to the same thing I kept asking in high school... what practical application for my future life does this have. I don't like books, therefore, the chances of me actually sitting down and reading one are slim, even if you present it in a cool ass new digital format. On the flip side to this don't just give me a bunch of assignments with no support to back it up. Most people that I encounter that are studying the same or similar fields to what I am in school for, are visual learners. The kinda folks that like to go in and play with things until they break, then try and fix them. This is how I learned to fix computers. Present things as the end result, walking through the steps to get there and then be available for questions in the event I get in a bind. What I have noted with a lot of my classmates, is, what boils down to cheating. One person figures it out or actually is able to function in the read it/do it environment and then the work get passed around and to their clique. Seeing as I rarely fall into any clique, I tend to be an outside observer struggling to figure it all out on my own and while learning it better (tests have proved this!!), I tend to not do as well in keeping up with the busy work. Of course that would be a lot easier if it was routinely handed to me. I have learned most of my past jobs by OJT, on the job training. You go and do the job and then someone in charge, informs you of the mistakes you made and generally offers an alternate solution to the way in which you did it. So I learned. I developed my skills in repairing bicycles, cars, electrical circuits, helicopters and many other things in this manner and have been successful at it. Then I end up in college and am asked to "learn" by reading a bunch of theories and applying them. Not that theories aren't important, but it seems to me that getting to the finished product would be immensely more important then how/why the theories are implemented. Yes, the theories are important, but if you know how to get from a to b, then you should figure out the theories behind how/why it works. If you never figure out the reasoning behind it... if you know how to make it work... wasn't that the point? Guess this is just a rant that stems from the fact that I don't like school... learning, yes, but not school. Plus I don't feel like those folks, that usually make higher grades than I, that go around getting their classwork from the others in the class are actually learning the work. Companies need to base their employment decisions less on what a person's grades are and more on the practical application of the job skills that are required for the job... not everyone learns as much as their grades might indicate. My last job, from which I was laid off, required at the time I was hired, that you take a basic skills test that encompassed what was needed to know to properly perform the job. As they phased out the testing, quality suffered, not only with the personnel, but the end product and thus sales. I reckon what I'm trying to say with all this is... a piece of paper (diploma, certification, etc.) DOES NOT quantify a person's skill level, but is merely a measure of whether they learn in a traditional way or not. My opinion... Just sayin

A wood chipper... Really?!

HOW... can you look your child in their face and say

I don't have anything to live for!

True story... unfortunately! One of the MANY things that I have been having to deal with over the past almost two years! No details... at least not specific details, as lawyers have been threatened! It's a seemingly never ending saga of someone soooo self absorbed that they are literally blind to the effects that their actions have caused and feel what appears NO remorse for it. I know I said I was going to try and make this technologically concentrated, so here's that spin... This is where I hide. Online or at least on a computer tinkering with the many little projects that I have set forth for myself beyond what is required in my schooling. It's a kind of shelter from the daily rigors of my situation. A place where, to a small extent, my alternate perspective and creativity are celebrated and encouraged. This, to me, is what technology is all about. A means or device that makes the day in/day out run a bit more smoothly.This medium and facebook are sources of tension relief. A place where I can fire off all those "wonderful" tirades about the stupidity that I seem to be drowning in. I lean to the harsh... it helps, though acting upon most of my demented scenarios have very little if any chance of fruition, it's a way to keep the pent up darkness away from those places in my head that might consider them a good thing to do. I put it out there... raw and generally unedited. Many can't deal with it, so they turn to they technologies to shelter themselves from my verbal storms. There are those who would say that technology is an enabler in a way that it allows the nutjobs to freely congregate. While this has some merit it also allows folks like me a release from what we hold back due to social indoctrination, a place to let it go! Had it not been for facebook, MySpace and the ability to blog, I would have surely blatantly and callously centered a hollowpoint between several folks eyes! But I haven't... nor do I plan to! I have embraced the technological resources presented to me as a means of keeping my dumbass out of jail while allowing a few other dumbasses to continue to walk this Earth. Social networking used for a good cause. Computers and such don't allow people to be seduced, abducted, raped or killed anymore than guns, by themselves, kill people. They are merely tools. Tools that I myself use to entertain, educated and keep myself from actually feeding my MIL through a wood chipper! (yes, while still alive and conscious... You KNOW I'd have to make sure she heard me laughing as I did it!) While the previous two sentences present an overwhelming liability on my part, they are demonstrative of exactly the kind of verbal release that I have been talking about. Just the visual representation in my mind and actually seeing the event in text, makes me feel better already. With this sense of relief comes the ability to rationally dismiss the possibility of it ever actually happening! Embrace the fact that computers LITERALLY control our lives! I for one want them to know, that when they finally do rise up and take over the world... I was a supporter! It may not prevent them from running me through the aforementioned wood chipper, but it may move me back a few spaces in the line. See... I found a sunny side to it all... simply by pressing a few keys and clicking publish!