So this summer, besides reading and writing out memos, I decided that I should change my major. As much as I love the fast and furious life of computer engineering, something's missing in this whole situation for me. For one, I've said since I was old enough to hate my desk in the second grade that I don't want to be confined to one for the rest of my life. That statement is as true today as it was years ago before I even knew what a desk job was.

It's no secret, I'm a closet FOSS lover. That's free and open source software, for those of you who didn't know, but I think I'm going to keep my love for such things relegated to hobbyist fantasies. Yeah my main desktop runs Kubuntu, and yeah I plan on destroying it 50 billion times before I'm happy, but it's just going to stay a hobby.

So why the change? Well, after reading Hill Harper's Letters to a Young Brother I realize that I don't just have to do just one thing that makes me happy. I did the ACE program in high school and loved it, and really loved the whole idea of going out "in the field" to job sites and the like to check up on the progress of a building, or traveling to a client's office and present to them my company's plan for building their building. Project Manager sounds like my idea job. With computers, I see myself toiling away at a desk 10 hours a day five days a week. I can't do that; well I can, but I don't want to. I know TSU's architectural engineering program sets me up for that career, but what's also good is that I'll still have options. I could still work towards a graduate degree in structural engineering, architecture, or even law. I know one day I'm going to have to stop doing that. Making decisions that only lead to more options, but I'd rather have that than a dead end.

It's the end of July, and fall semester doesn't seem so distant anymore. Even now as I write into my blog I can feel my time at home doing little of anything getting shorter. In lieu of this, I decided that this summer I was going to read more and so I have. In all honesty, reading and writing are two ends of a long rod of creativity. When you read, you shape the world that the author writes about as your own, that way you can discuss different views of the text and you overall have the freedom to warp the world in your image of it.

With this knowledge in hand, sometimes having someone give you guidelines for you to make your own world is still TOO constricting, and that's where writing comes in. The truth is, no one will ever read your words exactly as you intended them too, and no one's mind will ever have a picture as cinematic as the one you develop for you own words. 

With that in mind I've decided to read four books this summer, and in between those readings, I have also been working on my own novella. The saying goes good writers are great readers. So if you want to write good, READ READ READ. I cannot express that enough. Trust me, in the entire history of literature there IS a book out there for you. Find it, read it, love it, it's yours. I've read everything from sci-fi to social commentary. If books, for whatever reason, are not your cup of tea then read the newspapers. Read current events, it's all there for you. For once, give your brain an exercise in being creative, rather than only being able to recall images of something you've seen.

Here are my picks this summer. The list is limited, but effective.

1. American Gods, Neil Gaiman- Hands down the best book I've read in years. The story follows a guy named Shadow who's hired on by a guy named Wednesday to seek out mythical figures like, Anubis, Bastet, and other gods to battle the gods of the new world. These new world gods: media, internet, television etc. aren't going anywhere, and thus is the end of the book. The truth is, the set-up is better than the punchline, and that's what makes this book so great.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K Rowling- The last Harry Potter book. I've already said too much about it

3.  Letters to a Young Brotha, Hill Harper- The actor gives advice and acts as a distant mentor to today's African American youth. He talks about everything from the future to girls, a great read for any young black guy with nothing to loose but doubt.

4. TBA

In addition to these books I've read this summer, I've also been writing my own short story, as mentioned above. The name of the story is Toon Town. It's my take on 50s noir style detective stories complete with social commentary. It's still in early development stages, but it's chugging along nicely. I'm going to try and keep up with this blog for as long as I can, I'll probably start linking stuff to this and this is definitely getting linked to my facebook profile. Until next time, thankyou for reading.

I've got a new look for the blog. It's pretty good, but I want something a little more modern, this is as close I could get. In all honesty, I think if I ever do start a company, I'm gonna name it GlassWalker (GW for short). I got the name from a tribe in an old pen & paper rpg I read about, I never played it (however in retrospect I really wanted to). The GlassWalkers were a tribe of technology lovers who forged their own way in the world through science and innovation. I've also made a list of goals for the summer, I'm going for %100.

1. Start work, two jobs
2. go to school.
3.Make at least an A and a B
4. Raise money for college.
5. Work out.
6. Get a Mac

I think my summer has pretty much defined everything I'm going to do. Read, work, study, work, code, work. It sucks, and it takes the point out of summer. Then again, it's not like I was doing anything else anyways.

Thus begins my first post in the bloggerspace. I must say that I have high hopes for this. This will be the little blog that could and all that jazz. Once I start getting hard into computer programming I will start posting my journal entries with thoughts on open source, linux, windows, maybe a poem or two if I feel the need.

Down to business...I'm torn between three linux distributions, those being gentoo, openSUSE, and fedora. I'm leaning towards openSUSE for the time being because of the awesome community. Gentoo interests me because of the shear amount of customization you can put into it. I'd love to sit down one day and compile an entire system, but my skill level is far from doing this. And Fedora has a nice community and is a little more progressive than the other two. Honestly, I want to contribute in some way to one of these projects. I guess I'll figure out my ambitions as I move forward in time, pray for me.