Keith Booe

I’m kinda over the Information Technology thing right now.  Well, let me be more specific… I’m  over the aspect of IT I’m working in now, and would like to get back to my roots.  But that’s a story for another time.

IT, by necessity, is transient in nature.  Principles, once they come into existence and are used, are more permanent by nature, but the implementation of that technology is usually transient.  Products come and go, and they evolve or die.  IT people are the same way… if they (meaning their skills) don’t evolve, then they die (professionally, no literally).

However…

IT people are packrats.  We hold on to things of the past like they are lifelines to… something.  I don’t know, maybe to the fact that the things we did before mattered, that those things of the past we worked with and still have in our clutches mean that we’re “old school”, that we came from hard knocks.  That those of us who had to install DOS 6.22 and then WFW 3.11 from disk are “more” IT than the people who only have to install Ubuntu through a GUI and then fire up their Ruby on Rails environment and bust out code that is automatically flagged as good or bad… Or that don’t have to do anything because Steve Jobs does it all for you…  Regardless of the reason, something about the clinging has been bugging me…

I use eighteen gallon plastic containers to store and stack stuff in my garage.  I started changing my garage around this weekend to reclaim some room and get rid of things I no longer need.  In two of these tubs I found old IT-related garbage.  One of the bins was over half full with 3.5 FDD, including some with various versions of DOS and Windows.

Note the complete version of DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11

I’ve do doubt there is nothing on them that I will ever need again.  That anyone will ever need again.

As I got rid of them, I started to dig a little more deeply into the bins.  Token Ring books, LPT 9-25 cables, non-2.0 USB hubs, BNC network cards, 3Com Etherlink PCMCIA cards with Ethernet dongles…  seriously, is any of that ever going to be useful.  Maybe if there is an apocalypse and the world has to start over… but I have other plans if that ever happens.

So into the trash it all went.

And more followed.  By the end of the hour I had gotten rid of a bunch of stuff.  To be precise, I had gotten rid of eighteen gallons of useless junk.  And I have already started planning to get rid of a LOT more of useless junk.  It’s not a lifeline, it’s a tie-down.

And with a single deep breath, my life moved forward.  Much lighter in many different ways.

Note – Before all you enviro-whiners get all out of control and start crying, by trash I mean trash, recycle, electronics recycle or donation bin, as appropriate.  So just STFU and get on with your life already.

Today is my dad’s birthday, and I miss my dad.

No, he’s not gone.  But he lives in Kansas and I don’t get to see him much.  Most of my family lives in Kansas.  Most of my family is really the only thing I miss about Kansas.  But, especially I miss my parents, my dad.

He had a stroke a number of years ago, and after fifteen years or so it was difficult for my mom to take care of him anymore, and since they can’t afford the necessary in-home care, one year right after Father’s Day we had to put him in a care facility in the town where my parents live.  His speech has gotten progressively worse over the years and we don’t get to talk on the phone, so I miss my dad.

I recently graduated college (and there is an as yet unpublished blog post somewhere about this).  I know this fact makes my parents very happy, and proud that I went back and did it after so many years.  I know my parents will enjoy the pictures that I’m sending to them about this.

My dad is a Civil Engineer and land surveyor by trade.  He was always able to help us with our homework, and since math was always my least favorite subject, and therefore the one I did the worst in, his education and experience was especially appreciated, although I’m not sure I every fully appreciated it.

I used to travel to Kansas City a lot for business until last year.  I was usually able to combine these trips with a day or two of vacation so I could go see my parents.  I saw them more in the two years I was doing that travel than I did in the fifteen years prior to that.  It was, frankly, one of the best parts of the job.

Today, on my dad’s birthday, I am thinking about a time about two years ago when I was with my parents.  I was taking a required math class and had taken homework with me during my business trip.  It was one of those times I took an extra day and drove down to my parent’s house Friday and came back to San Diego on Sunday.  I was sitting at their table doing my math homework.  My dad was sitting next to me, just watching.

I turned to my dad and asked his thoughts about the problem I was working on.  I still had a lot homework left to do, and unlike when I was in high school, I sat and focused on it.  I spent the next couple of hours sitting at their table, doing math homework with my dad.  I know it meant as much to him as it did to me to once again be able to do that.  That time…

Happy Birthday, Dad.  I miss you.

Tattoos are quite a conversation piece.  As ridiculous as it is to do so, many people still attach stigma to them.  People love to prove how wise they are by pointing out how dumb they think you are for getting inked.  The reasons are as varied as people, from the always idiotic “your body is a temple, don’t desecrate it” to the “you’ll regret that when you’re older”.  If it wasn’t comical, I’d likely be annoyed that so many people in this world clearly know me better than I know myself.

Maybe you’ve seen this, but I find it pretty funny and it’s actually quite accurate, if you’re one of those people who doesn’t give much thought to whether you really want a tattoo, or what you should get.  (I don’t know who came up with this, so can’t credit it, but certainly don’t claim the work as my own):

Think before you ink...

With never having seen the above, I’ve followed it almost religiously.  I made one mistake on my very first tattoo, but I was a young, impetuous nineteen year old Marine, and it was one I was able to easily rectify later, without ruining the meaning of the tattoo for me.  Yep, I’m a forward thinking mofo…  It also helps that I’m not the kind of person who walks into a tattoo shop and thinks “Wow, that’s a COOL looking evil clown, I should totally get that tattooed on my face RIGHT NOW!”  Quite the contrary, I actually struggle and spend a LOT of time thinking about what I’m getting, whether I really want it, where I want it, and whether it will always hold true for me, or whether I think it’s a “temporal” image.  Of course, being temporal doesn’t mean that I won’t still get one; I just find it important for myself to truly understand why I’m doing this before I do it.  This has worked out for me so far, and I don’t regret even a tiny bit any work I’ve had done.  Including the piece that I had modified (I can’t call it “fixed”, because it wasn’t broken when I got it).

With all of this said, I am now having second thoughts about one particular piece I have.  Note I did NOT say “regrets”, I said “second thoughts”.  But that reason for that…?  Oh, the times they are a-changin’…

Many years ago I, along with a multitude of others I know, got what is called a “meat tag”… if you aren’t familiar with the term, it’s not surprising.  Most of you know what military dogtags are… a “meat tag” is simply a tattoo of that information on your body.  In >99% of cases it is done on your rib cage, most often on the left side.  That is where mine is.  It means something to me, it represents something important to me.  It’s small, can’t be seen unless I choose to expose it, and is very cleanly done.

So why would I regret it..?

Well, the format for a dogtag is like this:

Lastname, Initials

Blood Type

Social Security Number

Branch of Service    Gas Mask Size

Religious Preference

It’s that middle one above that is the kicker now.  Many years ago when I got this, it was much less of a big deal.  But now, walking around the beach with one’s SSN clearly emblazoned for all to see, especially with their name and initials right there, is probably not the smartest thing in the world to do.  And I’m realistic enough to know that I won’t be keeping my shirt every second I’m outside the walls of my home (despite all of your requests that I do so).

So my dilemma is what to do…  I’m debating back and forth between having laser removal done, or having it covered with something else.  But the covering may not be easy, either… it’s just large enough to be inconvenient, and it’s black ink, so won’t be easy to cover.  I’ve some ideas I’m working on and if they don’t work out, it may just come off.  Because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life fighting identity theft that happens through something I can easily prevent.

So, the decision process churns along… and I’ll soon take whatever action I decide.  In the meantime, though, it’s a surety that I’ll have new ink in the very near future.  Even if I don’t cover this one, I have other work that needs to be done, and I’ve got an itch that has to be scratched.

PS – Tattoos in that location flippin’ hurt, so whatever I get is going to have to be worth it.  Although lasering hurts, too, I hear…