lakehouse
Dropping my tax return on a lake front cabin (on it's own peninsula!) in vermont as a down payment. Was doing really well paying off the house in 4 years but this property was just too a deal good to pass up, well it was after I haggled them down 21% on the price. I can wait to lounge on my boat all day and fish... I should mount some kind of
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They liked me a little too much in the Navy. 6 weeks into boot camp they were trying to get me to go officer, said I was too good to be an enlisted man. My grandfather was an enlisted man in WW2 so, that didnt sit well with me. I got pneumonia pretty bad towards the end of boot camp but it wasn’t recognized until I was in my A school, by which time one lung was completely full of fluid and the other was racing to catch up with it. While I was recovering I was basically given the opportunity to get out of the navy on a medical exception which at that point, extremely disillusioned with the navy for several reasons, I was happy to take.
Went back home and got a job at the bottom rung of network engineering, during which 9/11 happened. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel some regret at the time for leaving the navy when I could have been at use, but at the same time I couldn’t help remembering the petty officers that refused to let me see a medic when I was coughing up cottage cheese. The bottom fell out of network engineering for a while so I switched over to electrical engineering and worked my way up to lab manager at an electromagnetic compliance testing company. I earned my BS in business while I was there by CLEPing and Dantes’ing my way through the whole degree, which wasn’t easy but in the end only cost me about $7k, but more importantly I learned how to learn and retain knowledge, purely by having to remember everything for those intensive tests. I Did well at that job but ended up staying too long and being too emotionally invested in a company that the board of directors seemed intent on liquidating because they were approaching retirement age and wanted to cash out. I jumped ship before it sunk and swam back to network engineering just over two years ago. I’ve completed at least 9 networking and IT certification since being back in the fray and I’m in a very comfortable spot. I’m always studying. Currently I’m studying French, working on a linux engineering cert and working towards my CCIE ( I also audit several classes on edX and Coursera at a time). I have 5 and 10 year plans and short term plans to get there. I have two kids that are sarcastic, funny, foam sword fighting freaks and are smarter than I was at that age. I got rid of their horrible drunk of a mother who was depressing the SHIT out of me and… well getting rid of negative influences never hurts. She since sobered up and we’re on good terms but that relationship is over. For the record I drink, heavily at times but not when the kids are around (which is half the week) and I’m functional so.. there you go. I’m with a woman now that is goal oriented, tapped in the head and eager to get back to nature just like me. We have thirty acres in northern Vermont with south facing views of the white mountains and now a lake house just down the road. And I’m 36 so at least it didn’t take me too long to get my priorities figured out and take control of my life.
But anyway. The point of this ramble was that traditional learning is not for everyone (and probably not for the majority of people out there). People ask me how I study as hard as I do and take so many tests and how I’m doing so well for myself, and the only thing I can think to say to them is “Why the fuck aren’t you?” or “How do you watch 10 hours of sports center a day without wanting to eat a bullet?” It seems to be very American to spend as long as possible avoiding hard work and then complaining as loudly as possible that there are no opportunities. You should never give up on your education but if you think “school” (and I quote that to mock the system, not you) is a joke, you’re probably right.
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Mainly I got "schooled" in politics. Not the peer kind... but the kind where the administration sees itself as a hammer for leveling all the nails. Being kicked out of school at 15, and my only paperwork is a GED I got when I was 23. I find an interesting job and do it till I get bored, gaining loads of diverse experience, and generally tread water financially but live a very happy and pleasant non-work life. Never even considering a 'career' until recently, I just go from job to job and look for jobs flexible enough to support my hobbies and leave me enough energy to live the rest of my life when I get home.
For the last three years I have been doing a job best explained as "concierge for 150 schizophrenics", where I am a front desk operator/security/secretary/counselor/helpdesk for a housing facility specializing in helping stabilize people with debilitating mental illness. Before this? I managed an art house theater. Before that, I performed data entry for a medical supply company. Before that? I cold-called for surveys. Before that? I delivered Chinese food. Before that? I was a pawnbroker. Before that? I was a postal meter salesman. Before that? I was a barista. Before that? I was call-center support for AT&T. Before that? I was an full-on operator. And that is just in the last 10 years. I worked for the family businesses since I was a kid (my mom had riding stable and series of horse-related businesses) and have ALWAYS had a job. I've worked for salons, for banks, I've worked in the mall, and I have sold EVERYTHING. My first real job where I filled out a W-4, was a new age shop.
That's just what I do for money.
I grew up like SUPER poor... so money and stability was always like... a fantasy.
Not real. But experience is real. Having fun, is real. Learning interesting things, is real.
So, I am just super active in my daily personal life and don't think about money and don't chase it.
Hence.. not worrying about getting a degree until now.
But, I've been a radio DJ hosting a regional music spotlight for the last 7 years and organize fundraisers for the occasional non-profit, just for shits and giggles. Lately a friend has been teaching me a series of classical Japanese metal working techniques, and I also dabble in silversmithing and blacksmithing. For myself, I sew and/or seriously alter most of my own clothes and have been known to sew a wedding gown or two for a friend. I do whatever I feel like, I do what interests me or what comes along. I join groups, I help out, whatever.
I'm with an amazing guy who is the kindest person, just in general. He used to sail square-rigged sailing ships, but now he travels around the world as a mechanical engineer installing aluminum factories, because it's gotta be SOMEONE'S job. In fact he just left for China yesterday. I'm crazy about him! We've known each other since we were kids and actually courted, if you can believe it.. and you know what? That shit works. Started 5 years ago, been living together for 2, we're both ecstatic.
I always figured I would go to college eventually... but I was hoping that 15 years of VERY useful experience and a very active mind who can condense complex ideas, who is a very skilled and trained communicator and organizer would at least get me a paycheck somewhere further away from the poverty level so I could go to school for FUN,... but it turns out, those things are not rewarded unless you've performed the same grovelling that others have.
So.. I'm closing my eyes and racing through a 2 year "business management" like it's hellfire... because it kind of is.
I'd like to aim for a place where I can stop struggling for the little things, and start chasing the experiences I REALLY want and stop just getting by. Turns out this fake piece of paper is part of it. Silly and flimsy as it is, it opens doors and opens trust with certain kinds of people.
People.. and their "systems".
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Courted eh? Were you betrothed or something? Did your parents give his parents three sheep and a goat when you were born? You seem too intelligent to be a Jehovas witness... so I'll assume it's not that. Well I'm glad it worked out for you. he sounds awesome. Wish I had a square sailin man...
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Which should make it free.. except for the cost of living WHILE doing school. My delightful man friend has a real job and we both are used to living cheap so... that is what we're doing and this way I can just speed through school. That's the plan at least.
Whether or not you believe in astrology, I am a Gemini and I am literally interested in, and will try, almost anything. I have a wide variety of friends, and when I am lucky it so happens that they will offer me free classes in SOMETHING really awesome. I love the blacksmithing story because once upon a time, I was dating a guy seriously and I was really close with his family. Well, his dad is.. like... um... a famous inventor. Whatever right? Anyways, the dad was going through a sorta ennui. He was 60.. and did everything he wanted to (he was a snowboarder, rock climber, wind surfer, and bow hunted for elk every year.. for instance) but he never got to use his artistic abilities.. and never really found his "medium" even though he was talented in many kinds of creative physical art.. but nothing he was passionate about. I suggested black smithing, because he was a hobby chemist and physicist so... blacksmithing is a very scientific, yet intuitive and very physical style of creation where you also get to make your own tools... I knew he was into that sort of thing.
Turns out... HE FELL IN LOVE. Like... obsessed ever since.
He now runs his own large smithy and smithing classes and has taken classes from several world masters because... why not? So... he gave me lessons as a thank you. Soon after I a met another smithing student is was a master goldsmith who offered me silversmithing lessons and he is the one teaching me how to make mokume gane, and silver work.
I just like learning, trying new things, having interesting experiences.
Nope, neither of us are religious or any sort of superstitious thing like that. It just worked out that way. I am highly social and apparently (if you ask dudes) a highly unorthodox dater. Mainly, when I', single I am SINGLE. Meaning.. I date who I want, when I want, and I am very open and honest about it. I have zero patience for jealousy and even less patience for other people's stupid fucking rules. Every guy failed this test... usually within weeks of a first date. It would become clear that they needed a committed relationship, and I would make it clear that would only happen in someday sometime in the future... IF that ever happened. Most men wander away after that. Which is good.. that means we're incompatible.
Ryan is someone from another century... like the 1700s. And he also understood perfectly. We dated for two years in an open relationship and it was completely without serious jealousy, drama, or hurt feelings. He was comfortable growing an emotional attachment (as was I) even without sexual commitment. He didn't even once tell me I should stop dating other people during that period, but eventually he did let me know when he decided HE wanted to be monogamous to me and also let me know my monogamy was not required for him to feel comfortable doing that. It's like he was a really confident man, instead of these scared, jealous, threatening boy children that populate the dating world.
We did that for awhile, but it became too obvious to me that most men were not as kind, honest, sincere, generous, sweet, smart, admirable and respectful as the man I had been dating for the last couple years. It had been clear for awhile, but eventually it was impossible to ignore that all other dudes were a huge disappointment next to the guy I was already dating.
Incidentally... that is how courting used to work. Everyone dated everyone simultaneously and only became an exclusive pair as a form of short engagement before getting married. Smart, right?
So that is what I mean "courted".
Whatchu think?
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Excellent. My woman is a gemini, and so is my woman.... I slay me. I share Picasso's birthday so yes I am a scorpio, though I'm capricorn rising with a moon in leo and all my planets are above the horizon... lots of introvert/extrovert inner batttles. I'm more of an optimistic scorpio than most I'd say. I don't trust easily and I never forget but I don't look outward for strength so I'm not that upset when predictable people do predictable things. Thats awesome about the metalworking. I work in silver though I have worked in gold.. well I use to work in silver, it's been a while. Many of my hobbies took a back seat when my kids were born. Initially for the lack of time then for the depression of living with their mother. These days they're making a resurgence thanks to my new woman.
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