That sounds like a self-help book title. Maybe I\’ll write it some day.

This has happened to me recently, though. I was asked if I wanted to be promoted to my previous boss\’s position. I recognized that no one else in our group was really ideal for it, so I accepted without a lot of thought. But it\’s had more trials than I expected. For example:

1. I have less formal education than all of my supervises. That\’s awkward.
2. I\’m younger than the two that I immediately inherited. That\’s awkward.
3. I have an innate fear of becoming Dilbert\’s boss. That\’s not awkward, but it\’s unfun.
   1. Unfun should be a word.
4. I regularly have people asking me to make decisions that I haven\’t felt prepared to make.

That\’s about the size of it. On Thursday of last week, in the midst of dealing with an issue with one of the most experienced, oldest people I supervise, I kind of snapped. I had about a 15 minute case of histrionics with my amazingly patient boss, and got to watch him try different tactics with someone he expected to behave better.

Anyway, though it wasn\’t fun for either of us, I think it was ultimately valuable for me (at least). I realized while talking to him that I was A) Whining. That\’s really an uncool realization. B) Not really doing as bad a job as I thought. C) I was making excuses. And D) If I were in the military, and I had been given this position, it would be totally inappropriate for me to attempt to get out of it. \”Requested and required\” is a statement that I\’ve heard forever in a different context, and it\’s one I need to keep in mind. In a sense, that\’s what\’s going on here. Trumpkin going for the kids is another. There\’s a time for giving advice and a time for taking orders. That time has come.

More to say about this, but that\’s a start.

I recently bought The Hunt for Red October on Audible. It\’s a book I\’ve read before, and listened to before once, but the recording I had previously was horrible. Do not listen to the J. Charles one. It\’s just atrocious. So bad. The accents are mindbogglingly bad and distracting. The Scott Brick one I\’ve got now is far better. Still has some accents, but nothing nearly as revolting and distracting.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Anyway, in both the book and the movie, Marko Ramius begins the offensive by killing the political officer assigned to his boat. It\’s a kind of shocking moment, really. In the movie, Sean Connery does a pretty good job mimicking what is described in the book. He breaks the guy\’s neck brutally. The \”killee\” is an unlikable, self-important, chekist jerk, sure, but does that mean murder is acceptable?

The other thing that\’s weird about this is that it\’s pretty darn out of character for Marko. He\’s presented as kind of a grandfatherly sailorman (though brilliant) elsewhere.

I\’ve thought about this a little and think it really was murder and not justified. Here\’s why:

1. Marko was not at war. He was a traitor to his own country, yes, but that\’s hardly the same thing. Granted, his country was arguably at war with us, but still, he wasn\’t a citizen of our country.
2. Even if at war, there are limits as to what is moral in killing others.
3. His life was not in imminent danger.
4. The ends don\’t justify the means.

That\’s pretty much it. The only way I can think of justifying his actions is to attribute it to war. But he wasn\’t at war. Well, actually, I just considered the letter… He had fired that off already, which could be interpreted as a declaration of war… But probably not. If the shoe were on the other foot, a US sailor wanted to defect, mailed a letter, then murdered his political officer, would we be similarly OK with it because he was at war? Methinks no.

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.