Finally some time alone.

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Home from work, til 0700 tomorrow..

Every one is mostly quite so maybe I can take some time to get a little work done. I’ve spent most of my time these past few days playing Armored Core: Nexus on the Playstation 2 since no ones let me alone. I’d like to take some time to work on learning more about LISP, there is only 3 major forms of lisp I know of in fairly common usuage. Emacs Lisp, the language used for extending the GNU and X Emacs editors — which means it’s probably able to do any thing in it short of write an OS only in elisp (without other languages, like Assembly).

There is also Common Lisp, if I remember correctly it was an attempt to mak a common ground among the various dialects of LISP that sprang up over the years. And there is Scheme, I think the current standard for the Scheme Language was just released back in Augest. For me, I think Scheme is probably going to be the one I try to learn. I’ve never really used a lisp like language before, I’m used to C-Like ones, BourneShell, Python, and Ruby probably being the farthest I’ve gone in other directions.

The problem with Scheme as I see it, would be finding a suitable implementation (hopefully also supported by SLIB). That it won’t be to easy to shoot my self in the foot with. I’d rather like not to have to be tied to any given implementation but I don’t know enough of Scheme to know what *not* to depend on. I don’t think it would be to serious a problem, although not as simple as with C. With C, it’s quite easy to find out what you *should* have by systems that implement the languages standard. And there’s some level of standardization among Unix like systems of what ‘extras’ you are given. The Win32 API…. I’m not even going to ask. In fact, the first time I looked at the Win32 API, it made me think Assembly would be more fun. Well… Technically if I had the time to invest in it, I’d probably love learning X86 Assembly and all of the hardware related stuff that might lead to learning in turn.. So just call me Crazy as they come.

I find generally, I can learn almost any thing given enough time. The only problem is getting around the obsticlues (time, energey, and a family that will not comply).

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*SIGH* It seems like every time I want to sit down and type some thing for my blog. I always end up AFK =/

Being the healthest sick person in the house, I guess thats to be expected…. That or I just need to learn how to build my self a sound proof bunker lol.

*sighs*….

Being Busy yet still not getting any thing done sucks. At least I did get ONE thing useful done today, sent GCHQ a new recruit checklist to nit pick. With about 30-40 items on it hehe.

Not to mention I need to get up for work and out the door around 0700 every day til Tuesday (when I get to sleep in till almost 0830). And hopefully a Day off come September 28th. If I’m lucky, maybe the 6th and 7th of October. I’d like to try and put together a Live Op for SWAT4 around then, because all the ones I have been setting up have been for RvS. The problem, it’s hard to get a decent map for a Live Op in SWAT4. And to make it worse without a Mic I can’t even play test the map…

Usually when I do a Live Op, I play it a little in Custom Mission mode (RvS) and will use the ghost cam to take some screen shots for Intel, likethe 8 I did for Saving The Prince. And during the Live Op itself, I usually try to serve as an Operator at the Tactical Operations Centre, providing support via the Radio. In SWAT4, I can’t take any intel photo’s like that (Fuuy) and if I play test the map. Because theres no real spectator mode thats worth a damn. I would have to probably communicate only via XFire with the Element as they clear the map — because I can’t talk on without a Mic!. And If I’m in the server but not playing the map, that robs some one a slot who could be in the Op. Not to mention, if I don’t play test the map before using it for the Live Op, I have no way of knowing what situation the guys will walk into. And therefore no way to provide any briefing…. Which kind’ve takes the point out of it. Since a Live Op is supposed to be as close to the real thing as we can get.

Raged Spiders

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Well, the live op was a master scaled disaster.

The planning started in March, the Live Op was to be marvelous. The map was huge, 5 levels worth and three huge buildings plus larger areas connecting them. Plus a bell tower with a sniper. Two hostages and a Bomb !

The scenario was pretty simple, HRH Prince Charles of Wales got kidnapped and was tracked down. At the direction of MI5, Armed Police kicked in the door on a house where the Residents were suspected of being terrorists. After a heck of a fight, they link up with lots of others and take over U.W.A. A big university in south Wales. Two strike choppers of the Royal Protection Squad taken out of the sky in a quick rescue attempt gone bad.

I stayed up all night to make the Intel doc’s we used for this simulation. 8 Photo’s with detailed comments so people could plan the map, about the only aid that we got lol. I even saved a last photo for an ‘in mission update’ showing the primary hostage, complete with bomb.

The [SAS] Element was to enter the fortress sized building, overcome the enemy, locate the royal hostage, optionally an injured pilot (from the RPS rescue attempt). And extract. I’d clear the roof area and get the tech squad to destroy the SAM sites on the roofs so we can get a Helicopter extraction. Then redeploy, go dynamic and frag every hostile on the map (reloaded to a tango hunt).

So, what went wrong?

Before the Live Op started, every one was supposed to be briefed, the last Intel was posted a day or two before the deadline.

There should’ve been a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in command ready before the mission took place and a special Dynamic aslt plan prepared (the Immediate Action Plan) in place the Live Op had to launch early (Shots fired, hostage in danger, GO GO GO!).

It took forever for them to read the Intel -> but they did very good with the 15min time limit to plan the op.

Several people mis-installed the map because I didn’t have time to make a Click Team installer for it, just a batch file to install the files to the default paths for those who had it. Rest had to do it manually. Map was like 68MB, zipped down to 17.7MB.

During this time I was arguing with my mom, she used the phone and it caused my (aDSL/Ethernet) network connection to drop (A little problem we have here). So I had to storm out and devliever AJ (my nephew). They were nice enough to wait for me… Unforutintly Pittman couldn’t hang around it took to long.

Every one f@#king died

Leaving a bunch of Old School [SAS] in Royal Protection Squad Uniforms to come out of my imagination and save the day.

I’ve worked hard for months (March-September) setting up this live op. I wanted it to be some thing special for the guys, a real good live op. But it was hell on wheels from where I sat.

To top it all off, my family has all but tried to sabotage the freaking live op most of the afternoon. When I’ve gone through the trouble of arranging FOUR MONTHS in advance to have ONE DAY to spend on the computer. Gone through the hoopla of getting 7 people organised into for a single advent, planned down to the polish on the boots.

I freaking expect to be there with the time I scheduled to be rightfully mine to try & use!

Only GOD has a right to control my life without my permission.

The day before, when we scheduled to have me cart my nephew (my sisters bird) over there. I specified BEFORE 2 or in the Evening after the live op. We had every thing arranged like clock work the day before,, perfect I would be able to do what they wanted + get to hold the Live Op.

What happens? She’s not ready of bed by 3pm. My mother is going ape because she wants the loud mouth bird out of hear so she can work (his bird cage was in the way). So I’ve got to hold up the dang live op. It could have been easily done after the live op, simple. But no, they can’t wait for some thing planned months before there plans were even on the to do list.

All because two people can’t follow a schedule. They can’t do what they’ve agreed, they can’t deal with “Your late, then you wait”, well frag’em. Hell, I can’t even have a conversation with some one without my family interfering.

//— Start Rant —//
Not fit for human consumption
//— End Ran —//

Most of the time I ever do get to play games with my friends, it’s because my family is driving me too crazy to get stuff done. Or I’m not physically and mentally up to the task, so I send a few rounds with my friends then drop to get back to work. Most of the other times, it’s because some one asked me to Join them for a few games. I’m thankful for it.

I’ve had enough, if my family won’t respect me as I respect them. Then they can suck off before I show them the behavior I prefer to. They want to be bastards, then I should be a Monster. An Iron Fist. But I’m not that kind of person…. Unlike the rest of my family (IMHO), I think controlling your self before you allow yourself to hurt some one you care for is a thing that we should try.. I don’t like to hurt people, it’s not who I am. I like to be ‘me’, I like to be free. But not to the extent that I rip up other people.

I think if I ever get married, I would have more to apologize to my wife for then be thankful for of what place my experiences in Family life have had an effect on me. After nearly 20 years of being around people, they rub off on you…. Even things you try to avoid. Needless to say, much of whats gone on in my Family…. Is not what I want a future generation to ever know what it’s like.

The result? Some times I’m like a monster… Like I’ve seen them, at least in the same spirit of. The difference? I don’t want to be… I see it for what it is, wrong. I don’t like to be ‘mean’, it’s just not who I am on the inside. But it’s the rage they bring out in me. The rage I’ve learned from being around my family…

*sigh*.

No matter what I do, they always hurt me…. but I don’t want to hurt them back, even if I feel I should at times. And even thinking that way for a few minutes (to inflict on them what they inflict on me) is some thing I’m sorrowful about when I calm down.

One of the reasons why I work to try and serve the [SAS] and it’s Membership, is because it’s not like my family. It’s a good place, one where I would be honored to see my Children become involved in it; if I ever live to have any.

Of my travel through live, the best things to happen to me…

Finding GOD

My time with the SAS

Learning to read

And learning every thing I can about the things that interest me.

The miserable part? My family has had very little positive involvement or influence in any of it, other then learning to read… =S While other people have…

Dewookification

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As much trouble as an hour of shaving is… It’s nice to finally be rid of that beard. Even if it took having to work Saturday for me to actually do it haha.

One of these days I’d love to get a straight razor (basically the old fashion kind)… Might cost a little (lot) more then the common safety razors used these days. But I think having to care for the blade would be cheaper and more effective then buying replacement cartridges every now and then (yes I am a cheap bastard).

The minor of issue of having to learn to use it would also be no problem (hopefully). The cost is the problem =/

Hmm, hopefully I’ll get at least 15 min before work to catch up on my reading for the day. I left off some where around Page 19’ish a couple months back and never found the time to continue.

*Sighs*, wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice long vacation with lots of reading time… hehe.

Getting Old

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Dang it, I put my head down for 5 minutes to rest…. And next thing I know it’s almost 0230.

I had kind’ve hoped to shave before work this Saturday but I’m not sure if I’m going to get to now lol.

*Sighs* At least this weekend I can get a little rest..

  1. Work
  2. Dealing with a little [SAS] Matter
  3. Training
  4. PC-BSDv1.4RC and making a new XMMS PBI, also Blackbox PBI while I’m at it.
  5. catching up with AIM/E.t.c. -#&62; I havn’t been on any thing but XFire much this past week or two. I’ve been to busy working.
  6. Maybe make a Vim PBI if there isn’t any working one.
  7. Possibly try to get a hold of Heim and see if he can be of help information wise on point #2.

Not to mention I have til Tuesday to finish reading the library books. And I need to finish work on a program on a web site. Debugging Typo’s in PHP != my idea of fun.

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I dunno why, but these past few weeks I’ve been having the strangest dreams =/

Extreme Sex and Perl programming…. Very strange combination for dreams lol.

What makes it all the more funky is Perl, is not a language I do much in. For the most part Ruby, C, and BourneShell make up most of the stuff I do. When I use Perl, it’s usually because I don’t know AWK and I’m to lazy to use any more |pipes in my command line.

I think odds are, if I had stuck with Perl when I had started learning it. It would’ve been my favorite language.

Hussle Bussle

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Damn it feels good to get my feet out of shoes… Even if it’s only an hour til I go back to work.

I’ve missed the chance to post 3 or 4 entries I wanted to do.. When I’m busy I usually skip my Live Journal for the day. My E-Mail and server time usually being the next ones on the list to go….

The day started with a 0930 roll out to get ready, home from work, chores done by 1700. That gives me maybe an hour to rest. Then I go back to another hour and a half of hell. Not a bad days labour for some one people bitch at that he doesn’t work, eh?

I’m anxious to see what if any response my post in SNCO’s has gotten. But I don’t have time to deal with the other messages if I do log in. I uploaded an HTML Export of the current draft of the SOP’s. I consider them *almost* ready for release, just a couple more things that I know we need to do. Clean up the section on Communication, I think for the sake of Getting It Done. I’d like to grab a couple of Members and have a group huddle to work on a few things.

What En4cer did for the V-Commands SOP which I adopted into this rewrite as necessary… Is good stuff but we need a RvS and S4 V-Com section that goes hand in hand with each other. And En4cer is sure as hell not current enough on SWAT4 to be able to do it so even if he was active enough…

So, Plan C:

Rip it down to an outline and rewrite the hole thing from scratch. Including writing both sections at the same time(ish) to more better synchronise them.

Also Appendix I needs to be reviewed and I want to change a few more things but I need time to do it.

I’ve taken to keeping an Operations.txt file on my Desktop and having Vim open it to show coloured indentation markers. In such a way I can use it as a Quick & Dirty outline / notes file. While retaining the power of my text editor and skipping learning a plugin to do basically the same thing but more completely =/.

*sigh*, between Family and Work, life is a nightmare…. There’s not a lot good left in my days when I’m not around [SAS]. To be honest, I think I’d do better in the Military… I think even a Private would have more take home pay then both of us combined :S. If it was enough to support my mother… I might even manage to have a chance at going after it. It would also be a chance to do some thing with my life… if my body could stand the Physical Training I might even enjoy it. Ones country can’t shit on you as much as your family for trying to be of help can they? lol.

For my age, I should be strong as an ox…. Rather then having nearly as many rattles as a FORD Tempo.

I always hoped to keep the Army and Navy open as possible options for my future. But I don’t know if the parts would stand up to it any more. I’ve been working in this business since I was 15, without pay or respect. I remember when I was a young teenager people said I had a mind older then my years….. Less then 10 years down the road I feel like I’m developing the body to match =/

…. Fuck.

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Re upp’d the library books this morning before work. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one thats half asleep that time of morning hehe.

I’ve been concentrating on Maximum Security: A Hacker’s Guide to Protecting Your Internet Site and Network. A very good book, highly interesting. This is a THICK book, I’ve read only 200 pages or so and keep going. I figure if I keep going at my usual reading rate I can finish it in about a week of reading nights. I’m used to pulling 70-100 Pages a day when reading a novel, more if I just sit on my ass and read the day away.

I really want to dig deeper into the book on PHP/MySQL because I really don’t know shit about Databases, PHP… Is close enough to things I do know that I can generally pick things up fast. SQL, is a different story.