Sunday, December 16, 2007

Developing Process

Some of the greatest things in world are created with process, for example: frozen pizzas. We all know the world has a structure and at some point in our life we realize what that all means. But it's not a bunch of people yelling at each other to get something done, it's a process.

Every successful system has its foundation, and that foundation is the process that makes it successful. How we develop a process and implement it isn't in the same step and neither of them are simple. Starting with a blank screen and spilling emotion won't get us far either. The first step is to find what the process is intended for, start brainstorming from that text.

Over several hours or throughout a couple days we should have a lot of ideas. Compile the ideas and organize in a way that's easy to follow. Utilize the process over and over until you've worked out all the kinks, omit things that are unnecessary and add things that may be essential. Make sure that the steps are simple, complicating the process may make it a burden, a burden is less likely to be conducted.

After an action is completed while using the process and it's 100% each time the process is carried out, then we know we have a functioning process. Keep a log of every time the process is used, and document what is made with each step of the process. Understanding and knowledge is key here not perfection.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Passion

The desire to accomplish a task, set forth by one's self, often influenced by others. The human nature to strive for what we need, by association with what we crave. Cravings aren't just consumables, they're everything you can touch or feel; with every device, claiming candidacy over the external drive. We find a passion for several sorts of hobbies common to men and women. The passion in writing, a similarity in the passion for reading. A like for words, meaning, understanding and wisdom, development for a better tomorrow and a glorious today.

Centuries of literature, languages abroad, does it bring the most important fact of writing, the ability to communicate. Speech and writing both represent the past, as no context is ever written in future or present. Tenses of present, past and future are illusions we create to aid in coping with our life situations. It's these situations that determine our passions, the passion for writing.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Pre-Writer's Cramp

It's been a long time coming, and everything has come to one moment, the momenth of truth. The before and after of writing perfection, or so it will seem. But it hasn't been about myself, but about the entire class and their development as writers. I have listeners of several natures, all consisting of internet browsers and researchers. My listeners might consist of my classmates, the instructor and whoever falls upon my blog. It's the end result that we're looking for, this epiphany that we all seem to have once or twice a year.

I've set my goals high and intend to meet them. Writing and speaking well is a first step to succeeding in this world of social interaction. Forums, chatting, seminars and meetings are what make up business and the marketplace, things no one can escape. But why stop there, education and the persuit of knowledge is what's really important, and as a final cut, my goal is a Ph.D. in Information Technology - Project Management.

Across all my texts, I've produced every relation to education, teaching or learning. All things considered, they're all related to my field: teaching. I consider my career choice an important one in the Marine Corps, and I'd like to think that I make a difference.

My texts have been formalized in essay form and because of my background they lean towards the look of a business/professional letter. We've been along for several weeks and I've discovered one simple truth; no matter how far one must go to acheive a goal, it's never impossible, one must always strive to reach it. With every outcome is a systematic step-by-step process to reach it, and each day makes the product a reality. "Carpe diem."

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Discourse

Gaming
The Insurrection brought together every walk of life. The common field was gaming, and that field generated a game, a guild you call it, resurrected in Star Wars Galaxies in 2003. We ventured, quite literally, near and far, to find our guild members always at our side. The events held by The Insurrection, deemed honorable by the Rebellion, were a mockery of the Empire. The common ground of Star Wars fanatics combined with gamers, created a community no competitor could rival. Until their downfall in 2005, with an unfortunate reaction to a game upgrade, where every veteran player agreed to leave. Devastation from the developers brought additional changes, and the overall outlook was, in a nutshell: catastrophic. But The Insurrection, still stands strong today, only now, we spread across several different games, communities and platforms, with one thing in common: gaming.

Military
It's been six years and I haven't even noticed the time, where has it gone? I've always been told that "time flies", but I never truly believed it until this fall, when it hit me. I'm up for my next enlistment soon, do I stay or go? That is the big question, and what is everyone else saying to that question? Where's my bonus? That's what most members of the military are saying. Lateral moves and service changes are becoming extremely popular in this era, as each Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and service has a different benefit. Must we waste away our skills to the lowest bidder? Why not grab the best deal and run with it? That's what so many have done in the past, must I be so different? This is a common battleground, although the retirement is enticing, and the honor to serve is rewarding, the stress is not. Moving isn't an issue, and never was, nor is it for any service member. It's the deployments that are tearing the military apart. Recruiting is all but nullified and all the services are attempting to increase their numbers in the next few years. This all sounds negative and discouraged, but in fact it's positive and reassuring. Promotions are high, bonuses are up and everyone is moving where they've always wanted to station. Win-win situation? In most cases yes, and if you ask any service member: Stay or go? They'll most likely say: "I'm a lifer."

Boy Scouts of America (BSA)
More than seven years I can count of inactivity from the BSA and all their counterparts. I dedicated 15 years to the BSA and attained the rank of Eagle. I followed my path through the challenges and hardships, and came out on top, everyone was proud. But I wasn't proud, I was expecting to achieve it, as though I had already earned it far before. I had already held positions much higher than my own, and received badges some would say were out of reach. Isn't BSA just a bunch kids playing with matches? Most would definitely say so, but it's a lot more than a lot make it out to be. It's not about the patches, the ranks or the parents; BSA is about the children, building character, making them men, men with decent morals. BSA is often linked to religion, most of the BSA Troops meet at churches, as a church is community and won't charge the Troop to meet there. As an Eagle I can say that BSA is an organization that's overlooked too often, and information is often avoided or misguided by the most in need.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Galleries

Photographers of every discourse have turned to galleries to display their life's work. Colorful and creative pieces of work, done by amateurs and professionals alike. Their photographs of individual character, each with their own personality, attitude and represented emotion. It's not about the photo that's taken, but the style that it was taken, as every photographer sees images in a different light.

You'll find photographers in every corner shooting your movement, soliciting for your still. But is it not the photographer's responsibility to create the character in the photo? Without the object there is no photo, but the photographer indeed must create the environment, an object doesn't go it alone. Thus we build a dependence for photographers to create that perfect sound picture, the emotion drawn through the image, a still worth 1000 words.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Where's the Rum gone?

The fruit of our mixed and diverse world. That of good times, and the relation that we make between the two. We know not of the future and it's endeavors, but we know what it must teach its generations. Young ones that hold our destiny, the hands of hope and discouragement in one person. the unacknowledged toward their mothers and fathers, creating the divide that we hope to conquer. This battle between the homes, the neighborhood rivalry that we all must overcome. Without this hate we have no love, the two most closely related and yet so dissimilar feelings that bring us peace. A piece of mind, the peace on earth, a peace in 'the wild' and the peace for freedom.

It's been a long time since we were able to process information in a way that allows us to think clearly. This long time coming was before my time, before the West was one, and before the wild was so. We have been able to ignore and be ignored by all those that we wish not to associate with. This ignorance has been in an essence a satisfaction that everyone has endured. Break the silence, be heard, be free and alive. "Speak your mind!"

A Message to Garcia - 1899 - Elbert Hubbard

In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.
What to do!
Some one said to the President, "There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can."
Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by the name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- "Carry a message to Garcia!"
General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.
No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call.
Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio".
Will the clerk quietly say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task?
On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:
Who was he?
Which encyclopedia?
Where is the encyclopedia?
Was I hired for that?
Don’t you mean Bismarck?
What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?
Is he dead?
Is there any hurry?
Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?
What do you want to know for?
And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.
Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself.
And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.
Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.
Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?
"You see that bookkeeper," said the foreman to me in a large factory.
"Yes, what about him?"
"Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for."
Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?
We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.
Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away "help" that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.
It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.
I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself."
Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.
Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.
Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.
I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.
My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.