Photo Journal 2023

I had a great year in 2023! It’s always nice to look back on memories and share them with others. Posting pictures is a great way to do that. What kind of places did you visit?

Tampa, FL

Pensacola, FL

Miami, FL

Plant City, FL

Brewton, AL

Huntsville, AL

Mobile, Al

Augusta, Georgia

Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany

Gainesville, Florida

Vandenberg SFB, CA

Bernina, Switzerland

Florence, Italy

Boulder, Colorado

Milan, Italy

Venice, Italy

Rome, Italy

Colorado Springs, CO

Orlando, Orlando

Frankfurt Germany

Ramstein, Germany

Reston, Virginia

San Antonio, Texas

Honolulu, Hawaii

Salt Lake City, Utah

Charlotte, South Carolina

Los Angeles, California

London, England

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Denver, Colorado

Buellton, California

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Sindelfingen, Germany

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Boston, Massachusetts

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Newton, Massachusetts

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Fort Walton Beach, Florida

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San Diego, California

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Chicago, IL

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January 19, 2024  Leave a comment

Information Diets and NPCs

NPC

I still prac­tice the con­cept of Zero-Inbox, which is the prac­tice of hav­ing zero emails. Along with the prac­tice of zero-inbox, I also main­tain a strict infor­ma­tion diet and work dili­gent­ly to elim­i­nate the Non-Playable Char­ac­ters (NPC) from my dai­ly life. Below is how I main­tain my data diet that allows me the nec­es­sary free time for my hob­bies of read­ing, cook­ing, and studying.

Zero-Inbox Practice

My imple­men­ta­tion of Zero-Inbox fol­lows a strict rule set. If some­thing is emailed direct­ly to and if it is deemed impor­tant, it becomes a check­list item with a due date with a fixed due date to com­plete. If it is emailed direct­ly to me, but I am not inter­est­ed, I fol­low up with the per­son stat­ing that I am not inter­est­ed. If some­thing is not emailed direct­ly to me, and the email’s head­line does­n’t spark inter­est, it gets delet­ed imme­di­ate­ly. If I get the same email mul­ti­ple times on a sub­ject I am not inter­est­ed in; I will cre­ate an email rule that moves it direct­ly to “Spam.” 

At any giv­en time, I have two to three emails in my inbox, which remind me to com­plete the nec­es­sary task or to have the infor­ma­tion eas­i­ly avail­able to com­plete a task that is not asso­ci­at­ed with my inbox. My prac­tice of Zero-Inbox has been ben­e­fi­cial because it elim­i­nates exces­sive noise that deters from the core mis­sion to either grow the busi­ness I am work­ing for or my interests. 

Website Reading

I am old school and still use RSS feeds for the web­sites I am inter­est­ed in. My cur­rent set­up uses Syn­ol­o­gy NAS, Dock­er, FreshRSS, and Read­er. This set­up allows me to parse mul­ti­ple web­sites quick­ly. If a top­ic or head­ing inter­ests me, I save the arti­cle for fur­ther read­ing on the week­end. This approach allows me to parse through ten web­sites in thir­ty min­utes while hav­ing cof­fee in the morn­ing. The Reed­er fea­ture of Bion­ic Read­ing allows me to digest infor­ma­tion quick­er than I would normally. 

Elimination of NPCs within Work

If you are unfa­mil­iar with the term, Non-play­er char­ac­ters (NPCs) are char­ac­ters in role-play­ing or video games whose actions are not con­trolled by a play­er. They can be allies, bystanders, or com­peti­tors to the play­er char­ac­ter. In the game of life, I have learned that com­pa­nies are filled with NPCs that don’t direct­ly impact the projects I work on. Because they do not have a direct impact, I elim­i­nate them from my “game.”  

This approach seems harsh, but I have the rules to han­dle this. If I get an email or call say­ing that I did not fol­low a “process,” I ask for the process in writ­ing. If the process is not doc­u­ment­ed, it is not a process.  This presents a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for the NPCs to update their process, and if it con­tin­ues not to be doc­u­ment­ed, then it indi­cates that this is a per­son­al­i­ty-dri­ven deci­sion. At this time, I will bypass the NPC until they either become a block­er in the “hero’s jour­ney.”  More often than not, the NPC goes back to their NPC existence. 

For the ones that become a “Block­er,” I have enough doc­u­men­ta­tion to demon­strate that this NPC is not fol­low­ing a doc­u­ment­ed process. Then the deci­sion is per­son­al­i­ty-dri­ven with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.  This is where the fun begins.  I will work dili­gent­ly to remove the block­er from the game.  If I can not remove the block­er from the game, I am updat­ing my resume because the game is no longer log­i­cal.  Why play a game when rules are set against you?  I rather play anoth­er game that I can win. 

Elimination of NPCs within Life

The same NPC rules go for social media and indi­vid­u­als. If I am not watch­ing pos­i­tive news, work­ing or fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als mak­ing an impact, and not try­ing to change things for the pos­i­tive, I will block, unfol­low, or delete them. How­ev­er, this does not lim­it me from not con­sum­ing or lis­ten­ing to oppos­ing views. I see this as an inter­est. If I am inter­est­ed enough, I will read or watch a doc­u­men­tary to bet­ter under­stand than lis­ten to a “talk­ing head.” 

Life is Too Short

Life is too short not to have strict fil­ters in place to keep your­self men­tal­ly fit. As I get old­er, I have become more con­scious of my lim­it­ed time and have start­ed elim­i­nat­ing exces­sive noise. My strict method­ol­o­gy for my emails and being con­scious about what I read and how I deal with peo­ple allows me to focus on the goals I care about.  It is also impor­tant to sur­round your­self with like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als to make the game more fun. 

August 4, 2023  Leave a comment

ChatGPT — Travel Agent

I took my wife on a ten-day trip to Italy for our 17th wed­ding anniver­sary. One of the chal­lenges was to find time actu­al­ly to plan our trip. Since I bought tick­ets in Decem­ber, in the­o­ry, we should have had plen­ty of time to plan our trip. That the­o­ry did not account for my busy trav­el sched­ule, my wife’s real estate busi­ness, my two boys’ end-of-school sched­ule, and mov­ing my moth­er-in-law into our house.

Sad­ly, I wait­ed two weeks out from the trip to devel­op a plan. Using my back­ground as a tech­nol­o­gist, I used Chat­G­PT as a “Trav­el Plan­ner.” Below is an exam­ple of the tran­script I used to plan our trip to show you how to do so for yourself.

__________

Austin — I am plan­ning a trip to Italy. The first stop is in Rome, and I plan to spend three days there. After that, I want to explore North­ern Italy. What are the most pop­u­lar cities in North­ern Italy?

Chat­G­PT — There are sev­er­al pop­u­lar cities in North­ern Italy that you might con­sid­er vis­it­ing on your trip after Rome. Some of the most pop­u­lar cities in North­ern Italy are:

1. Milan: Known as Italy’s fash­ion and design cap­i­tal, Milan is a vibrant city with a rich his­to­ry and cul­ture. High­lights include the icon­ic Cathe­dral of Milan (Duo­mo di Milano), the his­toric Gal­le­ria Vit­to­rio Emanuele II shop­ping arcade, and the famous paint­ing of “The Last Sup­per” by Leonar­do da Vinci.

2. Venice: A unique and pic­turesque city built on a net­work of canals, Venice is renowned for its roman­tic gon­do­la rides, beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture, and his­tor­i­cal land­marks such as St. Mark’s Square and Doge’s Palace. A vis­it to the icon­ic Rial­to Bridge and a gon­do­la ride along the Grand Canal are must-dos.

3. Verona: Known as the set­ting of Shake­speare’s “Romeo and Juli­et,” Verona is a charm­ing city with a well-pre­served Roman amphithe­ater, the Are­na di Verona, and the beau­ti­ful Piaz­za delle Erbe, a live­ly square with col­or­ful build­ings and a market.

4. Turin: Locat­ed in the Pied­mont region, Turin is known for its rich his­to­ry, ele­gant archi­tec­ture, and deli­cious cui­sine. High­lights include the Roy­al Palace of Turin, the Mole Antonel­liana with its panoram­ic views, and the Egypt­ian Muse­um, one of the world’s most impor­tant muse­ums of Egypt­ian antiquities.

5. Bologna: Famous for its cui­sine, Bologna is a vibrant city known for its medieval archi­tec­ture, his­toric uni­ver­si­ty, and rich cul­tur­al her­itage. The Two Tow­ers (Due Tor­ri), the Basil­i­ca of San Petro­n­io, and the pic­turesque Piaz­za Mag­giore are must-see sights.

6. Flo­rence: While not tech­ni­cal­ly in North­ern Italy, Flo­rence is a pop­u­lar des­ti­na­tion that is often includ­ed in itin­er­aries for its Renais­sance art and archi­tec­ture, includ­ing the famous Uffizi Gallery, the Flo­rence Cathe­dral (Duo­mo di Firen­ze), and the icon­ic Ponte Vecchio.

These are just a few exam­ples of the many pop­u­lar cities in North­ern Italy that you could con­sid­er vis­it­ing after your stay in Rome. Each city has its unique charm, his­to­ry, and attrac­tions, so depend­ing on your inter­ests, you can tai­lor your itin­er­ary to suit your preferences.

____ 

From this response and the avail­abil­i­ty of trans­porta­tion, I sent a text to my wife, and I asked what cities were “nec­es­sary” for the trip. The cities were Rome, Flo­rence, Milan, and Venice. From that, I nar­rowed down the responses. 

———

Austin: Based on the last prompt, what is the clos­est North­ern Italy city to Rome?

Chat­G­PT: The clos­est North­ern Italy city to Rome is Flo­rence. While Flo­rence is not tech­ni­cal­ly in North­ern Italy, it is locat­ed in cen­tral Italy and is often con­sid­ered a gate­way to North­ern Italy. It is approx­i­mate­ly 230 kilo­me­ters (143 miles) north of Rome and can be eas­i­ly accessed by train or car. Flo­rence is renowned for its Renais­sance art and archi­tec­ture, includ­ing the famous Uffizi Gallery, the Flo­rence Cathe­dral (Duo­mo di Firen­ze), and the icon­ic Ponte Vec­chio. It is a pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tion and can be a great stop to explore before con­tin­u­ing your jour­ney to oth­er cities in North­ern Italy.

Austin: What train is avail­able from Rome to Florence?

Chat­G­PT: Sev­er­al train options are avail­able for trav­el from Rome to Flo­rence. The train is a con­ve­nient and pop­u­lar mode of trans­porta­tion for trav­el­ing between these two cities in Italy. Some of the train options include:

1. Frec­cia­rossa: This is a high-speed train oper­at­ed by Tren­i­talia, the nation­al rail­way com­pa­ny in Italy. It is the fastest option and offers a pre­mi­um trav­el expe­ri­ence with mod­ern ameni­ties, includ­ing air-con­di­tion­ing, com­fort­able seat­ing, and onboard ser­vices. The trav­el time on Frec­cia­rossa trains from Rome to Flo­rence is approx­i­mate­ly 1 hour and 30 minutes.

2. Frec­cia­r­gen­to: Also oper­at­ed by Tren­i­talia, Frec­cia­r­gen­to is anoth­er high-speed train that con­nects Rome and Flo­rence. It offers a slight­ly slow­er trav­el time com­pared to Frec­cia­rossa, with an aver­age trav­el time of around 1 hour and 40 min­utes. How­ev­er, it still pro­vides a com­fort­able and con­ve­nient trav­el experience.

3. Inter­ci­ty (IC): This reg­u­lar inter­ci­ty train con­nects Rome and Flo­rence. It is a slow­er option than the high-speed trains, with a longer trav­el time of around 3 hours and 30 min­utes. How­ev­er, it can be a more bud­get-friend­ly option for trav­el­ers on a budget.

It’s impor­tant to note that train sched­ules and avail­abil­i­ty may vary, and it’s rec­om­mend­ed to check the most up-to-date infor­ma­tion on the offi­cial web­site of Tren­i­talia or oth­er reli­able sources before plan­ning your trip. Book­ing tick­ets in advance is also rec­om­mend­ed, espe­cial­ly for high-speed trains, as they can fill up quick­ly, espe­cial­ly dur­ing peak trav­el seasons.

____

Since sav­ing time and com­fort was impor­tant for us, I select­ed to trav­el with Frec­cia­rossa. With the under­stand­ing of how to prompt Chat­G­PT on how to trav­el through­out Italy, my focus shift­ed to fig­ur­ing out what to do in each city. 

___

Austin — What is there to do in Rome?

Chat­G­PT — Rome, the cap­i­tal of Italy, is a city steeped in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and art. It offers a wealth of things to see and do, with count­less land­marks, muse­ums, and oth­er attrac­tions. Here are some pop­u­lar activ­i­ties and sights to con­sid­er dur­ing your vis­it to Rome:

  1. Colos­se­um and Roman Forum: The Colos­se­um is an icon­ic sym­bol of Rome and a must-vis­it attrac­tion. This ancient amphithe­ater was used for glad­i­a­tor fights, char­i­ot races, and oth­er pub­lic spec­ta­cles in ancient Rome. The near­by Roman Forum is a vast archae­o­log­i­cal site once the cen­ter of Roman pub­lic life, with ruins of ancient tem­ples, basil­i­cas, and gov­ern­ment buildings.
  2. Vat­i­can City: The Vat­i­can City is an inde­pen­dent city-state and the head­quar­ters of the Roman Catholic Church. It is home to world-famous land­marks such as St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca, the Sis­tine Chapel with its famous fres­coes by Michelan­ge­lo, and the Vat­i­can Muse­ums, which house an exten­sive col­lec­tion of art and artifacts.
  3. Pan­theon: The Pan­theon is a well-pre­served ancient Roman tem­ple that has been con­tin­u­ous­ly used for almost 2,000 years. It is known for its impres­sive dome and is con­sid­ered a mar­vel of ancient Roman engineering.
  4. Tre­vi Foun­tain: One of the most famous foun­tains in the world, the Tre­vi Foun­tain is known for its exquis­ite Baroque style and is a pop­u­lar spot for tourists to toss a coin over their shoul­der, accord­ing to leg­end, to ensure their return to Rome.
  5. Span­ish Steps: The Span­ish Steps is a mon­u­men­tal stair­case that con­nects Piaz­za di Spagna with the Trinità dei Mon­ti church. It’s a pop­u­lar spot to sit, relax and peo­ple-watch, offer­ing panoram­ic city views.
  6. Piaz­za Navona: This his­toric square is known for its beau­ti­ful Baroque archi­tec­ture and grand foun­tains, includ­ing the famous Foun­tain of the Four Rivers by Gian Loren­zo Berni­ni. It’s live­ly with street per­form­ers, out­door cafes, and a vibrant atmosphere.
  7. Traste­vere: This charm­ing neigh­bor­hood on the west bank of the Tiber Riv­er is known for its nar­row cob­bled streets, medieval build­ings, and bohemi­an vibe. It’s a great place to wan­der, explore local shops, dine in tra­di­tion­al Roman trat­to­rias, and soak up the local culture.
  8. Vil­la Borgh­ese: This large pub­lic park is a peace­ful oasis in the heart of Rome, with beau­ti­ful gar­dens, foun­tains, and muse­ums. It’s a great place for a stroll, a pic­nic, or a vis­it to the Borgh­ese Gallery, which hous­es an impres­sive col­lec­tion of art, includ­ing works by Car­avag­gio and Bernini.

These are just a few things to do and see in Rome. The city is also known for its deli­cious Ital­ian cui­sine, vibrant street life, and vibrant cul­tur­al scene, so explor­ing its neigh­bor­hoods, mar­kets, and local expe­ri­ences can high­light your visit.

____

Since we had three days in Italy, we could vis­it most of the sites in Rome. 

___

Along with using appli­ca­tions like AirBnB and Yelp, I suc­cess­ful­ly used Chat­G­PT as a trav­el agent to plan where we were stay­ing and where we would eat. Now, we did not have the per­son­al­ized touch that a trav­el agent could have pro­vid­ed along with sched­ul­ing our stays, but with the mon­ey saved, I used it for the excur­sions and meals in each city.

June 26, 2023  Leave a comment

Top Three Questions for the DoD Cloud Journey

DoD is invest­ing heav­i­ly in Cloud Migra­tions, but sev­er­al unan­swered ques­tions exist.  The top three ques­tions for me are:

  1. What about the networks?
  2. What about the data?
  3. What Cloud Ser­vice Provider (CSP) is the standard?

Hav­ing these three ques­tions con­tin­ue to go unan­swered mud­dies the Warfight­er to have a com­pre­hen­sive approach to hav­ing an Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Stan­dard. To under­stand why it is impor­tant to have answers to each ques­tion, let’s explore each one individually. 

What about the Network?

It goes to the old joke that the Cloud is just some­one else com­put­er. Fun­ny but true. To access the Cloud, you have to access it from a net­work. The next log­i­cal step is to ques­tion how reli­able the net­work is. Does the net­work have mul­ti­ple path­ways to access the Cloud? What is the cur­rent laten­cy? What is the cost of updat­ing the net­work to have the nec­es­sary cus­tomer expe­ri­ence? More impor­tant, what is the mis­sion impact when the Cloud is not acces­si­ble? Unlike the com­mer­cial sec­tor, the Warfight­er can not take the day off when the net­work is down. Part of the con­cern is the rur­al mil­i­tary instal­la­tions that depend on the local Inter­net Ser­vice Providers (ISP), which are high­ly like­ly to uti­lize Huawei tele­com equip­ment as a cost-sav­ing mea­sure for their infra­struc­ture. That is why the U.S. gov­ern­ment is stop­ping the future pro­cure­ment of Huawei tele­com equip­ment. Before DoD orga­ni­za­tions go ful­ly into the Cloud, it is pru­dent to ensure that we have done our due dili­gence to ensure redun­dant com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels,  not uti­liz­ing pos­si­ble com­pro­mised net­works, while improv­ing the exist­ing ones. 

What about the Data?

Clive Hum­by, a British math­e­mati­cian and data sci­en­tist, stat­ed, “Data is the new oil.” The DoD is doing its best to be able to refine this data into knowl­edge, which in turn, into action. The chal­lenge with data, sim­i­lar to oil, is that it takes time to refine data to make it usable. The DoD, as a whole, strug­gles to have usable data. For years, the Knowl­edge Man­age­ment teams were respon­si­ble for data refine­ment by meta-tag­ging data, estab­lish­ing file plans, and cul­ti­vat­ing Share­Point por­tals to make data accessible. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Knowl­edge Man­age­ment was per­ceived by many with­in the com­mu­ni­ty as a bureau­crat­ic process slow­ing down the Warfight­er. Hence, the data is now not in a for­mat that is usable for more advanced tech­niques like Big Data, Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence, or Machine Learn­ing strug­gles to use. Worse, the data is now in the hands of a few indi­vid­u­als with a select under­stand­ing of tech­nol­o­gy with­out under­stand­ing the nuance of the data itself. 

What Cloud Service Provider is the Standard?

For years, the com­mu­ni­ty has worked towards devel­op­ing their staff to be knowl­edge­able in either Ama­zon Web Ser­vices or Microsoft Azure because of the promise of the JEDI con­tract. Few brave souls tried to jour­ney into DISA Cloud One or U.S. Air Force Plat­form One with mixed results tout­ed with good mar­ket­ing. How­ev­er, when the JEDI con­tract got con­test­ed, it intro­duced two more com­pet­ing tech­nol­o­gy stacks, Ora­cle Cloud Infra­struc­ture (OCI) and Google Cloud Plat­form (GCP), through the Joint Warfight­er Cloud Capa­bil­i­ty (JWCC) Con­tract. This caus­es an issue because only a few cleared resources com­pre­hend either of the six CSPs well at the archi­tec­tur­al lev­el, leav­ing agen­cies to com­pete for cleared resources.  An ill-defined inter­op­er­abil­i­ty plan fur­ther com­pli­cates mat­ters, leav­ing the DoD short of its goal of being Cloud Agnostic. 

Where do we go next on the Cloud Journey?

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the above address­es only a few key ques­tions that deci­sion-mak­ers must con­sid­er when con­sid­er­ing their DoD Cloud Jour­ney. With­out a holis­tic view of what is required to have a suc­cess­ful jour­ney, the Warfight­er is with­out the nec­es­sary capa­bil­i­ties to fight cur­rent and future wars. We also lack enforce­able stan­dards of hav­ing a glide path for mov­ing parts of the infra­struc­ture to the Cloud. As a col­lec­tive, we have to be bet­ter than that for War Fighter. 

June 18, 2023  Leave a comment

A Quick Guide for Military IT Professionals’ Next Steps

The pic­ture above is the day that I left the mil­i­tary. When I left the mil­i­tary, I had a choice to tran­si­tion to the civil­ian sec­tor for either a role with­in the DoD civil­ian, DoD Con­trac­tor, or Civil­ian sec­tor.  Along the way, I have learned to ask key ques­tions to help myself progress through the “ranks,” and oth­er vet­er­ans under­stand key ques­tions they need to ask along the way so they do not ham­per their ini­tial job search, salary prospects, and ben­e­fits.  With­in this quick guide for mil­i­tary IT pro­fes­sion­als’ next steps, here are the key ques­tions you need to ask your­self before mak­ing the next step. Hope­ful­ly, you will have the answers before you step out. 

Am I qualified?

Let’s get the uncom­fort­able ques­tion out of the way first. You can be the NCO of the Year award win­ner or ranked one out of ten staff offi­cers with a rib­bon rack that rolls over your shoul­der, but it does not mean a thing in the civil­ian sec­tor if you do not meet the qual­i­fi­ca­tions of the post­ed job require­ment. This fact is often a bit­ter pill for us to swal­low, but noth­ing in life is fair.      To ensure you pass the ini­tial screen­ing, you must ful­fill the job’s edu­ca­tion require­ments which have two dis­tinct cat­e­gories, Degrees, and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. The degree demon­strates that you have a base­line under­stand­ing. The cer­ti­fi­ca­tion demon­strates that you have spe­cial­ized train­ing in the par­tic­u­lar sub­ject. If you don’t have both, your resume will not get past the ini­tial screen­ing process. 

Special Note: If you don’t have your Security +, did you even do IT when you were in the military?

Why doesn’t the recruiter understand that I was a USAF 3D, USA 25 Bravo, 18 Echo, Signal Officer, USN IT1 or 1853, or Marine Corps 0651 or 0206?

First, did you know what this was before you signed up? Did your job assign­ment match up to the MOS ver­biage? The answer to both ques­tions is prob­a­bly a hard “Neg­a­tive.” The pri­vate sec­tor lacks the under­stand­ing of what you did, the skills and qual­i­fi­ca­tions devel­oped, and the mis­sion impact. You must use an “I” cen­tric approach to your resume. Explain what you did in a “Big Bird” for­mat, and have cause and effect for each bul­let. Your TAPs resume will not have this. I encour­age find­ing a resume writer or recruiter to help shape your resume for the position. 

Special Note: Spell out your acronyms or find the private sector equivalent. For example, I was an Air Force Computer Systems Operator (3C0), a USCENTAF NOC Engineer who learned to be a Full Stack Developer at HQ USSOUTHCOM. The civilian translation is “I am an IT Professional with extensive network operations background and full stack development experience. This includes working in Central Asia and South America.”

But I had TS/SCI when I was in…

The key word is “was.” For exam­ple, you lose your TS/SCI eli­gi­bil­i­ty after two years. A Top Secret clear­ance expires after five years, and a Secret clear­ance expires after ten years. Still, the issu­ing agency deter­mines the exact expi­ra­tion date. How­ev­er, in some cas­es, any changes in your cir­cum­stances may call into ques­tion your suit­abil­i­ty to hold a clear­ance. Keep this in mind when you try to reen­act the scenes from “The Hangover.”

Special Note: Always print out your copy of your e‑QIP.  

What are the benefits?

The chal­lenge of com­par­ing mil­i­tary ben­e­fits to pri­vate sec­tor ben­e­fits can be sig­nif­i­cant because the two are quite dif­fer­ent. For exam­ple, mil­i­tary ben­e­fits are gen­er­al­ly more com­pre­hen­sive and include hous­ing allowances, med­ical care, and retire­ment pen­sions. On the oth­er hand, pri­vate sec­tor ben­e­fits can vary wide­ly depend­ing on the employ­er and may include things like health insur­ance, 401(k) plans, and paid time off. Keep this fact in mind when you pick the next employer.

Special Note: Benefits are negotiable. 

The answers to the above ques­tions will help you find the job, pay, and ben­e­fits you are look­ing for. How­ev­er, there is a lot more to take into con­sid­er­a­tion when mak­ing a move out of active duty. If you have yet to start the plan­ning process at least two years out, the options can be lim­it­ed when you are out, but you are smarter than that.

January 19, 2023  Leave a comment

Basic Operating Procedures for Seeing the World

Streets of Brussel

I have been to thir­teen dif­fer­ent loca­tions in the past four months, includ­ing mul­ti­ple coun­tries. In all places that I have been to, there are basic oper­at­ing pro­ce­dures that have served me well.

One is basic man­ners. The pow­er of Ma’am, Sir, Thank you, and Wel­come will open more doors than not.

Two, a firm hand­shake and look­ing some­one in the eyes is a lev­el set. I have meet vice pres­i­dents and pres­i­dents of com­pa­nies and coun­tries, dig­ni­taries, oper­a­tors, sci­en­tists, and tech­nol­o­gists. Many have sto­ried careers, degrees, and back­grounds that make me want to do bet­ter. Regard­less, at the end of the day, we are all human. Firm hand­shakes and eye con­tact estab­lish com­mon respect.

Third, it is always good to have an exit strat­e­gy and be aware of your sur­round­ings. Most of the world is safe, but do not be naive. If you feel that some­thing is wrong, then some­thing is wrong. It is prim­i­tive nature telling you some­thing is wrong. Peo­ple would not be alive today if their ances­tors did not lis­ten to their gut feeling.

Forth is to explore and ini­ti­ate the con­ver­sa­tion. The only way to expe­ri­ence life is by liv­ing it. One can not expe­ri­ence life by stay­ing in the hotel lob­by bar or order­ing take-out. This men­tal­i­ty deprives peo­ple of what life offers and not meet inter­est­ing peo­ple. Instead, enjoy what the world has to offer.

November 11, 2022  Comments Off on Basic Operating Procedures for Seeing the World

A Multiphase Approach To Killing the Living Dead

Here is an arti­cle that I orig­i­nal­ly did for AFCEA Sig­nal Mag­a­zine in Octo­ber 2022. Enjoy.

The U.S. Space Force is going through tech­no­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion as it con­tin­ues to grow from its U.S. Air Force roots. One of the major chal­lenges it is encoun­ter­ing is that much of the enter­prise relies on lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy, which has the foun­da­tions of the orig­i­nal Air Force space pro­gram. It is not uncom­mon to see For­tran pro­gram­mers, IBM main­frames and Switch net­works as part of the pro­gram. This time-test­ed and true tech­nol­o­gy has main­tained aspects of nation­al secu­ri­ty for decades. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the tech­nol­o­gists who have sup­port­ed the tech­nol­o­gy stack are retir­ing, retired or no longer alive. As a result, sup­port­ing the lega­cy net­work often falls on the shoul­ders of the younger work­force, who have no inter­est in sup­port­ing lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy. This cre­ates dif­fi­cul­ty for the Space Force because it will strug­gle to find a work­force to sup­port its “zom­bie tech­nol­o­gy.” For those who are not famil­iar with the term, zom­bie tech­nol­o­gy is a tech­nol­o­gy that should have been retired a long time ago but keeps return­ing from the dead.

The ques­tion aris­es of how to kill the zom­bie tech­nolo­gies. Besides hit­ting the pow­er but­ton, I sug­gest a mul­ti­phase approach to elim­i­nate the liv­ing dead.

Phase 1 — Identify the Target

A con­scious effort must be made to phase out all lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy over the next five years. Fund­ing must be iden­ti­fied in the Space Force/Air Force Pro­gram Objec­tive Mem­o­ran­dum (POM) cycle now and must include train­ing the “zom­bie killers” to get rid of the lega­cy capa­bil­i­ties effec­tive­ly. There also must be fund­ing for learn­ing how to take care of them in the future after the zom­bies are gone.

Phase 2 — Train the Zombie Killers

The focus of the POM bud­get is on train­ing and incen­tives because con­vinc­ing some­one to learn the lega­cy tech­nol­o­gy, to be hon­est, is a hard sell. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, love of coun­try was good enough to have some­one com­mit to solv­ing this issue. How­ev­er, COVID-19 and the Great Res­ig­na­tion dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed the cleared work­force. More often than not, a good tech­nol­o­gist can and will find a job in the com­mer­cial sec­tor that allows work from home. Plus, the tech­nol­o­gist does not have to deal with the has­sle of work­ing in a clas­si­fied area while hav­ing access to crea­ture com­forts that they have grown accus­tomed to dur­ing COVID. This work­force shift has increased the cost of train­ing zom­bie killers. More impor­tant­ly, there must be a plan to tran­si­tion the indi­vid­u­als from zom­bie killers back to tech­nol­o­gists once the zom­bies are eliminated.

Phase 3 — Killing Zombies

The act of killing zom­bies is not going to be pleas­ant. Most senior lead­ers will want the ‘lift and shift ’ approach (known as brown­field imple­men­ta­tion) because it is eas­i­er to train the exist­ing work­force using zom­bie tech­nolo­gies. After all, they have become accus­tomed to using the tools for the past cou­ple of decades. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, lift and shift migra­tions have a low prob­a­bil­i­ty of suc­cess. 1) The cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy can­not adapt eas­i­ly to decades-old tech­nol­o­gy. 2) It will not have the nec­es­sary secu­ri­ty con­trols to meet accred­i­ta­tion. With this under­stand­ing, the act of killing zom­bies will have to be embraced as a new way to intro­duce tech­nol­o­gy, start­ing with the space sys­tems oper­a­tions and intel­li­gence school­house all the way to advance training.

Phase 4 — The New Normal

While all this talk of killing zom­bies is fun, we must be con­scious that we don’t allow the cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy to become the future zom­bies. Sim­i­lar to how the Office of the Direc­tor, Oper­a­tional Test, and Eval­u­a­tion does its annu­al reports, the Space Force should con­duct board reviews to deter­mine the health of its tech­nol­o­gy stack to ensure that it does not fall into the same fal­la­cy as before. If not, hit­ting the pow­er but­ton is always an option if the tech­nol­o­gy shows signs of the undead.

October 19, 2022  Leave a comment

Life Lessons as a CIO

Cheyenne Moun­tain, CO

I have spent the past two years as a Chief Inno­va­tion Offi­cer and Direc­tor in the hope of mak­ing the deputy gen­er­al man­ag­er role. This result­ed in spend­ing long hours at work, often six­ty-five to hun­dred-hour work weeks, doing unde­sir­able work, and a lot of time with­out the fam­i­ly. What did it get me? An excuse from the new gen­er­al man­ag­er was that the cus­tomer decid­ed to go in anoth­er direc­tion, but I could stay in a less­er role and do all the work I cur­rent­ly do. I respect­ful­ly declined, left qui­et­ly, and planned my next role in life. Even though the out­come was dis­ap­point­ing at the time, in the long run, the lessons learned allowed for a growth position.

Here are a few hard-fought life lessons, and I ful­ly under­stand that hind sights are all 20/20.

Life Lessons

1. Was the long hours worth it? Yes, because it allowed me to gain valu­able insights and be mar­ketable in my next and future roles. The unpaid hours were an edu­ca­tion to allow me to be a bet­ter leader in the future. The rever­sal of this les­son is that I should have been more account­able to myself for my progress ver­sus rely­ing on a cor­po­rate eval­u­a­tion system.

2. Was the extra work of tak­ing the hard roles or the unde­sir­able projects? Yes, because that is where the growth occurs. It is nec­es­sary to do the work. The rever­sal of the les­son is Pareto’s Prin­ci­ple. 80% of the work will be done by only 20% of the work­force. Man­age­ment will trust the work to be done by this 20% because it is eas­i­er than man­ag­ing the remain­ing 80%. The increased involve­ment of HR in day-to-day man­age­ment will also make it dif­fi­cult to push out the non-per­form­ers. This quandary results in the 20% that is doing the work will become over­worked. If you think you are in the 20%, under­stand your worth.

3. It is nec­es­sary to know the dif­fer­ence between man­age­ment ver­sus lead­er­ship. I have met very few Lead­ers in my life. I have met a lot of Man­agers. Both man­agers and lead­ers have dif­fer­ent con­no­ta­tions. Both are human and fal­li­ble. Be care­ful who you decide to fol­low. The rule’s rever­sal is that man can not be an island to him­self. To be suc­cess­ful in life, vet the right men­tors and who you allow in your tribe. This means doing the hard thing of trust­ing indi­vid­u­als to call you out when you are off the path. I also rec­om­mend get­ting men­tors out­side the com­pa­ny that does not have bais.

4. Job Is a job as long as you work for some­one else. If you are work­ing for your­self or towards your own goals, it is a lifestyle.

5. A com­pa­ny’s polit­i­cal lean­ing does not match your own; it will be hard to work for that com­pa­ny. I have seen a com­pa­ny dra­mat­i­cal­ly change its cul­ture to the point that it lost very tal­ent­ed peo­ple and had to fold a divi­sion because it no longer had the tal­ent to win or do the work. The rever­sal of the rule is all a game. Learn­ing how to play the game or when to step out deter­mines how well you do.

6. Get paid for what you are worth. Pay­ment can mean mon­ey, edu­ca­tion, and ben­e­fits. If you can not find your worth with­in the com­pa­ny, move on. In the age of stock­hold­er val­ue, a com­pa­ny will do its best for the com­pa­ny. It would help if you did the same for yourself.

This is not the cul­mi­na­tion of the life lessons learned. But it is also impor­tant to doc­u­ment my lessons for oth­ers to learn.

August 24, 2022  Comments Off on Life Lessons as a CIO

Pueblo Lake State Park

South Shore — Lake Pueblo State Park

I decid­ed to get away this week­end to do some camp­ing, hik­ing, and fish­ing at Lake Pueblo State Park in South­ern Col­orado. Lake Pueblo is a reser­voir that damns the Arkansas Riv­er for hydro­elec­tric­i­ty and agri­cul­tur­al use, along with pro­vid­ing recre­ation­al fishing. 

South Col­orado

With sev­er­al trails along the park, I decid­ed to hike 13 miles of them. I rec­om­mend­ed pack­ing extra water, elec­trolyte pow­der, socks, and sun­block through the park’s hot and arid con­di­tions. There is no cov­er on the trails except for the park bench­es, but water sta­tions at the camp­grounds refill your packs. 

No skulls were found in Skull Canyon.

Also, the park is sus­cep­ti­ble to high winds being on the front range. Ensure that your camp­ground is secured, or you will sore­ly regret it. I had to wake up in the mid­dle of the night, throw­ing all my gear into the tent. I would also make sure your camp­fire is com­plete­ly out before turn­ing it in for the night. The con­di­tions out along the front range are extreme­ly dry. For aspects of fish­ing, not much I can report. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I did more nature watch­ing than fish­ing. Regard­less, it was a good trip and I would vis­it again. 

May 9, 2022  Leave a comment

Apple Tree Fable

Apple Tree

Apple Tree Fable

A farmer worked day and night to carve out a liv­ing for his fam­i­ly. On his farm was an apple tree that the farmer relied on to feed his fam­i­ly. Dur­ing the spring, the tree blos­somed, bring­ing joy to the farmer’s wife. By fall, the farmer’s son would pick apples so the moth­er could use. Dur­ing a dry sea­son, the apple tree did not bear fruit. The farmer’s son did not under­stand why the tree did not bear fruit and blamed the apple tree. In his short-sight­ed­ness, he took his father’s ax and cut down the apple tree. Upon dis­cov­er­ing his son’s actions, the farmer scold­ed his son. 

Cur­rent Day Lesson

A small busi­ness is often a com­mu­ni­ty’s apple tree. When a pro­test­er tears down a small busi­ness in a protest, it demon­strates short-sight­ed­ness and often harms the local com­mu­ni­ty. When a busi­ness clos­es, it deprives the local econ­o­my of a pos­i­tive impact on the com­mu­ni­ty’s jobs and ser­vices. Keep this in mind when you watch the news and watch pro­tes­tors destroy their communities. 

November 12, 2016  Leave a comment

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