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fuzzywuzzy256
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read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Bryan
Country: United States
State: Texas
Metro: College Station
Birthday: 2/15/1987
Gender: Male
Interests:
College Station
Kountze Tubin
Mah Bose...wave radio.
Playing guitar.
And singing.
And smiling.
Simultaneously
(if ya know what I mean)
Reading
Writing poetry
"backyard surfing"
Expertise:
Pseudo-exercising
Pseudo-stripping
Pseudo-rolling-like-Chris
Pseudo-improvising-my-life
Really hugging
Really "backyard surfing"
Really laughing at myself
Really any school-related-
work-type-stuff-which-I-own-at-
and-things-of-this-nature
I'm FRENCH...so Duh! my expertise is making...
TOAST!
Occupation: Student
Industry: Engineering
Message: message me
AIM:  fuzzywuzzy256
Yahoo:  fuzzywuzzy256
Member Since:
4/5/2004
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| i did a little reading (the military officer promotion handbook) and excel (can't really say i did math) last week, and it turns out that officer pay surpasses a civilian job after about 4 years.... i guess they dangle the carrot since the most common contract includes 4 years active duty plus 4 years reserve.
 for the military salary, i adjusted 4% a year for inflation and added the allowances for housing and subsistence. that's not a bad deal; for the first ten years, over 25% of your income is tax-free. promotions are scheduled, so i should be looking at a realistic estimate.
for the engineering salary, i adjusted 5% a year for inflation and gave myself a "promotion" every five years, resulting in a 20% salary bump. that's pretty realistic from what i've been told, but obviously some promotions are larger than others and pay varies extremely. plus there's the whole lack of job security thing.
that was just interesting to me, so i thought i'd share. not what i expected to see.
in other news, i'm in the middle of Week 4 of P90X. i'll start Phase 2 on monday. i'll probably post some kind of update on that next week. i don't know if there will be pictures, though. we shall see see see.
i will say that i haven't been following the nutrition plan precisely, so i haven't dropped much weight. i haven't been eating poorly, though. jonna has been planning our meals from several Healthy Living cookbooks, and we only eat out about once a month. cooking every day has turned out to be a lot of fun  regardless of the weight, i have lost some inches and am definitely stronger and more flexible than i have been in a while. we'll see where it goes.
anyway, just wanted to drop a quick update. ah, if you have any reading suggestions, i still have three weeks of summer. anything at all. my summer reading has spanned everything from Dan Brown to Sun Tzu, including some Clancy, Forster, and Plato. the past two months have, by far, been the most fun i've had reading in probably ever. [(but the children love the books!!) <-- Elf quote  ]
and i'm off!!
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| if "blog now" was in caps and had a little !!!, i would be intimidated.
BLOG NOW!!!
blog now sounds more suggestive; not sure if it's a good suggestion....
i usually do the "listening to" at the end, but this song. this song is impeccable. spiritual. entropic.
[edit: it should have been Money. lolz. that 7/4 signature IS killer though.]
i'm really trying to decide if i want to type something about what i've been thinking (my career decision(s)), or what i've been reading (neuroeconomics). the psychology is much more interesting to me, but would probably bore you; the thoughts are less interesting to me, but would probably bore you.
you must say he's honest  (hopefully  ).
well, mush! i'm to the point in my life where i finally have to start making decisions. i don't know how i feel about this. i mean, i decided to go to college and get married and to wear clothes today, but aside from the latter i've been certain about the others. what i'm trying to say is that i've started a job search but don't know what i would be best at. i don't know what i would really enjoy doing for 100,000 hours until i retire.
i do know that i like learning. and i definitely like teaching. unfortunately, learning isn't an occupation, and teaching requires more learning. i would love to teach an introductory physics or electronics course. i really would like to return to College Station and teach after trying another career (read: after i find a job that will pay for another degree. this will be important later.).
after grinding my brain through a couple of years of engineering, i wished i had done business. an MBA is probably more useful for my type of person. i want to start a business in a few years. not that that requires a business degree, but it might help. i've thought about opening a franchise for a while, but that takes a chunk of liquid assets unavailable to a newlywed couple of ages 22 and 22.
jonna and i have talked about opening a health and wellness center (not really like beaumont's wellness center. be not confused.) she has a nutrition degree and would consider becoming a registered dietitian; she's not as big of a fan of extra school as i am. she could definitely do it though. plus i've thought about getting a personal training certification. two personal trainers with an MBA and an RD could probably open a decent gym, right?
anyway. that's years from now. not that i'm writing it off, but it's probably a decade away, minimum. so my challenge is to find a way to earn an income in the meantime. my father-in-law was a navy officer for 22 years and retired in 2005. military retirement is a great deal; you serve 20 years then receive 50% of your ending salary for the rest of your life. of course it's the government, so it's a little more complicated than that. regardless, he entered the civilian workforce after he separated and now receives two incomes.
i've always respected service to country, and that value has matured in me for the last three years or so. i could also work towards an mba or masters of engineering during that time. texas a&m has a rich military tradition, and it would be incredible to serve then come back and teach here one day.
there are only three issues with that plan right now, and only one of those is a restriction. i'll start with the least important (and go through these quickly...i don't want to waste your time). my wife fully supports the idea, so that's great. one of my cousins, enlisted army, came home for july 4th before he was shipped to the middle east. i mentioned it after dinner and grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. sounded supportive. my mom doesn't seem to dislike the idea. my dad, however, thinks it's dangerous and it makes him sad. i'm not a fan of bereaving my father. that may be too strong a word, but you understand.
the second issue is the pay. i'll graduate in december fully qualified to earn a $60,000+ salary. while military benefits are great, the pay isn't as spectacular. i would be earning around $45,000 starting as an officer. granted, the allowances for food and housing are tax-free, but it would take a LOT of tax benefits to offset $15,000 less income a year. again, the money wouldn't be a big deal, but i have a dependent now and we want to start saving for our and our children's future. that's a big difference each year. the real benefit would obviously be retirement, but i may well be able to earn more in the private sector in 40 years than i could with the military in 20 years including a lifetime pension at 50% salary.
the first two are small considerations, really. my dad will be proud of me regardless of my career (providing that it's honest), and i'll have a job either way that puts food on the table, pays bills, and provides some savings opportunity. the only real problem i have is my physical condition. i haven't been in top shape since i was 15 and played football my freshman year of high school. eight. years. ago.
eight years ago? what the heck???
[sidebar: that's the reason i've started P90X. Power 90 Extreme (Xtreme?). it's going pretty well; i'm starting the third week and it's wrecking my body in the good way, if there is one. i'm hoping i'll have some time to write about my successes/failures with it sometime this month. come december, i'll definitely be able to pass the marine corps physical fitness test. that's the other thing. if i decided to take a commission, i don't know that i would consider a branch other than the Marines. i love leadership and management, and it provides the ultimate training for both of those. i just...respect those guys.]
so anyway. the real issue right now is that i'm moving in the military direction much later than usual. if i had realized it was something i wanted to pursue a couple of years ago, i could have gone through officer training, received a commission after graduation, and been on my merry way. unfortunately, it'll take over six months for me to go through all that after graduation. my plan is this:
i'm going to go through an earnest job search over the next several months. hopefully i'll find a company that likes me. i'll probably hop through different jobs my first few years out of school. if i find a job challenging and rewarding, then i'll stick to it and find a way to keep going to school. if i go through three or four years and find the corporate world tainted and disappointing, i'll be joining the USMC. and if the economy is still in the tank and i can't find a decent job by the end of november. well. you know.
there are more than a dozen ways to mix up engineering, military service, and owning a business. i definitely would pursue any of them, but engineering interests me the least. i do like the technical sales/marketing side of it, though.
i went into electrical engineering because i heard it was the hardest mother of them all. i'd rather not make that mistake again, but it's hard not to think some tiny part of me would be an officer of marines just because it's difficult. i'm driven toward challenge and by challenge, and that isn't always the best motivation. my life would be much simpler if i were driven by money or pleasure or any compass that points in only one direction.
this is obviously one of the largest decisions i'll be making in the next several years. any comments are most appreciated. even if they're unrelated
stay tuned.
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| funny story: i had a job on campus.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. haha. ahhhhhh...
note: with limited creative license, i can honestly state that no facts were harmed in the posting of this entry. facts are more malleable than they want you to think.
so i was working at Measurement & Research Services (MARS), the office that deals with departmental testing (language, science, math, etc. exams), runs scantrons, and receives AP test scores. i started about two months ago, and the first day i walked in my boss pointed to the front desk and said, "start answering phones."
disenchanted, i found the user manual and figured out how to transfer people, forward them to voicemail, and other simple tasks that were somehow needlessly complex. i was saddened because that office runs a Prometric testing center; i was told during my interview that i should be a good fit for Prometric. through my subsequent firing six weeks later, i only worked two shifts in that test center. and that's how the problem started.
note: i told this story out of order. you may want to swap the next two paragraphs. Choose Your Own Adventure!
it is inevitable for large universities to make some poor decisions over important issues (like the hiring of our former university president). at the time of my termination, the entire Texas A&M University system was transitioning to a new records system. it would make sense to reformat the old data and push it into the new system. unfortunately, all of that old data must have been stored in a black hole. as a result, none of the changes made in the old system were reflected in the new one. this was apparently not something i needed to know.
my primary responsibilities were, sadly, to answer phones and verify student's test scores and registration blocks. i had received training for the new records system, but it didn't contain student data yet. my boss informed me that i would not have an account on the old system because it was "obsolete." almost every phone call dealt with information that i had no access to, so she gave me her username and password for the old records system.
she gave me her username and password for the old records system.
she gave me her username and...i'm the one getting fired? lolz lolz
the office never had a steady traffic distribution. sometimes we would go an hour with two calls and three people testing, sometimes parents would tie up all five lines while we tried to manage thirty or more people in the three testing rooms. during the peak hours, i didn't have time to pass every call i received onto somebody else. the secretary and proctor started showing me how to verify scores, accept credits, and do other little tasks to even everyone's workload. with no training, and nobody telling me what i couldn't do, i trucked on at the front desk for a couple of more weeks.
the good times in that office were short lived, because i never had a single one. the women i worked with were mostly rude, and the one other guy could only talk about leaving the country to get away from his job. i thought he just hated his job; turns out he went to argentina at the beginning of the month. so the potential for a first good time came to a grinding halt monday afternoon. and i hadn't even made it into the building yet.
i was working in a large general services building with two main entrances, but close to the employee parking there's, understandably, an employee entrance that i had used for several weeks. i was scheduled for 1:30-5:00 that day. as i strolled up and swiped my card, the display gave me a present: ACCESS DENIED. "oh, what is this?" swipe. ACCESS DENIED.
alirght then. so i walked through the main sliding glass doors and into the office. my office. looked at the front desk. my desk. the girl i usually replace wasn't getting up. she was still on the phone. my phone. finally she asked if i was working the next shift. "uhhrrmrhmmmm...yep!" so she hesitated and left. i dialed extension 230 to find my boss. i wasn't surprised when she was out; i was even less surprised when she floated in at 4:00.
i walked back to her office and let her know my card wasn't working at the employee entrance. she called in the secretary.
boss: well. that was a security measure.
i'm thinking, well that's obviously necessary. i'm sitting here in your office...after coming through one of two huge public access doors. glad i'm not the only one approaching this like an eigth grade relationship.
there really isn't much quotable or entertaining from our conversation, but i was a little surprised when she told me i had been doing things on her account and she was in a lot of trouble. i brought up that i had literally been trained to do nothing, and never been given a clear outline of my responsibilities. she told me that my lack of training was evident from the fact that i always did things wrong. when i asked her to define "things," she spat back, "well...everything."
i'm positive that that part isn't true. she told me i didn't need to come back, and i told her it was just past 4:00 and i didn't have scheduled until after my shift, so she let me stay until 5:00. it was a good time! my first and last there, the joy of knowing i wouldn't languish behind that thin desk for six more weeks sweeter than all the peaches and watermelon in the world.
i would say that's a little melodramatic, but you didn't know these people. and i haven't even had a good peach this summer. there's a marked difference between happiness and joy, and while having income and being miserable each week gave me a certain happiness, not being paid to not work there actually fills me with joy.
today's moral: do what you enjoy, and happiness will follow
ah crap guess i'll talk about goals next time. i started P90X...finished day 4 today. it's a little intense. but i'm a bigger intense. that's the goal for now. i'll write about it sometime, and maybe put up a picture each month or so. yes. goals. they're important. reminds me of a leadership class i took. SMART goals!! simple, measureable, achievable, realistic, with a time table. ...though i do think simple, achievable, and realistic are pretty much the same...SAT goals!!
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| saying i'm back didn't really mean, like, back. it was more of a proclamation that i'm still here. i did leave, though i haven't taken journeys like some have taken. i would love to put some thoughts on here this summer, but between working and playing the role of househusband there hasn't been much extra time.
i began to make an entry after i rediscovered this blog, and it didn't turn out well. or maybe i just never finished it. there's just too much to say when you haven't spoken in that long. it doesn't even matter who you're talking to...there's just been too much change inside and out to try and put it all on this little site. so ask me about it sometime if you like, preferably in person. the phone is okay. i just talk with my hands and eyes a lot, so you'll miss half the conversation.
i'll probably post something once a week with little mundane updates about random insignificant things. i had really wanted to get back on here and explore some life lessons i've learned, or dig into some of the finer aspects of physics and psychology and life and love and how they're all related. but honestly i probably won't. not for a long time.
i wear reminders of my most significant changes: a wedding band and an Aggie ring. both of those adventures are physical, emotional, and spiritual in their own ways, and neither are done. i'll have plenty to discuss for a while. it may come in spurts, it may come when you least expect it, but it will be there.
the only other thing that i have to say is that i feel like i disappointed a lot of people in the past. i never tried to let anyone down, but i was a little beyond egotistical and let myself feel a lot more important than i was. i didn't treat most people with the respect they deserved, and only in hindsight have i realized just how much a handful of people really meant to me. hopefully i meant something to them, and maybe still do. so i give my apologies to you, because you're probably included. and if not, then we all know there's something else i should be apologizing for anyway.
it took time to realize my problem: i aimed to live with passion, but in doing so neglected to develop a plan. everything was impromptu. i had no goals. now i realize the importance of those, and maybe i'll be sharing my short- and mid-term goals with you soon. i just need to write them down first. one will probably be an end-of-summer goal, the other an end-of-year goal. we shall see.
until then, go read a book. you know they're more refreshing than this anyway
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| hold onto your underpants. and your neighbor's. ;). yep, that was an entire winky sentence.
i'm back.
let's NOT publish this entry to facebook and NOT let anyone know...
and we'll see how long this goes on...
...while i myself might my quietus make with a bare bodkin..
(OH HE'S STILL GOT IT. FRESH!!
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