Random Thinking

I've just come to the conclusion, at 12:48 this morning, that I don't write here much anymore because I really don't care enough to do so.  I am not that passionate about anything anymore to the point that I feel I should write about it.

Apparently I'm passionate enough about not being passionate, though.  I've just told you in a couple of sentences that I don't care about anything enough to write a public discussion.  And look - you're already growing bored of this post.  The fact is that I have had this blog here at benrehberg.com for over six years now and I have only posted 520 times.  I've nearly tweeted that much in 18 months.  And speaking of Twitter, I think I'm getting off of that train.  Facebook too.  Down with friends who only know me again through a social experiment and marketing shithole.  And fuck Mark Zuckerberg.

And lately, fuck Google too, and their sleazy one-night-stand Verizon.  I'm beginning to dislike those companies simply because they profit too much on the personal interactions of individuals.  It's a sickness that wears one out from the outside in.  First it was search results which were innocent enough. It has come all the way to "push" advertising, where Google will know that since I like pizza and I am near a pizza restaurant, my phone will buzz to tell me the specials there (near future).

No thanks.  I'm quitting Facebook, and I am seriously considering not continuing with Google and Android.  I do not live where that plethora of information is usable, and I am becoming increasingly afraid that we will become too dependent on this availability of data and personalization.  Like GPS has done for travelers - we no longer have maps or ask for directions.

I realize that I am rambling.  It's late and I have been drinking to counteract the early-afternoon coffee that punishes me when I close my eyes tonight.

I'm Back.

So there's another way to publish to Blogger, and I guess I'll keep it.  I had to switch a few things (actually WAY more than a few), but I have a whole lot more time to get things worked out.  Stay tuned.

The blog feed is now http://feeds.feedburner.com/BenRehberg if you're interested in subscribing.
              

Redesign #13 or so...

As the world constantly changes, so does my mind. I wanted a simple layout for this blog, but still couldn't fit all the details in to this slight redesign. Still, it was a welcome change. Not much change, mind you, but settling on a largely black-and-white theme pleased me. Things might get simpler still. If you don't bother noting the post time here, I'll tell you anyway: I'm off to bed as I have nothing more to say at this hour.

Another Break

Wow. It's been a long time since April 14. It's June 6 already. Let me catch you up:

I graduated college on May 12. We had a little party on the 16th. As of today I have not received my diploma.

My son was born five days ago, on June 1st. I kept those in-the-know updated via Twitter from my iPod over WiFi at the hospital. Say what you want.

Braden Michael Rehberg was born at 07:53 EST on June 1, 2009. 8lb, 9oz and 21" long.

Having written that, I now realize that this blog is five years old. I know this because I started writing here way before my daughter was born. I announced her birth somewhere back there in the archives, too. Is this turning into a career?

In between graduating and Braden's arrival, my business blew up and I was busier than I had ever been. It's still going and I am glad I took this entire month off from work. Maybe I can catch up. I'm loving it so far.

As much as I hated doing all that schoolwork and having sworn it off, I caught myself at school with Beth today thumbing through the 2008-2009 Graduate catalog. They still don't have any interesting Masters programs. I have changed my direction a bit away from IT, but it's still a close relation: Project Management. The PM courses I had in my undergrad were interesting, and there's quite a bit of science to the art that is Project Management. A lot of projects today are technical ones anyway, so it won't hurt to have a background in computers and networks. Having decided that, I have not come to a conclusion as to whether a graduate degree would help me any more after I become a PMP.

More on that later. I hope to have some kind of theme to write about here, but my brain is certainly too full and prone to wander. Don't believe me? Check the archives.

Late-

Starbucks is Lame

I’m amazed at the uncharacteristic way that Starbucks contributes to its community. The coffee is good (I will not deny), but the fact that everything is expensive really detracts from the homeliness of it. How does Starbucks let Internet providers charge for access? Shouldn’t the damn place just offer it for free? Does it not want a crowd?

I’m writing this in Starbucks tonight (not online) and as I write I wonder why I decided to stop in and have a coffee. I really wanted to get an assignment done. My school is online and the thought occurs to me now that I might have been more productive at Wendy’s.

I had a plan last year to gain Internet access from Starbucks. I offered Fazoli’s next door a great deal on a WiFi hotspot, which I could simply enhance so that I could reach it from Starbucks. I hate Fazoli’s. The owner, after months of deliberation, decided against it at the time but reserved his right to call back if he changed his mind.

I just spilled coffee on the notebook I carry every day. Gives it character.

So why did I stop here tonight? I guess it’s the fact that I could have sworn that AT&T was offering free WiFi at Starbucks. Turns out that $3.99 is not the same. $3.99 for two hours of use. That’s worse than T-Mobile’s $9.99 per day. The subscription is the same at $19.99 per month, but who wants to pay monthly for two Internet connections? I’d rather pay $60/month for a WWAN card and not have to search for an AT&T hotspot everywhere I go.

I remember when I got my first printer. It was an all-in-one from Compaq that eventually turned to shit, but it was a printer. And I remember after a few months wondering what I did with a computer when I didn’t have a printer. “What good is it,” I asked, “if I can’t print anything?” I now have nixed that idea and replaced it with “What good is a computer without the Internet? What is it for?”

But somehow I’ve managed to keep this MacBook open at Starbucks without hitting the ‘net. Wait a minute… Wendy’s is close… Nevermind.

I’m typing in Word, and I don’t have a printer or a connection to the Internet. Disconnection is great! But how do I play Mob Wars on Facebook or update my status?

That’s it – I’m opening my notebook.

This Blog is Going TDY

I am moving - at least temporarily - to a new blog at WordPress. I doubt it's a permanent move, but I want to see how different the free WordPress is from the free Blogger. I have already found out that I cannot publish the WordPress blog here at benrehberg.com without paying a premium, so that's already a detractor.

But the theme is great and I want to find a better one for this site. And I like the interface at WordPress. So if this post gets old, check over there to see if I'm still writing.

Andrew Olmsted

I learned yesterday from Scott about our mutual friend and former Army Company Commander, Andrew Olmsted, was killed in Iraq on January 3, 2008. It came as a bit of a shock, and then I found myself simply staring at the computer screen with a gaping mouth.

I read his final post and realized that he did quite a bit of thinking before he went to Iraq. This is probably much more than would have gone through my mind on the way over there. He always was a thinker, whether he had a doctorate or not (he didn’t, by the way, but no one could tell). Andy recited every crewmember on every Apollo mission one time in the middle of the desert. He was very well read and seemed to know something about anything that entered into conversation. I always admired that about him.

Andy was left-handed.

He had a pretty dry sense of humor, as he himself admitted. I remember one time, though, Andy, Scott, and I were in a van in the field and Scott (then Andy's driver) said something he probably shouldn't have (probably about the Red Sox). I suggested to CPT Olmsted that Scott do pushups with his feet on a very high table. He took my suggestion, and Scott probably remembers this too.

He was very biased toward Coca-Cola.

I served as Andy's driver for about the last year of his command of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1/68 Armor Battalion, 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson. I hated most of my time in the Army, but what time I enjoyed was that I spent in the company of the more intellectual members. Andy was one, if not the most intellectual I ever encountered during that time.
He signed my leave so I could go get married, in spite of my failing the last PT test.

He had great integrity. In the middle of the National Training Center, when no one else was around, the two of us sat in full MOPP-4 for about an hour because it was part of the simulation. Take into account it was the warmer part of the year, in the Mojave desert, wearing up to three layers of clothing that covers the entire body including the face, and no one else was looking. We were even inside a vehicle and there we were, covered head-to-toe and sweating like we've never sweated before. He did it because it was the right thing to do; because it was necessary for training as a soldier. I did it because he told me to.



The last time I saw him, he was just out of Active Duty and working as a car salesman. This happened to be at the same place I worked right out of the Army, too (though I bet he lasted much longer than I did). We met for coffee that night, and I remember him explicitly mentioning that he’d started blogging. He seemed like it was a big thing, and I never imagined he’d enjoy it that much.

Thoughts come to me today as I read the stories about him and the comments from family members, friends, fellow soldiers, and readers worldwide, but I can't really describe them. I teared-up reading the last of his Final Post, when he spoke of Amanda. I remember him describing her as "drop-dead gorgeous."

Andy’s death weighs heavily on me, mostly because he is the first person I knew personally who has been killed in Iraq, but some of it is because he was out there trying to help. The more I read, the better I feel about what he was doing when he died, and what he thought of it. And if he was comfortable with it, so am I.

So long, Andy.

More about Andy can be read on this post at Obsidian Wings.