Dave’s Blog at Mindkeep

With the 2008 election getting closer and closer, this has been on my mind quite a bit of late. What is our freedom really worth to us? This has been the first year that I’ve been taking a close look at the polls. I couldn’t even guess at a who was in the primaries for 2004. In some ways I wish I didn’t care this year either. Ignorance truly is bliss. However, I’ve finally started to wake up to the world of politics and it’s impact on my life. My only hope is that other members of my generation will follow the same path.

So far I think I’ve donated about $400 to potential candidates Barack Obama and Ron Paul. How much more will I donate before the election? I’m not sure… The cap is $2300. I seriously doubt that I’d donate anything close to that, but if I believed that there was a tipping point and my freedom and privacy were truly on the line. I believe that I’d give my last dollar to support the country that I read about in my 5th grade history classes. Our founding fathers fought for the freedoms that we are allowing our current government to take away in the name of safety. How close are we to the point that the nation will wake up as a whole and demand that change is needed?

While it would have been more entertaining to send any one of these inspirational messages, I instead decided to create a more cordial, yet no less definite resignation from my current job. The heading with included personal and company names have been omitted, but the text is intack:

Manager1 and Manager2,

I hereby give three weeks notice of my intention to leave the position of Member of Software Engineering Staff. My last available day of work will be September 28th, 2007.

I feel that I have been treated well within the company and realize that other prospective employees would gladly fill my position. However, I find that my own personal values and political views are, at present, in direct conflict with the work contracts that this company continues to pursue. While I’ve been proud to work in the information security field, other projects within the local campus and the company as a whole are plainly in support of and profit from a war which I feel is unjust and led by a corrupt and misguided administration. I, like many Americans, continue to hope that this will be remedied in the short future, but I have slowly but surely found myself left with little moral choice but to seek employment opportunities outside of the company.

Such an opportunity has presented itself and I’ve decided to take this position.

Please be assured that I will do all I can to assist in the smooth transfer of my responsibilities within the next three weeks. The greatest sadness in leaving this company is leaving behind the many intelligent and kind friends that I’ve met here. While I find that it’s time for me to move on, I wouldn’t want to leave their questions and concerns unanswered.

Yours Sincerely,

me

So there you have it.

Bold? Yes.

Stupid? Probably.

Necessary? Without a doubt.

Pen.
Sword.
Weapons…
Both deadly.
Which one is better?
Depends on the situation.

Random stupid poetry in the form of a Fib (Fibs are similar to Haiku, but use the Fibonacci sequence for it’s syllable count) that I made up loosely based on Musashi’s Two-fold way of pen and sword.

I just reread some of the blog and couldn’t help but smile at this older post about “The Game”. I really do owe a lot to that book. It outright amazes me how confident I’ve become through 2006, but it’s really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how much my whole outlook on life has changed. The strangest thing is that I’m not sure how to really pinpoint what has changed specifically, but that’s beside the point. What I realized this last weekend that brought me a lot of pride is that although my attitude has changed, I’m still me.

That probably sounds pretty rediculous… When I first read “The Game” and started learning more about “the community”, I had a very real fear of turning into … well,.. I guess your typical asshole womanizer. But despite getting closer and closer to PUA status, I’m still me.

Last weekend, I went out of my way, to make sure that a rather drunk (and high) girl got home safely. It wasn’t something I had to do, and by all rights, many would call me stupid for bothering with someone that I barely knew, but at the core, I was just glad that I did my good deed. Many in “the community” and probably some of my better friends would call stupid or crazy for going the extra mile (miles?), but I actually enjoyed it.

The long of the short of this babble is that I realized that I changed so much, but I’m also very much the same. Not different, just better. Further I have a stronger sense of who I am than ever before, and it feels good. Anyway, to whoever actually reads these posts, I hope you can experience the same.

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted. Be sure to check out the St. Patty’s Day pics here: http://gallery.mindkeep.org/v/20060317StPattyDay/.

I just wanted to take a minute to revel in my geekdom for a minute. Every computer nerd out there knows what it’s like to spend hours upon hours playing games. This is usually at the price of having almost zero free time to go out and interact with actual people. I think over the years, I’ve found that happy balance between the two, and I just wanted to say this:

Last night, I picked up this girl I’m seeing, watched a movie, got laid, dropped the girl off at home, and played about 3 hours of Vendetta Online afterward. Good stuff…