He's Got Aces Alright

Who knows what life will bring?  Not I, that is for sure.  It always surprises me how little I know about myself and what choices I will actually make, compared to what I thought I would decide in a given situation.  Did I ever think I would enjoy writing?  Surely not.  Did  I think that I would decide on a whim to take a ten hour drive to seem my family over the weekend, even when I already had other plans here at home?  No I did not.  Can someone ever really know themselves as much as they think they do?  I wish I did know that one.  I have often believed that I knew not only who I was, but how I operated.  I was at one time sure of what I wanted in life and how I was going to get there.  Yet, life always seems to have an ace in the hole, one more trick up its sleeve when it told me it had nothing left.  I remember how when I was only in fourth grade I was absolutely positive that I wanted to be an Oceanographer.  To spend my days under the ocean's surface researching and discovering new life.  I had a dream of finding a new fish and being able to name it myself.  How strange that is to me now.  Now, I am afraid of the ocean, I don't like it, I don't want the stuff in it to touch me and I most definitely am afraid of the animals in it stinging, biting or otherwise maiming me.  Moving through life I swore to myself that I would never join the military after watching how my own father was left high and dry with unfulfilled promises.  Now I have been Active Duty for over four years.  Once again I look back only a year ago and remember how I told my supervisor I didn't need a degree and how the military was my life.  I planned on staying until they kicked me out and I was retired.  Even now those thoughts change as I have almost completed my first few classes and begin to question what kind of life I really want and if this is the career field I am truly happy in.  At every turn, twist, bump, and hill life changes whether it is sudden and dramatic or it sneaks up on you like dirty laundry after a busy week at work, it is still there and still just as astonishing as if you had been sucker punched from the back row of concert straight to your brain.  At every change I have to stop and reconsider life and see how much I have strayed from my original course and think, is it really straying, or is it finally coming closer to the path I should have been on to start with.  Which path is MY path and how will I know when I get there?  It seems to always come to these simple questions.  Is what I am doing right?  How will I know if what I am doing Is right?  For now I have no way to judge which is the correct, right or just path and which is only the path of temptation, laziness or unrealistic dreams.  Are dreams only unrealistic to those people who have not the courage to charge them head on as a Spartan warrior wishing for his most glorious moment?  As I degrade in to answering questions with questions and talking circles like a one legged drunken sailor, I know it is time to close this train of thought for now.  For I know that is will open again soon enough, when life pulls another ace from the hole.

Mr. Furious

It is interesting to think about the many characters that have been created in the past to help describe human traits. One that comes to mind this afternoon is The Incredible Hulk. A normal nice, and very intelligent man who, when upset transforms into a raging green monster. A character effectively showing the nature of Man when enraged and how it can seems as if they are two different people. I felt this way today. Having been in a very boring class for the past week and a half I have felt very drained and frustrated and the end of the day, everyday. As the class is winding down to a finish, it is time to start the final practical exercise which is, of course, a culmination of all of the material covered throughout the course. This is normal and would have been absolutely no reason for the frustration and aggravation that I am feeling and will fill until, most likely, tomorrow night when I begin to drink in celebration. The problem lies in the fact that, although the fact of having something to gauge the effectiveness of the training is normal, the system that all of this training has been on/about, is far from what most people consider normal. I can not and will not say what system that is, only that it is a system that is used in my line of work. This system (as all systems of its type, to those who know what I am talking about) is what we like to call "broke". Does it turn on? Yes. Does it physically function? Yes. Does it do what it has been designed to do? Sometimes. Does it do anything useful? Not really. It is the product of sending wild chimpanzees to a computer programming class, having them create a complete system in C++, having an elephant take a dump on it, then getting your two year old brother to translate it to Fortran, and then expecting your 108 year old grand father to use it. As if that wouldn't be broke enough as is, you tell me that it is the best, most L33T system out there except that this one part here isn't quite right, and we can't do this since it isn't done being programmed yet and oh yeah, you have to use three separate programs kinda like this one, that do not get along with each other, to try and get one usable product. Sound confusing? Try actually doing it. I think of myself as a relatively bright individual, usual in the top percentage to finish and with a large number of my answers correct. Test taking is usually one of my strong points, especially when it is on or has to do with a computer of any sorts. Now, when a computer makes me go all Incredible Hulk, it is usually something epic. Today was that day. Have you ever been so frustrated, frustrated to the point where you feel your body trembling from the inside as if you have an unknown energy building in your stomach until you are going to explode, feel you blood rush to the point of feeling your heart beating in you ears, where tears are on the verge of spilling forth and that if you touched this object of frustration you would rip, crush, smash and grind it to pieces and stand proudly over it's dusty corpse screaming to the world that you are the truly mighty one. That is about how I felt today. The worst part... I have to go back and finish tomorrow... which happens to be my birthday...