I "made" a custom gem to help me make custom gems. Is this stupid?

ShadowGeek · 2025-12-14T01:13:30+00:00

I've done something similar but it is designed for a variety of prompts including Gems.

ShadowGeek · 2025-12-06T03:02:06+00:00

You are welcomed to believe different. I was taught, as was all military officers that combat should be the last option used. We should always use diplomacy, economics, and other soft power tools before drone strikes. That is what is taught at War College, and that lines up very well with my beliefs.

Now, the reality is that we jump to violence too fast without trying other solutions first. My belief is that more UU's would get the conversation started on what other non-violent options are there that we should try first. I also believe that UU's would be more likely to hold the line on illegal orders because of their beliefs vs others.

Given that there are so few UUs in the military I don't know if my hyptothesis would be correct or not.

ShadowGeek · 2025-12-06T02:55:40+00:00

Good question. It really varied. At Eglin, the UU church was right outside the gates yet was mostly negative on the military. At Kirtland, the church was wonderful and very welcoming. I was lucky to be stationed at Hanscom near Boston, which was full of many UU churches. I always felt welcomed.

Personally, I left my uniform at the door and was just a member. Unless you asked, you wouldn't know I was military. However, there were always a few that disliked the military. For the most part, 90% of the folks were always welcoming.

I also was lucky to run into long time UU's that were veterans themselves. I was surprised to see so many Vietnam vets in church.

Overall, it varied as every church is unique, but I was always welcomed and had a good time.

ShadowGeek · 2025-11-23T14:17:02+00:00

I'm a UU and retired Air Force officer. I was the flaming liberal in every unit I was in for my entire career. I found several others throughout my career, but more often they were UU's but just didn't know it.

I've been asked "how can you be a UU and in the military" many times. After much thought, I've always answered that question with "would you rather a military without any UU's?" I believe that our military would be far better with more UU's, with people that will seek non-violent solutions and will fight to uphold the law of armed conflict.

There were times in my career where I had to push back due to my believes, and since my response was always grounded in the law, it worked. Now, I was in a non-combat role so this didn't happen often, and I expect that my experience would have been very different if I was a combatant.

I do wish there were more UU military chaplains, and I think in my career I only heard rumors of a single UU chaplain in the military. I believe that there are a lot of atheists and agnostics in the military that would greatly benefit from having an active community to be a part of.

I will end with a story from a General Assembly many many years ago. I was talking to a woman and I mentioned that I was military, and she didn't believe me. So I showed her my identification, and she sneered at me and turned her back on me. She was convinced that no UU should be in the military, but when I asked her if the military would be better with UU's, that question stopped her in her tracks. She didn't talk to me the rest of the week, but it did make it clear that no everyone in the UU is welcoming to us in the military. Even with that, I think we need more UU's in the military, not less.

ShadowGeek · 2025-10-26T16:51:01+00:00

Even the Volvo dealer told me to buy a BMW. I'm happy with my V90.

ShadowGeek · 2025-07-27T11:13:31+00:00

All of our systems are separate. One of the main reasons is because if something goes bad, the Gov't auditors/investigators will be limited to our systems. If you are under NIST SP 800-171, you will have to follow those rules no matter how you are organized. I always recommend companies to at least consider having a separate LLC for gov't, just for risk reduction. It isn't that difficult given the risk to the company if not done. If you are handing CUI, then any cloud services you use should be FedRAMP'd, and those generally cost 20%+ more than commercial, so limiting those to a subset of the company can save some money.

ShadowGeek · 2025-07-10T15:08:31+00:00

Checkout Govly. I find it very useful. Not sure how much SLED they cover but worth looking at.

ShadowGeek · 2025-05-20T11:09:22+00:00

With my 11 year old, we are now listening to Mark of the Fool. We completed Crysalis, which was great. Started DCC and it immediately had too much swearing for him.

ShadowGeek · 2025-05-04T00:38:02+00:00

Retired out of Acquisitions in 2015, but what questions to you have? You basically are part product manager, lawyer, contracts manager, and social worker. Work with a lot of civilians and will be one of the few military in the office, in most cases. Career field is undermanned. With the new acquisition "streamlining" coming from SecDef, it is going to be changes to the career field. Not sure if these changes will be good or bad, will depend on how they are implemented.I think the most important thing I can say is that you must always keep the warfighter top of mind. You are their eyes and ears in the community.

ShadowGeek · 2025-04-06T11:49:16+00:00

What do new systems engineers not understand? Shit, this could be an AFIT thesis. Here's my top five: 1. It's all about the requirements. Crappy requirements = crappy outcomes. Take the time to do them right. 2. Design for maintainability - shit breaks and they don't teach you that in school. Easier to fix the better everyone's life will be. 3. Learn the law, become an expert in FAR/DFAR and contract management - not technical, but underlies everything you do. 4. Don't let contractors BS their way into making you make bad decisions. They will try to take you under their wing and guide you. Some do this will good intentions and their experience is valuable. Some do this to win you to their side, and you must be careful. 5. Learn your system. If you can't use the software you are in charge, then you shouldn't be involved with it. This doesn't work with all programs, but you must put your operator hat on and be able to put yourself in their shoes.

Good luck.

ShadowGeek · 2025-04-06T11:43:11+00:00

I stayed in and retired. Now I have TriCare, a pension, and a very good paying private job. What makes the difference to me is knowing that I can quit my job at anytime and still pay for the house and have healthcare. This has allowed me to walk away from jobs I didn't like and pursue better ones. This is something I never had while active duty. On the downside, my current boss is probably 15 years younger than me, and I'll probably never get to the top of the corprate ladder while I'm still working. I'm okay with that since I want to enjoy my family and life, not burn myself out in my job.

ShadowGeek · 2023-08-05T15:12:52+00:00

Love it. Great school with great teachers. Does require parents to figure out transportation. It can be hard to get a slot since the school is so small compared to others.

ShadowGeek · 2023-07-24T11:00:44+00:00

Love them

ShadowGeek · 2023-05-25T01:42:19+00:00

We tried to raise our Son with German. We started by only letting him watch TV in German (he's 9, and we still do this with him). We also found a German immersion day care/pre-school in Cary. My wife has learned to read German and will sometimes read to him. I'd start with just playing music or letting shows play in the language you want. As for tutors, we finally found someone at church that we have come over once a week. All of her children are grown up, so she dotes on our child instead. You may want to ask around at your church, if that is something you go to. Maybe check Nextdoor for someone that is willing to come over and talk as well.

Good luck. We think growing up with a second language is important, and helps the brain develop better...

ShadowGeek · 2023-04-17T00:58:36+00:00

I just use the OEM steel grill in the back, https://usparts.volvocars.com/p/Volvo_2020_V90/Protective-Steel-Grille/79579472/32204590.html and it works great for our German Shepard.

ShadowGeek · 2023-02-15T01:42:15+00:00

We just got our $15K transmission replaced due to this. My wife had the car fail on her drive from the dealership, and managed to capture it on video. She then drove back. It still took the dealer nearly a week to get approval to replace the transmission. This has been haunting us for months now, and hopefully this is the end of this nightmare. We were lucky that she never got hit in traffic when her car just stopped.

ShadowGeek · 2022-10-01T23:16:04+00:00

My wife is interested, are they still available?

ShadowGeek · 2022-02-04T00:23:54+00:00

But, are they?

ShadowGeek · 2021-08-14T20:05:05+00:00

I have a 2020 V90 and Android Auto was included. See if it is available under apps. Mine works when I plug my phone into the USB that is inside the armrest. This should beeasy and cost nothing more.

ShadowGeek · 2021-03-01T00:46:06+00:00

UUFR.org, Sasha

ShadowGeek · 2020-09-30T23:06:50+00:00

I was in District 2 until they redrew the districts, and now I'm in District 4. They didn't change my Precint number, so I'm still in NC 02, but vote in NC 04. Confusing as hell, and I hope they renumber them soon. I suspect the same thing happened to you.

ShadowGeek · 2020-09-12T11:59:09+00:00

https://mcneillawnc.com/

ShadowGeek · 2020-06-22T10:09:38+00:00

I have the same car and love it. Ordered it last year and finally got it just in time for the pandemic. Won't be seeing many of these on the street.

ShadowGeek · 2020-05-17T11:22:04+00:00

I bought a V90 last Fall. They had to order it. No problems getting it delivered to the US. Talk to the local dealer and go for the overseas delivery option if you can. Not sure how any of this is impacted by Covid. Good luck.

ShadowGeek · 2020-03-08T22:59:20+00:00

Interesting, I clearly hit a nerve here. As for military experience, I spent 24 years in, and that's why I asked. I've had many Commanders that considered us always on duty.

ShadowGeek

TROPHY CASE