Amused

Florida the Boaters Paradise

I'm sure Florida wins out hands down on being the boaters paradise. I'm wondering why you don't see more about boating in Hawaii. Expense was my main thought, but then if you can afford Hawaii you can probably afford a boat in some for or another, but that was just a guess.

We were in Hawaii recently, and I saw that the surf was partially brutal, great for surfers, but not for going out in with a small boat. That said, Florida has the best boating weather (most of the year) that I could possibly want.

Now, if I could just get out there and do more of it.

Amused

No Place for the Spear Fisher

I hear people ask the same question almost every time I am at the bate shop down the street. Granted I got there a lot, but that is really beside the point. I assume that the question is asked time and time again when I am not actually there. Next time I am there I will ask the owner and see if this assumption is correct.

Spear fishing.

For some reason people seem to think that it is a noble form of fishing.

They also think that they are better than they are. Easy spearfishing? Nope, there is no such thing.

And unless you have a boat you aren't got to get to spots where you will find the fish.

Sorry but beach diving in South Easy Florida, or anywhere for that matter is more than simply swimming out and filling your cooler in clear shallow water then coming back in and enjoy a grill party on the beach.

I really do not know where people came to this thought, maybe because Florida is God's paradise on earth. But it is another assumption.

Real spear fishing is a lot of work and you will end up in a lot of crappy conditions. I know, I actually liked it when I was in my twenties, fit and hungry. And I have been all over, and if there is an easy spot out there and I do not know that it exists, then it is a well guarded family secret.

One thing that plays a role in making this a hard form of fishing is that the visibility on the shore here changes from day to day. Heck, we dangle out in the ocean it even changes from hour to hour with the tides.

Once you have been doing it for a while you will notice that the wind and weather conditions can usually indicate what your chances are for the trip. But before you call yourself a pro, you will need to be able to judge how well your chances are once you are out on the reef. Sometimes I would go expecting to have some good visibility only to be met with a white out.

Other times it was the complete the opposite.

But this holds true for all forms of fishing. Sometimes I would get skunked swimming up to a mile out (ambitious and dumb I know). But then the opposite has also happened, and I caught some of my biggest fish right off the beach.

I leave the bikini at home now unless I am going for a swim.

If you are thinking about it, look for nice active reefs where you have better luck at good visibility and good fish. They are all over, but I stayed around Miami, sometimes traveling to Boca.

There are 3-4 reefs all the way up the coast here. So things are pretty easy.

The right spots are a matter of going out and swimming around to find the areas that collect the fish you're after.

I will add that you should check the local laws of the beach you plan to launch from before doing so.

Positioned

Is An Associate’s Degree Worth It?

While, I will say that I know some, not many, who have only pursued an Associate's Degree working as programmers, they all got in to the business at the end of the 90s to the early 00s. Most of them landed jobs in big corps looking for people as that was a time of expanse. Today, that has changed a lot and I don't know what the job market is like where you are. Then there was little saturation, while today there is a lot and it it is quite possible that the market is sufficiently saturated with people with 4-year degrees that in your area, a 4-year degree is necessary. But that does not mean that that is the case for everywhere, nor, is it always true.

What that translates to is that an Associate's Degree is only worthless if somebody else has a degree that trumps it.

I can't speak for your situation, but knoing the ciriculum I feel that there are only four classes that are essential if you pursue an Associates Degree.

They are:

  • Algorithms
  • Data Structures
  • Software Design & Architecture
  • Theory of computation

One thing that taking the courses, getting the degree, and proving that you are compitent is all about is, dedication.

Companies want to know that you have what it takes, and quite frankly, unless you are a whizz and impress somebody in the company, somebody in HR won't really care.

But if you go the route of Associate's you should learn everything that you can on your own. VMWare, is easy to learn, but most companies will be looking for people comfortable with the tech. And if you don't make the effort to learn it, you won't get exposed to it with the above courses.

If you make the effort to expand your knowledge, you can learn just about everything else on your own and usually do with or without a degree, however the aformentioned courses would be the most important in school.

With that being said, have some personal projects and you may be on par or a little ahead of the average Compute Science undergrad in the job market, however it will probably affect your negotiation or consideration for some jobs with inflexible requirements.

Still, I wouldn't worry too much about it since there are a lot of jobs out there, and employers are well known for asking for the moon when it comes to entry level jobs.

Just make sure that you have a good understanding of what the job market is like in your area. Then be well aware what is needed in your area to get your foot in the door and make sure that you hit the right beats, otherwise you will be the odd one out that HR skips over becuase you don't fit their criteria. And beleive me, you need to hit the right notes with them.

As an example, of this I've seen them do things like skip an applicant with a Phd in hardware engineering becuase it was a computer science post and they didn't have a computer science degree. I wished him the best.

Getting your foot in the door is the hard part, but once you are in, if you have the fundamentals down and are a good fit, you shouldn't have a problem.