Catharsis...

I was reading some friends' blogs about goals they'd set for themselves by certain ages, and those pangs of regret, long surpressed in the depths of my psyche (you know, down there with the faint light of dreams long ago dreamed) began to rear their collective ugly head. Almost at tears, I write.

Growing up, I had such lofty aspirations for myself. It may sound silly now coming from a man as fat and out of shape as I am, but I always wanted to be an astronaut. I remember seeing old footage of Neil Armstrong's historic landing on the moon and thinking to myself, "That is what I want to do! Something that hasn't been done before." As many of my elementary school teachers would tell you, I always had my nose stuck in books about the space program, particularly the Apollo program. I came to make a goal for myself: become the first human to set foot on Mars...or something equally as likely to land me a place in the history books.

And, for a time, all seemed well in proceeding toward that objective. In high school, I quickly rose to the top of my class. I graduated as valedictorian and headed to Georgia Tech to study nuclear engineering.

Then, I lost it all.

Now look at me. Overweight, out of shape, and stuck in a job at tech support while I finish out computer networking at a local tech school. My, how the mighty have fallen indeed. While I was at Georgia Tech, I had written down some goals for myself by the year 2010. I happened to find them in the murky waters of the My Documents folder on my computer. Suffice it to say I am nowhere near them.

Then again, is that necessarily a bad thing? I mean, I was a different person in the fall of 2000 when I wrote those as part of a stupid freshman orientation assignment. And different people have different goals, right? At least I have clothes, shelter, food, and family...and a woman who loves me dearly. Maybe instead of pining for the past, I should be on my knees thanking God what I do have.

"And I said: 'Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!'" Isaiah 6:5, English Standard Version

The saga continues

Ok, sorry for the lack of updates recently. Here's the latest with what is going on with my battle with the beast known as WPA-PSK. I am now on my second Linksys WRT54G router and still can't get it to connect with any of my computers.

Honestly, at this point, I am at my wit's end. I will try to contact Linksys support for further help on the issue, but it looks as if I am stuck with WEP for the time being. For more details, I have a thread going here under my gaming handle, Veridor.

For the record, check out BobXFett's post about nLite, which is perhaps one of the coolest programs I have ever used. Especially since it easily takes an hour after a fresh install of XP to get it tweaked and customized for my tastes. In short, nLite takes the work out of that by letting you slipstream service packs, hotfixes, tweaks, settings, etc. into a burnable disc image, or ISO. Basically, you get a fresh install that is pretty much up to date and pre-customized for you. Nice indeed.