Opinions

First Amendment to the United States Constitution—
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Freedom of speech... one of the many rights we enjoy living in this country of ours. Freedom of speech, of thought, and to believe in whatever we want to believe in. But that's not to exclude the thoughts and opinions of others. Just because we live in a country where we can exercise this freedom just about wherever we are (with professional atmospheres and general tact taken into consideration) does not mean that we are safe from the opinions and thoughts of others.

"Every man is a fool in some man's opinion" -Spanish proverb
"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes." -Voltaire
"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric." -Bertrand Russel
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd." -Bertrand Russel

Just because you have an opinion, does not mean you are right in your opinion. That's not to say that you are not allowed to have that opinion, but that the basis for which you came to that conclusion may be as unstable as a sandcastle on the beach with the tide coming in.

Any time you state your opinion, wherever you are, you are going to have people that agree with you. At the same time you will have those who differ in opinion, and they, based on the subject matter, may choose to interject and state what they think. At this point, if the conversation continues, it is no longer an exchange of opinions, rather it has become a discussion (and sometimes an argument) as to why your opinion is more valid than the next persons. This is where it becomes crucial that you know where you are coming from in your opinion, lest you get trashed up one side and down the other about how you are wrong. Having facts to back up your statements is a key ingredient here, because you can be a bit more involved in the rebuttal, rather than just shutting down and repeating yourself like a broken record about how "It's my opinion and I can think how I want!" That's when you come off as annoying and uninformed, just spewing blanket statements out of your mouth that you heard once or twice from here or there.

I could say the sky is blue. And there will be those around me that agree with me, and there will be that one person who will swear up and down that the sky itself is not blue, but rather it has to do with the atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere having a different effect on the sunlight that passes through them. The­re is a physical phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering that causes light to scatter when it p­asses through particles that have a diameter one-tenth that of the wavelength (color) of the light. Sunlight is made up of all different colors of light, but because of the elements in the atmosphere the color blue is scattered much more efficiently than the other colors. When you look at the sky on a clear day, you can see the sun as a bright disk. The blueness you see everywhere else is all of the atoms in the atmosphere scattering blue light toward you. Because red light, yellow light, green light and the other colors aren't scattered nearly as well, you see the sk­y­ as blue.

He might come off as a bit pompous and a know it all if he came in on the conversation out of the blue, but for the sake of argument, let's just say they were all sitting around a table having a few drinks and had been talking to each other for the past hour.

Now I could say, "Hmm, that's interesting I'll have to look that up," and be done with the conversation. Or you could snap back at that person saying, "Well I don't believe in your hocus-pocus talk about how a yellow sun can make the clear sky look blue, all I know is when I look up I don't see any other color but blue so you're wrong!" Who would you want to stay and have a conversation with, someone who takes what someone else says with some consideration, and continues the conversation in a respectful manner, or someone who wont even give you the time of day if you differ in opinion from them?

I think that's an easy choice.

For now... life goes on.

50-50-90

Some of you may be wondering what this 50-50-90 is all about.

Old combination number? No
Computer password? No

The first time I heard 50-50-90 was while I was attending Naval Nuclear Power School in Goose Creek, SC. What it means is every time you are presented with a question or a situation that is a 50/50 chance, 90% of the time, the answer you choose is wrong.

While it can be quite comical, for me it seems to mean a bit more. It's more of the story of my life. I'm given some choices for what I can do, and most of the time, it seems like, I choose wrong. Some people know exactly what they want out of life. They work hard for it, get good grades in high school and go to the college of their choice, and end up happy with the choices they have made. I don't really have a goal that i am shooting for, I don't think I ever have had one, and maybe that's why I am where I am.

I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth, because I chose to be lazy about doing my work, graduated with a C- average. Then I decided to join the Navy, which I believe was a good choice for me, except for the field I went into. While nuclear power is extremely interesting, and I loved learning about all of it, it is extremely fast paced. So, when I had the surgery on my knee, and spent 6 months out of training, everything that i had learned before, was almost all forgotten by the time my physical therapy was over and I moved on to my next training command.

After struggling to catch up, and ultimately failing, I ended up getting kicked out of the Nuclear pipeline, and sent to Navy Limbo, aka Groton, CT. I was given another choice. I was told that due to the circumstances of which I was kicked out of nuke school, that I had the choice to get out of the Navy with an Honorable Discharge. That, or I could choose a new rate, and since I had already been in for over 2 years, that I would have to add on more time to my contract. Well at this point, my knee didn't feel like the surgery was holding (which later proved to be true), and I wasn't able to work out like I needed to to keep mself in shape. Even though I could have gotten out of the running portion of our physical fitness test based on my knee, without being able to run to keep my weight down, I wouldn't have been able to pass the weight/body fat portion of the physical fitness test, a part of which I still would have had to participate in regardless of my knee. Well after you fail 3 consecutive PFA's (physical fitness assesment) you are no longer able to re-enlist, and if I couldn't re-enlist, then I wouldn't be able to pick a new rate, and I would have eventually been kicked out of the Navy on bad terms. So I figured get out now while the DD214 will still look good.

Right now I am still trying to figure out whether or not that was a good idea. So far is seems like it wasn't. I probably should have tried to wait/tough it out, and see where it led me. However, I chose to get out while I could, and go home to no job, and no real goal for the future other than to find a job so I can figure out what I want to do.

5 months on unemployment, I took a job at Kirby, slinging vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Though not in the sense that some of you are thinking, but either way it was still fun. I was doing something, working, but not working for much. We got paid on commission for every vacuum we sold, and were guaranteed a certain amount of money a month so long as we put on a certain number of vacuum demonstrations per month. So after 3 weeks there, only having made 2 sales, which totaled $90 paid to me, and only having one more week to reach the 50 required appts a month for the guaranteed money, all the while only sitting on 15 appts, I decided that I couldn't do that anymore and needed to quit cause it was using up all of my gas and I wasn't getting paid worth anything. Back on unemployment while I look for another job, if you have any ideas for me let me know.

For now... life goes on.