I have a useful degree from a land grant university that I paid for with blood, sweat, pain, (that was the football) and otherwise having a job, and promising that I would serve after graduation.
I have a useful Masters that I got from a large private institution that I did on my own time and own dime.
I took an unglamorous job that entailed hard work, lots of travel, and not a little bit of danger... in order to make a decent living. I lived and worked in some really crappy conditions - but it was fun, nonetheless.
I've got a damn good job now - because I was willing to do what I did for 24 years.
I don't own a cell phone, a smart phone, or a tablet computer of any kind. Yet I manage to get by with a landline and here I am on the internet.
I've got a fully-functional howitzer named "Heimdall."
I own all twenty volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary in hardback, and I actually use it.
I am the 0.00001%.
Oh. And I don't own a drum.
I have a useful Masters that I got from a large private institution that I did on my own time and own dime.
I took an unglamorous job that entailed hard work, lots of travel, and not a little bit of danger... in order to make a decent living. I lived and worked in some really crappy conditions - but it was fun, nonetheless.
I've got a damn good job now - because I was willing to do what I did for 24 years.
I don't own a cell phone, a smart phone, or a tablet computer of any kind. Yet I manage to get by with a landline and here I am on the internet.
I've got a fully-functional howitzer named "Heimdall."
I own all twenty volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary in hardback, and I actually use it.
I am the 0.00001%.
Oh. And I don't own a drum.
Well done.
...though I guess a howitzering circle could get, um, interesting.
On another subject, here is one heck of a landing:
www.chicagotribune.com/video/breaking/chi-raw-video-polish-jumbo-jet-makes-wheels-up-landing-20111101,0,2174662.htmlstory
or something like that.
2. www.britannica.com/
... both go well with my iPad.
Cheers
1. washing dishes in the collitch cafeteria on weekends (9-hour shift) and
2. hooking up with a folk group (I convinced them they needed a 12-string guitar+harmonica player) for Friday night gigs at the local pub.
Got a mundane-but-useful degree that's served me pretty well over my entire (so far) life, had a pretty fair run doing a job I originally took so that I could fly over rice paddies instead of slogging through them, and -- at an age when most of my contemporaries are comfortably ensconced in Ft. Living Room -- I'm still at it. I've seen a decent-sized chunk of the civilized (and uncivilized) world, met a lot of interesting folks (most of whom didn't want me dead), and don't owe Uncle Sam one dime for any of it.
I don't own a howitzer, but I *do* have two chainsaws and a broadsword.
Throw in "currently learning to fly a Russian helicopter" and whatever percent I am has 'way too many zeroes to the right of the decimal point...
I'd brag about my Engineering degree, but I doubt that would carry much water in this bunch. With Howitzers and Helomofloppers and such around. Besides, since it's in Civil Engienering, I just design and build targets.
I am a member of the 99%. The 99% that has no idea what the strange thingies in the Whatziss (yea I look anyway just to make sure I am consistent) are.
http://www.microsquish.com/funstuff/graphics/civilengineering.html
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Got myself an appointment to a service academy and started my military career at 18 and ended it at 48.
Flew attack jets in every hemisphere, deployed with the Air Force, deployed with the Army. Survived.
Got a Masters on my own time/dime.
Spent almost 3 years working with DEA agents (long story).
Worked three 44-hour days in one year (passing 40 hours it, literally, hurts to blink).
Watched the second jet hit the WTC tower and spent the last year helping get friends to the fight (and wished like Hell I could go too but the **** boss said, "Uh uh."
Pissed off all the right people. Heh.
Currently fly airplanes that have engines bigger than the 737 fuselage all over the world (I'm writing this from Osaka...tomorrow Singapore).
I own...that's right, own, a house and three cars, 3 acres of land and some guns (none of which are howitzers, alas). Every loan I've ever had I've paid off (record: 20-year loan in 4 years). I rent a dog (trebuchet fodder), 5 cats, a 15-year old high school freshman and finance a patient spouse.
I am the 1% that's punished for doing nothing wrong by the spoiled and indolent 99% that's been rewarded the past 40 years for doing nothing right.
But with enough Mark, Maker's, 1 ea., anything is tolerable.
I now spend my days listening to young punks with lightweight IT degress come up with brilliant ideas that can not possibly work. My money comes from fixing their foul ups.
Gots me lots of guns (nothing like the Arsenal) but nothing like the Howitzer! I sure would like me one of them durn things.
BTW, did anyone guess that my degree (which I likewise payed for with football) was from one of those Southern Land Grant Centers of Higher Learning?
And Yes, I bleed Wolfpack Red and White!
I don't own a home because the duties of MH have required several moves and uncertainties that make home ownership a specious if not ridiculous prospect. We own a motorcycle and two cars with less than a year remaining on the third, make payments two to three times the minimum on time every month and still manage to keep gas in the car, food on the table, beer in the fridge (priorities, yanno) and the house running better than the fling-wings Mr. DeBille is getting schooled on.
I'm a Mom not a number, and these barely-potty trained toddlers of the OWS with their pants down around their ankles screaming, "Moooommmmm, I pooooped! Come wipe my butt." disgust me beyond the pale.
Cheers
Started at the very bottom, with a shovel, and worked up to CEO.
Finished the last ten years as a consultant showing grads the right way.
Now if you'll excuse me I have guns to clean, boolits to reload, and my wonderful bride just came back from the store with jug o' Maker's Mark I have to test.
Fifty years to get here and I'm diggin it.
Not interested in a "Bill's Bactrian Introductions" (free Koran with every chick).
Is that the kind of spam you're talking about DL?
Rick, she's wildly over-engineered.