My Dad once threatened to have our whole yard (about 2.5 acres) poured in concrete and painted green. I always gave it a laugh and moved on, but now that I’m responisble for mowing that same yard, I’m begining to think my old man was on to something!

In Alabama, we’ve had a very wet spring and early summer. That makes grass grow, but more importantly that makes it impossible to mow because it’s wet all the time. So the cycle begins… the grass is tall because its wet and I can’t mow… because it’s wet, the grass is growing taller and thicker.

Add to the mix that my lawnmower has a bad habit of leaving a nice streak of grass right down the middle of each round I make, essentially meaning that I have to mow twice. Otherwise my grass looks like it was cut by a mentally challenged 3rd grader on Red Bull and snickers.

Took me 3.5 hours to mow THE FRONT YARD on saturday. No trimming. No back yard. Just. the. front.

Today I finished up, and already I need to mow the front again.

Will it ever give up?

Not until I pave the yard and paint it green.

I’m prone to let stuff get in my head. I sit around and think about the consequences of most everything I do, to the point that I lose sleep. Sometimes (like today) it’s over something worth worrying about, but most of the time I worry about things that never materialize or just aren’t that big of a deal. I obsess over all the potential gotchas, get bent out of shape about how people view my actions or statements, and generally contemplate how the day ahead will play out in light of the event I’m worried about.

Why do I care? Why, when people are telling me I did the right thing, do I sit around and continue to wonder if I picked a battle worth fighting? I know God will take care of me, and I know that life will continue on because for the most part this stuff isn’t life or death. It’s just stuff, be that material or intangible.

It’s a character flaw of mine. I’m not generally a pessimist, just a planner. Sadly, my plans almost never come to fruition, and the things I worry about turn out to be minor events in the bigger scope of things.

How do you let it go? I’m really interested if you have advice!

It is a well known fact that I get on kicks. That is to say, I get intensely interested in a subject or activity for a period of time and later that kick is replaced by something else.

One thing I’ve been in and out of for the last 8 years is Amateur Radio. I got my license a few days before Sept 11, 2001 and upgraded in 2007 to a General Class license. (Visit ARRL.org if none of that makes any sense). Before my upgrade I volunteered with EMA, did storm spotting and other local activities. Ann got her license and got involved in some of the same things, and we were in a great club which gave us plenty of opportunities to get out and enjoy the hobby.

When we moved to Little Rock, I just couldn’t find a good club to get involved with and there was no time to volunteer with an organization so my hobby fell by the wayside.

After moving back to Alabama, I started getting some interest back because I could put an antenna up and talk all over North Alabama. I know the area, so storm spotting was more viable and surely I would find a club that was a good fit.

None of that happened except putting up the antenna. I have always been interested in getting  a General or Extra license because it would allow me to talk over greater distances: across the state, the Country and even across the globe.

Since my upgrade I have talked to states from New York to Oregon, made contacts in Spain, Italy, Canada and the British V.I.

Tonight I embarked on my newest goal: The “Worked All States” award. Getting the lower 48 will be relatively easy with the exception of the smaller New England states… the real fun will be working Alaska and Hawaii. I’ve only talked to Hawaii one time and that was on ARRL Field Day in 2002 or 2003 at about 3am. Keep in mind that this was before I had my upgrade, so I was making the contact using the club’s callsign so officially  I haven’t talked to them, and I’ve never even heard an Alaska station. Ever.

So, now I have a new goal. The good news is that I can take my time and I have found a group that meets regularly for the purpose of getting people together for the Worked All States award. Now the fun will be trying to do it with only 100 watts and a 120 foot peice of wire strung up in the back yard.

Man, i’m a geek.

I’ve discussed in some detail here the frustrations that go with being in IT. It’s a good career choice, and I don’t regret going into the field. IT has good moments. There are few feelings better than coming up against a big challenge and finally seeing the system work when you’ve found the solution.

I do some side projects from time to time, mostly for people I know or one time support for someone who has been stranded without any help. I was doing some side work this week and one of the people there asked the question “So, how do you like working in IT?”

The answer that came out of my mouth was more insightful than I expected at 7:30am: “IT gets all the respect of a janitor with the skillset of an engineer”

Now, that may sound bitter or cynical, but I think it really sheds some light on why this industry has such a high rate of burn-out. I was actually interrupted while writing this post by a phone call from my job because a part of the system wasn’t working. To the end user, the solution took about 60 seconds, so the assumption tends to be that my job is easy or that what I do takes the same amount of time as taking out the trash. The truth is, the time that went into that solution is a combination of hundreds of man-hours.

From my recliner, I can log into the network at work. To do that, someone had to first build the network  and provide some way of getting there from the outside world and verifying that i’m supposed to be connected. Once I’m connected, there have to be servers in place that again verify my identity and give me access. Then I have to know where to find the problem, a knowledge base that can take years to develop, and then know how to solve the issue.

So, while what I do seems like it’s easy (and don’t get me wrong, for me it is pretty easy most of the time) it really isn’t that easy.

The burn-out comes from the fact that the recognition is low when the skills are high. I don’t think most people want a cheering squad every time they reset a password or restart a server, but cumulatively the minor miracles we IT folks perform on a daily basis that go unrecognized can make us question how appreciated we are.

I’ve seen what happens when an IT guy leaves, especially when they are the only one. There is usually a real awakening to the amount of work that goes into what we do.

So the next time you walk by your IT guy’s office and he’s sitting in the dark, illuminated only by the glow of his monitor.. don’t assume that just because he is reading the news or browsing a white paper that he’s goofing off. Grab the man a fresh Mountain Dew, maybe a candy bar and give him a “Thanks for what you do!”  It goes a long way, and the next time your computer breaks, you might just end up higher on the list or with a new flat panel monitor instead of a dingy old CRT from the stock room.

This past weekend the high school my wife graduated from held it’s 25th anniversary celebration with a prep school alumni reunion (it was a college before becoming a prep school). The weekend culminated into an awards cerimony of sorts where they honored the staff and faculty that had been a part of the school since its inception.

Speeches were made, plaques were handed out and current students provided entertainment. All in all a great event, but it got me to thinking about my own high school experience. I’m sure I’ve blogged some about how I hated school before college and how I felt like my education was basically useless, but it was nice to see a group of folks who had a different experience.

When one of the teachers who had been with the school since the beginning was given her award she recieved two standing ovations from her former students, which got me to thinking: If this were an alumni reunion at my High School, who would recieve a standing ovation? The sad thing is, I can’t think of a single person who wasn’t a coach and even then they would get one because they took us to the playoffs and not because they were a really influential part of our lives. Ann’s school has graduated about 5oo kids in the last 25 years and based on what I know there are probably about 80-85% of them who have a special place in their hearts for Saint Bernard Prep. There isn’t a school on the planet where 100% of the people like or even appreciate the influence it had on their lives, but I would say that the percentage of folks who feel that way about my High School are exactly opposite. My best guess is that maybe 15-20% of the students hold FHS in high regard over the last 25 years. Maybe back in the day when my parents were there it was the best education around but in my lifetime the quality of education has gone down, as have most public high schools.

I stood outside of the gym where they held this banquet and listened to some of the former students talking about how they really treasured what SBP had meant to them and how special that place is in their life, and honestly there was a part of me that is incredibly jealous. As their former English teacher left the building she was bombarded by people who stopped her to tell what a positive influence she had on their life. One person even chased her car through the parking lot (in high heels no less) to try to catch her before she left. This is a puzzling phenomenon to me, because I can’t think of a single teacher (even the few I liked) who I would chase down in a parking lot to thank.

When we got in the car, I told Ann just how unreal this all is and how blessed she is to have been given the opportunity to get a great education in an environment where someone actually cared about your future and not just about your next standardized test score.
Looking back, I’m sure I could have put more effort into my education and I’m sure at times I didn’t take advantage of all the opportunities available to me. Like I told Ann last night though, nobody else seemed to care so why should I?

Thankfully I’ve been able to overcome those years and through college and a lot of self education I feel like I’m pretty well rounded. There are some teachers who I admired and who I looked up to, but overall I get the sense that too many of them were just there to draw a check.

I say all of that to say this: We were never intended to have a government funded education. We were never supposed to have our experiences and knowledge shaped by a government we aren’t supposed to trust, and I believe the constitution was framed in a way that placed an inherant mistrust of the government. Sadly, because too many people take things at face value we have become a nation educated by the government, for he government. I believe that it is at the root of our problems as a nation now, because we’ve been sheperded into believing that our rights are granted by the government and not the other way around.

Give careful thought to where you send your kids for their education. Private, parochial or even home schooling is so beneficial and you can’t replace the life lessons you’ll give your children by placing them in an environment that is invested in their success. We’ll be facing that decision in a few short years and I pray that we’ll be able to give our child the same benefit Ann recieved: A quality education that makes a real and tangible impact on his life.