Archive for the 'Military' Category

A Brief Analysis of the Battle with the Self

Published
by
Mike
on March 5, 2008
in Military, Religion/Spirituality and Writing
. 1 Comment

While I worked for the military, it was easy to blame my problems on my job. As I saw it, I worked for an evil entity - a regime which destroys hope and ruins lives worldwide. I realize that the military is just a tool to be used by an entire country, I still believe that the tool itself has flaws which must be corrected in order to fall in line with the collected interest of all of the world’s peoples. By no means am I suggesting that the US government is the sole baddy out there, but if you look at history objectively you can’t claim that it is the sole goody either.

As I said, it was easy to blame everything on my job, but when circumstances in life change and you face yourself in the mirror and find little has changed in your attitude, you must pursue the most obvious path of reasoning - the problem is not with my circumstances, it is with me. I knew this all along, but the battle with the self is endless. It is almost impossible for me to avoid blaming suffering on the immediate catalysts in my life, though I know full well that I lie at the heart of every problem. In the battle with the self, can we really win? Many philosophers and religious leaders have claimed to have solved that problem, but could the truth at the heart of it all illuminate yet another ego based claim? Can we not appear benevolent to others with only ego in our hearts?

I always fall into a certain trap of thinking. I always imagine that my mind will calm and my heart will fill with the next change I wish to make. In reality I just look forward again, to some other goal which may never be realized. I am also obsessive. I tend to focus on one thing at a time, throwing all of my effort and focus into that sole purpose until I am disheartened by the lack of progress. In the end, my ego still controls me. I wish the world to bow down to my glory - a man more than a man, a personality worth the fame they bestow upon me. They should see me as an enlightened being and worship me as a god, but not in a way that would annoy me or subtract from my self enjoyment. I want everything and with no effort.

And if I ever got it, I’d be miserable. Then again, the day after I’d be really excited by something else.

It has been so long

Published
by
Mike
on January 16, 2008
in Comic, Military, Nonsense, Photography, Web, Wood Carving, Work and Writing
. 2 Comments

Well I’ve realized that it has been over 3 months since my last entry and another 3 since the previous entry. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy, but probably not that busy.

Most of you probably know that we’ve made the move to Scotland. We live in a little place called Strathtay near Pitlochry and Aberfeldy. Our house is called “Tayview Cottage” and as the name suggests, we have a view of the River Tay. It is a beautiful and peaceful place, but my peace comes mainly from the knowledge that I am now free of the military for good. I am no longer involved in all of that nonsense. I’m a civilian. Yay! I just hope all of my friends who are stationed all over the world are safe and happy, and not being forced to do anything horrible.

Steph and I are doing web development work with my brother in law, John. We’ve been starting at about 10:30 am and working until the late afternoon. It isn’t necessarily glorious work, but it is much better than what I was doing before. I’ll be getting into some server stuff at some point, which should be more what I’m used to. I’m also doing some writing, in an attempt to compile a book based on my experiences here in Scotland. I hope it will be good, but I guess it all depends on what I do here, what kinds of people I meet, and the activities I do. I also want to take a lot of photos and do a lot of walking. The scenery is great here. In fact, I’ll put a photo from behind our house below so you can see it.

We really haven’t gotten a chance to do much here yet, as we just got back from a 3 week visit to the states. We visited my family and had a good time. It was very snowy there for the majority of the visit, which was nice. We got to see my young nephew again and got a chance to see my sisters, my parents, and a couple of friends as well as some other relatives. We ate way too much food, which was enjoyable but bad for us. We also got some very nice Christmas presents. I carved a few things for presents before we left, so I’ll post pictures of those when I get a chance in the Projects section of my website.

I really want to get started on HandRooster again. We had quite a bit of success with it and had tons of traffic at the height of our relative fame, but we just didn’t have time to keep it up while we were getting ready to move and while I was getting ready to get out of the Air Force. That, and I was too stressed out to really concentrate on it. So, I really want to start again but I think that Steph is less keen on the idea. It really is much harder for her, as she has to spend a lot of time on the illustrations. My part isn’t as hard each day, but can be a bit difficult when I’m hurting for ideas. Anyway, we’ll see how that goes. I hope she comes round to the idea. I have a few ideas already, but it all depends on how much time we have.

Well, I’ll put 2 photos below. The first is the view from behind our house and the second is a photo taken from my parents’ balcony in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Enjoy, and I hope you’re all doing great.


River Tay

Sun Setting over Coeur d'Alene Lake

Much Needed Post

Published
by
Mike
on August 8, 2007
in Comic, Military, Nonsense, Photography, Web, Wood Carving, Work and Writing
. 0 Comments

Well, it has been quite a while since I’ve made an entry with decent length and information about the happenings of my life. I intend to resolve that now in this very entry.

Lately I’ve been very busy at work doing all kinds of stuff in preparation for a big inspection which is coming up in September. Although I don’t really care about the outcome of the inspection, I do care about the people it may impact, so I’m trying hard to do well for their sake. I’ll be out of my job probably anywhere from mid November to early December so during that time you may not here much from us as we get situated in Scotland somewhere.

We recently did a big upgrade of the HandRooster website to make it look nicer and to allow for future updates, etc. The site now has a single front page with both blog and comic in one location. I think it looks really nice. We continue to update every weekday. It does get hard at times and we occasionally miss a day or two but generally, we’re doing a pretty decent job of keeping things updated. It is quite hard to think of something funny everyday, so some days have better comics than others.

After my finger injury, it took me a while to work up the courage to start carving again. I’ve started carving on the love spoon for my sister again and I’ve made a lot of progress. I still have a bit to go, and I still have to do the detailed parts and I’m not sure how to do them exactly. It may get a bit scary, but I think I can do it eventually. It’s been quite a while since I started the project but I’ve learned a lot. I feel bad for taking so long, but I hope to get it done soon so I can give it to my sister.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. I’m quite happy at the moment because I think good things will be happening in the future. I hope all of you are doing well and I look forward to reading your blog and LJ entries. Steph and I went for a photo walk recently, so here are just a few of the photos. You can see them all and much more on my Flickr page.


Conker growing

Lone tree

Fairford Church

Change of plan

Published
by
Mike
on July 25, 2007
in Military, Nonsense, Web, Work and Writing
. 1 Comment

As some of you may know, I’ve been in the US military for almost 8 years now. For the majority of that time, I have found that my personal beliefs are completely incompatible with military life. Unfortunately, due to many circumstances (some good and some bad) I couldn’t extract myself from the military in a good way. My enlistment is done in December of this year, and Steph and I had planned for quite a while that we would go back to the US and live on the West coast somewhere. I planned to get a job in IT, working as an Information Security specialist in some company. I must admit that I was excited about the change and the prospect of a new life, but the job didn’t appeal. It was just money and a lot of time away from Steph.

Things have now changed. We’ve decided that we’re going to move up to Scotland and I’ll pursue writing while we support ourselves doing web development with Steph’s brother, John. I’m so excited about the change of plans and I’m so relieved that I can finally be myself and possibly mold my life into the one I’ve always wanted. While we’re going to make plenty of contingency plans and be very careful with the financial situation, we’re also going to try our hardest to make it work up there. We’ll be able to spend much more time together as well as live a slower, more balanced life. I’d like to thank everyone who reads this regularly for supporting me through some difficult times. You’re all part of my happiness.

Wounds, Work & Halo

Published
by
Mike
on May 15, 2007
in Comic, Military, Nonsense, Wood Carving and Writing
. 3 Comments

Yesterday I was carving my sister’s wedding gift and I failed to put on my carving glove. I also did something very stupid and placed my hand in the front of the carving. I went over a slightly difficult section of wood and my tool slipped and sunk into the flesh and fingernail of my left index finger. It bit down to the bone and formed a flap, partly fingernail and partly flesh. A nice flow of blood started and I ended up getting some quick first aid. I then went to the hospital and got further treatment…mostly cleaning and bandaging. They used paper stitches because they said they couldn’t do much for the tips of fingers.

I’m fine now, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson about safety while carving. I don’t think you’ll find me without my glove anymore, and I’ll certainly be much more careful about my hand placement. I think the key is patience and focus when carving wood. I’m not an inherantly patient person so I think that this is a learning process for me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about some things that annoy me about working for people - at least these people. One of the most annoying things is knowing what needs to be done, prioritizing these things, and then having a “superior” who isn’t even aware of all of your projects come in and push their own priorities. Everyone seems to have a different set of priorities and each person wants their top priority to be your top priority. I know what needs to be done and I always have a plan in my mind for getting these things done in time. I’m guessing this is the same sort of thing which happens in the civilian sector, but it is a big reason why I’d like to work independently someday. There are many other things I dislike about being in the military (such as violence, disregard for other people and cultures and our interdependence with these people) much more than this sort of thing, but this is something that bothers me in the sort of day to day aspects of working in the military in general. The military (especially this branch) is like a failing business. Everything is done in ways that aren’t thought out by the people who really know, and people are treated like rusty old tools.

We’re still doing comics every weekday on HandRooster and I think we’re doing ok. We’re also toying with the idea of doing a sort of news/talk post associated with each comic, in a sort of Penny Arcade style. It would probably do me good to do that, honestly.

I’ve been involved recently with a lot of Halo 2. We sometimes hold Halo 2 festivals, which we call Halofest. I got that name from my friend Frank, but now I give them individual names. For example, the one this last Saturday was called Halofest 2007 - Tragic Ending and the one on the 26th of this month is called Halofest 2007 - Rite of Passage. We just tend to play a lot of different gametypes in the community center. We eat a lot of junk food and play all day. We had about 7 or 8 people show up this last time and we’re hoping to have more on the 26th. We’re all very excited about Halo 3 - if it ever comes out.