Hunter's Perspective

Freedom from Facebook

bevoman — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:26:22 +0000

So today I finally pulled the plug on Facebook. Why do you ask? I am spending all my time posting things that are not necessary relevant to aspects in my life, to just to keep my page current in the facebook world. Thus, I have come malcontent with the energy that I put in Facebooks direction.
As with many things, I have gotten off the track of what benefit Facebook originally offered, which was connecting with long lost friends. Well, now that I have connected with them, I find that there is an only minimal thing to talk about and definately not on a daily basis. There is a reason why when I see someone after a great many years, it doesn’t take long to get caught up in life. So, why would I or they be interested in the day to day activities of each other when we are currently not in each other’s sphere of influence?
My current thought process is that the people whom I want to maintain constant contact with, I will do through more traditional and secure channels. Broadcasting how my daily statues are helps no one, including myself, with keeping connected. I have maintained the same cell phone number for 9 years and email for 8. Thus, making connection stable, yet more deliberate then Facebook.
It takes an extra minute or two to email someone versus Facebook. Thus, that minute separates the good friends from the fair weather. As I grow wiser in years, my time is more valuable and thus I want to spend on those that want to spend their quality me.
Now that that cord is cut. Like the Native South Americans whom the missionaries tried to convert, find myself returning to the values and systems of old, finding them to be more meaningful and valid.

Endless conference cycle

bevoman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:26:06 +0000

Here I am at another conference in Alexandria, VA. Conferences are a double edged sword in my book because the up side is that I get to be out of the office and can be out in the sunlight. With the flip side being the hours of droning by the speakers saying the same thing that they said at the last conference. Usually the common theme is that “we are awesome, this is what we’ve done to this point and this is why you need to give us money”.

Since I’ve been doing this job for 10 months now, getting to know all the main players in this Science and Technology area are on a first name basis with me and visa-versa. It makes it sort of a social club, which is the main reason for having face-to-face meetings like this. Its socialization and relationships that get many of these ‘ideas’ into reality. So even though we are in the 21st century, we still are doing the oldest type of politics known to man to get the latest technology solutions to the warfighter.

A weekend apart

bevoman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:55:06 +0000

This weekend I found myself staying at home because of lack of any other plans. This is a new situation for me to be in, since I remember always having weekend plans during my collage and army years. Of course the question must be asked, ” why now have things changed?”

It seems to my, that with living in the suburbs and not having alot of people my own age in my immediate vicinity, its hard to coordinate with the people that are doing things in the city. Even when there are plans, there is always the drive, parking and the constant worry that some camera at a light got you driving thru on a red! These factors never used to bother me, but now, after doing it for a year and a half, it is starting to get tiresome. Thus, I find myself not willing to go the extra mile to make fun happen. Therefore, I resign myself to hanging out at the local Hooters and riding my motorcycle in the country. Not that I’m saying these are unfun activities, quite the contrary but there is always the need for variety in my life. And as most of you will admit, its funner to share the experiences with friends.

So, there is a fellow who is 9 years older than me, but is still single and loves to ride bikes, heck, he has four of them. So we linked up for some fun on Saturday and took a ride up highway 15 from Gilbert’s Corner to Frederick, MD. The weather was perfect, when I mean perfect I mean 78 degrees, clear skies and no humidity.

So today, Sunday, it was another perfect day, as described above. So I stayed at home the whole day to wash and wax both my vehicles. Also took the time to clean out the insides with vacuuming and Armorall wipes.

My back started hurting today out of the blue. Haven’t had a problem with it for all of these year. Of course, I went to the chiropractor on Thursday for a tune up and after that is when it started hurting. Guess I’m going back to see if they can get it right.

On an unrelated subject, took Thumber the BMW in to get the oil changed at this local mechanics shop called M.A.C. While I was waiting, there was another gentleman there who was getting his Range Rover worked on. We ended up talking about our affinity for British cars. As we spoke get got on the subject of what we did for work. He mentioned that his wife worked for DNI and that I should send him my resume and he would forward it to his wife.

A side not about DNI, it was were I wanted to work when I was at BAH. But it never came to fruition. The advantage to working there would be that it would be closer to my house in MD. But I will have to wait and see.

Also, I have made the commitment to myself to severely cut down on the amount of TV that I watch. Even though its only movies, I do spend a large part of my waking day there in front of the tube. So now, I will either work on my computer or read. Lord knows that there is a whole bookshelf in my room with unread material on it.

Also, with Halloween coming up, must start putting some brain power on costume ideas!

Back at the blog

bevoman — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:33:15 +0000

This is my first blog since leaving Iraq a little over a year and a half ago. It seems funny that its taken me this long to look at communicating back with the world using this sort of medium because I have mentally associated it with being deployed. But alas, I have found being back in the states and now as a civilian, for the first time since before I graduated high school, has left me looking at all my friends spread out from here to BFE. So, hence using the blog to keep in touch with those who having meaning with me.

Contrary to popular belief that once you get out of the military after being in for all of my professional working life, that it would be easy, was not what my version of ‘easy’ was. Of course, the Army gives you the skills to land a good job and to take care of yourself phycically. Did does not give you the skills to figure out what you want to do with the next phase of life or even any tools to help map those out.

I don’t know of very many military personnel that use the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) to plan life’s goals such as having a family, children or where to live next. It they did, it would be fun to observe the point system that they associated to the main factors of each decision of that nature. My guess would be that it would look something like this:

1) Childern: Point value (1-5) 5 is highest
Main factors: A) Money 5
B) Time 5
C) Benefit 1
Anaysis of how having children would effect those factors: A) 0
B) 0
C) .5
Therefor having children doesn’t make much sense using that method. Of course there are other factors that come into play, but the process doesn’t take human emotion, needs and desires into the picture. Hence the tern in the Army, ” If they wanted me to have a wife, they would’ve issued me one”.

How do you transition from the military though process to the civilian one without becoming completely self adsorbed and a dick? This is the question that I am going to attempt to answer for myself in this forum and you are welcome to join me on this grand adventure in self-discovery as we are all waking down the path of life together, just at different speeds and directions.