That is of course unless you review it first. lol. Don’t quite know how this happened…

To be honest, I’m a little disappointed. I was hoping for a WORSE rating. lol. Maybe I’m not being real enough or dealing with significant enough stuff. Who knows. Maybe once I get internet at home I can do my blogging from there and aspire to an R rating. Check out my pastor’s blog. He got an R. How funny is that?

You can rate your own blog by clicking on the image.

Yesterday marked the end of my first full week at my new job as a Solutions Engineer at my new employer in downtown Seattle. In short, I LOVE my job. I’ve mostly been occupied with tackling the gargantuan learning curve I have ahead of me but I’m already stoked about what lies ahead once I get past it. I’ll bet you’re wondering what new things in downtown software work-land comprised my week. Aren’t you? If you’re not, well, phooey on you. hahaha. Just kidding. But I’m going to tell you anyways.

My first official day of work was last Thursday, October 4th. I snagged a parking space at a pay lot that I’d found during my interviews and walked the single short block to our building, took the elevator up, and greeted the gal at the desk with a, “Good morning. My name is Blake. I’m your new Co-worker.”

Pray for Cleveland. Tragedy struck in the form of a shooting earlier today at SuccessTech Academy in Cleveland, Ohio. 5 adults are reported injured and the gunman is dead. According to the NY Times it isn’t yet clear whether the gunman was killed by police officers who stormed the building or if he committed suicide. In any case, pray for Cleveland. I’ll reflect on it more later.

Here are the articles:

New York Times

USA Today

… especially the guys.

So I’m sitting in the computer science lab at SPU right now stealing internet connectivity since I don’t have it at home while working on a project for my boss and these two freshmen just sat down at the computers next to me. One being a rather attractive looking girl and the other a somewhat geeky looking guy. From the sounds of their conversation they’re working on some sort of team project and no sooner had they sat down at their computers then the guy started doing what I remember doing at his age: doing everything he can to impress the girl in the awkward ways that we geeks do it.

How do younger geeks do this awkwardly you ask? It’s simple and hilarious to watch.

1. Quickly assert our technical prowess by mentioning the complexity of our computer passwords and the speed at which we can type.
   • “Wow, you have a short password. Mine is 16 characters long and mixes letters numbers and symbols. Nobody could ever crack it. You might want to think about making yours longer.”
   • “Maybe I should type since I can do it SO fast. My fingers are like lightening!”
2. Express inordinate frustration at simple things when they don’t do what we know they are supposed to do.
   • “Why isn’t the awesome formula giving us the right answer? I’ve done this HUNDREDS of times!”
   • “Stupid computer, do what I tell you to do!”
   • “Let me fix that. You didn’t do anything wrong, this computer is just being stupid. My computer never does this.”
3. When you click the mouse too many times out of nervousness when being around the pretty girl you say something like, “Ack! It’s like my fingers are trigger happy!”
4. Offer to show the girl a cool time-saving trick and when she does it too many times you quickly crack a joke
   • “Whoah there! Don’t get too excited. We don’t want to cut down the whole forest to print this report.”

Haha. Those are just the few that came to mind just now. Fortunately for you ladies, all of us geeks grow up and mature beyond these silly attempts at flirting and turn into Rico Suave. Who am I kidding.

It’s strange (though maybe not in this case) the way certain emotions hit you at fully random times. Like now.

Just a few moments ago I was looking all over the web for bible verses about brotherhood for an awesome tattoo the three of us are going to get sometime very soon, and I found myself strangely overcome with this sense of deep love for my brothers. Those two mean the world to me. Sure, we had our spats growing up and if it hadn’t been for “peace keeper” Aaron I’m sure Ben and I would have killed each other in our pre-teen years

const bool God = true;

bool life = true;
bool change = true;

life == change;
God != change;

If you understand that code snippet above, then you know where this post is going… Consider it a teaser until next week. Have a great weekend everyone!

I’ll write more on this later and the process behind it, but Dude! I’m fired up! After several months of pondering, praying, and waiting, I’ve finally figured out what I think I want to do with my career! Are you ready?

I want to be a software designer for a company that makes Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions. This is so perfect for me! It provides an amazing outlet for my creativity and techy design interests, as well as leverages my passion for helping build and maintain relationships. How awesome is that?? All I gotta do now is get my web-dev/flash/photoshop/interface prototyping (geek stuff) skills up to snuff. Sure, that’s the hard part while juggling another career-type job, but it’s also the fun part because now I have some direction.

Praise God!

Now, I’m definitely not going to limit myself and my career to CRM solutions, but with as much as I’ve felt drained by my current job it feels good to have at least found something to get excited about for my next career move. In the event that future co-workers read this entry, don’t worry, I wouldn’t have accepted that job (whatever it is, especially if it is something solution design oriented) unless I was really excited about it, glad to be there, and planning to stay around for a quite a long time.

Cheers!

If you had told me this was happening two years ago I would not have believed you: Insurgent fighters and militias from all over Iraq are now increasingly allying themselves with coalition forces in their war against Al Qaeda. Through their heinous actions and barbaric tactics, AQ has worn out their welcome and turned the very country that supported them for so long against themselves. Among these unlikely allies are the fighters of the 1920s Revolution Brigades who were easily among the fiercest, best organized, and lethal groups we’ve fought this war.

Michael Yon has the story (Al Qaeda on the Run: Feasting on the Moveable Beast) and even a video interview he shot in the streets of Baqubah with Abu Ali, the leader of the 1920s Revolution Brigades. (Good stuff! :-D)

This should be cause for celebration, for the sooner AQ gets ejected from the country, the sooner order will be restored and the sooner we can get out of there.

——————–
PS. Hopefully this will be one of my last war posts for a while, since I will soon be getting internet at home and won’t be limited to time at work for my blogging (yeah, yeah, I know… bad use of company time). Once that happens I’ll be able to write more about the random stuff I think about during the day that takes more than 15 minutes to write-up. Stay posted!

About two weeks ago Operation: Arrowhead Ripper was launched by American and Iraqi forces to route Al Queda militants from Baqubah, Iraq. The operation has been very successful so far as is related in Michael Yon’s latest update where he discusses the changes he has noticed in this city over the course of the past two weeks. He also offers some clarification from the Iraqi perspective regarding the massacre I discussed in an earlier post, and shares some rather adorable pictures of “camera happy” Iraqi children. It is well worth the read.

In my personal opinion, if the children are smiling there is more than just hope.

[Update: The New York Times is running another excellent article: G.I.'s Forge Sunni Tie in Bid to Squeeze Militants ]

Happy Belated Birthday, America!

Yeah, I know… I’m one day late. Though to be fair, I was out boating all day yesterday and didn’t have access to a computer to post a timely “Happy Birthday.”

Even though not all of us are happy with where our country is at today, we still have the most freedoms and liberty out of any country in the world. I challenge anyone else to tell me where you can live this freely anywhere else in the world. God bless America, the land of the free, the home of the brave.

Have a great Second-Monday everyone!

Iwo Jima Evening (c) 2006 Michael Burdett