Making a leap

I’m going to be a real ass-hat with this post, and I apologize.  I’m not going to tell any details, but instead I’m just going to type and you can be annoyed afterwards.

I’ve been working on a project.  And at first I thought it was going to go one direction, but then I decided to take it a different direction in my execution of it.

Previous projects I’ve worked on usually have a life cycle that includes me wanting to build something, I work a lot in all of my spare time on it, putting out a version, and then being drained from my “day job” and unable to continue to work on it anymore.  So it runs in the stable, initial state.  While getting a v1 product out the door is always a good thing, I consistently insult every idea I’ve ever had because things can go farther.  I’m the only limitation.

There’s never really a “perfect time” for a lot of things, so instead I took the thoughts and feelings I have for what I’m currently doing as inspiration to take a different route.  A simple “Would you like change?  Then make choices that create change” kind of thing.  We’ll see what happens.

I’ll have something cool tomorrow to show everyone, but that has nothing to do with this stuff.

Mourning the loss of an office

Yesterday it was announced that the office I used to work at in Chicago, and who many still work at will be closing at the end of October.

I understand that business is business, but these are my friends.  Friends that believed my company when they acquired it a couple years ago and said “this office and everyone in it is going nowhere.  We value the employees here and we’re keeping this Chicago office.”  Instead they wake up yesterday to find that most are going to be unemployed, and a select few will get offers to move to Omaha in order to keep their position.

It sounds like everyone is taking it well, but I’m upset.

It weighs heavy on me because I left them 8 months ago on my own Omaha journey.  I feel like I should be there with them right now.  That if the ship I helped build was going down, I should be going down with it.

But I guess that’s why I left in the first place.  I saw how things were going, and I didn’t want to be a part of where it was to end up.  Nobody knew it would be a complete shutdown, but I doubt anyone is exactly surprised either.

All this so some executive can receive a larger bonus and a pat on the back from the board members.  It makes me sick.

My thoughts are with my friends.  I wish there was something I could do.

The military creeps me out

So being this is my blog, and I’m really bad at hiding things, once in a while I’ll probably write about something pretty unpopular. This will be one of those posts. I’m taking the opportunity this day of independence to write about our military.

Now if you’re one of those “rah-rah” folks who reply with things like “you should be thanking them for fighting for you” then please do us both a favor and stop reading right now.  I’m serious.

I’ve been given a bad rap lately because I’m not comfortable being around people that are in the military.  They creep me out.  And I’m generally creeped out even before I know what they do for a…job.

Example from a month or so ago: I was at a bar.  There were all these kinda douche-bagish, clean cut guys.  All playing the “matcho” game.  ”Yeah bro”, “I’m totally fucking her”, etc etc.  I left thinking “Holy crap, that’s the biggest collection of asshole douchebags I’ve had to be around for a while.”  Someone replied “Those weren’t douchebags, they were military.”

Being in Omaha there’s some murder-plane air base near here.  I honestly had no idea before I moved here.  In fact knowing about it I probably would have thought twice about coming.  It’s because I have a problem with the attitudes of people that go through that “system”.  The military takes the guys who wanted to kick my ass in high school and breed them into brain-washed machines.  They come out all with the exact same haircut.  All wearing the same clothes.  All speaking the same way.  And all thinking the same way.  They are cookie cutter people who live in cookie cutter houses.  The only thing not cookie cutter is when they drop them out of planes to shoot people in wars we shouldn’t be involved in.

And if you’re thinking “you should be thankful that they go jump out of those planes so you don’t have to” then what are you doing reading this far?  I told you to stop.  That’s a conversation about why they’re jumping out of the planes in the first place.  They shouldn’t be.  But that’s not going to be discussed here.

I’ve also been told “It’s just the career path that was chosen, like any other job.”  I have an issue with that as well.  Like for me, I always wanted to be in technology.  That’s a career path.  So is “killing” also a career path?  Do people really grow up saying “I want to kill when I’m older?”  Is that a lifelong career path goal?  And I do understand there are plenty of things that aren’t the act of killing in the military.  There’s tons of technology there as well.  But I just don’t know what would bring someone to join the military instead of getting another job.  Wouldn’t you need to believe in what they’re doing in order to take part in it?  It’s not just a job.  It’s a lifestyle.  A lifestyle where at the center is the domination and control over the world’s people and resources.  That’s far different than when I decided what company I wanted to work for.  (Maybe not, my company can be pretty evil too.)  I just know if I don’t show up to work they can’t throw me in jail for it.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m stereotyping.  This may even be seen as the biggest example of stereotyping you’ve ever read on the internet.  But there’s truth in it.  There are also exceptions.  But keep in mind an exception to this stereotype is a failure on the government’s part.  The military imprint didn’t stick.

So I think i’ve said my piece.  Any time I meet someone and I’m introduced that they’re in the military I’m probably going to step back.  I’m probably going to think “wow, so that’s the kind of person they are.  That’s what they chose to do with their life?”  I’ll know a subset of their views and beliefs right away, and I’ll probably try to get out of that conversation.  And that’s ok.  There are probably people they’d enjoy talking to more who jive with their lifestyle more anyway.

Happy Independance Day.

(btw I’m keeping comments off on this one for your sake.  You’ll probably say something pretty mean.)

Closest friends of Gabe #tweetdinner

I’m certainly on a kick lately of wanting to take part in some social experimentation.  So when this idea came to mind, I couldn’t pass it up.

The other day I jumped on a new Tweeter stats type thing.  There’s hundreds of them.  This one is twitteranalyzer.com.  After it analyzed my online social circle it determined who my “closest friends” were.  Although all awesome people, they’re not the people I’ve spent the most time with.  But I guess in the twitter world it meant that we had the most to/from conversations.

This list turned out to be @nickashley, @kfred85 and @scoutdrygoods.

So I figured if a web service has the balls to tell me who my closest friends are… then I’ll go for it.  I asked them all to dinner.  For some reason they all liked the idea and this Sunday we have the first computer generated guest list to a dinner. So what happens if a computer tells you who you should hang out with, and then get them all together?

Nick
Katie
Kelly

A goodbye to an old friend

This post was originally published at ChannelOmaha.com where Gabe is a guest blogger.

I can’t think of a more inappropriate first blog to ChanelOmaha.com than a story about how I traveled to Kansas City.  But that’s just how this is going to be.

On Wednesday night I traveled to Kansas City to say goodbye to an old friend.

I arrived, got comfortable, and heard him tell the same stories he’s told so many times before.  But this time he was a little more jovial, just a little less stone cold serious.  But each tale still had the complete power and inspiration as every time he told it before.  I still was able to mouth the words with him, as I’ve heard the stories so many times.

Of course I’m talking about seeing Nine Inch Nails perform in Kansas City.  From the t-shirts saying "Wave Goodbye" to Trent closing his show with "Hurt" instead of something like "Closer", it was nothing less than an old friend giving a large collective hug and saying "Thanks."

For those who’ve seen Trent and Company perform before, this wasn’t like previous tours.  No video screens.  No lasers.  No special effects.  Just some guys on stage, a fog machine, and some of the best music ever made.

He didn’t play a lot of what many fans call "the new stuff."  And to me, that was a downer.  I don’t recall anything from Ghosts being played.  But it seemed to work.  This is Trent’s goodbye, and from the crowd screaming the lyrics it got a lot quieter during "Discipline" and "Echoplex" anyway.  But like any other NIN show the place erupted with "Sin", "Wish" and "Head like a hole."

I can’t think of a better way to say goodbye to an old friend than how I did Wednesday night.