I Managed to Complete This Milestone Last Week....

Well, I managed to earn another Triple Crown this last week (or so). On July 1st I completed one year of District service as an Area Governor, which was the final requirement for Advanced Leader Silver (ALS). The week before I finished my final requirement for Advanced Communicator Gold (ACG). If you add ALS+ACG you end up with DTM!

Yep, I managed to complete all of my Distinguished Toastmaster requirements in about 3 1/2 years. It helped (greatly) that I was able to attend two clubs and participate more-than expected. I've already started working on my second DTM, but I'm not in a hurry and right now two is my limit, mostly because I don't want to be "that guy".

You know "that guy".....the one who forges ahead needlessly screwing other people out of opportunities just so he can get another notch in his belt. The path to Distinguished Toastmaster is a long one and there is one big roadblock in the way. In order to finish your Advanced Leader Silver you have to have served as a Club Coach, Sponsor, or Mentor. These opportunities just do not come up very often at all. To take one of these away from someone else trying to earn their first DTM so you can get DTM >1 isn't cool. Now through a stroke of luck I managed to be a Club Sponsor a second time. A new club was forming and they had 1 volunteer for Club Mentor and that person had to quit due to a move out-of-state. After the second or third call for volunteers, I think the club's meeting time of 9 AM on Friday was the big barrier, I stepped up. Since this tough requirement is out of the way.....might as well work on a second DTM.

Anyway, the requirements for DTM (it is a stepped process):
Competent Communicator (CC)
     Finish the first 10 speech projects
Competent Leader (CL)
     Finish the 10 leadership projects (mostly taking on roles at meetings with a few special events tossed in)
Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB)
     Complete 2 advanced speech manuals of 5 speeches each
Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB)
     Served as a Club Officer for a minimum of 6 months
     Go through Club Officer training and come up with a Club Success Plan
     Conducted any two programs from The Successful Club Series and/or The Leadership Excellence Series
Advanced Communicator Silver (ACS)
     Complete 2 advanced speech manuals of 5 speeches each
     Conducted any two presentations from The Better Speaker Series and/or The Successful Club Series
Advanced Leader Silver (ALS)
     Served a complete term as a district officer
     Completed the High Performance Leadership program
     Served successfully as a club sponsor, mentor or club coach
Advanced Communicator Gold (ACG)
     Complete 2 advanced speech manuals of 5 speeches each

     Conducted a presentation from the Success/Leadership Series, Success/Communication Series or a Youth Leadership Program

     Coached a new member with the first three speech projects

For those keeping track that would be around 47 speeches, not counting any presentations made as a Club/District Officer or while taking a role at a club meeting. It is a lot of work, but quite worthwhile. I've learned a lot so far and I'm pretty sure I still have a long way to go until I'm going to meetings simply for a "refresher".

Monkey See, Monkey Do

On several levels, things have taken a turn for the worst for me lately. I'm not divorced, homeless, or dying, so "worst" is a completely relative term. A double-whammy of bad job news yesterday either hasn't fully hit me, or the news, again relatively speaking, isn't as bad as I'm making it out to be.

Right now I'm waiting for my wife to wake up so I can try and make her breakfast with some fresh eggs our friends with chickens gave us. I'm looking forward to some French Toast and trying not to eat before then....and I'm hungry.

Now this isn't a bad problem to be having and I realize that.

To fill the time I'm going through my normal "daily" interwebs file and reading another list post from Dave at Blogography. Now I'm a complete sucker for these things and when he posted these 50 questions from Liz from the Internet, well....Monkey See Monkey Do....

Veteran's Day 2013

Veteran's Day has come around again and the Mrs. & I went to Applebees so I can get a free meal. This year I noticed a lot more places giving free "stuff" to Veterans and I have a few mixed feelings about this. It seems popular all of a sudden to support our Veterans, which is cool, but a lot of times it feels a bit hollow.

Applebees, or at least my local restaurant, honors Vets year-round with a 10% discount. I know they have some Vets on staff and they come off, to me, as genuine. They have an honor table set up by the entrance and nice (not over the top) decor throughout the place.

Now we go to this Applebees a lot. In general we don't eat at this chain anywhere else. I know there are folks that don't like this restaurant, but for me it is the specific location (people & place) which is why we come back. Because of the free Veteran's meals this place was far busier than normal. It really makes me wonder how many Vets only eat here once a year? I actually heard the gentlemen at one table tell their server, "See you next year" as they left. I also noted they shorted the server a bit on a tip.......

While that was a bit upsetting my meal was enjoyable and I got to watch a really cool montage of welcome home surprises on the TVs around the bar area. The restaurant had ESPN on most of the TVs and this is what that station was running at the time. It reminded me of the time I got to surprise my mother on a visit home.

I was PCSing (Permanent Change of Station) from Germany to Texas and took a month of leave en-route. I was flying back on Christmas Eve and because of a delay at JFK I ended up not getting to my mother's house until nearly 5 AM. My step-father was supposed to leave the front door open for me to get in. Their house is out in the country so an unlocked door shouldn't be an issue. Of course, since I was running nearly 6 hours late.....the door was locked.

Here I am standing outside in the freezing weather trying to get in to my mom's house. I ended up having to ring the doorbell. To my surprise they had an intercom system to the front door and I hear my mother groggily asking "Who is it?" I tell her it's "Chris" and she tells me the Christmas Party isn't until noon and I should come back later!

I can hear my step-father in the background tell her, "I don't think it's that Chris" and you can almost hear the gears churning until she realizes I'm home for a surprise Christmas visit. The rest, for a few minutes, was just like the video. After the initial glee was over she wanted to get back to bed.

I'm grateful for my time in the Air Force and I'm grateful for those that came before that allowed me the opportunity to grow up free and do the things I've done. I know Thanksgiving isn't until the end of the month, but if you take a quick early stock of the things you have to be thankful for, please be cognizant of how Veterans made many of those things possible.

Paraskevidekatriaphobic

Call me when tomorrow was here.

I was much happier until I realized what day it was......

The Deadpool Game Rocks!

For my recent birthday Carolyn got me the new Deadpool game.

If you are a fan of Deadpool and are even thinking about trying out the game, run...don't walk...to your nearest retailer and pick it up.

I'm barely into it and I was pretty much sold before playing the first mission. The folks at High Moon Studios captured Deadpool perfectly.

My wife's first comment about the game was, "There sure are a lot of warnings on there." Hmm...let's check...

Well, it looks like they forgot a few things. I think I can make the needed changes:

Much better....and sounds about right. I'm giving this game a definite two thumbs up! Extremely
awesome birthday gift. I think that High Moon Studios has to be involved in any Deadpool movie in the pipeline because they seem to understand the character better than what we've had so far.

This is the End with NSFW Trailer

Today is a my birthday and to celebrate the occasion my wife took me to see a movie of my choice, and my choice was to see This is the End. It will be hard to not toss out any spoilers when talking about this movie, but I will endeavor to do just that...

.....because this movie was fricken awesome.

In many ways this was a terrible movie. Pretty crappy even. Going through the credits are a bunch of actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves. I think going into the movie you are to believe that these actors are actually playing themselves and that is where you initially get sucked in.

This movie has tons of stupid, cheap, and gross humor. Most of the film seems like low-hanging fruit, but Seth Rogan & gang simply pull it off. I don't think I've laughed and snickered so damn much at a movie since maybe History of the World, Part I, and then that was when I was an actual juvenile. This isn't a fake serious film that pretends to be funny (sorry Mr. Brooks), but an actual "serious" film that is funny.

Unless you are the type that gets offended easily, you will probably find this movie funny...hilarious
even. I was surprised several times during the film, minor surprises, but surprises nonetheless, and I don't get surprised at the movies that often.

This red-band trailer is definitely NSFW and is a LOT more of a spoiler than the regular "for all audiences" green band trailer, so I'm going to put it after the break.

CSI Graduating Class of 2013

Today is my graduation from college.

At 7 PM tonight in the College of Southern Idaho's gymnasium I could be walking across the stage as part of CSI's 40th graduating class.

Could be.....but I'm not. I don't see the point in driving 2 hours one-way to get my 2nd Associate's Degree, 4th overall college degree. I think it is great that CSI has an actual commencement ceremony and the folks attending to get those diplomas should be congratulated.

I hope those getting their Associates Degrees move on to earn their Bachelor's and those getting Technical Certificates find the type of employment they are looking for.

I just don't feel the same pride for this accomplishment than what many others would. I'm just looking forward to the next step of the VRAP program which is help getting a job. If it wasn't for this unemployment I hope I would have been working on an MBA instead of an Associates. I'm hoping that is still in my future, but only time will tell.

I'm Off to See the Endodontist

I'm off to get my root canal hacked into by a specialist, an Edodontist.

Good times....

....ok, actually the stuff of nightmares for me. It'll be nice to get this tooth infection taken care of and off the narcotics. Why anyone would consider taking this stuff recreationally is beyond my comprehension.

If I can I'll get a pamphlet so I can show the interwebs what I had done. Gotta share the nightmares......

Triple Crown Award

A bright spot today was the delivery of my last three educational awards from Toastmasters International.

My Toastmasters District, District 15, has a special award for earning.....awards. If you get three educational awards inside of six months (?) you get the Triple Crown award. All my awards are within a couple months, but were entered on on the same day. Either way, I earned my Triple Crown.

I've made fun of the award in the past, but I get how the Triple Crown might help motivate people to get out there and finish up some loose educational award requirements. I know it has motivated me to try and work towards an extra award as my Competent Leader award from this Triple Crown is my second overall.

Toastmasters International Competent Leader Award

Toastmasters International Advanced Communicator Bronze Award

Toastmasters International Advanced Communicator Silver Award

In order to earn my ACB I completed 10 speeches, 5 from the Specialty Speeches manual and 5 from the Special Occasion Speeches manual.

To finish my ACS I had to complete another 10 speeches, but this time I worked out of the Storytelling and Speaking to Inform manuals.

I think I'm getting a lot out of Toastmasters personally and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to improve their speaking ability or really just increase some important  job and life skills. I think that Toastmasters is definitely more cost effective than any speech class I've ever taken.

Not Feeling So Well

It is finals week and I still have two tests and a project to finish up by this Friday. I was all set to get the one take-home test and my project done this weekend, specifically Sunday, when I had an almost literal kick in the teeth.

A toothache started up Friday and was pretty benign until Sunday. Since I had stayed up until 3 AM on Thursday and got up at 7 on Friday I just assumed I did something stupid like sleep on my face. I tend to get really loopy when I'm sleep deprived and dumber things have happened. My lip was swollen just a tad so it made sense and I assumed hoped it'd just go away....

.....but it didn't. Yesterday I was a near vegetable just trying to keep from extracting the painful tooth on my own. Carolyn was at work and I wasn't willing to go to an emergency dentist. All I wanted to do is suffer as little as possible until I could see my dentist. A few drinks in me combined with as-close-to Ranger Candy as possible only went so far. Soaking a cotton ball in vodka and sticking it in like a wad of chew helped a bit more. Only when Carolyn came home with some Oral Gel did things ease up enough so I could sleep.

There was no way I was good enough to work on my test or school project. To put things in perspective, I had the TV on yesterday showing my Xbox Live home screen....for 9 hours. I didn't flip it over to Netflix or play a game until after 10 PM when I was finally a bit on the buzzed side.

I'm sure I was a joy to listen to when calling home for Mother's Day.

We were at the dentist office just after they opened at 7 AM. I have an infection all right, but they want me to see someone who specializes in dealing with root canals. My appointment is at 3:30 PM today. Ugh.

At least I got a script for some antibiotics and pain meds. The bad part then was my pharmacist doesn't open up until 9 AM and while I know we have a 24 hr pharmacy or two in town, I have no idea where it is at. We'd probably spend just as much time driving to it and back as we would just waiting for the local pharmacy to open. Carolyn and I got to go out and eat breakfast together, which was a nice (albeit painful) treat.

It took far too long, but at least I'm safe at home in the process of being doped up. At this point I'm just waiting for the "good stuff" to kick in and hope it doesn't turn me into a zombie like it did last time. I had oxycontin last time and made sure the dentist new about my reaction, so this stuff is dialed back a notch.

If I'm lucky the drugs and the next dentist visit will do the trick and I can get back to my school work and real blog posts.

I'm No Hero

I've been called many things in my day, not all of them good.  OK, very few of them have been good, but that is just the nature of the beast.  People are slow to call you good things and pretty darned quick to call you bad things.

At the end of the last week I got called a hero for donating my bone marrow at the end of 2011.  Of course this adulation comes from the recipient, which totally makes sense.

Oh yeah....maybe I should have mentioned I'm officially in touch with my bone marrow recipient.  So, that's now a thing, a thing I'm not really handling yet.  Once we did the exchange of information through the National Marrow Donor Program I befriended her on Facebook and I've gotten a couple of emails.....

90 Minutes Volunteering

Today was kind of cool because I was given the opportunity to put in a couple volunteer hours at the Idaho Food Bank as part of a drive put together by the Human Resources Association of Treasure Valley (HRATV).  I'm a member of the HRATV even though I'm not working in the field (yet).

A couple of weeks ago the HRATV sent out an email asking for volunteers to work today.  I knew I'd be free (funny how unemployment frees up your schedule) so I spoke up.  Then I found out that it was only for a two hour shift.  Two hours didn't seem like much.....and actually ended up being closer to 90 minutes.

My New "Old" Clock

When I was growing up I spent a lot of time at my maternal grandparent's home in Dubuque, IA.  It was there my grandmother taught me to read.  Needless to say I have some pretty strong memories of that house.

In the kitchen was a small dark brown cuckoo-clock that had been there forever.

When I was stationed in Germany one of my trips was down to the Schwarzwald,or Black Forest.  My mother sent me some cash and asked that I purchase a couple of new cuckoo-clocks.  I know one was for my grandparents and I was free to pick the clock I liked the most (for the money).

When my grandmother passed away a couple of years ago, my mother made sure to save me the clock I had purchased for her and now it is finally on my wall.  The tick-tock of the pendulum swinging back and forth is oddly comforting.  This particular model has a switch to shut off the hour and half-hour cuckoos, but we haven't shut it off yet.

I still have to fine-tune the pendulum to get it to keep time accurately, but otherwise it works great.

My Story is Published on Gawker.com and I Don't Know if I Should Feel Flattered or Not

Images Courtesy of Gawker Media

It hasn't been a secret that I've been unemployed (or underemployed depending on your POV) for a while now.  I've told a few people why I quit my good-paying job with a relatively low amount of responsibility.

There were a lot of factors, but things were basically going South and I there were a lot of things that I was oblivious to, either through design or naïveté.  All I needed was one good spiritual kick to the head, a shakabuku if you will, to do a reboot to the 'ol brain-pan.

For me that kick to the head came when my boss sent me on an errand to his Palm Springs vacation house to supervise the delivery of some big-screen TVs and the installation of cable.  On the flight out my plane had to declare an emergency where we had to prep for a crash landing on the runway.  It was some pretty heavy shit and while the stewardess was screaming a mantra of bending over, heads-between-the-knees and "BRACE, BRACE, BRACE" over and over again, I kind of expected my life to flash before my eyes.  Instead I got a realization that there was something seriously fucked about my working conditions.  This realization really opened my eyes to issues I should have seen quite clearly before, but didn't.

Anyway....that was about two and a half years ago.  A little closer to current events, a couple of months ago, I sent in my tale to Gawker for possible inclusion in their "Unemployment Stories", basically tales of woe regarding being unemployed.  There are a host of reasons people become unemployed and a ton of crap regarding dealing with the problem.  I never expected my story to get used, but I was wrong.

It's weird seeing your story edited and posted up for the world to see.  Sure, I do it here on my blog regularly but it is quite different. I'm still trying to get my head around it.

Another Weird Dream Last Night

Last night I had another one of those "all-nighter" dreams where when I get to a certain point it just loops back to the beginning.  This one was odd, but not in the usual totally bizarre fashion.  Sure, it was weird, but more in a barely-plausible way.

In my dream I was around 7 years old, give or take, and a member of a Native American tribe.  My father had recently passed, which meant I was given the hereditary role of "Watcher" at an extraordinarily young age.  Don't ask me what a Watcher does, but it was important enough that I had been trained since birth to do the job.  I was also trained to use a pistol, and carried one everyday.  This was simply one of the requirements of a Watcher and I took my job seriously.

Most of the dream took place in a government school cafeteria.  I was at the center of some important inquiry because it had been discovered I was carrying my pistol while in school.  The school officials, all white government types, were trying to expel me, but the school was on tribal lands and I was simply doing my duty.  Evidently my concealed carry was discovered when I arrested a Canadian Poacher who wasn't poaching, but instead was on tribal lands.....school property....trying to force a cross-breeding between an endangered hummingbird and a close (but not endangered) hummingbird.

Most of the cafeteria brouhaha revolved around the government officials trying to supersede tribal autonomy and while the elders didn't quite like the idea of a 7 year old Watcher, or a youth carrying a pistol, they were damned if they'd let the US Government overstep their authority.  Evidently a large sticking point was that I was better trained and notably safer with my pistol than any of the Government personnel were.

I was more than happy to comply with any decision made.....after all, I was only doing my job.

Pretty weird, huh?  I want to know what does my subconscious have with Canadians?

When is enough...enough?

When is enough...enough?

I've been asking myself that quite a bit today as I fight off a massive headache caused by my self-appointed nemesis.  Over a significant portion of the last decade I have spent tens of thousands of dollars and countless man-hours helping support a game I really enjoyed and the company that produces it.

I don't know how many thousands of air miles I've flown taking at least two trips per year to attend game conventions or even just playtest materials.  Writing convention adventures and then running them because nobody else stepped up is one thing.  Paying to have this "privilege" is quite another.  I haven't done it to get a pat on the back (although that's happened), but I do it because I can.

I've enjoyed the friendships I've made over the years on the company forums and at these conventions.  We've vacationed with other forum members, attended a wedding, and come to think of many of them as good friends.

Unfortunately for me, I've been bullied by one particular forum member who has gotten away with it for a year now, mostly by claiming that he was the victim of bullying.....by me.  There has been a lot more to it, but the basic point is that these people I've come to consider my friends have allowed it to happen.  I get that there is a certain level of "put on your big-boy pants" and soldier on, but you can only hear that this is "the last time" so many times.

Things are not going to change and it is stupid for me to expect change to come from outside.  Change must come from within.

My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me

I know I've had a lot on my mind lately, with school, looking for work, Toastmasters, and a few side projects, but lately things have been taking a turn for the weird, like those monkey's in my brain gave up trying to create Shakespeare and instead have concentrated on Kafka.

Now it isn't uncommon for me to have some strange & vivid dreams during the spring and fall.  I don't know why....it just happens.  Usually I'm "me" and it is obvious that my dreams are working out things I've seen and/or done recently.  I can make for some good times if I've been watching a lot of the A-Team or playing Left 4 Dead.

Last night though.....I dreamed I was a chicken.  Not a live chicken either, but a whole fryer chicken, ready to be cooked up.  The thing is, that isn't even the strange part of the dream.  I was a Canadian chicken, part of a unit of fryers on military wargame exercises.  It was our job to infiltrate the US and spread out.  What we were to do after infiltration is anyone's guess, but we were to spend antiquated Deutsche Marks as we spread our to somehow track out infiltration progress.  Evidently this was something we could do.

This was as far as my dream got.  I just kept having this same short dream over and over until I woke up this morning.  I have no idea what it means.  If any of you are amateur dream-sleuths, please fill me in.

Unresolved Interviews

I had a couple of interviews a week and a half to two weeks ago.  In one case I was informed that I was the final interview and the other that I was the first.  In both cases the decision for the new hire or another round of interviews was to be made by the end of that week or by the next Monday "at the latest".

So basically less than a week......

....and now that another week has come and gone I'm assuming that I'm not getting either job, but it would be nice to know for sure.  While I'm not waiting by the phone and am going on with things like  continuing my online courses, it is frustrating to not be afforded some professional courtesy.

A Brief Update....

I'm excited to say that I have a couple of job interview lined up, one today and another one on Monday.

I'm also starting my final semester at CSI.  There has been some drama this semester also, but things have calmed down...or at least I think they have calmed down.  Someone at the school overlooked an important piece of information and somehow came to the conclusion that I wasn't taking enough "required" coursework.  Instead of simply admitting a mistake and correcting it they tried to look for justification how their math of 3+3=3 worked.

While I realize that this is "just" an Associate's Degree, I think it'll provide some synergy with my other Associate's Degree and help when I am able to get back into classes to start my MBA.  In the meantime if I don't get either one of these positions I should have another interview the first week of February.  That position closes tomorrow so I expect to hear about interviews next week.

I've been spending this week trying to get some things squared away at home.  My home office has been in shambles pretty much since it became my home office and I'm wanting to use it for more than a dumping place for my crap.  I hope to be able to work on school and personal projects in there instead of taking over the rest of the house.

Gun Education vs. Gun Control

In the last 24 hours I've heard what I consider some stupid ideas regarding gun control.  First an Iowa State Congressman suggests that we have a retroactive gun ban and confiscation of semi-automatic firearms.

Now we have a suggested bill in Connecticut banning firearms capable of firing more than one round.

Seriously?

I'm not saying we shouldn't have a dialogue on gun control.  Of course, for many conservatives gun control means they use both hands when firing.  That may be a bad joke, but it highlights something here: conservatives on the issue of gun control generally seem to have a bit more firearms education.