The feeling after the party is over.

Almost always in life most people live for the high, the big moment when all the peaces of the puzzle fit together when everything is just right! It is why we watch movies, for that ending seen when Luke and the ewoks defeat the empire or Frodo delivers the ring to Mount Doom! Same reason so many people watch criminal investigation or cop shows because they want to watch the development up until the bad guy gets caught. We live for graduations, marriages, birthdays, sports championships, we live for all the big and grand successes in life.

Although I do say that success is one of my favorite things to enjoy in life its not the only thing. Growing up have always found solace when the party was over, after all the celebrating had come to an end. When I was little I loved having birthday parties and the like but I always found that after the party I truly felt the happiest. The same experience seemed to grip me in college, although the parties and the games were all lots of fun I always felt happiest laying there on the couch in the family room observing the stoic and quiet nature of the house, knowing that hours earlier it was roaring with activity. I find the same in nature, on hikes or camping trips that it is at the end during the time of reflection that the most pure happiness seems to overwhelm. I know because it is freed of all excitement, hype and outside influence it is the moment when you look back and realize what you experienced was real, valid and added more to the richness of your life. You can ask almost anyone, most people always remember things better than they were, yes college was hard and or confusing for most people but most will also say it was the best time of their life. How often do you hear the phrase, "man those were the days!"

I began pondering this subject thinking so far on my military career and experience. It seems as though a lot of people I know constantly complain or whine about being in the Marine Corps and dealing with a lot of the bull shit they put you through. While I was thinking about whether or not it really did suck I decided to look back and decide how I viewed my past experiences so far. The Marine Corps has been in my life a great experience full of a lot of memories with friends I may never see again but I know they enriched my life and hopefully me theirs. I am looking forward now knowing that this organization is not all bad as some claim it to be, wondering how I can improve both my experience and that of others. This doesn't mean that I have suddenly become all eurah, semper-fi motarded I just think that all this negativity and anti-motivation isn't creating an environment or memories that better anyones life. Yes the Marine Corps isn't entirely fair, yes sometimes it sucks or doesn't make sense but the reality is complaining about it like a bitch doesn't help anyone. Not saying that I haven't done my fair share of complaining under my breath, but its time to move forward and embrace life and the corps for what it is.

I am sure that when this current party is over I will look back on all that I had done and feel no regret but only sentimental thoughts about the times I had with my friends and Co-Workers.

Sand Castles

Sometimes I feel as though I have nothing to write. I feel as though I am out of practice with writing itself and expressing my thoughts in text requires more energy than I want to muster. However difficult it may sometimes be I still need to write something to remember I am still exist that I have some level of consciousness. It is reassurance that I am able to still create new thought in some organized fashion. My job working as a Satellite Communications Tech requires that I setup, configure and troubleshoot other people's creations. Although I feel like there is some creation and original thought in creating ways to work around issues. All in all I still need to vent creativity in a more extended format.

I recently have been feeling a little more awakened and directed in my life. Since I have been deployed I have had a lot more time of my own to manage and with that new projects to pursue. I have quite a few ambitions which range from continuing my pursuits in server administration to economics. I want to create something big in this life but in order to to that it is going to take a lot of little steps and accomplishments build.

Today was a big day for me and yet I actually didn't do that much at all. I woke up ate breakfast, went downstairs to my gym for about 30 minutes followed up with a shower. Following my shower I got online and was able to talk to my Girlfriend, it seems like no matter what is going on in the rest of my life my day is invariably influenced by her. Needless to say the rest of the day didn't matter I was happy and content with where my life was at and headed. I did get to play with our pet monkey a little bit more today however, he is really cool and he is terrified of our dogs. I had been walking around the back and one of our dogs was following me and as I walked past the monkey's house he jumped on my shoulder and started yelling at the dog peaking out from behind my shoulder.

I also recently finished The Left the Right and The State it wasn't much of a book more like a collection of articles (which it was) that had collective thought but became very repetitive. It also lacked a full perspective, seeing that it was written over the course of decades. The message over all was more of the typical Libertarian/Rothbardian rhetoric. Focusing on monetary policies, renunciation of public programs and restrictions on personal liberties. I recommend it for individuals who want an intermediate perspective into Libertarian policy. I thought Ron Paul's book Revolution: A Manifesto or Ludwig Von Mises' Economic Policy are better introductions to the theories if you are not already familiar. Next on my list of books to read is Murray Rothbard's Case for the 100% Gold Dollar and John Locke's Two Treatise of Government.

Being deployed is an awesome opportunity and I have been enjoying every minute of it. Don't get me wrong though I can't wait for the day to be back in the United States and be with family and friends. I think I am going to leave this paragraph unfinished much like my life.

The Next Chapter

I just finished watching "The Social Network" and have been attempting to internalize the thoughts that have been running through my head since. Although I feel like my life is on the verge of another chapter entirely I feel a sense of stagnation. A sense that I need to move onto something new something greater. I have had this feeling a lot in my life I suppose i should give it tribute to most of my career decisions to date. Part of the reason I joined the Marine Corps among many others was my in ability not to embrace this fleeting emotion. Apparently locking myself into a law binding contract really helps with overcoming it.

My thoughts of late have given me more pause, Although I can not fully embrace these Ideas I can however begin to plan to put myself in a position to better execute them when I am in a position to do so. I want to be able to create and build and express design however feeling confined in my current state it creates a bit of claustrophobia.

I leave in a few days. I wont be back for 9 months, and when I do it will not be the same person who wrote this string of text. It will be a new more evolved state of me, I just can't help but wonder what he will look like and how he will act. Will he be more energetic? or perhaps stronger and faster? I fear at times he will degrade over these coming months though optimistically push those thoughts out of my mind. All I know is I can't wait to meet him and if all goes well show him off to my family and friends.

Splice: Macro Aggregate Electronicus meets Information Accumulus

Lately I have been feeling a lot like a sponge lately attempting to soak in every ounce of knowledge possible. Mostly centralized around the subjects of Technological Development in the areas of space flight and cloud computing; as well as in Economics regarding employment and centralized banking.

In the past couple years I have been following Elon Musk's company Space X and its endeavor to privatize space flight. Recently they have made several break though accomplishments with their launch of falcon 1 in order to deliver on a private contract to put a satellite into space; and the successful orbital launch of falcon 9 (their platform designed to ship supplies and personnel to the international space station). With all these success it brought me to ask who else is out there competing for space flight contracts (It seems that it is no longer just national super powers competing these days). I discovered that Lockheed Martin and Boeing formed a joint venture under the title of United Launch Alliance, LLC. That has developed several launch vehicles already and despite close ties with existing government contracts lost the bid to Space X. However they continue to develope technologies in hopes to win future bids. Also in the race is Blue Origins and Orbital. Orbital seems to be going off the same platform as Space X. Cheap reliable launch platform with smaller scalability than the historical launch platforms. Meanwhile Blue Origins is in an entirely different market that is set out a little further in the future, trying to develop take off and landing technologies. Of course I can't leave out Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and their Space Ship Two, which is really in its own industry (space tourism). All in all its pretty exciting to see where these companies might take their ambitions in the next decade. Private ventures in space flight are long overdue, we are just now entering the "Space Race" part deuce.

The world of cloud computing is also continually accelerating and a faster and faster rate the fact that when I post this blog it the RSS feed from this site will also post to various social networking sites that I belong to is proof enough. Also the twitter feed at the top of this blog that receives updates from my phone and posts them on twitter, Facebook and here all instantaneously. The fact that I now store 90% of all my personal and school documents on Google Docs. I don't even store much of a personal music collection anymore, I have 5 or 6 songs physically located on either my phone or computer. Thanks to Pandora, Last FM and Slacker Radio I no longer have the need to constantly hunt down and buy album upon album of music from my favorite artists when they can be accurately delivered to me via internet radio. All this and other observations have brought me to consider who is profiting from these markets. Well obviously we have all the Social Networking sites on top of that you have Google, Apple, and Microsoft as pretty big players. One of the ever more increasing characteristics that define choices in cloud participation is the consumers phone platform. An individual with Google's Android is more likely to take advantage of cloud computing supported by the applications within its OS. Counter to that Microsofts new Kin encourages its users to participate in Microsoft's Live community. Of course Apple continues to build on its iPhone platform not really taking full advantage of its opportunities but still doing well for itself. The success of these three cloud computing giants is going to drastically be determined by its mobile user base. As society continues to become more mobilized we should start to see a heavy dependence on cloud computing. I expect to see a surplus of jobs available in fields ranging form communications, database management, software development and wireless infrastructure development.

To continue with my outline I have also been reading the works of Murray N. Rothbard, and I have been discovering quite a few simple truths from his writings regarding monetary policy and centralized banking. He talks about the historical implementations of centralized control and its abuses along with the common sense of having market driven commodity based currencies. Also the dishonesties of banking based on a pure fiat currency and its contribution to mass inflation and consequential market corrections that would ensue. I recommend picking up his book What has the government done with our money? as well as looking into other authors such as Ludwig Von Mises, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell.

I sometimes come across as a gold nut or a tea party fanatic. The term tea party is just the medias attempt to bring several movements under one name for easier definition the reality is that I am a pro limited government libertarian who believes in common sense government. The upholding of laws and regulations. That concludes this blog posting or better titled rant. Thanks for reading.

It has been some time

Well, lets see its been a while since my last post and a lot has transpired. Since my last post I have graduated from my school in Pensacola Florida, taken leave to Oregon, moved to Hawaii, and have enrolled in courses at Hawaii Pacific University. I also met an amazing girl while in Florida and had an awesome time with her and with the friends I made in my 8 months living there. I look forward to recreating a similar experience while living here in Hawaii.

I graduated from my Marine Corps A school with a 97% at the top of my class. (Bragging a little I know) I found the course material to be somewhat informative however lacking in overall competence. Memorizing a bunch of random technical specifications about a varied grouping of comm equipment really doesn't make you effective at employing and troubleshooting said pieces of equipment. I did think however the sections on networking and server administration were somewhat well spent.

I continue in short summery onto this girl that I met in A school. Her name was Tanya and she was from San Diego, she was short being half Korean and full of energy. I met her on a random date that actually wasn't too eventful, well minus the drunken ending. We went to dinner and then ended up the night at a bar near base... while at the bar my friend and I refrained from drinking too much however the girls proceeded to indulge. As the night came to a close we took the girls back to their dorms and as we where walking through the parking lot Tanya put on my coat while I was still wearing it... After laughing for a bit about it I took it off and lended it to her for the remainder of the walk back. The next day she in a bit of embarrassment returned my coat to me. After that we began to spend the remainder of our time in Florida spending the weekends camping and a trip to New Orleans etc... It was a refreshing way to finish out my last 3 months in Florida and I was glad for it.

While in Oregon I ran a bit, visited as many friends and family as possible. I started out by flying into Portland and heading down to Corvallis where I spent a week there and then proceeded to Hermiston to spend an extended amount of time with my parents while arranging some of my remaining affairs. While in Hermiston I had the opportunity to teach a quick little history class on the Marine Corps to my moms 5th grade class. The class was very responsive and paid a lot of attention to what I had to say I quizzed them at the end and passed out candy to all the individuals who answered correctly.

I have recently moved to Hawaii and have been exploring the Island only to be interrupted by the occasional work day and gaming binge. The most interesting place I have been so far is a series of waterfalls outside of Kailua that are a short hike into the mountains. They are fairly entertaining to jump off of being only about 45 feet in height. I have also been getting licensed on a range of military vehicles that I find large and cumbersome.

In other news I have recently been reading extensively on entrepreneurship and its effect on the economy. which reignited my thoughts on finishing my degree so I went down to the Joint Education Center here on base and applied at Hawaii Pacific University, I was surprised with how fast my approval to the school was processed but considering they work closely with the Marine Corps I guess there shouldn't have been any surprise. I declared my major in Business Admin Computer Information Systems and take my first class this may. The course I selected was Human Resource Management 3400 should be a good course and it is an accelerated term so I plan on putting forth a fairly high level of focus and energy to hopefully build momentum going into finishing the rest of my degree.

Physical fitness: while all this has transpired I have also been working on my physical fitness. I have been seeing fairly decent results, having a lower body fat percentage and achieving higher max lifts across the board. However I do feel like improvements could have been made at a faster pace I am satisfied with my current progress and aim to do more.

In summery I would say the last months of absence have been spent in a major effort to improve my self and maximize my life. however there has been too little self reflection during that course of time and although it is pretty cliche to write this I am going to make more of an effort to keep this blog up to date. It is something fairly near and dear to me even if it is only a collection of ramblings it is still a piece of my conscience written in plain view and stored for later reflection.