Dueham's world

ok, I'm taking a short break whilst a billion of my language tests run to express some of the neat things I've been exposed to or have thought about lately. Heh, I even have a little yellow sticky note I scribbled a couple things down on for fear I would forget about them.

First thing I have to say is that testing as an engineering science is starting to seem way way more cool than I had ever relaly considered before. I'm sure that says something about my personality or approach and I'm equally sure I don't really want to know what exactly it says, but could benefit fro the learning:)

 

k, one practice or flaw that I have often had, and am learning I need to shake is that I'll start on a project at home, get knee deep into design or more likely just implementing code, for the sheer joy of creating on the fly in a very undisciplined manner, and then start thinking how I don't wanna rely on the CRT for stuff like math functions or string functions or templated array classes or whatever. And I start implementing something from scratch. Now what does this yield me? Nadda darn thing! Last week or so ago it was a CString class. Now, maybe something quick and easy that is some how better than using itoa, ok, I'm down with that. But to write an entire CString class, whilst in the midst of something far more menaingfull and interesting? Big mistake and huge waste of time. Same for an array class. I did some reading of a few internet message boards on the subject of STL library's in general. ANd what I read made sense and really made me think about how I approach personal projects. Here are some sumary thoughts on what I think I've learned and am now trying to live by:

1. The performance of STL derived objects is better than good enough, assuming one implements iterators per the guidelines provided.

2. Most especially with <algorithm> but in general as well, the folks that wrote these templates are likely far more smarter than me and have already expended the effort to solve the problem so that yutzes like me can easily use them. And from what I've read, 9.4 times out of 10 the properly implemented STL solution will work better than any hand rolled code to accomplish the same task and will likely take far less time to complete.

3. In the rare (or at least percieed rare) case that an algorithm or other type really does need to be tuned or written from scratch, then at you can focus on just that part that needs to be re-written, rather than re-inventing something already very well done to start with.

 

now, I have always had an aversion to using the C runtime. AS a dependancy dll, that makes sense. Version hell is no joke for users. But as a static import lib it's just not that bad, in terms of space requirements (I don't think it is) and put simply I doubt I can implement sprintf any faster than the original MS implementers did.

 

Conclusions I have sort of reached: I do work on solving some problems that already have much better solutions created. I do so for the learning experience and the fundemental knowledge that comes from implementing something from mostly the ground up.

 

I've written an ASM mouse driver and indeed a graphics lib back in the dos days. I've written many many string and array traversal bits that likely have already been implemented, namely itoa and atoi and so on. Those are common fair for interview quiestions and it's foolish in the extreme to become lax in knowing how to manipulate pointers and work with strings at a base level. This being said, it's also equally foolish to waste time rolling my own object when it has nothing to do with what I'm studying or deving at the time. ANd ends up leading me away from completing what it is that I started out on to start with. BAAADDD john!

 

ok, so testing. Well, if what comes to mind is someone sitting in front of a computer punking away at some app's UI well, maybe that's some folks but not me. TEsting turns out to be an interesting problem, if examined closely. ANd as I have more recently learned, alot of serious research is being done to figure out how to eliminate the "lowly" tester from the equation of developement alltogether. I guess having the the east asians do most of it still cuts too deeply into most companies profit margin. Anyways, universities are sponsering more and more research into the issue of testing and validating software. I personally think they are aways away from any real solutions that most would actually use, but as I look into it, well, it's getting pretty interesting. Some random observations/learnings:

1. Given an object to test, regardless what it is (researchers like to use a hypothetical coffee machine for some reason??), it's vital to clearly and precisely define and express what the objects Input space is. THere is a whole load of new (to me at least) symbols used to work with input spaces and BNF or Extended BNF is also used somtimes to express the input space/Domain/ whatever. This makes so much sense it almost seems like an axiom. Don't start testing until you know what your testing considers valid and invlid input. You'd think that is easy and done before code is even created, but it taint so. Rare is the developer who recieves a specification from which to create code based off of. What's more likely, is that he (I'm using he because the number of female dev's I've met or seen who actually develop is so minute as to be non-existant. Sad really as I'd really love to be able to meet and have more female friends who enjoyed programming and solving technical problems as much as I do. Saddly, that isn't the world currently. Maybe it'll change soon. That would be cool:) will participate in some discussions about what the app or code should do, in a general sort of way, maybe even get a email or memo sort of wish list and then from there it's up to the dev. From what I've seen, and this is just my own limited perception and is totally anecdotal, pretty much everyone and everything else is mere chaff that should really be seperated from the developer because they certainly don't seem to contribute to anything that approaches help in solving, implementing or otherwise creating a running working blob of code. Supposedly prgram managers produce spec's, but if you were to look at many spec's you'd notice that they are pretty useless if you are looking to figure out what the app or code is supposed to do. Really, it's the dev who makes those decisions, ie can it be done? If so, how long will it take? Or more likely, can he do it in x number of days/hours/ or whatever. And can it be made to look pretty. I guess there are designers who excell at that, but frankly, that sort of window dressing, outside of neatness, is fluff that slows things down more often than not. Heavons, just look at the public version of the Office beta and tell me some desginers didn't go crazy and in the process help screw up a perfectly fine and well accepted user interface!

2. ok, so Having defined an input space as formally as possible and written it down, it's important to look at how to minimize that input space. I work with text stuff. If I left the input space as exhaustive, well, it would be infinite and if I tried to test every combination I'd die an unhappy camper. So that rows in Equivalency Classes. ie one thin is more or less the same as the other, as far as the code is concerned, so just use one thing, and not both in the input space. Comming up with an algorithm to determine Equivalency classes looks to be a wildly cool and very difficult problem. Perhaps unsolveable in the general case, but for constrained cases, like all of the UNICODE code Points or function/interface/entry point parameters like Integers or BOOL's or the like, it's maybe do-able.  ANd definately worth researching and exploring more, which I fully intend to do as time and interest permit.

3. An interesting learning point. Pair wise combinatorial testing appears to be more than sufficient for finding most serious bugs. A handy thing to know if you need to do some testing.

4. Model's for testing are often hard to create, even when consrained, but one they exist, they can be invaluable for automating all or nearly all aspects of testing. Infact, it's quite do-able to create an app that automates testing and validation, from start to finish, if you dev the model first, at least such that the model can act as an oracle which accepts input (or validly regjects it) and produces the exact output expected. Playing catch and trying to model an existing system is pretty much a not do-able task, at least not do-able in an exhaustive way. Have to give that some more thought.

 

WEll, I guess I'd better get back to work.

 

ok, so I'm an SDET or Software Developer In Testing. One of my responsibilities currently is to test how my teams control behaves with the new languages when running on windows vista. I've never really done language testing before so I haven't been two certain as to how to approach the issue. Any suggestions?

I did a bit of research from arround the web. One thing to note: It's hard to find documents of any sort in traditional Mongolian. THis I thought would be important. You know?

But since testing in general is a bit of a challenge to me, this seems even more so a challenge. THere are some obvious things to look for:

ok, it seems I tend to be splitting my blogs between two places. My myspace page, and my msn spaces page. In fact, months ago I didn't realise that they were two seperate things, LOL you have no idea how much confusion that caused me. But the result was two blogs on more or less the same sort of stuff. My life, what's going on, kind of my online journal. ANd since December last year it's really been rocky at times. But, as things in my life tend to do, life is settling down and my basic interests take hold of me and I start forging ahead yet again. Part of that is persuing a closer relationship with God and make no mistake, it's important to me. But it isn't 100% of my life. I love software engineering and solving tough problems and spend alot of time doing just that. So anways I've begun to realise that I'd kind of like to keep two blogs going. One for what's up in my life and the other to chat and write out thoughts on geek stuff. So This blog is going to become the one about geek stuff, I think, and I'll use my myspace site (http://www.myspace.com/dueham, http://blog.myspace.com/dueham) to blog what's going on in my personal life. I'm sure the two will end up blending together now and then, but still, I'm going to give that a try.

I don't know if many read my blog, most especially when there are so many to choose from these days. But for my friends and the casual reader, please know you are welcome to shoot me an email now and then or comment as you see fit. Most especially if you are a geek and want to discuss an idea.

Morning internet world! Well, I'm 40 now. But relaly I'm still 18 and though the world see's me as this kooky 40 year old guy there is still very much an 18 year old inside this tired body.

 

In truth I've had trouble sleeping lately. Nightmares seem almost always my constant companion. It used to be the same nightmare over and over, waking up in a smoke filled humvee, hanging upside down and grodually reliving that horrible day. Now things are ever so much more different. Now the dreams range to other times and other events that I was as soon forget. Sometiems I can make choices and do and those aren't so bad. And sometimes I am merely aplayer in a grizzly tale I do not always remember.

My roomate Jess tells me I woke her up last night talking an wresttling in my sleep, upset because I couldn't ge all of the blood out of my humvee no matter how much I tried. I don't remember it, thank god, but still it probably explains why I seem to fight sleeping even with strong drugs to make me sleep.

 

Lately I've been a bit distracted at work, just the last couple days, but it's annoying. I write this in the hopes of banishing the concern and getting back to business.

 

My brother Luke is getting married this Saterday. and yet another brother, Doc Dale, is getting married on sunday. I'm happy for both of them and hope they will both be successfull in their marriages.

 

It's also saddening in some ways. nearly 30 men when to Iraq. Many of us married. Since coming home the majority of guys that were married are not now. Have we changed so much? Or is it simly the fear that we have changed? One of the most devout family men I have ever known lost his wife. She left him. I can't imagine why . . .

 

In other worlds my job has been very cool. The projects I work on incredibably insipiring and fascinating. My latest assignment was testing certain aspects of COM structured storage as related to rtf documents and how Richedit handled intentionaly attacked objdata blobs. it required alot of learning and some pretty intense code. i ended up writing a fairly complicated file fuzzer which I loved. Now is the hard part of my job which is to use the fuzzer, which seems to work wonderfully, to test richedit and report the results. There I don't get quite as enthused butthat is an important aspect of my job that I want to get better at.

 

Well, Internet land, I guess that's enough of an update for today. Ya'll take care,

John

So this whole divorce process involves taking. She tries to hold on to what she thinks is hers. She also seems to be obsessed with taking what is mine. She's lied, cheated. Certainly wrong, regardless of whether you believe me or not, it's wrong to do those things.

 

But when all is said and done, when at last we let out our final breath, what do we have to take with us? Our pride? Our memories? Maybe those and our consience. Did we cheat? Did we lie and steal? Do we do what we knew to be wrong? We all have to one extent or another. I believe this. I know I have done things that I think are wrong. But I have done and tried to do things that I think are right. It has nothing to do with the "law". It has nothing to do with any other person than me, really. Because I know, when I die, when at last I get to rest, I am the one that must judge me. Right now I believe this with the full force of my being. Maybe God, in providing us with his word in the form of the Bible was in fact simply trying to give us some healthy clues on how to go about this. The Bible certainly tells of killing, of sex, even incest, of stealing, lies, of all things that a person could conceievably do. They haven't changed. Many of the people who did these things, including bad things, were forgiven, even chosen amungst God's children. So maybe we are really in charge of judging ourselves.

 

If this is so, then I have done a fair job thus far and of course have more work to do. I have lived. Done great things. Done bad and terrible things. I have experienced and felt the world and will continue to do so. I feel like I am often awake. Which is more than I can say for most I see. It's a rare day I have taken something that is not mine. I avoid lieing as much as possible and continue to pursue living a true and good life.

 

I have fucked up a time or two, but it seems to me that I have also done what I could to make up for it, been open to acknowldging that I fucked up and tried to make amends where possible. Who can do more? As Jesus said, let the one who has not sinned throw the first stone. Even Jesus did not pick up a rock. And whether that particular tale is true of a simple fiction, it makes such real sense to me. We can't help but make judgements of others. Our thoughts are ours. But what we do with our selves, our actions, they matter a great deal. That is how others know us. Whether they chose to acknowledge that, or us, is not a concern, not in a person's control. But we can do our best to control and direct ourselves and our actions. This is responsibility and maybe when we die it is something that might be important to each of us. I hope so or I have been wasting alot of my time, but I think it is and will be important.

I do not live for the day I will die. I'm not in a hurry most days. But it will come. I don't mind that. having been so close to it, I feel I can face it without too much fear.

I've often beat myself up, being haunted by my experiences in war. And yet i do believe in the cause, as I saw and still see it. That is what matter's. Was I doing what I was supposed to be doing? Did I give it my all?

I did. I threw myself at being a soldier with a will. I think I did a good job. I doubt I was the best scout in the platoon. But I WAS a scout. Fully accepted by my brothers. That cannot be taken away from me. Ever. I do wish that I had done somethings differently. But in the end, when things are happening so fast, somethings don't happen the way you'd later have liked. Reliving it, having doubts about then, maybe that is simply a healthy conscience that someday will help me or us to do better than the last time.

 

ok, I left off talking about the punishment my father tended to give out. Almost always physical, and always anger involved. I'm thinking about that. I guess that is why, in some ways I have always had a hard time with anger. Because if someone else was angry, to me maybe it meant I was in for a beating. Does taht word sound harsh? What do you call it when a guy takes a leather belt, makes you take down your pants, then bend over and then he hit's you hard with the leather belt whilst yelling at the top of his lungs at you? Hit really doesn't touch on the meaning of what my father did to me. Is it ok because it happened at a time when people thought that was ok? Or was it wrong and I'm just fucked because it happened to me and though it was wrong, there will never be any sort of compensation, or validation to that young boy that it was wrong?

His mother, my grandmother, seemed to think this was just fine. Likewise, my fathers brothers thought it was just fine too. I had never been exposed to people who didn't think it was ok.

My father did not give me money. never, really. I remember talking with other kids in school who thought that was odd. My father was an electronics technician and later an entry level electronics engineer, though non-degreed. So while not a rich man, I would gauge his earning potential at near my own or there about's at the time. And yet, clothes for his children, material possessions, became less and less a priority for him as we grew older. Or at least myself. My sisters often hounded him for clothes and he often would give them moeny for clothes, but I was a young man, or confused boy or idiot, depending on his mood and never found worthy of material things by and large. I think he felt I should be buying my own things, for the most part. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so to sumarize, my father was very much into anger and punishment, most especially towards me. i guess the girls he felt less able to hit without guilt when they were older.

Anyways, so renee and I were close, then later drifted appart and still later became bitter enemies. Before this, my mother started sittingus down and talking to us about not being able to put up with my father. Honestly, I don't remember much about these conversations, but I do remember them alittle, and what I most remember was one of the last ones where she said, ok, where do you want to go. I remember telling her ohio or idaho, and was thinking she actually listed to me, lol. I thought she would seriously take us there and I didn't know anything about those places but the words sounded very cool to me.

Where we ended up going was viselia california. We had been living in corona california, in a house my father had managed to buy, it was the last place he was able to qualify for a loan for for many many years. My mother packed all of us children up in suit cases and got us to a bus and we bused it to her sisters house for a summer. I remember yeras later my father telling me he had thought something was really wrong that day and had bought flowers for my mother and had come home to an empty house. I remember he seemed sad even in the telling of it years later. In my opnion it was an unfair blow to him. What right did she really have in a moral sense to take us to this new place, with no source of income, no place to go but her sisters house? We stayed there for most of the summer. I had never met her side of the family. I met my cousin Shelly, whome I liked and thought was cool. She had a very oung son as well with some cowboy redneck sort of name but I forget what it was. i remember he used to run arround with his cowboy hat on and his cowboy gun and slam it into peoples faces and say bang bang. he couldn't have been but three or four so didn't know any better, I guess.I think Shelly went on to be a model or something, got married, divorced and I have no idea what else. My mother told me some strainge stories abou twhat they tried to get her to do, but that was like 20 years later and coming from my mother it seems pretty unlikely to be true. i'll talk about that later.

So anyways, viselia, where my mother had lived as a child. She had never talked much abou ther family, just vague mentionings of how cruel they were to her, though in retrospect that changed when she took us to my aunt donnie's house that summer. Aunt Donnie, my mothers sister, seemed like a very nice woman. She was married to a guy named jared who drove semi trucks for a living and hauled mostly cattle from one place to another. I remember he took me on an al day cattle run, which I really enjoyed. It was fun and amazing to see how they herded the cattle on to the truck with cattle prods and to ride in the big rig. Donnie had a simming pool and this was what we did almost all of teh time, swim and play. In looking back it was alot of fun. That ended though. I don't really know why my mother moved us back with my father. I think at one point she said something about Aunt Donnie being mean to her or something but I can't really say i know the reason why. But we moved back in with my father. He wasn't happy to see us, it seemed to me, and certainly didn't seem hapy for the time that we lived with him. It happened again. My mother started the secret little meetings again. Again, when it was my turn I told her we should go to idaho or ohio, but this time I wasn't so sure. This time when we left, again by bus, we went to oregan to stay with my aunt Dannel or something like that. I remember it was in seaside oregan, I remember that they had this big sort of carnival thing that we went to and I wanted very baddly to try some of the games and such but my mother said we didn't have any money. I remember taht we spent allot of time at the welfare office and my mother briefly got us into an appartment and registered us for school there, but it only lasted like a week or two and then we headed back to LosAngeles to live with my father for awhile.

We moved to this house in LaHabra, california which is kind of in the heart of Los Angeles. A neighborhood with lots of biker gang houses, lots and lots of hispanic homes, and so forth. There we lived for maybe a year or so. During that time, my mother got pregnant with my little sister, who they named heather. Not long after that, my mother and Father got divorced.

Initially, all of the children were to live with her. She found a place, maybe two blocks from the house we had lived in priviously. It was a duplex, a small place right next to some railroad tracks. My father moved to an appartment in fullerton, california. Living with my mother quite frankly sucked. Where is the upside of this? There isn't one. I was male. I think in my mothers view this was an unforgivable sin. She had extreme difficulty coping with having an infant to take care of. Renee was now a pre-teen, in puberty. Guess who got stuck with diaper duty, watch heather pretty much all of the time? yep, you guessed it. Me. heather hated me and honestly I hated her. She didn't like having her diaper changed, and I didn't like changing it. My mother, for quite a while, didn't want to cook, nor do much of anything. I think she lived on well fare. She did remain somewhat involed in the morman church and so was on their welfare system as well. They give you clothes for your children and food and such. The clothes for the boys will cover you so you aren't naked, bu tas I discovered are garanteed to make you stick out like a sore thumb at school.

I wasn't doing well at school. Later in my adult life I was diagnosed with ADDHD. Not like crippling or anything, but enough to cause me problems. Still, in school, life was hard. i felt like an outcast and this only got worse as things at home got worse.

My mother, I remember, did alot of sitting arround, telling me what to do, fetch her this, go do that, and eventually she decided I just didn't fit in her notion of a home. She sent me to live with my father who I think wasn't exactly thrilled to have me either.

Writing about this is feeling painful. I was a bright young man. Kind, sincere. Creative and intelligent. I deserved to have good parents that cared about me. But that's not what happened. I was tosssed from place to place. My father wasn't overly interested in my schoolastic progress and so by and large I made no progress. Going from grade to grade in the public school system mostly because he moved so much that they couldn't keep a current set of records on me and thus put me in the grade classes my age indicated I should be in. I had no social abilty at all. I should have been one of those kids who did really well at school, but actually didn't do very well at all. In fact I never raduated from high school. That fact never really concerned my father. Not long after the divorce, he began to drink heavily. It turned into full blown alcholism. he lost jobs as fast as he got them. He decided to go to oklahoma with me. I guess to go back to his roots. What this really meant was sticking me with my aunt neen (I have never known her real name) while he moved to Tulsa, rented a room there and found work as an electronics engineer. He would come to visit once every other weekend and that lasted for most of the summer. My aunt neen was not exactly thrilled to have an 11 year old living in her house. I spent alot of time outside with not very much to do and no one to do it with because she lived in a nieghbor hood of retired oklahoma retired people. her husband, I think his name was ken drove a truck for a living and was gone the whole time i was there. After summer was over, my father had a falling out with My aunt neen (I guess she was really my great aunt, because she was my grandmothers sister) but anyways, my father found a small appartment in Shawnee, Oklahoma and here we lived for about eight months.

I started school again in Shawnee oklahoma. I think 6th or 7th grade, no sure which. Anyways, I reember when school started it was warm, but that chagned. It got very cold. My father bought himself a new coat and gloves and gave me his old coat as I didn't have one. No gloves though. It was about a 3 maybe 4 mile walk to school. Every day. Lunch was kind of a not happening thing. The duplex we lived in had one bed room a living room and a small kitchenett. One bed. Both my father and I slept in it. he left for work at 5 or so in the morning. And didn't come home until 10 or 11 at night, there were some nights were he didn't come home at all. I never knew for sure as we didn't have a phone. During the day I would get very very cold. The rule at school was that during recess you had to stay outside. This was torture, to be honest. I had no gloves and the cold stung my hands very much. I remember how angry and outraged I would feel walking to school and seeing the other children with gloves and hearing my Dad tell me how he had to drive to work and so he needed a pair of gloves and I didn't.

You know, it seems to me that so many unfair things have happened to me in my life. i'm not talking about getting blown up. That was war and that's what happens in war. I'm talking about when I was a child. I'm talking about the women I have ended up marrying.

I remember back in the early 90's the buz was that women were neccessary for child rearing and men were not. That fathers were essentially just sperm doners and not much else. Where was my mother? She didn't want anything to do with me. She wasn't interested in her son. Just her precious daughters. I guess she was trying to live vicariously through them.

Anyways, My father eventually met a woman in Glennpool oklahoma named margret. Margrett was a full blood cherokee woman, I think, who smalled malburow reds like a chiminey, had had a hyserectomy, small tits, and apparently loved my dad. Dad, seemed to love herbecause she was native and I think he felt somehow like that was cool and like at last he'd found a "real" woman. The real woman worked at the same place my dad worked at, doing what machine now do, ie hand soldiering printed circuit boards togother for a company called loran electronics. Yes, the one that makes fish finders. This was back in the day.

So again, while they both went to Tulsa to work I went from home to school and home again. Now, Margret lived on native housing. I don't think it was truely a reservation, but was indeed filled with native americans. They don't take very kindly to white kids in their neighborhood. Again, no friends, no one I could safely play with and truthfully, no one in that environment appreciats a kid that talks about suspended animation, rocket ships, and stuff like that. They think people like that are wierd or unrealistic. They think that you should be "grounded" in reality, ie prepare to get a job at the local farm or whatever, marry some woman, raise kids and that is the good life, along with a car to boot.

During this time my father and Margrett did a fair amount of drinking and I got to stay in the bedroom next to theirs. Often in the morning I would find margret's cigeretts on the edge of the bed. She'd leave lit cigeretts on the edge of the bed and it would leave little burn spots on the bedblanket. I don't know if she was just drunk and forgot it. I don't know if she meant leave them there or ifmaybe she wanted me to die, by being burned alive in the bed. But I do know she didn't like me at all and often told  me so. I had a small black and white tv set in the room and I slowly started skipping school, because hey, whose there to stop me? I watched tv. This is pretty much all I did for about 6 months. Day in day out I didn't want to go anywhere, which is good because there was no where to go, I felt. My dad, got my report card and I guess a visit from the local principle who wanted to know why I wasn't coming to school. This yielded me a pretty sever beating and got the black and white TV set taken away from me. I guess losing the TV set was good. Although I didn't bother with homework, which is what I should have been bothering with. Instead I started going on long walks after school. I didn't dare miss a class after my father finnished with me. margrett swore she'd kill me if I did it again and frankly I believed her.

You know, as I describe this it seems horrible. It's all here, in my memory, yet I don't think abou tit all the time. But it's horrible. One question i ask is simply, why didn't I tell anyone? Who does a child tell? Who would I have told? There was a kid that waited for me at the bus stop and would routinely haraass and kick the shit out of me. I think i could have beaten him but honestly he scared me. the other kids say he was in the habit of shooting kids with his air riffle out in the pastures close by where we lived. I remember telling my father abou tthis. First he told me I needed tofight back and not be afriad. I came home with a bloody nose and dark circles under my eyes from getting the shit kicked out of me. The kids had me scared to death. My parents called the local sherif who decided to wait for me by the bus stop. Sure enough my arch nemesis showed up and promptly told the sherif who was some how related to him that I had called him stupid. The Sherif told me and later my father that I should be name calling if I didn't want my ass kicked. After that however, the kid let me alone, I don't know why. I remember feeling horribel because the sherif believed that other kid and not me. And this is why I never told anyone really through out my childhood what was going on in my life. i drifted from school to school, a stranger, quietly failing each class, but getting moved along. Sometimes I did better than others but I doubt I seriously passed any course or grade. Who would believe me? In my opinion then and now, no one. Does that sound like I'm feeling sorry for myself? maybe but it's true none the less.

hell, look at what just happened this last december. I saw the police reports. The cop didn't write down everything I said. And wrote everything that Rebecca said as if it were gospal. I told the utter and strait forward truth. he even quoted me, "if it's wrong to defend myself then I'm wrong". I didn't ever deny hitting michael though there was no physical evidence that I had hit him. I was the one injured in the fight. The only person hurt. And disabled to boot. At the time I couldn't even walk without extreme pain. And you know what happened? They through my ass in jail and and are currently trying to get a domestic violence conviction against me. I told the truth and it didn't matter not the least to those who it should ahve mattered most to. So who is going to listen to me? Who is even listening now? No one. i write to get the horrible feelings i have out of me but I have no illusion of anyone actually being interested in what has happened to me. Like putting a message in a bottle. In reality, when people do that, there is maybe a faint glimmer of hope but they know in their heart as I know taht no one is really listening, and no one honestly cares that much about it.

 

How to cope with it? I wrestle with this often. Sometimes more than others. What should I do to deal with this unfairness. With the knwoledge that my childhood was fucked from the get go and there is never going to be any payback. No way to go back to the beginning and get what most children get right now.

Shall I live my childhood throug hmy son? I'm not able to see him without a bitch hounding me for more and still more money. And all the while he wants to do nothing but play video games and watch tv. I tried to study with him but he doesn't want to and he has an easy out. Simply stay home and be with mommy. She doesn't seem to mind he's failing, why should he care. Hell, I didn't care when I was in school, what difference doesit make to him. I told him the truth. 18 comes fast and his mother isn't going to want him at home when he's 18. If he doesn't learn to do well in school now it will only be harder. I told him nicely, sincerely and without anger. It made no difference. He doesn't care. And though I feel like a shit, I don't want any partof that because it feels like a losing battle I cannot win. I pay my child support, will visit with when he wants, but I wont argue with his mother. I've talked aobu thow I feel about her.

 

My head is killing me today. A migrain I guess. I should sleep but can't. Is the past haunting me, compelling me to do something anything to express it.

 

My step mother, louis, whome I haven't really talked about yet, she was wife 5 and didn't hit the scene till I was fifteen, used to say, not unkindly, life is a bitch and then you die. This was my expectation for life. There was no illusion of someone paying for my college and helping me to get a start in life. Towards the end of my time living with my father, he repeatedly told me how he wanted me out, to get any job and get the fuck out. As early as fifteen years old.

I left home when I was 17. My 18th birthday was prequal day in the marine corps. I didn't think I would live through boot camp and I think at some level I honestly didn't care. I just wanted out.

 

I came home fromthe marine corps and moved in with a semi-girlfriend named Debbie. I had intended to go to college to be come a scientist. I had no idea what that meant before I started really. I started at Riverside junier college with one course. Living with Debbie was hard and fairly short lived. I was used to marine corps life. I had created a savings account and had put most of my pay in it for most of two years. I bought an apple computer, while on leave, but then left it with her while I went back for my last six months. Prior to leaving my money with Debbie, I had shared an account with my all time best friend Roy. He used some of the money to go to college. I don't really know how much and considering what happened between us years later, I guess I don't really fault him.

I guess trusting someone with my money is one of the ways I express love. here is my security, see I trust you with what makes me feel secure. That has always been a huge mistake. Always and without fail.

it's probably not all women, I believe that, but the women I have chosen have consistantly used the money I earn for frivality and their own personal benefit and have always rsented not being able to get more of what I earn, regardless how much that might be.

I guess I bring some of that on myself though. I can't see how a woman would want to be with me for the simple pleasure of wanting to be with me. So I buy them things. Spend money  on them. Often I end up being teh night in shinning armor. And then they get to know me and all of the sudden I'm not so cool anymore. Is it me? Here I have to say I'm not sure. Maybe so. maybe i change. Whichever the case, although the women I have married ahve problems, no doubt about that, so do I. I've pretty continuously pciked losers of one kind or another and told myself that the fact taht they fucked me, or had some qualities I liked made them a good match. But when the puppy love wore off I realised they were clinging to me for my money, or for attention that no one else would give them. So waht was I doing? Clinging for attention I could buy, sex that I could buy. So that's my bad. And though it sucks I need to fix that and no one can fix it for me. I get lonely and think I need someone to be near me, but what good does it do? When I'm fucked in the head like this? When the women I choose to be with I choose because I know they need something I can give. But then I expect them to let me live happily and come and go as I please and they don't like that. they want a relationship and I realise and eventually so do they that I haveno interest in them, there is very little or no basis for a relationship. Rebecca, though a nice person in her own way, was an intelectual turnip compared to me. I don't state this like as if I'm the smartest guy in the world. it's just a fact. Her political notions are as nieve as her understanding of computer science. My interests are way way beyond her capabilities. I watched her struggle with courses that were so trivial and simple to do. Business courses, I'm sorry, there just is no meat to them. memorize and regurgitate. If you find that difficult, well, good luck your not going to do anything interesting in the world of engineering.

What does that say about me? I hate that for most of the time I knew Rebecca I would praise her for qualities I knew she didn't possess. Why did I do that? I wanted her to believe that I thought highly of her and I guess I believed if she thought I believed in her that she would do better than if I told her the truth.

My intial first impression of Rebecca was straitforward. I told her I tought she was looking for a paycheck. I was right and I hate that I convinced myself that she wasn't. Regardless the gibberish coming out of her I knew what the truth was, saw through her self illusions and knew that neccessity governed what she was saying more than any real emotion for me. She needed someone to support her and her children. I thought if I did that she would love me, let me be me and life would be happy. But she needed more. She wanted to share her life with her man and her life was pathetic to me in the extreme. She wanted to go out on dates but I hated that. We would go out and I would have to prented to be interested in what she was saying. Often it wasjust that. I wished that she would just shut the fuck up and be quiet.

In reading that it makes me think I'm just as much an asshole as she is. Given that, why should I be stressed at all over finding a woman? Why, to do that all over again? what a fucked up cycle. I'm lonely and there's no denying that, but I have no idea how to love. I wasn't raised to love. never saw love in action as a child. And now, coming out of a war am even less able to expereince such feelings than I was before. How could I possibly hope to even begin to experience love?

When I look at things clearly, as I feel now I am right now, I realise that it's stupid to even consider it and I don't really feel sad about it. It's just a reality I need to deal with. There is no woman that I could have a real relationship with. Becuse maybe to me a relationship is I provide and they take advantage of me and until I change that expectation, or that mmm whatever it is, there is no way I'll have a successfull relationship.

 

In some way, I should be able to feel content by myself anyways. I really have alot going on. Goals I really want to accomplish.

I guess I should go get some lunch. I'm supposed to be eating regularly and I haven't really been doing that.

 

Sleep is wierd for me. It comes and goes. I went to sleep arround 10:30 or somewhere but it takes me quite a while to actually get to sleep. Then I woke up at 2:am, then the at 5:30 am or so. I just got up and started banging on more homework. I feel tired and achey all over. But if I lay back down I'll just lay there like a dumbass, unable to sleep. Ah well.

 

So, looking back you might wonder a bit about who I am. LOL, I guess I do too, sometimes. ok, well my father's name is Jim and my mother's name was Sandra.

 

My father's father died when my Dad was 11 or so. he was a farmer in Oklahoma. He never spoke of it much, but I think in many ways it was a defining moment in his life. I can't help but think it affected him alot. Made him much more hesitant and cautious, even paranoid in a mild sort of way, the most owuld consider normal. My Dad was interested in rocketry and electronics. I don't know much about his teenage years save that he had a habit of launching home made rockets from the back yard, which would often catch his step father and mother by suprize. He also liked to make balsa wood U-control aircraft and fly them. Can't blame him there, I enjoy that as a hobby as well.

My dad joined the airforce at some point and was sent to turkey. he repaired avionics gear on aircraft, though I don't know what type. When he came back, I guess he was heavily involved in the Mormon church and the local bishop thought it would be a great idea for my Dad to marry this crippled gal named Sandra, my mother.

 

I don't know very much of my mother's family. I thik they are a wierd bunch but honestly I don't know. My mother was hit by a car when she was 3 years old. It left her crippled along her left side and did some brain damage, I think. While not impaired at a learning level, I think she has suffered from personality disorders her entire life, had several mental breakdowns, seizures (grand mal type I think), and she told us her family was incredibly cruel to her. I say it that way because I have learned that often what people say and what actually happened are often two entirely different things. Certainly I never saw her family treat her poorly, and the few sisters of her's that I have met seemed nice enough in thier own way, but I really don't know. I can't really think of anything that distinguishes my mother per se. When I was growing up, she cooked, cleaned, fawned over my sister and later my younger sister. Had many and multiple arguements with my father. I remember those as being very painfull to here and I really don't know why. They weren't yelling at me and often didn't have much to do with me at all, outside of insisting I stay out of the way, etc. My mother did eventually learn to take short hand dictation. For those of you who don't know what short hand is, well, I guess the best way to describe it is that back in the cave man days when men were men and women were something different from what they are today, there weren't hand held recorders and such. So a professional that wanted to be able to dictate something, rather than typing it themselves, would hire a girl who could write and read short hand. A truncated way of writing that allowed the girl to write and keep up, easily, with the person dictating. Back when General Assistants were called secrataries. So anyways, my mother could take short hand, had taught herself how to type fairly quickly, and so forth. Not bad, really, given her handicaps, they used to call them handy cap's and now usually call them disabilities. If that word makes you feel better, go for it.

Jim and Sandra never ever got along all that well. They both later blaim their marriage on a Morman bishop's bad judgement, though I personally think the choice to get married was there's and thus their responsibility, but that's me her and now, and I'm not in their shoes.I don't think my Dad was ever prone to hitting my mother, but they would constantly argue and yell and scream at each other. I think, but don't know, that my mother was never satisfied with the amount of attention my father gave her and I think she was somewhat jealus of his physical mobility and desire to do things physical. I think at one point he used to play basket ball in a church league, and liked to ride a 10 speed bicycle. Back when that was kind of the state of the art for the common fellow.

I remember we moved arround an awefull lot and were never in one place very long. They would buy a house, then sell it and move on and eventually my father's credit scores became bad, much harder to do in those days, and then they were limited to renting. I really don't know why they moved arround so much. I tried to count how many schools I remembered going to from kindergarden through highschool. 22 was the number I cam up with. My father never thought much of public education, but never put me or any of my brothers and sisters into a private school. I personally think that my mother was actually the one responsible for us moving all the time. That's just my opinion, I don't know, but she never seemed happy with any given place.

Anyone who says that women in that day didn't have much to say about where they lived etc is, in my opinion, a bald faced fucking liar. If my mother didn't happen to like something, she would make everyone arround her absolutely miserable and feel guilty as though they'd gone out and shot somebody for no reason. She was and to my knowledge is an expert at guilt manipulation. Maybe that was one of her survival coping mechanisms, how she learned to live. Like she felt that since she needed people to help her, she'd best create or discribe things so taht she was always a victim and thus needed help and if you didn't give her the help she wanted then you must be a cruel person. It's much worse that that, but I'm not really able to describe it any better than that.

So I was born in july of 1969. About a year later, my sister Renee was born. Renee and I, when we were younger, were the best of friends. It makes sense, really, because when we were younger, we were about the only thing constant in our world. We never stayed very long in one place and so never had much chance at forming external relationships or friends. I remember my sister as someone I could share my ideas with and play with and pal arround with. We did almost everything together.

I didn't understand it then, but along abou tthe time she turned 10, maybe 11 or so, and I turned maybe 12 things changed between us. Renee seemed to become my worst enemy. I had never eally thought of why until writing this but it was most probably puberty. LOl, I think that must ahve been it. Renee became distant and wasn't interested in playing with me like we used to. And I suppose I changed as well and became more distant from her at some point, and treated her less and less like my friend. I know my sister now to be a good and decent person. Someone I miss and wish I knew better.

When I turned 10 my mother decided it would be a really good idea to leave my father. She had several sort of secret talks with us about where we should go. I don't remember her ever telling us that we shouldn't tell me father about these talks, but I do remember feeling like I shouldn't tell him. Talking to him became extremely hard. he always seemed angry with us. With me. I remember once he was working on something in the garage, which he did often, and I wanted to help. I kept asking him to let me help. I remmember at one point he just seemed to snap and through a nail at me and it hit me hard in the shouldure. It left a huge red welt. I remmember yelling at him "that hit me" and he yelled back, "good". I screamed that I hated him and that got him to pull of his belt and wail on me a bit with it.

I should pause a moment to talk about the kind of punishment my father tended to give out. When Renee and I were very little, 5, 6, 7 we were like most kids that age. At bed time were were like little rollee pollee munchkins all giggles and such. Bed time was quite early, genreally arround 6:pm as I recall. Maybe a bit later, but it was definately early. We would troop off to our bed room, we shared a bed room until we were pre-teens, and would then, as soon as mom and Dad  left us to go watch the family TV, comence to gigle and play eiterh in our beds or even dare to creep out of our beds and play with our toys. This angered my father terribly. He would come storming in, usually during the comercial, Jim simply wasn't there when his program was on, and yell and scream, and eventually take off his belt and comence to dealing out whooping with it. We would often hide under the bed and I remember him getting so angry swinging the belt blindly under the bed to try and hit us with it. I remember our mom saying, "Jimmy!" in that worried voice, bu this was then, not now. Today, doing this would get you locked up with no questions asked, and I doubt, given the circumstances I described, that what state your in would have any bearing on the matter. That kind of vioence towards young children is wrong and it is now punnished quickly. But then, it was just a father disciplining his children. Spare the rod and spoil the child. I can't tell you how many times I was beaten with his belt, my mother's favorite cooking spoon, any blunt object in easy grasping range, restricted to the house, or my room for the entire weekend, etc.

Ok, I have a doctors appointment. This story hasn't even really begun so at some point I want to continue it. It feels strange describing, as accurately as I can, where I came from, who raised me, and the events I remember. In some way I'm seeing them through my adult eyes and I guess normally i see them through a different pair of eyes. As if it wasn't horrible at all. But I think I'm not such a great guy for hitting a kid who hit me hard in the face, damaging my eye, whilst I did no damage to him. I feel I might have been too hard on him in insisting he not play his game cube for a day or so for refusing to take out the fucking trash. So somewhere, somebody was wrong. Somehow, i'm thinking my childhood was terrible. Not oh, feel sorry for me, I'm talking more to me. Fortunately I'm not even remotely the same man as my father. ok, gotta go, I'll write more later.

 

Good afternoon, internet land. Well, the last couple of days have been pretty good in alot of ways. I have begun to think that one of the things I need to do is to Re-invent who I am. I have changed. The war, this divorce, all of the many things that have happened have caused changes in me. I'm not totally certain what those changes are, but it seems to me that I need to respond to those changes, to acknowledge them somehow. This, I think, will help me to seperate the here and now from the then and there.

So what does that mean in real world terms?

Well, though i probably can't afford it, I went to Sports Authority and bought myself what I felt were some slick gym clothes. I've seen quite a few women at the gym wearing these gym pants that were like just strait legged sort of breathable, loose fitting pants. They looked Uni-sex and so I found a brand that sold these for men. I bought two pair and I like the way they look. And they allow very nice free movement when I'm working out.

 

Also, I bought myself a new black iPod (30gig) with all of the trimmings. I've become addicted to iTunes. It's that simple. I have seen many people at the gym with their iPod or similar mp3 player and I thought, why not me?I bought an arm band and belt clip so that I can work out comfortably and listen to my music. This, in the past has been an issue. Infact what I would often do is guy an inexpensive tape player and it would be broke in 2 to 3 months. It doesn't look like this iPod will have that problem and I'll probably want to upgrade to a new one in a year anyways. That seems to be the trend.

 

The money it cost to buy these things has left me incredibly broke and likely eating top ramon for the next few weeks, but I'm ok with that. I intend to spend alot more of my free time at the pro-club instead of moping at the appartment doing nothing much.

 

oh yeah, I also bought myself a new desk and chair. My room, aka my world when not at work, may not be big enough to accomidate my zero grav coch when I get it back, supposedly on the 4th. So i bought a reasonably comfortable office chair that fits nicely in my room. This was a problem for me, I simply couldn't function comfortably and either couldn't study or would fall asleep trying to study. Hopefully having a proper desk and chair will correct that problem.

 

So as part of re-inventing me, I've gotten myself setup to happily be a geek and a gym rat. For the next couple of months that seems more than fine. We'll see what else comes along. Certainly I'm feeling hopefull and somewhat content for now.

I really look forward to getting my digital camera back. I want to be able to add more pictures to this site. In fact, when I get it, I plan on taking weekend trips to various places, being a shutter bug and writting about what I've photgraphed, what thoughts it brings to mind, and just neat pictures, be they in the city, out in the mountains, where ever. Not like true digital photgraphy or anything, just enjoying being able to take pictures and post them and not having it cost me anything to do it.

heh, I guess another part of the new me is enjoying writting in this blog as opposed to writing in my paper journal. I guess because even though it's likely no one reads this, it still has the possibility of being read by someone else. Why does that appeal to me? I'm not sure. Maybe because I want to be heard, to be understood.

I don't know if your out there beautiful dream girl. A woman whom I have never met, but maybe will some day. Your hair is maybe pale, as is your skin. Your face beautifull and without make up and such non-sense. Or perhaps your hair is raven black and your skin olive or tan tones. Maybe you'll read my blog and not feel sorry but somehow feel a kindred feeling and think, this is someone I would like to get to know better. Now that would be cool, but hopefully you wont for a couple months longer though I hate saying that. But the time is not right yet. When it is, well then I'm going to begin looking, I think, rather seriously. But I guess I need to wait a bit longer and be done with this divorce and to ensure that I have most of the anguish and upset dealt with and expereinced and have emotionally moved on.

That's hard to do, hard to say. Like making the concious choice to sail through a storm rather than turn arround and go back where I came from. But there is why I must. Because I don't want to go back where I came from. I did that in the past and what did it get me? More of the same. I need to change and grow from this or I'll end up just making the same mistakes over and over again, I think. Besides, i'm too tired to be stuffing all the anger inside of myself. It always ends up coming out or breeding resentment where none need be. So this time I've been allowing myself to feel what's going on as best i can. It hurts.

I end up feeling powerless to affect things, but really I'm not. I still have options, still have choices to make. And making the right choices is indeed important to do. And i want to do that.

Alright, interent land, time for me to get back to work.  Have a great afternoon.