The Stand was an interesting but disappointing book. In one sense, I enjoyed it. It was captivating at times, the story over all was interesting (though it petered out), and I liked some of the characters.

On the other hand, it was vulgar a ton, had an amazing amount of blasphemy (even by white hats), had way too much and graphic sexual content, and was downright depressing with regards to some of its characters. I suppose that\’s real life for you in some respects, though.

That \”realism\” element is confusing. Sure, it\’s real to throw in a bunch of swear words and sex, but is it good? Is it profitable? Is it of good report? Obviously, Tolkien wouldn\’t have been better without Mordor. But what if they had Sauron raping every elf that got caught? Would that have made it better? What if Gimli dropped f-bombs? Frodo had a crush on Gollum? What then?

In the end, I returned the audiobook. It\’s definitely not something I would want to revisit (a major criteria I use for deciding if I want to keep a book). I wish Stephen King would write in a non-gross way. He\’s definitely got skill, but he needs to be sanctified.

Unfortunately, I haven\’t done much math lately. It\’s not that I haven\’t wanted to. Well, I guess if I *REALLY* wanted to and put enough emphasis on it, it\’d happen, but still, point being that I\’m not opposed to it or something. There\’s just been a lot going on.

But I\’m going to get back into it. I have to. It\’s going to matter long term for my career.

This post title had been sitting in my drafts. The only content was \”a.\” Literally, that was it. So I\’ll take it up again. Or maybe I should says, \”So… I\’ll take it up again.\”

Since my last published post (that I can tell), was back in December. It was correct. I\’ll not rehash it here. January, however, was a great month, studying-wise. I think I finished something like 27 lessons in the 31 days, which is great.

February was pretty good, too, though not quite as good as January . According to my spreadsheet, I finished 23 lessons in 28 days. Pretty good!

I had high hopes of finishing Algebra 2 this month. Alas, it was not meant to be. A lot of things have seemingly conspired against me. I remember one Saturday where I had \”great plans\” for study that ended up being largely spent chatting with a doctor about engineering (a former engineering major). Was worth it, but still, didn\’t get anything done that day. Then a sibling has been having a kind of quarter life crisis. Anyway, it\’s the 24th and I\’ve completed 9 lessons (including today).

Anyway, I had more to say, but I am le tired. Time to hit the sack.

So, yeah, I\’ve been studying engineering mostly faithfully since last year. The exception being a 2 month or so span where I [again] got bogged down and thought about quitting engineering. But it was short! And I didn\’t even tell my wife, because I thought it was probably fleeting (it was).

But I\’ve been back at it. It\’s interesting how external stimuli can influence this sort of thing. This time the stimulus was my boss essentially telling me that I was going to be promoted. Somehow that snapped me back into reality.

Anyway, I\’ve been hitting Khan Academy hard. It\’s been going well.

No, that\’s not short for needing to use the bathroom. It\’s my new goal.

I\’ve been pursuing engineering kind of in a vacuum since December or so. Well, given that I\’m an engineer by profession (Associate Test Engineer), I\’ve definitely been pursuing it longer than that, but I\’ve redoubled my efforts since then.

Back in the October-December time period, I was having one of my customary career crises. My wife helped me pull out of this one and get back on the engineering/technical path. She pointed out that I have been worrying about my career, which is a violation of Matthew 6:34; that feeling \”fake\” isn\’t unusual; that while I feel flighty, I\’ve been successful in the same field for more than 5 years; that I\’m most satisfied when I have a goal in mind; and that there is no need to rush.

All of that has been extremely helpful. I recommitted myself to studying engineering and have finished one math book and I\’m about a quarter of the way through the next.

But I need an actual end goal. On the one hand, getting an engineering degree makes sense. But I\’ve already got two bachelor degrees, I don\’t really want to spend any more money supporting a system that is so incredibly wicked (seriously, check out the crazy things coming from college campuses), and I think I\’m pretty good at self-study.

As far as I can tell, there is no requirement to have an engineering degree to be a PE, at least in some states. You have to pass a difficult test and have experience. I\’m ready to pursue this. Heck, I am pursuing it.

Here goes.

Like probably a million people, I had trouble coming up with a blog handle. myworthlessthoughts.wordpress.com was taken, as was icantthinkofaname.wordpress.com, pressword.wordpress.com, etc.

In the end, I picked something I like because you know, it really doesn\’t matter much what the blog name is. Heck, the blog doesn\’t matter much.

Technically, I have several navy blue mugs that I like, but the name sounded better in the singular.

So there you have it.