Goodbyes, Thank yous, and Training Tools
Another mil weekend down, who knows how many more are left?
I had a long mil weekend. Was able to secure a car for the weekend at the enterprise rental office in crystal city - it was pretty inexpensive compared to the daily rental rate you get from zipcar. (~50 a day versus the ~80+ from zipcar) Even better, the place was open on Sunday since it's considered an airport rental office.
The mil weekends are pretty rough, since my resignation, I've tried really hard to stay positive about the process. When it's perfect training weather outside and it's been almost 12 months since I submitted my resignation...it's tough to continue to take the snail's pace of this process in stride.
A reminder for why I served
Right after I was released from mil weekend, I dropped the rental off at the enterprise and hit metro. I was in uniform, seated on a bench, with my nose deep in the book, Once an Eagle.
A mother, with her 3 sons, and a daughter in tow, came down to the end of the platform I was occupying. One of the boys walked up to me, wide-eyed, and said, "Thank you for your service."
I gave out a quick laugh and smile. Got a little teary-eyed and said, "Thanks buddy." He then plopped down next to me. There was some contention between his brothers for a seat between me and their mother. Too cute.
That type of thing used to happen all the time when I lived in Atlanta. Since I'm on my way out of the service, I'm going to miss little things like that - the way kids look up at you with wide-eye and awe.
It's a bit intense, and in spite of my cynicism, it reminds me of the responsibility the service always instilled in me about public trust and duty. AKA The Army Values. I guess an idealist still resides somewhere deep down inside.
As I was boarding the train, the family looked over at me and I told the boys, "Thanks again, bye!" They waved and the mom replied, "God bless you."
Aidos
The rental was to get my hind parts up to BWI to see my dad off on his next excursion over the berm. He should be almost to the AO, and it was really good to see him while he was in town.
Training report tool
To keep my mind off the entire affair, I've decided to hack up a quick report tool for my training. I'm a bit torn as to where I should host this thing - googleapps? or my slicehost server? I'd like to open it up for my triathlete friends to access so I'm leaning more toward googleapps.
It's a pretty simple system. Since the garmin takes care of my biometrics and connect.garmin makes that data web-accessible, I'd like to provide a simple reporting tool for how a particular fitness event feels.
This could be a race, a training ride, or whatever. A simple form I could pull up on my droid phone or webpage that can provide me with a simple way to plug in all the information about how the event went - maybe toss in automatic weather reporting (actually was/felt-like/etc).
It's coming along really well. I'm currently playing with user authentication and the data storage code. Google-app-engine might play a more significant role in this project than I expected.
Side project break through
I spent sometime coding the side-project with Surphaze last night. I made a pretty good chunk of progress. Panda3d NodePath objects reference loaded mesh (3d model) structures.
The file descriptions I'm developing can't really store that type of loaded data (it doesn't make sense), so I've had to segregate SceneObjects from the mesh data that represents them.
It's annoying to have to manage two repositories of *really* similar data but, that's the only way I can conceive to juggle this stuff. Fortunately, the unique identifier concept I came up with sometime ago seems to be paying off when it comes to managing these repos.
One more week
Just one more week until San Diego. I'll be coordinating with the SCUBA schools out in cali for my certification dives and I secured great tips for CROCfest registration.
More fitness events
Active.com sent me a list of upcoming fitness events in the VA/MD/DC area and I stumbled on 2-3 small events that would be pretty key. I'll have to check my packed schedule out and see if I can fit them in.
I had a long mil weekend. Was able to secure a car for the weekend at the enterprise rental office in crystal city - it was pretty inexpensive compared to the daily rental rate you get from zipcar. (~50 a day versus the ~80+ from zipcar) Even better, the place was open on Sunday since it's considered an airport rental office.
The mil weekends are pretty rough, since my resignation, I've tried really hard to stay positive about the process. When it's perfect training weather outside and it's been almost 12 months since I submitted my resignation...it's tough to continue to take the snail's pace of this process in stride.
A reminder for why I served
Right after I was released from mil weekend, I dropped the rental off at the enterprise and hit metro. I was in uniform, seated on a bench, with my nose deep in the book, Once an Eagle.
A mother, with her 3 sons, and a daughter in tow, came down to the end of the platform I was occupying. One of the boys walked up to me, wide-eyed, and said, "Thank you for your service."
I gave out a quick laugh and smile. Got a little teary-eyed and said, "Thanks buddy." He then plopped down next to me. There was some contention between his brothers for a seat between me and their mother. Too cute.
That type of thing used to happen all the time when I lived in Atlanta. Since I'm on my way out of the service, I'm going to miss little things like that - the way kids look up at you with wide-eye and awe.
It's a bit intense, and in spite of my cynicism, it reminds me of the responsibility the service always instilled in me about public trust and duty. AKA The Army Values. I guess an idealist still resides somewhere deep down inside.
As I was boarding the train, the family looked over at me and I told the boys, "Thanks again, bye!" They waved and the mom replied, "God bless you."
Aidos
The rental was to get my hind parts up to BWI to see my dad off on his next excursion over the berm. He should be almost to the AO, and it was really good to see him while he was in town.
Training report tool
To keep my mind off the entire affair, I've decided to hack up a quick report tool for my training. I'm a bit torn as to where I should host this thing - googleapps? or my slicehost server? I'd like to open it up for my triathlete friends to access so I'm leaning more toward googleapps.
It's a pretty simple system. Since the garmin takes care of my biometrics and connect.garmin makes that data web-accessible, I'd like to provide a simple reporting tool for how a particular fitness event feels.
This could be a race, a training ride, or whatever. A simple form I could pull up on my droid phone or webpage that can provide me with a simple way to plug in all the information about how the event went - maybe toss in automatic weather reporting (actually was/felt-like/etc).
It's coming along really well. I'm currently playing with user authentication and the data storage code. Google-app-engine might play a more significant role in this project than I expected.
Side project break through
I spent sometime coding the side-project with Surphaze last night. I made a pretty good chunk of progress. Panda3d NodePath objects reference loaded mesh (3d model) structures.
The file descriptions I'm developing can't really store that type of loaded data (it doesn't make sense), so I've had to segregate SceneObjects from the mesh data that represents them.
It's annoying to have to manage two repositories of *really* similar data but, that's the only way I can conceive to juggle this stuff. Fortunately, the unique identifier concept I came up with sometime ago seems to be paying off when it comes to managing these repos.
One more week
Just one more week until San Diego. I'll be coordinating with the SCUBA schools out in cali for my certification dives and I secured great tips for CROCfest registration.
More fitness events
Active.com sent me a list of upcoming fitness events in the VA/MD/DC area and I stumbled on 2-3 small events that would be pretty key. I'll have to check my packed schedule out and see if I can fit them in.
posted by ct @ 6:23 AM
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