About Cpl Shoe

Who the hell are you?

My name is Brad Schubring. I work in Southeast Michigan as a network administrator for a small business with a big network. I manage everything from Windows 2000 Servers, to XP desktops, to Windows 7 laptops, providing software, technical, and hardware support to these systems. I don’t want to take all the credit though, I’m part of a two man team, and I’m lucky to work for a knowledgeable supervisor.

I’m married to a terrific woman, and we have  two lazy hairballs whose job it is to cover everything in the house with a light coating of white fur.

The name Cpl Shoe come from my four years in the Marine Corps where I worked as an Airframes mechanic on C-130 F/R models. (MOS 6056) Semper Fi, Devil Dogs!

Why are you wasting your time with this?

Knowledge! I need to touch things in order to understand them. You could tell me all day long how to run a blog, and when you wake me up to tell me you’ve finished explaining, I’ll just shrug apologetically. I learned a TON just putting up my first three posts, and I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg.

Why are you wasting MY time with this??

Because I need lab rats. Does a website really exist if no one visits it? It may as well be letters I wrote to a pen pal and never sent. I do recognize that even though I posted this to the web, there’s still an excellent chance no one will ever see this. In this scenario, I blame my pen pal for not opening my letters. :)

I find this subject fascinating, but you bore me. Can I go elsewhere to see this material presented in a way that doesn’t put me to sleep?

Of course! There’s a whole slew of people that do this much better than me. I’m happy to recommend the following (in no particular order):

• Ars Technica, a very informative tech site that does its homework.
• Slashdot, a great geek news source. It tends to have shorter summaries linking to content on their subject’s site.
• The Consumerist, usually more of a consumer related site, but the subjects of money and technology are never far apart.
• Gizmodo, showcases the newest and shiniest. Talks about the iPhone too much.
• Engadget, a very similar site to Gizmodo in my opinion. If you have a preference, it likely boils down to writing style.
• BoingBoing, a fun site that often explores the odder side of technology, science and art.
• Make Magazine, a great place to go and say “I want to do that!”. This site’s value quadruples if you like to solder.
• XKCD best describes itself; “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”
• TorrentFreak, a great news source (not without bias) about the file sharing community, DRM, and copyright.
• ChrisMounts.com: The place to go if Laser Scanning and CAD models are your passion.

Thanks for visiting, I hope you found something useful or entertaining here!

Cpl Shoe

(I ran across this page by Lorelle after I had already created this About page.  My page comes off as if it is a response to Lorelle’s. :) )