Like a stupid smiling thing, every time I watch it. Enjoy, if it does the same for you:

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

First, a song:

NSFW lyrics, just so you know. Also, my favorite acronym referenced in the song is “OFP” which what I was often: “Own Fucking Program” As in: “Where’s Klecha?” “Who knows, he’s on his Own Fucking Program.” Oh, and EAS means “End of Active Service” which is the end of the Marine’s active duty or select reserve (that is, required to come to monthly drill) portion of his current contract. And in the same vein (by the same artist), The Ballad of Oceanside (referring to the town outside the main gates of Camp Pendleton).

Other links:

• Scalzi on Writers & Money — A good look at what ails the creative types in today’s economy.
• Howard Tayler announces the Schlock Mercenary iPhone App (Beta) — Too bad, so sad, you didn’t get in on the already-filled Beta program. But then, neither did I. This is one of another areas where I really like what Howard has done to grow his burgeoning online empire–sensible, leveraging technology, and doing so to enhance his revenue stream. Now I just need an Apple touch device with a reliable network connection, unlike my much-abused iPod.
• Courtesy of Fark yesterday, Wikipedia’s List of Notable Marines — I mean, I knew Don Adams and Jonathon Winters, but who knew the Everly Brothers, Nate Dogg, Shaggy, and George Peppard were all Marines?

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

As Tarri reminded me last night, this is actually something I’ve been comfortable with for a long time. We started dating back in 1997, and it was shortly after that, in one of those “what do you want to be when you grow up” college conversations that I laid that one on her. I mean, I’ve known since I was a kid that I didn’t want a suit-and-tie 9-to-5 for a career. Back when I was a kid, in my imagination that amounted to being a scientist or a park ranger or something. By the time I finished high school, I figured that meant writing.

That’s where the stay-at-home dad thing came in. In my innocence, I figured if I eschewed the questionable pleasures of soap operas and bon-bons, I could manage to squeeze in enough writing a day to make it an ideal situation. And I was very rah-rah for a stay-at-home parent. I had one, Tarri had one, and we turned out okay, yeah? I may even have gotten into an argument or two or twelve proposing it as some sort of social ideal.

That was until I had to take my kids out of daycare. Not because it’s tough taking care of them at home–that IS more challenging than I figured on when I was 20, but I looked after young Marines 24 hours a day at one point, how much harder can this be? The biggest difference may just be wiping butts. But no, what was hard, what was heart-breaking was taking them away from the friends they had made.

I think there are maybe one or two other stay-at-home parents on our street, but I don’t know them that well, and with the weather getting colder the opportunities for toddler meet-cute are rather small. Otherwise, other than the kids at daycare, they don’t have a lot of friends or chances for other-kidlet interaction. Now, next year Tony will be in kindergarten and I might be able to get Hannah into a local public preschool (though she’ll still only be 2 on Labor Day… but probably potty-trained), but in the meantime we’ve got a whole lot of not much.

So I find myself in the interesting position of hoping I can find a nice 9-to-5 so the kids can go back to daycare and hang out with their friends all day.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

So, three weeks ago, I got laid off from my job of nearly 5 years. (And last night, I had a dream where I was arguing with someone over how long it had been. I was getting really angry.)

The story, as it goes, is kind of hilarious. I started work that Monday morning like I have often, lately, working from home, logging into the servers at work and calling clients who needed help over the phone. One of the women at the office called and said I needed to schedule a new server install with Client R as it was in and paid for and such. A local Dell contractor was scheduled to come over to my house at 11 to fix a computer that I had tried to install at a client the week before, but was DOA. At almost precisely 11, the doorbell rang. I grabbed the PC, headed upstairs and…

Hey, the Dell guy kind of looks like my boss Craig.

Open the door.

Hey, it is Craig, what’s he…?

“I’m sorry Dave, but I have to lay you off.”

Well shit.

Surprising, but not unexpected, is how I’ve been putting it. Unrelated to the downturn in the economy, the company I worked for lost a rather lucrative exclusive sales contract in early 2008, which had brought us a pretty steady flow of new clients. Since then, management had cast about for other things to sell, but none of them really caught on, and we didn’t have the same foot-in-the-door that the big, lucrative contract had gotten us. So, on the one hand, we had become competitors with the people we had been working with, and on the other we were victims of our own success: we were so good at getting things to run smoothly that our clients could rarely justify signing service contracts with us when they only needed us a couple times a year at most.

So, on top of that came the recession, which in reality has had Michigan in its grip since 2000ish and only got worse with the worldwide downturn. All that conspired to make me “redundant.”

I’ve spent the last three weeks getting over it, consoled by my awesome friends and the deaths of many pixellated bad guys. Today I’m embarking on what may well be called the Indefinite Phase of unemployment. No idea when it will end, but for now it’s going to be marked by the company of my children on a regular basis. Which isn’t all bad.

It’s a good thing they’re cute, that’s all I’m saying.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

So, I just watched Stargate: Universe on Hulu because I was watching children’s programming at the behest of my son while the show was on. I also don’t have a DVR in my office, and I like to watch down there, especially if I’m not sure about what’s going to show up on the screen.

Final verdict? Not bad. Still Stargate in many elements, not as much Battlestar Galactica as I had feared. How it goes from here remains to be seen. They did an adequate job of differentiating the characters, which is tricky when you jump from a series with a handful of “opening credits” characters to around a dozen.

Some of my military quibbles remain. Greer (Jamil Walker Smith) is much more believable as a Sergeant or Staff Sergeant in just about every facet–including potential discipline problems–and really doesn’t need the extra rockers. There’s nothing, otherwise, about his character that requires him to be of such high rank. But I am glad that, aside from the one instance of him drawing down on Rush (Robert Carlyle’s character), he’s otherwise a contributory and positive member of the expedition. Well, and the thing with Camile Wray (Ming Na), but I think that’s more natural animosity/tension.

The other quibble, kind of new quibble would be Lt. Tamara Johansen (Alaina Huffman) claiming that she’s a medic. Unless she actually is self-trained, as the character sketch on the website suggested, she should be enlisted, not an officer. Doctors and nurses are commissioned officers, while the EMT/Paramedic types are all enlisted. But, we’ll see more as her character is revealed, I suppose.

Overall, I’m cautiously excited. If the show maintains the largely positive and optimistic tone of the franchise to date, I am readily onboard. If it indulges in “gritty” and “realistic” just for the sake of it, I’ll probably be turned off. Likewise, if Greer’s character trends more one-dimensional in the direction of his “troubled” nature/short temper. So far, they’ve stayed on the other side of that road, and I’m cautiously pleased.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

Once upon a time, I went to Iraq.

Along the way, I did what most reservists end up doing: parlaying civilian expertise into military pseudo-specialties. The first of these, for me, was learning Arabic at an accelerated pace which, while neat, turned out to be mostly useless because we were awash with local nationals and Arabic-speaking Americans helping us out.

The second involved two extremely new computer-based counter-sniper/counter-battery long range detection systems. I remember that it was just after we had suffered the biggest mortar attack so far in April of 2004. According to my LJ, on or around April 23. Apparently the DoD had already been looking at an infrared system that could detect and process the muzzle flashes of everything from small arms to artillery. They bought it off the workbench of the company that had developed it, and flown it and two engineers to Iraq to set it up and give us a basic orientation.

That system involved a multi-camera infrared getup that we could control from inside our company’s TOC, swiveling the camera around remotely to look for enemy fire. It came with a laser range-finder attached so theoretically it would pop up an indicator on my screen where the fire had come from, then range it and spit out some (theoretically) useful targeting data.

The other system arrived a few days later. It was an acoustical system called UTAMS that used four sets of four microphones, mounted on tripods and arrayed on the corners of our FOB to triangulate the audio signature of small arms fire and explosions. The Wikipedia article, incidentally, needs to be edited badly; the reference they draw their information from–an article on terrain denial missions in southern Iraq–does not indicate that the crew at LSA Diamondback was the first to test it, nor that they first picked up on its ability to pick up IED explosions and such.

Whether we were the first either, I’m not entirely sure, at least as far as the UTAMS goes. I’m fairly certain we were the first with the infrared system since, by the engineer’s own admission, we were working with his workbench prototype.

I remember, particularly, on August 13, 2004 the village to the west of Abu Ghraib suddenly erupted in gunfire. The map on my screen which we used to track the UTAMS contacts suddenly sprouted uncountable pink carats indicating individual shots detected. A few minutes later, as officers and senior NCOs were crowding around, asking what was going on, we got a call over the radio: the Iraqi soccer team had defeated Portugal at the Olympics, and most of the country was going bananas in celebration.

Anyway, what I found most fascinating about it all was that I was never specifically enjoined to secrecy about it, and I sure as heck don’t carry any kind of security clearance beyond what they furnish to every Marine upon entering service. But I didn’t really want to talk about it while I was there, since I figured that was the real core of operational security. Any insurgent with a pair of binoculars and a notepad could have figured out our post-and-relief schedule, for instance. But the capabilities of those two systems might have been very useful information for them.

So, I waited five years. Elements of the acoustic system showed up on Futureweapons, UTAMS has a subheading in a Wikipedia article, and the US is no longer operating out of the facility we used it at. All-in-all, I think I’m safe talking about it in this kind of informal manner.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks I got off easy in the war, sitting in the TOC most of the time–my wonderful squad leader had the same thought, and kicked me back out into regular duty rotation after about a month. I had a couple other stints operating those systems, but I did spent most of my time in Iraq doing something other than staring at a computer screen.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

I was born in Detroit, a fact I’ve never, ever been ashamed of.

My mom would say it’s a technicality; the hospital is just across Mack Avenue from Grosse Pointe, where riverside real estate is still in the “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” price range. But it is Detroit, and I spent half of my childhood in East Detroit, which is a stone’s throw from some less than savory parts of the big city. I grew up living and dying by Detroit sports, steeped in Detroit politics, and like most people in the metro area, thinking of myself as a Detroiter no matter the name of the town I lived in.

I earned instant cred with one of my roommates in Iraq, who himself was from Indianapolis, the day I came back from the PX with a copy of Motown 1’s. “You like Motown?” he asked. I laughed. Motown–Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops–were like mother’s milk to me. Turning that album up on the iPod these days is like an instant nostalgia trip. Takes me back to driving through the city to get to my grandparents’ house in Dearborn, with Motown half of all they played on the local radio station my parents favored. (The other half, oddly, seemed to be Billy Joel. Such are the vagaries of memory.)

That is all to say that I find myself deeply invested emotionally in how Detroit fares. The occasionally defiant tone that Mitch Albom takes in this column resonates with me. Whether or not I like their creative output, I find myself rooting for Detroit-based artists; every success for Eminem feels like a vindication for the city, and if the city could have a rap anthem, it would be “Lose Yourself” the Oscar-winning (Fuck Yeah!) song from the 8 Mile soundtrack. On top of that, or maybe nearer the base of it all, my brother owns a business based in Detroit. It’s beyond obvious that I want to see him succeed, and he’s going to have a hard time doing that if the city otherwise collapses around him.

So I’m glad that there seems to be a surge of renewed interest in Detroit. I’m geeked that The Urbanophile has a soft spot for the city. Time is up to something interesting, with Sports Illustrated and CNN Money, buying a house in Detroit and reporting extensively along the news-sports-money axes. I’m beyond happy that we have one of the only teams in a real playoff race, which ensures lots of air time on ESPN. Even if it means a nail-biter of a race.

I just hope that the rest of the world is still watching when Detroit–and the rest of the state–gets its shit together.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

I guess lately this has been my thing, but it’s becoming a more important thing for me. The kind of ironic thing, I think, is that there are some people with really great intentions in terms of “supporting the troops” who are, nevertheless getting it stupidly, terribly wrong.

The most recent example was listening to Jon Krakauer talk about his new book that looks into the life and death of Pat Tillman–former NFL football player who enlisted into the Army and died in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan. For starters, let me say I have no problem whatsoever with the gist of Krakauer’s work: that Tillman was an unwilling cog in a propaganda machine, that his family was done a great disservice by the Army’s handling of his death, and so forth. What bothered me was in some of the ways that Krakauer tried to single Tillman out as an exceptional soldier.

Of course, the one way that he absolutely was an exceptional soldier was that he had NFL-grade athletic ability which, as strong and agile as many in the military are, not many are NFL-grade. But, in many ways, it stops there. Some of the exceptions I take with Krakauer are such:

Un-Crushed Individuality: In the Diane Rehm Show interview, Krakauer indicates that the purpose of recruit training in the military is to “crush individuality” and re-form the soldier into a total team player. This is one of those alluring, attractive notions that Hollywood and urban legend has reinforced, without much basis in reality.

The reality, as any Drill Instructor/Drill Sergeant will tell you is that they don’t have time to crush anyone’s individuality. They’re outnumbered, usually around 20-1, by recruits and they have 9-13 weeks (depending on which service they’re in) to get all these teenagers into some semblance of military discipline, to be able to walk a straight line, put on a uniform, and maybe fire a weapon without being a danger to the people to the right and left of them. Not that the recruit training experience is not formative and pivotal for many people, and the rhetoric of recruit training often clouds the issue. But I have not known any Marines–and I have known many–who were zombie robot jarheads in service of the almighty Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.

What does happen in Boot Camp is that recruits get bombarded with rather pointed object lessons on the value of teamwork, following orders, and military discipline.

Questioning Orders: Similarly in the interview, Krakauer suggests Tillman was exceptional in that he would question and object to stupid or pointless orders. He seems to tie this to Tillman’s unwillingness to be crushed during Boot, which is superfluous since it can be tied to another, much less debatable fact about Tillman: that he was a soldier.

I’m not quite sure about the differences between active duty and reserves, but I’m going to take a wild-ass guess here and say that the “honeymoon” phase for a young soldier or Marine lasts around 6-12 months. By the end of that period, they’ve been subjected to so much military make-work and bullshit that they can spot a dumb or pointless order at a thousand yards. Krakauer, I think, wants to take it further and suggest Tillman was exceptional for discussing his reservations with other soldiers in his unit, but again, this is common among soldiers to the beginning of organized warfare.

Where Tillman was further unexceptional was that he probably kept his questioning of bullshit orders at a level below actual insubordination. In other words, he followed the bullshit orders, despite his reservations, and didn’t openly disrespect his superiors. Which, again, most soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen manage on a daily basis.

I think there was a third thing that I wanted to get to, but for the life of me, I can’t remember it. What I can think of is in some of the ways in which Tillman was exceptional, aside from the thing that everyone remembers about him, mentioned above.

What did set Tillman apart was that he went in as an enlisted soldier, with a university degree and having started a civilian career. He wasn’t so much exceptional in that he chose infantry and Rangers–the one MOS the Marine Corps never has a problem with is infantry, and I’m sure the Army never has trouble finding aggressive young men who want to be Rangers. But he did have a degree, going in, and he did have a lot of life experience. It’s entirely possible that, when he went in to Boot Camp in May of 2002, he was older than one or more of his Drill Sergeants, and he was almost certainly older than the NCOs that he reported to directly once he got out to the Regiment.

What else set Tillman apart, of course, was his national prominence. In the interview, Krakauer points out to good effect that the Army used Tillman as a political propaganda tool; but in that same respect, Krakauer uses Tillman to point out the failings of the Bush administration and the Rumsfeld Pentagon. He doesn’t write that book if the dead servicemember’s name is Dave Klecha, or Matt Wright, or Mike Mundy, no matter how compelling our individual stories may be.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

So, this isn’t actually a critique of the Stargate: Universe, but of the coverage of it and hype surrounding it. I mean, on some level, I’m kind of irked because it feels like the SG braintrust (not to mention the folks at “SyFy”) looked at the success of the dark and brutal BSG and decided they wanted more of that. But I suppose it’s a valid creative path to take, responding to something popular and critically well-regarded. Artists do it all the time, after all, and as crass it may seem, it could also be considered a valid artistic response.

Unless they have robotic sleeper-agents in their midst, in which case I probably will declare it crassly derivative.

What I have a problem with, specifically, is coverage like this, which gushes about how edgy and dark the new show is, especially compared to the prior installments. Specifically, language like: “oh yeah, they kill people” and

Gone is the Stargate pattern of the crew getting themselves crew in danger with a freak-of-the-week problem, jokes, a sign of strength from the burly crew member, technical jargon, jokes, and then the leader saves the day with a wink and a smile.

Seriously? Seriously, Meredith Woerner, what fucking show were you watching?

In the pilot of SG-1, an Air Force security team is wiped out in the first few minutes, the surviving member is killed when she’s deemed an unsuitable host, two key characters from the movie are made hosts (a fate, we’re told, worse than death), and another key character is shown to have been made into a host unexpectedly. The pilot ends with that revelation, and then he’s killed in the very next episode.

So which of those didn’t die, or whose death was “rarely permanent”?

Now, I get the idea that there is an innovation of sorts in heightening the stakes by letting us get to know and care for some characters before their untimely demise, prolonging things for several episodes or even most of a season. But let’s be serious for a second. They’re not all going to die. Not if they want to keep the show going. There is going to end up a core of characters that is more or less untouchable. Unless they’re keen on tossing away any possibility of building a fan following in the interest of currying critical acclaim.

But then, even BSG got to the end with a huge percentage of its initial principle cast alive and well.

So, again, not really concerned about SGU itself (other than the aforementioned issues), but this retroactive infantilizing of SG1 and SG:A is kind of dismaying.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

So, for the past couple months, I’ve been working on what you see above, slowly but surely building in a set of bookshelves to my office wall, with much of the space dedicated to paperbacks. This is, incidentally, what I love best about living in a house that I own. And a project that I had conceived of before I had even begun to think about actually finishing off these rooms into habitable, usable space. Soon as I knew there was going to be a ledge just deep enough to comfortably hold books, I was turning over construction concepts in my head.

In the end, I kept it pretty simple. I knew I wanted static shelves, I knew I wanted them sized for paperbacks primarily. Originally, I wanted the whole wall to be for paperbacks but I then realized I would a) have to stash my trade pbs elsewhere (most of all our HCs are on the built-in shelves/entertainment center in our living room) and b) have WAY the hell too much space. I know, right?

Turns out, I was in a long book-buying drought, and even now I’m only at a trickle of my previous volume. A lot of stuff has been given away or lost, and I only came home from Iraq with a teeny tiny fraction of what was sent me: essentially just the stuff I bought for myself and knew I would want to keep, or came to me specifically as birthday gifts, or had some other significance. 98% of the books that came to me stayed in Iraq. Where, frankly, they would do the most good; unless I misunderstood everyone’s intentions, those books were meant for servicemembers to read, not to add to some shmuck’s collection when he got back home.

Anyway, our book-buying habits of late have run to hardcovers more rarely, than paperbacks all that frequently. Though, I’ll tell you, nothing urges me to buy more than looking at all the series I’ve enjoyed, but don’t have every volume of. That and empty shelf space. It’s just crying out for more books.

If you click on the picture at top, incidentally, you can view the building process in stages, through the lens of my crap cellphone camera. The last few I took with our normal camera, as I’d finally found it again. Not big picture-takers are we.

So there it is, one of my last projects indoors for the immediate future. All that’s left is flooring our new bedroom (and moving into it) and doing some closet organization in the office, bedroom, and hall closets. That should all be done by the fall, and our energy and cash should be freed up for finally clearing up our landscaping and other out-of-doors projects, which we’ve shamefully neglected. Much to our neighbors’ annoyance, I’m sure.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.