Happy New Year to you all! I hope this note finds you well. First off, I would like to thank everyone for all of your support and encouragement the last year. 2008 was the most challenging year of my life, both personally and financially, to date, and after seeing the most recent unemployment numbers rising to 7.2%, it appears I was not alone.

The reason I am writing is to update you all on a decision I made recently that is going to change my life significantly. I have decided to enlist in the Army and will be leaving for basic on Feb. 4th. This news may come as a shock to some, and to others it may come as no great surprise, as I have been toying with this idea since I was in the Corps of Cadets at A&M. I have always wanted to serve my country in some capacity and believe now is the best time in my life to do just that.

I signed my contract this past Friday to be a Satellite Communication Systems Operator (satcoms) for the next four years and am entering the army with the rank of E-4 (finally, my degree in Political Science is starting to pay off!). My original plan was to enlist as a Special Forces Candidate, but after some thoughtful consideration and sage advice I decided to go work with satellites instead, for the time being. I still have the option to pursue Special Forces, but would not be able to reclassify for satcoms if I did it the other way around.

My reasoning ultimately came down to numbers, as the army gave me a much larger bonus package to do satcoms, which will allow me to make significant financial progress over the next 60 months. My bonus package will have me coming out of the military with money in the bank, zero student loans, and put me in a position to pursue a MBA. No one in the private sector is offering to give me a very large cash bonus, will pay off all of my student loans and is willing to pay for my masters. Trust me, I have been checking.

Most of those who know me well, know that I don’t make major decision like this without giving them a great deal of thought and consideration. Trust that I have weighed the pro’s and con’s, sought out a great deal of wise council and am making the best decision for my life. It was a long road that got me to this point, but I am confident this is the correct decision for me at this time.

After Feb 4th I will be located at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina for the next 9 weeks. I will then go on to Ft. Gordon, Georgia for the next 27 weeks to learn about satellites (Did I mention someone is willing to pay me to go learn about satellites?!? I’m really excited about that one.), and I do not know at this time where my first duty station will be. After I make the rank of E-5 (about a year) I will make the decision to either pursue Special Forces Qualification and Selection, and extend my contract for another 2-3 years, stick with satcoms and finish my contract out, or go to OCS and stay in the military as an Officer.

I am really looking forward to 2009 and my next few years serving our country. Thank you all again for all your support and encouragement this past year. I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life and value my friendships with each and every one of you. The next few weeks I am going to be spending in Katy with friends and family while I get my things in order to leave. Feel free to contact me at any point in time before I head out by email at brent@bdburns.com. I don’t have everyone email address so feel free to send this out to anyone I know who may find interest.

Best regards,

Brent D. Burns
brent@bdburns.com

The Science of Gossip: Why We Can’t Stop Ourselves: Scientific American

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A Modest Proposal For The Auto Industry: Stop Building Cars

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So…I have had this wordpress blog for the longest time and never update it. I guess I am just too busy or something, or I just haven’t felt like it, but whatever. I still haven’t figured out if I am going to link it to my page or not. I guess that would mean I would have to update it occasionally…

So I haven’t been posting anything except pod tech stuff for a while. The reason is I am woking on a wiki for work. It is very cool. you can see what I am talking about at socialtext.net

-bdb

Okay, so I have been doing so sight updates. I am going to start writing here more (Hopefully) so that I can keep up with things better. Anyways. Cheers.

-bdb