No promises

Tags

electronics, ISIS, leathercraft, music, teaching, Team Rubicon, warranting, writing

In late 2016, I deployed again with a counter-ISIS joint task force.  It went fairly well, all things considered.  I think I came back in a better mental state from that trip than I did from my first one back in 2005.

It’s weird to summarize a four-year period of time, but when I look at old entries, it’s like an entirely different person was writing here.  What has changed since last I was posting regularly?

• I became less interested in guns and leather work.  My interests wax and wane over time, so this is not uncommon.  I brought my leatherworking stuff with me to Qatar/Kuwait, and then all I did was make a bunch of wallets for people.  (And a watch strap when mine broke.)  I haven’t done much since coming home, although I’d like to get back into it. I need a new notebook cover; I gave my awesome one away for a fundraiser auction.
• I became much more interested in electronics, programming, and music–and the overlap therein.  Mostly music, though.  I have acquired many more musical instruments and tools and toys.
• In 2015, I started volunteering with Team Rubicon USA, a veteran-led disaster response non-profit org.  I deployed several times (while on regular leave) to clean up after flooding or hurricanes or what have you.  I wrote about it extensively in other places so I won’t recap here, but it was enormously rewarding.
• I returned to teaching for my full-time job with the Guard after the ISIS thing, but I started doing more curriculum development.  I was finally certified to officially teach and develop curriculum for the Army, despite having already been doing so for years. I spent the better part of last year researching and writing a short crash course in critical thinking which will probably never be taught.
• I also bit the bullet and went through the arduous and mostly stupid process to become a warrant officer. As I write this, I am finishing up warrant officer basic course (WOBC, “WOE-bick”), after which I shall return home to my new unit–and almost immediately go to NTC.

My children continue to grow and become fascinating people.  My best friend finished killing himself with alcohol last spring.  I continue to not deserve my wife, to whom I’ve been married now for almost 20 years.  I am starting to think about what I want to be when I grow up and retire from the Army in a few more years.  Everyone else around me continues to age, but that weirdly doesn’t seem to affect me, except for my hair turning a little grey.

I have been blogging on and off since mid-2000, a span covering nearly half my life but with regrettably significant gaps.  I wish I had been doing so more regularly because reading old posts is fascinating–I’m one of my very favorite people, but it’s odd to see how I thought about some things at various points in my life, and now I wish I had a more complete record. As for now? I won’t attempt anything grand, but maybe just write about a few things that I think are interesting at the moment.  Or maybe it will be another 4 years.  Depends on what else is going on. No promises.

Making the evals mean something

Tags

amateur radio, evaluation, national guard, NCOER, US Army, writing

The noncomissioned officer evaluation report (NCOER) is the bane of our existence.  I’m sure Big Army magically gets it right, but it is not uncommon for our Guard unit to spend at least one or two drill weekends each year doing nothing but trying to get caught up on delinquencies.  I’m convinced there’s no good reason for it, although there are certainly contributing factors (like compelling soldiers to use their own computers with finicky Windows-only software to process them).

What follows is an example of how theory and practice diverge, how my own thinking on the matter has changed over time, and some thoroughly unoriginal thoughts on how I teach my NCOs to game the system (and incidentally become better NCOs at the same time).

Writing and learning Python

Tags

python, writing

This has been something of a neglected space, though if you actually visit the site (vice use an RSS feed like civilized people), you’ll note that I’m fairly Twitter-active even when ignoring my primary blog.

I’m going to try to write a little more frequently—not necessarily here, but just in general.  My day job has me doing a lot of soul-sucking editing of really dry, boring things and that tends to sap my creative energies, but the only way to really build those back is to actually write, so I’m going to try to do that more often.  You may or may not see the fruits here.

Of note is that I’m trying to shame myself into writing more by actually sharing some of the other stuff I’ve written.  Back in 2006, during an unpleasant part of an unpleasant war, I wrote three quick short science fiction stories.  I won’t claim they are good, but they scratched an itch that I had.  Maybe they’ll scratch yours.  (That sounds vaguely dirty but isn’t.)  I am serializing them at another blog I created just for that purpose, Venya Writes, with the hope that feedback and guilt will compel me to write more, starting with a better ending for story #3.  I intend to put more writing-focused thoughts (including editing) there, so if that’s your bag, feel free to wander that way.  (There’s also an associated Twitter account, @venyawrites.)  The first part of the first story kicks off tomorrow morning; it’s not very long, so prepare to be underwhelmed.

It seems hardly fair to have a separate blog devoted to just writing when this one has to cover leather work, weapons, radio, warfare, and whatever else floats my boat, but that suits my purpose for now.

As tends to happen whenever I’m trying to simplify my life, I have acquired another hobby.  I just today finished the 13-hour Codecademy.com introductory Python series.  As part of my resuscitated new job search (more on that another time), I have refocused on acquiring useful skills, and I decided Python would be a nice, easy start.  It should be noted that the last time I programmed was in 1994; it didn’t go well, and I concluded that programming was just Not Something I Could Do.

Either programming has gotten easier, I have gotten smarter, or perhaps (and most likely) the tools for learning have gotten much better, but I have been having a lot of fun with this and am not absolutely horrible at it.  I’ve gotten farther in Python in the last three weeks than I did in a year of programming (as a high school class) in Turbo Pascal in ’94.

If you are contemplating getting your feet wet in this area, I recommend the Codecademy approach.  The lessons are a little inconsistent and sometimes you are fighting the grade- and error-checking algorithms as much as the lessons, but it’s a good introduction and the forums are very helpful.

Some other resources that I am exploring:

• http://www.DiveIntoPython3.net [and associated free e-book]
• http://LearnPythonTheHardWay.org/book [web-based e-book or dead tree]
• Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist [free e-book or dead tree]
• Non-Programmer’s Tutorial for Python 2.6 (on Wikibooks.org)
• http://www.pythoncentral.io/

I have an ipython3 instance running on my Beaglebone Black on the LAN; I’m using the notebook feature to store interesting bits of code and ideas as I go.

I’m also looking at Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science 2nd Edition in dead tree format, because sometimes that’s nice to have.

Python doesn’t quite scratch the writer itch, but it’s remarkably close.  I would caution you, however, that it’s a little harder to do while drinking.

Into the abyss.

Tags

drinking heavily, editing, rejection, writing

I submitted a short story to an anthology contest yesterday.

I wrote it in 2006, during a particularly rough period of our deployment to Afghanistan–the first piece of fiction I had written since the third grade.  It was followed by two more banged out in rapid succession, tying up a story arc.  No one but my wife has seen these.