zacharychildress.com

Defining Possible

My view on what can be done by one person in this life has changed drastically over the past several months. I have seen some truly insane results in the research I conducted before planting my flag on the hill of this ‘project’. Forget the obvious once-every-few-century genetic freak cases, such as people like Elon Musk and Tom Brady. There are people who set goals that are ambitious to the point of mental illness and then go out and achieve them. I am talking about people like Scott Young who decided to complete the content found in MIT’s notoriously difficult Computer Science degree which – if that’s already not enough – he completed it in one year instead of the typical four it takes most students. I’m also talking about people like David Goggins who lost 100 pounds in 3 months in order to achieve his goal of becoming a United States Navy Seal (this is one of the easier feats he’s pursued and notched on his belt). But, if he is too much of a true ‘outlier’ for you, in the athletic/military achievement arena we have Brian Marx who serves in the United States Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment at the age (as of this writing) of 51 and passed Ranger School at age 43. Watch his story here.

I have a set of objectives I will meet before I die. This article is me, as I said, planting the flag. No matter what it takes, what I have to do, give up, or task I must complete, I will succeed. But, this is no typical set of achievements I’m pursuing and I am in the furthest thing from a set of ideal circumstances (though they could be much, much less ideal). Rather than build up to the objectives with giving you my story and explaining ‘my why’ and all that, I think it best if I just dump them on you and go from there. So here goes:

  1. I will become a United States Army Special Forces Soldier or United States Army Ranger. If these aren’t open I will take literally any job on, whether active or reserve, but I will be a Soldier.
  2. I will be a top-ranked Web3 Security Researcher. The definition of ‘top-ranked’ here is top 100 on the Immunefi leaderboard and/or top 25 on one or more of the competitive security platforms (Code4rena, Sherlock, Cantina, etc.)
  3. I will become a Principal/Distinguished Software/Machine Learning or Hardware Engineer – or equivalent – at NVIDIA (this is the big one, and becoming a software engineer at NVIDIA does not have to be my first position in order for me to consider this objective achieved. It is perfectly viable to start anywhere, preferably in video games or some sort of real-time simulation project). I will also need to become strong on technical interviews and so by extension will go after a minimum 5-Star rank on CodeChef and the equivalent on AtCoder and CodeForces. I am not entirely sure whether I will be attempting competition on Leetcode, HackerRank or TopCoder as of yet. I really just need to get good for now.
  4. I will slowly build a brand and several digital products (always wanted to develop a video game of my own), both related to the industries/work listed above and those that will help educate others on how to achieve similar objectives in life (and should I produce something like these I want them touching as many people as possible and so will not ever charge for them). This objective will naturally be executed somewhat beginning from day one as I plan to build myself in public, but I will not go all in on it until the others above are achieved.

Let’s talk. Even accomplishing one item on that list would be a life-defining achievement for someone. It is probably approaching delusion to think that one could accomplish all three. It is absolutely past the point of delusion to think that someone could accomplish all three when starting at age 42, which I am. I know. I am old. But, that is where my story comes in. Let me finally take you back to the beginning so you can see why I have decided to pursue this stuff. This will not be my life story from birth to today, just a couple highlights that will provide context.

The Hinges Of One’s Life

There is life before CRG, then during CRG, and finally life after CRG when I think of my time on this Earth. These are 3 distinct existences I have lived; almost 3 completely different people I have been. Chronic Refractory Gout. Some physicians say it doesn’t really exist, that it is just regular old gout, albeit grossly mismanaged. Maybe so, but quite a few physicians tried literally every possible route of treatment to deal with the disease in my body to absolutely no avail and so for the purposes of this writing I will treat CRG as a a separate entity from typical gout. It sure as hell felt like it was.

This disease took its first bite at me when I was 16 years old – a very young age for anyone to deal with gout in any capacity. One evening during a football game it felt like my ankle had twisted or something (I didn’t notice an actual point in time or event where it became injured) when I was getting up from a tackle. I just shook it off at the time but as the night went on the pain got worse and my ankle began to swell. By the 3rd quarter I had to sit on the bench as I could no longer walk. My mom took me to the emergency room after the game and they sent me home with some crutches and said it was just a sprain. No tears or breaks. After a week or two the swelling subsided and it was well enough to bear weight during the rigor of playing a sport and life went back to normal. About 6 months later, this time while training for football, the same process repeated itself. During training it began to feel like a sprain or strain, but again no moment in time where I noticed an actual injury occur. This would go on about once every 6 months for the next 7 or 8 years. I assumed I was blessed with the world’s weakest set of ankles.

Time passed and I dealt with my weak ankles until finally, at age 25 (still much too young for someone to be dealing with gout) my doctor got a hunch when I told her how regularly and often the “ankle sprains” were occurring. She told me it would probably come back fine, but she wanted to run a uric acid test and see what my level was. It was a 12. Normal is below 6 (maybe 7, I can’t remember now). I had gout! She told me normally she would only start medication after a couple attacks as most people only had one, adjusted their diet to cut red meat, shellfish, and beer and then were fine. Since I had all these documented issues that seemed to be attacks at such a young age, she decided to start medication, and thus begins the living nightmare that lasted a decade and a half. No medication worked. I went to several internal medicine doctors, rheumatologists out the backside, endocrinologists, you name it. No matter what was tried I just kept suffering and the attacks got worse and worse with each iteration.

First it was a gout attack in my foot and ankle. That was already pure hell. It escalated over the next few years until by my 30th birthday I was living with multiple major joints suffering attacks (which were much more severe than the earlier ones) basically every single day of the year without relenting. A rheumatologist conducting a pain study in which I participated thought it would be interesting to compare each patient’s pain distribution and intensity with various traumatic experiences that could be visited upon the body. One guy’s pain was exactly what it would feel like to have your foot run over by a train. Another person’s was the feeling of having a wild animal (a bear was his choice of comparison) swipe chunks of your joint into shreds. The doc told me what I was feeling is exactly what someone who is being crucified would feel – except people suffering that horrible form of torture and execution normally were able to die after a few days. I lived with it for 15 years. And, still nothing worked. Doctors would just throw steroids and painkillers at the symptoms and hope medical technology and pharmacology caught up to the disease at some point.

This was my lot. I figured I would suffer this excruciating pain and hold on until my heart or will gave out and then I’d die. Life was mostly existing by this point. Working was out of the question. There was no peace in my body or my mind. It was pure torment and everyone around me in my life suffered right along with me. CRG ate my 20s and 30s. Almost the entire 2 decades consisted of me sitting in a chair in my house while my body screamed for mercy and my mind was pissed off that I was still bothered with having to breathe. And, when I say pissed I mean turbo-pissed. I hated the entire universe. My youth and aspirations were ripped from my grasp and it seemed that my entire set of experiences and contributions for the rest of my time here would be essentially: angrily sitting in a chair, sweating and in pain that makes the words excruciating and unbearable seem like great ideas for a long weekend getaway. My only salvation out of this was my wife. She’s the only reason I’m still alive today. Full stop. Without her I would be dead.

Throughout this entire ordeal my wife remained steadfast. She supported us both along with our two children and she made an example anyone taking a vow would be lucky to emulate. She is the most intelligent, selfless, mentally tough, and courageous human being I’ve ever met. She handled every single instance of nonsense my disease threw at either of us without blinking and when I wanted to die she made me live. When I was weak, she was strong for me. When I was an asshole about anything, she would be a bigger asshole right back. I love her more than anything in this universe. She proved her mettle, her love for me and her family, and her unflinching steadfastness over and over again daily. She has continued this way of living her life without abatement.

Around 2016 (I was 33 or 34 at the time), CRG reached its zenith. There was not a day during that year that every single major joint in my body wasn’t in the midst of some of the most vicious flares ever visited on anyone with this disease. Finally, I found a treatment that would work though. This drug called Krystexxa had come on my radar when researching new or upcoming treatments for gout. It was an infusion-based medication – made with rat biologics, relevant for later – that was administered twice weekly over a period of time. The idea seemed to be that it zeroed out your uric acid levels (a metabolic by-product of your body processing purine containing foods or drinks) and allowed your body to ‘reset’. It took decades to build enough uric acid to start creating the razor-sharp crystals in your joints that were the foundation of a gout flare which would shred your joints. The thinking was if you lowered the levels to 0 and maintained that for a period of time that it would take many years to build back up to the point again of needed medical intervention. My CRG was about to be cured!

Yeah, not so much. The first infusion went.. not terribly? I guess that’s what I should call it. The drug was administered just fine and I walked out of the clinic under my own power. But, when I got in the car my wife noticed I had a rash on my forearms. I also started feeling a little weird and having tunnel-vision. It’s hard to explain but seemed kind of like reality was real but was just down the street from where I was at the time. It went away after a few minutes and I didn’t worry about it. We went home and went about life, but there was no change in my symptoms yet. They said not to expect symptom relief until about halfway into the treatment so this also seemed normal enough. Not terrible news all around. The next infusion went, not not terribly. It was a lot of fun.

I walked into the infusion room and sat in the chair to get hooked up and drugged. While sitting there having the technician run an IV for the Krystexxa, I happened to ask the nurse how the first infusion went insofar as my uric acid level was concerned. She told me the level had decreased drastically. I had an 11.something when I first visited the clinic and the first infusion brought it down to a 6! Great news! Except that, it was definitely not. The Krystexxa people told me that if the treatment was taking effect that it would make my uric acid levels read 0 or incredibly close. I voiced this concern to the nurse who said she understands my concern but she was still encouraged. She also took it to the doctor at the clinic and he concurred. He also suggested I continue the treatment when I brought the question up. I had tried every single treatment available to this point and I was desperate so naturally went ahead with it. This turned into the worst day of my life. Have you been reading this section closely thus far? That is really saying something. I had essentially suffered a 15 year-long crucifixion but the day I got my second Krystexxa infusion was absolutely the worst day of my life.

Everything was fine at first. I sat there talking to this nice old lady who was getting an infusion for some sort of kidney disorder. She was telling me all about her experiences with it and about her family life for the first 20 minutes or so of my infusion. She then began to ask about my family and it felt as if the room and everything in it began to recede from my view; like looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. I suppose she could tell I started feeling off because she asked if I was ok. I told her I was and that I was just feeling a little weird, but not to worry it happened last time. It did happen last time but this time it didn’t stop and it got much, much worse.

The feeling of distorted reality escalated into a weird delirium. I was fully aware of my surroundings and in control of my body and mind for the most part, but I began to hear and see things. Really, really strange things. I started to hear traffic in the building as if just outside the room and in the hall there was a busy intersection right out of New York City. I also began to see bags of – what I thought them to be at the time – potato chips with strange writing, symbols and colors (none of it English in the least) scattered all over the room. And, I began to hear my family call my name in whisper-like tones from all around me. I knew I was hallucinating and so ignored it all. I told the nurse what was going on and she came over to take my vitals. I had a fever and my blood pressure was elevated so she stopped the medicine and went to get the doctor. I promptly vomited all over the floor.

It was so much puke. I think I ejected every single thing I had consumed over the last month that was not bolted down in my body. I was allergic to the biologics in the drug and was going in to anaphylactic shock. I noticed my breath began to whistle as it would go in and out and it was becoming difficult to take a full breath. I told the nurse and doctor what was happening as they got back in the room and the doctor ordered the nurse to dose me with cortisol steroids and Benadryl until my throat opened and they would call the ambulance. My throat then closed completely. I was no longer breathing.

I watched this movie Hereditary a few weeks ago and there is this part in the movie where a young girl with a nut allergy consumes a piece of chocolate cake which, unbeknownst to her, contained walnuts. Her throat began to swell to the point she wasn’t able to move any air. Her brother began to rush her to the hospital and as he raced down the highway the camera showed, in graphic detail, her absolutely primal struggle to save herself. She clawed at her throat and strained against the swollen tissue with all the might in her body. Finally, in desperation, she rolled down the window to stick her head out hoping the air would somehow help her. I won’t spoil any more than that.

That is exactly what I felt. For just over 2 solid minutes I had not breathed. I wanted to claw a hole open in my throat so I could feel air filling my lungs again but I had made a decision before my throat closed: If this was really my time then I would meet it in dignified stillness with my heart full of gratitude for the plenty undeservingly visited on me in this life. I would not claw my flesh open like an animal, flailing around on the floor begging for a few more months to live. At this point in life, I still very much considered the pain of gout and a failing will the only avenue of existence open to me. So, it ultimately wasn’t a very hard choice of behavior. But, I will say this. That power to make one struggle for his breath is the most overwhelming force I think a human being can ever feel. Its more powerful than the desire for water, food, love, sex, or acceptance. I can think of nothing as powerful as the drive to breathe when your mind is convinced it will die if it can’t find a way to start the lungs up again, with the exception of saving your children or spouse should they be in mortal danger .

I believe – though I could be wrong – the ability or even desire to behave that way in a situation like that developed in me over the years of dealing with my illness. In order to help me make sense of my plight I studied a lot of Stoicism. And, I didn’t just study the later Roman contributions by Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, I also learned the foundations of what drove these conclusions: propositional logic. Not only is this the basis for the most sound set of ethical and metaphysical reasoning humanity has ever contrived, but it is the basis of our schools of computation. This lends it a huge amount of evidence and credence for being ‘correct’ or ‘right’ which convinced me to apply the methods to my own mind. Outside of marrying my wife, this is the best decision I ever made. The only reason I got through those several minutes is because I meditated on my own death and my infinitesimally small and insignificant place in this universe daily for years leading up to those moments. Those thought exercises, understanding those ideas and circumstances are not depressing, oppressive realizations. They are absolutely liberating and lead one to understand how critical your contribution truly is; how unique and important you truly are. All this gleaned from understanding you are less than a mote of dust that will burn out as quick with as little notice.

While sitting in the infusion room – literally breathless – I did three things. I thanked god/the logos for my time with my wife and children, I prepared myself to attempt a tracheotomy should no other solution present itself before I lost consciousness (I know I would probably have killed myself doing this, but I would not succumb willingly. Dying with silent dignity does not mean going without all the fight you have. Is it not common to tell those less experienced that talk is cheap?) and finally I sank into my mind. I have a place I go to control my emotions and stress levels. If you have never used this technique, you should. It works wonders. So, there I went and my body sat in the chair, still and silent while in my mind I focused on my candle and my little empty wooden room with no doors or windows (it smells like the depths of the forests my grandfather took me hunting in when I was little).

The nurse (ordered by the doctor to overdose me on Benadryl and cortisol steroids in order to open up my airway) returned with the medicine and the doctor was standing at the nurse’s station with paramedics on the line. The nurse removed the medicine bag from the IV machine and put another on with either Benadryl or steroids and began running it. She also injected the other medication (whichever of the two wasn’t in the bag) into the line and I began to shake uncontrollably and sweat profusely. Another minute passed and in the midst of the convulsing and sweating I wet myself, and took a sharp whistling breath. The medication had opened my airway just enough to let the tiniest bit of air pass. It sounded like a dog whistle going off as I drew as much as I could. If leading up to this point was the worst day of my life, then this moment made it simultaneously one of the best. I knew that was all I needed to live. I could deal with the discomfort of small bits of air for a while. Today was not my date of departure.

Every cell in my body was 100% exhausted and dehydrated. I was maybe a minute – 2 at most – from death. That’s ok, though. Now, I knew exactly what it felt like to have your own mortality place its hand squarely on your back with its cold breath going down your neck and push you toward eternity. When it was all said and done, I wasn’t breathing for around a total of 3 minutes 30 seconds. I also was nowhere near an athlete. I was about as unhealthy as someone could be. I weighed 350 pounds and had not exercised even a little bit in over 15 years. The fact that I stayed conscious during that time, much less in control of myself for the most part, was a miracle in itself. I sat there, soaked in my own various fluids, tired beyond measure and I died.

I of course don’t mean this literally. But whatever version of me that existed before that day did not exist when I finally had the strength to walk out of that office. I walked in sure of my lot in this life and walked out knowing that I had been incredibly arrogant to assume I had any idea at all what life will look like even after a single turn of our planet. If I could stare Death down on his home turf and make him blink, what else could I do? I know of maybe one other person who had done this (I know there are many more, but I only know one): been a moment from death and not flinched but stood in his face and demanded that he kindly piss off (ironically, that person is my sister. We must’ve pissed Death off in a former life or something). I was a very different me now and it was clear I had a lot of work to do.

Over the next year I began to research everything about how my disease worked. Not the typical Googling, but I wanted to know the edge cases as that is clearly what I was. Trying to find the answer to a problem in commonly asked and answered question areas will not yield results for edge cases. That’s why they’re edge cases. I had to approach this differently. Ultimately I came to the realization that the only thing that had not been addressed was my morbid obesity. By the end of that year I had ballooned up to around 375 – 380 pounds. I knew that there was a correlation between gout and obesity but never came across anyone who was morbidly obese and could not control their condition with medication. I was uncommon in that sense. My final answer to gout came when my mom got a sleeve gastrectomy.

She went on to lose a huge amount of weight and her quality of life shot into the stratosphere. She also began to insist I at least go talk to her doctor about it. After a few months of chipping away at my procrastination she got me to relent and set an appointment. If the years of gout were the forge in which my mind was tempered, and the above ordeal was the test of its mettle, then this appointment was what shot me off down the road to finally beating the disease. Gout was my WWII, Krystexxa my Battle of Midway or Normandy, and this surgery would be me finally going on the offensive in this life.

My wife decided she would do the surgery as well and so we could be each other’s support system through recovery and weight loss. We both went to the first appointment at the same time (really just a consultation describing the procedure and making sure it’s a good fit) and both understood that while it was an amazing opportunity in its own right, it also could be the answer to my suffering. During the appointment we were shown an informational video the doctor had put together on the surgery and in it he stated some bullet-pointed benefits of having the surgery. He said in addition to weight loss “66% of his patients have reported being cured of or going into remission with their gout attacks”. Sold! Right then and there! With that one single statement I stopped watching and told the doctor I would be doing the procedure.

I went through the process and got my sleeve performed. It wasn’t bad at all. I had been living through a nightmare of constant pain for so long that a little surgery was nothing. And, the weight of course began flying off. I ended up losing around a 130 pounds as a result of the surgery. This means I still am a pretty big guy standing in at 6’1″ and 250 pounds. That is a topic for later. For now, let’s talk about what this surgery did to my CRG affliction. For the first few months I was still having pretty consistent attacks, but they began to be only in a single joint at a time. Now, the joints it seemed to like by this time were my left hip and right knee which, from experience, I can tell you are really probably the two worst places for an attack. The feet and hands are nothing. Even the worst attacks there were easy to handle for me by this point. But the hip. You can’t stand, sit, or lie down comfortably. Going to the bathroom is an exercise in masochism and there is just so much real-estate in that joint for the gout crystals to shred. I’ve had gout in every single major joint in my body. The hip is hands down the worst. That’s ok though. I could deal with it. I wasn’t going to die from it and, again, it was only in one or two joints at a time now.

This fact signaled to me that something was improving. Gone were the days where both wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, hips, several fingers and toes, and my neck would be screaming in absolute hell all at once. This trend continued as well until finally, I had my last gout flare. It was a small attack in my left middle finger. Fortuitous, no?

This is where the hinge really is. It wasn’t with Krystexxa. It was when that middle-finger attack subsided and nothing came back anywhere. I was cured (or in remission, whatever. It felt like a cure to me) and for the first time in my adult life, I could walk without feeling any discomfort. My mind was at peace for the most part. There was real possibility for me. I could do something with this life now! This turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword or maybe a big ‘FU’ from death over the result of our last meeting. I technically can now do anything I want. But, I am no longer 20 or even 25 (hell, or even 30) years old. I am just a bit over 40. And, I would soon be 41. This was like being in hell for years and years, being tortured and ripped apart with no end in sight. Then, one day, the devil leaves you alone and you decide to get up and walk around. You notice there is a door with a big EXIT sign over it. It’s open and no one is watching you! So, you walk on through.

Then, you find yourself in a vast open green field with an endlessly clear blue sky over your head. The air is a perfect cool temperature that soothes your tortured skin and the grass is a perfect full, soft bed to cushion your broken feet. Even the scent in the air soothes your mind and the aching muscles inside your body. It’s absolute bliss isn’t it? Well, what do you do with it? Absolutely. It is a massive improvement over hell. You no longer have to endure the torment. You are free, but what do you do with that? Whatever you want, right? Well, there is a catch there.

Doing anything worth doing in this life comes with serious constraints. All the good stuff is hard to do and takes time to learn. Some things come with big-time restrictions on various aspects of a person also. I am fortunate that gout left no permanent lasting effect on my joints. It was soft-tissue affected and that heals. I am physically healed and in (and growing more an more into) excellent physical shape. I have the Eye of the Tiger with all this stuff, but again, I am not 25. I am now 42. Remember my stated objectives above? This could present an issue given the constraints less time and added mileage (among other things that are best left for another article all their own) on one’s body put on a person’s prospects. But, at least I was out of hell. I am eternally grateful for this. There is much to do now.

I am a Fullback

When I played football in high school I was both an Offensive Guard and a Fullback. I loved being a Fullback. They aren’t used much in football anymore. The Running Backs are all giant blocks of granite that run like antelope and its mostly a game played in the air with unreal speed now. So, what need is there for one? But, man, it was a glorious position. Simple and brutal. You ran South to North, seeking daylight and protecting your brothers as they tried to bring you to victory. To be a Fullback you cannot fear violence or pain. You normally have 5 – 8 yards of room to build up steam before colliding with a defensive lineman or a linebacker (known to be pretty strong and violent dudes in their own right) so every collision can feel like being in a car accident. You also cannot have mercy in your heart for your opponent. They wear different colors than you and so – I say with complete objectivity – they are morally and existentially reprehensible. They must be shown the errors of the attestations of their false gods and put out of their obvious misery. That is all a Fullback is. He is the concentrated hatred of his team thrust into the heart of the opposition. I relished being this vessel of my brothers’ intent on our enemies.

This attitude is mostly absent from football now. Gone is the warrior spirit the young men were taught to cultivate and take with them into whatever they pursued in life, and replaced with it is… Sportsmanship…and …ugh….safety precautions (…targeting…). Yeah. Fuck you. I, and every other player I knew, played that game for the struggle and the violence. It wasn’t a sport. It was a microcosm of life and you either won or you were humiliated and you died, figuratively. You didn’t actually die – typically – but your hopes to achieve anything as a team died. The game played today is not the game I played. Those days are dead and gone. I no longer even watch football. But, that warrior spirit cultivated when I played never left me.

So I now go on the offense in life and do all that is possible to achieve what I stated I will achieve at the beginning of this article. Now is a good time to explain myself in that; explain how I plan to accomplish each objective. Let’s start with the first. Becoming a Soldier.

Ever since I was little that was my real dream. That was the thing I wanted to be more than anything else in life: a Soldier. I wanted to be an Airborne Ranger and/or a Green Beret more than anything in the world. But, I was overweight and always hurt. So, I could neither really fix the weight problem, nor – I know now – would the pain ever go and stay away. This is the objective with the least probability of success. Naturally, it is the one I want the most. There are several circumstances I am facing that could prohibit my enlistment into the United States Army should I not be able to solve them or the Army not be willing to waive them.

First, I had a sleeve gastrectomy. This has been waived on a case by case basis but it is typically disqualifying. The thinking is your stomach is too small to be able to consume enough to sustain yourself in an austere/combat environment. This isn’t very accurate. I now, quite comfortably, consume between 2500 – 4500 calories a day depending on the day. How they came to the conclusion that someone several years out from the surgery can’t eat enough is beyond me. Next, I am 42. This is the absolute oldest you can be and enlist in any service branch. Most are even more selective with your age. But, as with the sleeve, there are plenty of case by case exceptions. Finally there is the old gout. This is a disqualifier but I have been without an attack for several years now, and (I also now know this) it has always been a product of morbid obesity. Being in good shape has successfully mitigated this. Obesity causes too many problems. My final hurdle is my back. I herniated a disc 5 years ago while deadlifting during one of my many ill-fated attempts to start getting in shape during the peak of my disease and had it repaired. But, again, it was a small injury that has since healed perfectly fine. I lift, ruck, run and PT daily now and have had no issue in those 5 years. By the time I am able to enlist, I will absolutely be upholding the US Army Ranger PT Standard.

That said there are no guarantees. All I can do is lose the weight I need to lose and go see a recruiter. That is where we come to the implementation of this objective’s process. I need to lose 60 – 80 pounds and still have a few months left over to deal with the waivers I may need to get. In order to do this I plan to implement the same strategy David Goggins did to lose weight and become a Navy SEAL. My personal objective is become a 25D (Cyber Network Defender) with an Option 40 (Ranger) contract. Being able to leverage my technical knowledge to take care of Rangers (and be one of them no less) would be my ultimate goal. Otherwise I will pursue that same job (or a 17C) in the US Army Reserves. I will tightly control my nutrition and workload over the next 90 – 100 days until all excess bodyfat is eradicated and my physical fitness is at an Army PFT 300 score level and I am upholding the US Army Ranger PT standard. Below is how I plan to do this.

NUTRITION

MEAL 1: 25g Protein (1/2 Chicken Breast) | 1 Sweet Potato or 1/4 Cup Rice | Steamed/Raw Vegetables | 1 Liter of Water

MEAL 2: 25g Protein (1/2 Chicken Breast) | 1 Sweet Potato or 1/4 Cup Rice | Steamed/Raw Vegetables | 1 Liter of Water

MEAL 3: 25g Protein (1/2 Chicken Breast) | Steamed/Raw Vegetables | 1 Liter of Water

MEAL 4: 25g Protein (1/2 Chicken Breast) | Steamed/Raw Vegetables | 1 Liter of Water

MEAL 5: 50g – 75g (need to check tolerance) Whey Protein at Bed Time with 1 Liter of water

This diet plan is roughly taken from this article. I will slowly add in calories to find my maintenance level once my bodyfat and weight are at the levels at which I need them to be.

Next comes the training. I figured, the best standard to train to is the aforementioned standard the Army Rangers have for anyone wanting to join their ranks. They say to be competitive you need to shatter them but, here they are for reference:

  • Pushups:
    • Pass: + 58 reps
    • Good: + 78 reps
    • Great: + 88 reps
    • Elite: + 98 reps
  • Sit-Ups:
    • Pass: + 69 reps
    • Good: + 89 reps
    • Great: + 99 reps
    • Elite: + 109 reps
  • 5 Mile Run:
    • Pass: – 40:00 min
    • Good: – 35:00 min
    • Great: – 32:00 min
    • Elite: – 30:00 min
  • Pullups:
    • Pass: + 6 reps
    • Good: + 12 reps
    • Great: + 15 reps
    • Elite: + 20 reps
  • Water Survival Assessment:
    • Pass/Fail Event. One must be fully clothed in full gear and jump into water.
  • 12 Mile Ruck March:
    • Pass: – 3:00 Hours
    • Good: – 2:40 Hours
    • Great: – 2:35 Hours
    • Gold: – 2:30 Hours

The bold bullet-points are my fitness standard objectives. Below is my plan to get there.

PHYSICAL FITNESS TRAINING

0400: 2 Minutes each: Pullups | Pushups | Sit-ups then Run until 0600

1500: (MWF) Lifting Circuit Traps down to calves. 4X25 per body part | (TS) 12 Mile Ruck in 2:30:00 with 37 pounds in a ruck sack. I will build this over time

2000: Run for 60:00 then full body stretch and use 1GiantMind to mediate.

I understand how ridiculous that plan is. It will be built over time, albeit quickly. If I get injured, so be it. There isn’t much time to get this done. This is not something I plan to keep up forever, just the next 90 – 100 days. The idea is to create enough of a deficit to get the bodyfat and weight to the right levels by mid-April (mid-May latest) 2025. If I haven’t gone to MEPS by much later than that, it will become difficult to get enlisted before I turn 43 if I need waivers. So, here we are: fully aware how moronic the above is and not giving a damn about that. Let’s move on.

Competence and Service

The above will get me to a place where I can attack any part of life, not just the Army. If I am unable to join it will still help me with my other two goals. And, I have been getting my ass kicked for so long, I need a win now. I need to know there is something at which my efforts will produce a real result which enhances my family’s circumstances and prospects. That is where the Web3 Security Research comes in.

I love Web3 and Decentralized Finance. I love the possible future and freedom for the oppressed it represents and I want to help secure that future for those less fortunate than myself. I also want to have a real skill that can be used to generate income for my family’s needs without the need for employment. During my time being chair/bed-ridden I was not idle. I got an Applied Computer Science degree from a mediocre school. It was very difficult to achieve while being in such pain and I am proud I did it. That being said, it was 10 years ago and so I have forgotten most of what I learned as I was never really able to apply most of it. But, I didn’t forget how to program as I really learned the basics of that much earlier in life. I remember how code is structured and the principles that make it work. I plan to apply that knowledge to this space. So, here is how I plan to get good enough at Web3 Security Research to use it to make money for my family:

  1. Complete Cyfrin Updraft
  2. Shadow audit a few FirstFlights on CodeHawks
  3. Read reports of past findings on Solodit while doing as many competitive audits as possible

This will be my focus while preparing to attempt to join the Army. If I am able to get into the Army then I will be doing this on available nights and weekends to increase my income. If I am unable to get in the Army then I will do this as my main source of income until I complete my second degree and get into my final objective which we will cover now. Be prepared, it’s a big one.

I only want to do one single enlistment period in the active Army. I would then like to move over the the Reserves and if unable to go active I’d like to go in the Reserves from the start and be a computer guy there. I would be honored to go that route as well. Either way, the Army is not my ultimate career goal. I figure even if I get in the army, I will still have from the time I am done with my enlistment, about age 45 – 46 until about age 65 – 70 as my working years. That is still a solid two to two and a half decades; an entire career. So, my objective is to become a Machine Learning Engineer or Hardware Engineer at NVIDIA and work my way to Principal or Distinguished Engineer in the company.

I love NVIDIA so much. They do so much cutting edge stuff and that is the exact space in which I want to contribute. That being said, there are quite a few companies which are doing work on similar trajectories if not similar spaces. I’d be thrilled to go work at Neuralink, SpaceX, or OpenAI as well. But, NVIDIA is my reach. That is my aim. So, I have to get re-educated in Computer Science and Math with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Computer Architecture. I finally must get really good at programing. I have a plan to accomplish all this but it is going to take several years I think. That doesn’t mean a job can’t be performed while learning. If I’m not in the Army it is perfectly reasonable to go work somewhere while learning and honing my skills. In order to get the education I need I will be using a combination of formal education, Berkeley’s CS department, MIT OpenCourseware, and practice (mostly competitive programming). I plan to pursue a second degree in Mathematics and go all the way through a PhD in Computational Math. On my own, I will be re-learning Computer Science via Berkely’s Computer Science lower-division requirements, MIT’s EECS 6-3 requirements along with some more depth in the Machine Learning and Computer Architecture areas. Finally, I will be grinding problem sets on Leetcode, Sphere Online Judge, CodeChef, etc. I found a good method that will work in building up skill there and my goal is 1 to 2 problems solved daily.

Before starting the below, I must have a payout from my Web3 security work. And I in order to be ready for college math I am coughing up the dough for a Math Academy subscription to go through their Math Foundations courses. I decided to do this instead of using free resources as the Math Academy courses are laser-focused on getting adult learners up to speed and ready for college level math and technical subjects. So, here’s the course/preparation list:

And, for good measure, should I choose to not pursue the math degrees I will still learn the material via the OSSU Mathematics curriculum. I love OSSU. Several of the courses above I found on their Data Science curriculum. But, all that aside… I know. That is a ridiculous endeavor given what I have already stated. Is it even needed? Probably not. I don’t know. But, if Scott Young got through the content of an entire MIT CS degree in one year, then the above is possible over the next 3 – 5.

Young said he completed most of the 33 courses the degree requires while doing more than one in parallel and working 8 – 10 hours daily. I will probably be working more like 3 – 6 most days and doing 1 at a time. But, I will apply the learning methods I have found in my research to increase learning efficiency to its maximum. This is doable. And, my new dream is to reach Distinguished Engineer at an impactful Tech firm; preferably (really preferably) at NVIDIA.

Beuler. Beuler…

I think we’ve mostly been here long enough and I’ve made my objective and how I think best to accomplish them completely clear. Now, we will go over some infrastructure and housekeeping as ultimately, I think establishing a brand for myself will be a big part of helping me to get this stuff done. I know it will for my Army aspirations. If I am unable to go through the waiver process on my own I definitely plan to utilize sympathetic voices within the US government as I have seen others do. And in order to establish myself in the ML and Hardware Engineering fields/communities, it will be best if there is an easily accessible place online for potential employers or recruiters (or anyone I might be able to network with) to view my work and abilities as they grow.

This means learning in public. So, with that said you can find me here at zacharychildress.com posting at least every time I finish an above resource or meet another milestone or benchmark. For instance, I will make sure this article lives at the top of the article list and whenever I finish an above resource it will be marked as done and will link to a another page. This page will have a review article and embedded video talking about what I learned, accomplished and what I found difficult. Basically each course/resource will get a post-mortem talking about how it is going toward ‘the cause’. I will also put write-ups whenever I win a bug bounty or get a reward from a competitive security audit.

My daily posting will be done mostly on Instagram and X, though I will be posting even more frequently on X as I will use that platform to share bits of progress I am proud of or resources I locate worth sharing. I also have a YouTube channel where the post-mortems for each course will live. I will also post different videos relating to my story and endeavors there. It would be really cool if I am able to glean a way to tighten all this up and get a more concise method of getting all this done figured out and maybe that could be offered as some sort of digital product. Rest assured, it will cost you nothing if I do this. I plan to have my engineering career, web3 security research, and (Logos willing) Army pay cover my income needs. If I can get where I want to go with it all it would reach a TC of $1 million annually anyway. I will not charge anyone for information on how to accomplish the same for themselves.

All that said. This has been a huge time-sink, but one I am glad to have finished. I have finally planted the flag in the ground I am claiming as mine in this life. And, I am moving to take and hold it. You have no idea how much it means to me that you have taken the time to read this. Please come find me on X, YouTube and Instagram so we can connect. I would love to talk with you. For now, I will be getting to work. I have a lot to get done. Keep looking out though. It won’t be long before I am posting again. Until then, leave a comment with your thoughts, praises, and (especially) criticisms. I am truly excited to see what pursuing this does to my reality and hope it will inspire others to take on challenges even bigger than those talked about here. I know one person can’t control much in life. Maybe we get to decide just a little bit of what we do and think from time to time. But, in the walls of your mind you can become the most powerful being in existence. You can improve yourself so much that by extension the world naturally changes for the better around you. That is your potential. That is how powerful you really are. And that is really something worth going after. Thanks for taking the time.

zacharychildress.com

2 responses to “Defining Possible”

  1. Binance美国注册 Avatar
    Binance美国注册

    Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.

    Reply
    1. zacharychildress.com Avatar
      zacharychildress.com

      What do you need more specifics on? I will elaborate however I can.

      Reply

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