And Never Again, I’ll Go Sailin’

no more sailin’
so long sailin’
bye bye sailin’…

My penultimate day in the Navy! Tomorrow evening I fly home to my wife and begin my new career as “Senior Software Developer” at a digital media agency in Dublin, Ireland on Sep. 29. Needless to say, I cannot wait.

What a long 6 years it has been. Can’t say it’s all bad and I have learned a few things.

The military is not inherently evil for example. Mainly it’s just a bunch of kids doing what they’re told by some old men doing what they’re told and so on and so forth. The original orders may come from the president or god or aliens for all I know. Most likely the machine’s been running for so long that no one is really controlling it anymore. Everything has become spectacle and the spectacle is everything. I don’t like to believe that though. Look what that line of thought did to Guy Debord. It’s less frightening to believe a race of alien lizards are running the show – at least it gives you a physical enemy to confront.

Also learned that the military likes to dumb things down to a terrifying level. They aim at the lowest common denominator then take two steps below. The training is geared towards fourth graders, the food is bland, the allowable music is bland, everything (not simply the ships) is grey. It’s like they’ve become so afraid of offending anyone that no one is really happy. Or sad. Just discontent.

I’ve also recently discovered that it’s a lot more difficult getting out than it is getting in. Of course that’s not even gonna slow me down..

Good news for anyone who’s ever tried to follow my Papervision3d photo gallery tutorial but wished it was updated to a more recent version of PV3D. I just received an email from a reader the other day, Bram in the Netherlands (the only name I got), who has done just that. The updated files can be downloaded here, and a big thanks to Bram.