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For three years of my life I lived in the barracks now known as the worst in the Army. I complained to no one about it then, knowing nobody would care or make a difference. And I never questioned it because it was never my place to. I just rolled with the punches like I was trained to do. And it wasn’t so depressing, considering that it was better than sleeping outdoors.

But now that we are seven years into our war on terror and the soldiers are returning to those same nightmarish conditions, and now that the country has seen what those conditions are like for soldiers… something may change.

I’m not going to hold my breath for any real difference. The government, and especially the Army, moves too slow on issues regarding the quality of life. That’s why I’ve always told my friends if they go into the military, go Airforce.

An Army spokesman summed it up prefectly in this AP article:

"Today, no matter how hard we try, we can’t put enough lipstick on this pig to make it more pretty," the spokesman said. "So are there soldiers complaining? Yeah." He said they’ve been complaining for decades.

Decades. And nobody gave a shit.

Here’s a video of what it looks like.

It wasn’t this bad n my barracks, but it’s the same buildings. We did steal ceiling tiles from the abandoned buildings to patch up our dropped ceiling. And we constantly painted everything brown to cover up the mess. But the mold was just as prevalent. We also spent nearly every day cleaning those barracks beyond belief, which was absolutely neccessary because they were so bad. I remember when hurricane weather passed by Fort Bragg. We had all the windows taped up with 100-mph tape and tried to secure everything as much as we could, but the first floor, which is some four feet built off the ground, managed to flood from the wind and rain making it through our doors. It was actually kind of fun at the time, mostly because the barracks were so bad, we didn’t care how much worse they got. And, we knew whatever mess was made would just be part of our regular clean-up the following day.

From WFTV in Florida:

The baby became sick and the ship’s doctor was dispatched to have a look. He decided that the baby was dehydrated so they needed to go to a hospital. Security then gave the family of 5 just 10 minutes to gather their belongings and leave the ship in a foreign country.

Still in their pajamas, the family walked around in the middle of the night until they found where they were going. An emergency room doctor told them the baby actually had a cold …  not dehydration, and said they were safe for travel. But the boat had already left, leaving the family stranded. After that, they had to walk to the US embassy and get emergency passports and plane tickets to get back into the country.

The cruise operator, Royal Caribbean, gave them some free tickets for another cruise … but that’s it. Who the hell would want to cruise with them again, free or not, after a nightmare experience like that?

I honestly don’t understand why anyone would want to go on a cruise with these big companies. I’ve seen the documentaries and they look like a floating shopping mall with some jacuzzis and swimming pools. Everything there is designed to take more and more money from you so you leave broke. They entice people with these cheap cruise offers, and then in the fine print make them pay an outrageous mandatory gratuiity fee. Never in hell would I step on one of those boats with my family. If I wanted to take a tropical cruise, I’d do it with a much smaller and more personal staff. Heck, I’d probably do a sailboat cruise because those aren’t gigantic floating marketing scams. I’d even like to do a tour of the Arctic or Antarctica and see those amazing glaciers, whales and penguins. That’s my idea of a good cruise.

For those that track the pulse of computer technology, this is an exciting day. For me, it means the continued evolution of software that will one day replace such things as Windows, and I dare say, Mac OSX.

Why? It’s free.

The implications of that are huge. It means that consumers no longer have to shell out a paycheck to buy a computer, or constantly "upgrade" their machines. Let’s face it, computers built these days are really powerful, but how much power do you really need?

Well, if it’s for a home computer, that tends to mean word processing, Internet, email and maybe account balancing. Perhaps there are a few other things to support your hobby, but for the most part, it’s going to be about productivity.

That same principle is true for the corporate environment, where people tend to run software or applications to fit a specific mission. But again, that also tends to mean word processing, databasing, spreadsheets, presentations and email. Aagin, that’s easily handled by computers even built 10 years ago. The problem isn’t with the hardware — it’s the software. It’s no secret that companies like Microsoft and Apple encourage their users to upgrade computers to get the latest software — it’s how they stay in business. The worst case in recent memory of that is with the release of Windows Vista.

Vista served no purpose at all, both technically and aesthetically. Plus, it was horribly overpriced, and pretty much required an upgrade of at least RAM and Video Processing, but most people just got new computers.

Look, you have to realize that those things are more about appealing to our consumer appetite and less about fulfilling our needs. It’s a marketing ploy, all the way. A pure example of what advertising and marketing students study and learn how to clone.

Apple is much less so this way, they are more about beauty and ease of use through simplicity. But the computers are insanely overpriced.

On the other hand, Linux is free, but it’s not perfect. It’s true that it requires a more advanced level of computer interaction. If it breaks, or if you want it to do something unique, it can take hours to days trying to figure out how to make it work. But here’s where Ubuntu steps in. It’s an attempt to get rid of all those technical hurdles.

The benefits of that are outstanding because Linux truly is the most powerful operating system out there — not requiring a computer science degree to use. And Ubuntu is harnessing that power for the average consumer: me.

When I bought a new laptop a few months ago, I didn’t even boot it into Vista. I installed Linux on it immediately. But because I wanted to know so much more about Linux in general, I tried about 30 different releases of Linux. Ubuntu is the one I kept coming back to because of it’s relative ease of use and massive support on the Internet. So I’m rather excited about this latest release, mostly because it’s going to support my laptop so much better.

I don’t want to scare anyone off because, while Ubuntu is great, it’s still Linux. But I do want to emphasive this: the type of people that are going to get into using things like Ubuntu and Linux, are going to be the same people that will always be a step-ahead of everyone else in terms of technology. When you start to get into something like this, you’ll constantly find more uses, and it becomes easier and easier to do it.

Want to run a home entertainment system on the cheap? Get Myth and put it on Ubuntu, stick the computer in a closet and hook it up to your TV. Suddenly you’ve got an interactive television that will record your shows, give you an amazing schedule, host your pictures, play your music, let you download movies from the Internet to watch right away and will let you surf the Web without getting off the couch.

Yah you can do that with Windows and Mac OSX, but it’s going to cost you a lot of money.

Want to expand that home theatre into your bedroom? No problem … put a small quiet cheapo computer next to your TV stand and wirelessly connect it to your computer with Myth on it. Voila!

Want to make home movies? The software is there for it, free. Heck, it’s strong enough to make a documentary on too. Pretty much looks the same as Adobe Premier or Final Cut Pro (non-linear editing).

Photo editing? Use GIMP, or GIMP Shop if you like the Photoshoop look & feel.

Look, I can go on and on. I didn’t mean to start advocating Linux or Ubuntu when I wrote this, I just want to let people know that if they’re sick of spending a lot of money and want a cool computer, give it a shot. And I guarantee the time and effort won’t be wasted because you’re going to find a use for those skills in a lot of other areas.

For me, it’s journalism. I’m still a student so I don’t get to write as much as I’d like, but the market conditions of my job prospects are such that if I want to get a well paying job right out of college, I have to know how to build interactive content, which typically means learning to program in something like Flash, Java, PHP, CSS, ActionScript, Ruby on Rails, and more. No, I have no idea how to do any of that yet except basic stuff in Flash, CSS and PHP.

But journalism is a microcosm of what’s going to happen to the future job market here in the U.S. If you think you can get away with just being a warm body at work, think again. There are billions of warm bodies in the rest of the world, you need to capitalize on your American education; it’s your only advantage.

Oh yah, I was there. It was … mind blowing. I found a short video on Youtube, hopefully more will be uploaded one day.

I laugh as though I’ve been tickled when my predictions are constantly proven true. The latest comes from a Brown University student throwing a pie at Thomas Friedman, an invited speaker, because:

"his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet," and "for helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged."

Basically just anti-capitalism and hatred for the wealthy. Yah, it’s the same group that likes to wear black masks, overturn cars and loot shops while protesting the WTO. I’ve been ranting for years that the entire Global Warming debate has more to do with politics and environmental religion than with reality.

Will Al Gore be getting pied next?