Randy’s random musings

For almost two years now, I’ve been using VOIP telephone technology for my home phone. At first, it was through the local cable company, Grande. We got a small discount, since it was part of a package for cable TV, internet, and telephone service.

But then, I heard of Vonage, and loved the idea that if we moved, taking our home phone service with us was as simple as carrying a small adapter and plugging it in at the new location! And being in the military, we figured we’d be moving at least a few more times. If you’re not familiar with VOIP telephony, basically it gives you standard telephone service, using the normal telephones you’re used to, but the signal goes over the internet instead of the phone company’s wires. (which is the only downfall: if you lose internet connectivity or electricty, your telephone no workie, either! Better have a cell phone as a backup!!)

Sure enough, it worked out great! We were temporarily accommodated at a hotel, and later a furnished, weekly rate studio apartment, and were able to keep our home phone service with us as each location. The price wasn’t bad, either: $24.99 per month for unlimited nation-wide long distance service (with Caller ID), and they even have free calls to certain foreign countries! Read the rest of this entry »

So, we’ve put our house on the market. It’s already been about 2 weeks, and we’ve only shown it three times so far. I have a feeling our asking price is too high, but we’re trusting our realtor, Bob Winkler. Hope he knows what he’s doing!

I just got a phone call from NATO, and they tell me I’ve been selected as the “first alternate” for the Comm shop post, meaning they’ll offer the job to me, if their first choice doesn’t complete the first year of his contract, for some reason. In reality, I take that to mean “better luck next time!”.

But that’s fine with us! We have a plan: move to Oklahoma, enroll in school full-time (an online university, WGU), and live off the Montgomery GI Bill (and mooch off Cathy’s parents) while I work on getting my BA. It shouldn’t take more than a year, and hopefully it will be substantially less than that. It sounds perfect: Cathy and Benjamin get to spend quality time with family, and I can concentrate solely on blasting through school and getting that degree. Hopefully, I’ll be offered an ESM post with NATO within 6 months or so, but meanwhile I’m going to try to enjoy my first lapse in employment in the past 10.5 years!

So, I’m off to Germany yet again, next week. It’s pretty much been decided that we’ll be moving to Oklahoma in the near future, once we get our house sold, and Cathy shoots her last few weddings in May.

So the next few months will be a stressful, yet exciting adventure! Stay tuned for more updates…

I applied for early separation from the Air Force, and just found out that it’s been approved! It looks like my last day is going to be the 28th of March, which is closing rapidly… I’m not sure what I’ll do with myself once I get out, but I’ve been entertaining the idea of working in the IT industry, if I’m able to find a decent entry-level job. If not, I can always fall back on my medical laboratory experience, if necessary. But I think it might be nice to get paid for something I actually enjoy, for a change…

I’ve been using Mozilla Firefox since the early beta days. I remember how exciting it was to have a trimmed-down, lightweight browser that worked well on the old, slow laptop I had at the time. Once I got used to tabs and plug-ins like AdBlock, there was no going back!

Firefox has had its share of security concerns, but nothing like Internet Explorer! It’s hard to imagine all the pain and frustration felt around the world, due to the mass of computers “owned” (taken over) by spyware. The vast majority of those “owned” computers have been taken over because the user did something as simple as navigate to the wrong web site using Internet Explorer. The newest Internet Explorer has improved in every aspect, but you can take Firefox away from me when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

So, the other day, I go to hit up my favorite search engine’s website, Google, and I’m greeting with the following ridiculous message:

Gee, thanks, Earthlink! Now I can find all those Used Cars and Airline Tickets that I was looking for! Actually, this is really hard to believe–Not only are Earthlink’s Domain Name Servers so crummy that they can’t resolve www.google.com, but they have to make some extra money from advertising on that page, too?

There have been several occasions where I thought I had lost my internet connectivity, only to find out that Earthlink’s DNS servers were down. Now I use OpenDNS, and have the added benefits of automatic typo-correction, anti-phishing, not to mention the speedy, reliable DNS service I would have expected from my ISP.

I was informed yesterday morning that I’m the “first alternate” for the NATO post I applied for, meaning I was candidate #4, and they only had 3 open positions. My alternate status means that if any of the other 3 drop out or quit in the first 2 years, I’ll be offered the position immediately. They’ll also hire me immediately if another similar position opens up.

The problem is that I have another 2 years remaining in my enlistment, and a one-time-only opportunity to get out early, due to “Force Shaping”. If I stay in, and I’m offered a job with NATO later this year, I won’t be able to accept it, due to my commitment to the Air Force! What to do, what to do?

I’m leaning towards separating early, anyway.

Monday, I took an qualifying examination for a NATO civilian post, maintaining ESM systems on the E3A Sentry in Geilenkirchen, Germany. Out of 14 candidates who tested, only 5 were able to achieve a minimum score of 40% on the test, including myself. That means I’m competing with 4 other people for 3 openings. Sounds like I’ve got a good shot, right?

That’s what I thought, until I interviewed today. I went in feeling confident, if a bit nervous, being my first job interview and all. But I had prepared for the interview, and tried to keep my cool. It was still a bit nerve-wracking, particularly when they got to the end, when they administered yet another technical challenge. It shouldn’t have been difficult, but for me, it was. My formal electronics training took place about 10 years ago, and I haven’t used it since. I’m pretty sure I scored between 40-60% on that particular test, but have no idea how I fared compared to the other candidates. It’ll be 1-2 weeks before I get a telephone call to let me know the results of the hiring process.

Until then, it’ll hard to sleep at night.