Christmas, New Years, and Sunday

The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was 11 years ago. I don't know if much has changed since then, but certainly 11 years of maturity cause you to see things differently. Here are some thoughts on a recent article I read: Christmas and Sunday Collide and some Churches Scramble.

Why is it that Christians dodge church on a time when Christmas falls on a Sunday? Churches expected low attendance and adjusted accordingly. My church normally has 3 morning sunday services and 2 evening ones. This Christmas Sunday...only 1. They expect that less than 1/5 of the church will even bother showing up Christmas morning. Some other churches cancelled services all together. It's not like Christmas isn't some religious holiday or something. I mean why bother going to church at all on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus let alone when that day falls on Sunday. What?! Here's an idea...let's pre-empt Sunday services because they fall on our own Holy holiday.

With any other religion, a religious holiday would be spent in a place of worship. Why not Christians too? We all pack our churches on Easter to remember His death and resurection...why can't we do the same for His birth. Without Christmas, Easter would never have happened. And yet, this Christmas, churches lay empty while everyone is at home seeing what some guy in a red suit brought them this year.

It seems that Christians have bought into the secularized Christmas. It's all about a man in a red suit and how much you can get. They bust their buts day and night to get all their Christmas shopping done, sometimes staying up all night to make everything perfect for their kids in the morning. And yet, they can't take a hour out of the day to gather together on the day chosen to celebrate His Birth. Some religious holiday. It's a good thing we don't try to hold services every Christmas.

Don't get me wrong. I love the presents, the happy people, families, snowmen, santas, and everything else that has come to represent Christmas. But let's not forget the reason for all of this in the first place: the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

New Years is coming up in two days and again falls on Sunday. The Rose Parade and Rose Bowl are being held on different days so as to not spoil church attendance. Six years from now, Christmas will fall on Sunday again. What will happen then? Will the trend be even worse or will we discover that Church and Christmas don't collide, they go together.

Disneyland...in 1955

I recently came across some old photographs of my dad, his siblings and my gradparents at Disneyland in August 1955...one month after the park opened on July 17, 1955. And how things have changed since then. I am going to try to get some recent pictures to compare with these old ones, but for now...enjoy.

A new job...The first few days

Honestly, not much as happened yet in my first two days. I have an office that is full of boxes, but they promised me it would be clear by tomorrow morning. I don't have a phone or a computer or a computer account yet. Something about it being government (since I'm actually on the AF base instead of in a northrop facility) means they can't process these things prior to you arriving. I remember my first day at northrop, 3 1/2 years ago, I had everyting waiting for me, phone, computer, accounts, badge, etc. I just picked up my AF badge today so I don't have to be escorted around the base any more. But I swear, they run their badging office like the DMV.

Aside from HR orientations, and completing paperwork, and running paperwork all around the base so they could process the things I need like a computer, phone, accounts, badges, etc. My days have been spent reading. I was given several large binders full of DoD Directives, AF Instructions, etc. because they are the procedures that we follow as we do our work. Kinda dry reading, but then I'm new at this. One thing I do know, this job will require lots of reading.

So what will I be doing exactly... (more later)

I got the Job!

I got the computer security engineer job. :) I will be working for Northrop in the MILSATCOM Program Office at LA AFB. I am really excited, and this is a great opportunity for me to start working in the information security field which I am going to school for. Tentatively I would start on Dec 12, so that date is rapidly coming up.

My manager already knows, but I spent yesterday and today talking to my various leads and customers informing them of my new Job. I am also working on listing out all my duties so they can form a good transition plan...so far I'm at 3 1/2 pages of tasks with still more to come, and that doesn't include documenting each task.

We also had a planned power outage over Thanksgiving weekend. I hate those. This time it meant that all our systems had to be powered down. I thankfully wasn't there for the powerdown as I was on my way back from Florida, but my systems did not power up gracefully when I turned them on Monday morning. One Sun system had a bad power supply. Another Sun system had a bad I/O Board. A disk array had some sort of problem causing it to report 16 drive failures. There weren't any drive failures, there was just another problem causing it to report the drive failures. When I recovered from the drive failures, I find the data is corrupted or not there, so now I have to recover from tape. 2 days later, and I'm still recovering these systems. I hate this. I enjoy doing system implementation and system integration work, but I hate doing routing system administration and especially recovery after failures. I guess in simplistic terms, I like building complex systems, but not maintaining them. Thankfully my new job will put me out of this maintenance and recovery business.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Greetings From Florida

Well, I'm back in Melbourne, FL for a while. I've been here for a week now arriving last Sunday and will be here for a total of 10 days leaving this Wed the day before thanksgiving. Leave it to me to have to travel on the busiest travel day of the year. This trip was totally unexpected, as my manager called me up Thursday morning on the 10th and said "So...you want to go to Melbourne? You leave this Sunday." I guess they were very shorthanded out here and needed an extra person to work on some projects. There was one project that had a deadline to get some servers online by last Fri that I needed to work. The one part that actually sucks is the holiday this week makes it hard to collect any overtime pay. In order to get overtime pay, I have to first work 80 hours of regular time not counting holidays. So at the most, I can postpone the holiday taking an extra holiday later instead of taking it now.

I ended up going to the Florida Disney parks this weekend. I went to Animal Kingdom and Epcot on Sat and MGM on Sun. It was rainy Sunday afternoon though, so that kinda cut things short there. The Florida parks are nice, but nothing beats the Disneyland Christmas celebration. They don't have anything comparable out here.

Still haven't heard anything about the job yet. The HR rep who was working it was out of the office all last week. The hiring manager is getting anxious as he needs someone, and he sent an email last week saying he'd touch base with me today. Right now, the next pay period ends on Dec 9. My current manager does know about the possibility of my changing jobs as I wanted to warn him before he sent me to Florida. Since nothing is official though, we left it at that, and he asked if I wanted to go to FL anyway.

Job News!

So I interviewed for a System Security Engineer position yesterday with Northrop. In this position, I would be working with the system designers and developers for military satellite programs. This is very exciting and would be down the information security career path were I am headed with my education. My office would basically move across the street from where it is now onto LA AFB.

The interview went very well, and I received a call from the HR dept from that business unit just a few minutes ago to start all the paperwork for the internal transfer process. So it really sounds like they want to hire me and would extend me an offer. If all goes well, I could start there as early as the 28th of November or the 5th of December. This is very exciting!

Election Blues

What's the point of having a special epection if every single ballot measure is going to fail. These were extremely important reforms, however they failed because of a high budget slime campaign brought on by labor unions. The California Teachers union spent $120 million to defeat these ballot measures with untrue slime commercials. The union spent so much money that it went broke, took out a loan to cover the campaign expenses, and then slapped every teacher in California with an extra $60 a month mandatory union due increase to pay off the loan for the campaign expenses. That right there is why we needed Prop 75 to pass. To prevent the union from doing something like that to all teachers. Let's let only those who support the union's politics give their money.

Californians want change. They've said so. Weeks before the election each of the important ballot measures had overwhelming support and were expected to pass by huge margins. Then comes the slime campaign and what happens. We loose by landslide margins because the stupid liberal left wing unions don't want change. They are so out of touch with what their membership wanted. Over 50% of union members were even expected to vote against their union initially until the scare tatics started. When the unions spend over $200 million combined, it is impossible for anyone to compete fairly. The worst part is that much of that $200 million came from mandatory contributions from people who didn't support the cause. The pro side only spent about $34 million so it's no wonder they were completely overwhelmed by the slime campaign.

Long time no post

I'm still here. It's been a long month, but things are going well. Our kitchen remodeling project is nearing completion. It's very trying to have your house torn apart for 6 weeks while you work on something as important as a kitchen. You can't shut the door on in when you're not working, instead you have to live in it, step over boxes containing the contents of your cubbords and drawers, dig through them when you want a cup or a spoon, or decide to cook, and you have to use the half completed kitchen everyday to survive. In the end it will be worth it. Hopefully this this the last week of it. This weekend we just have some moulding to put up and some polishing to do! When the end is near, I'll post before and after pictures so you can see, you could also come to our christmas party and see for yourself. It already is looking amazing in it's almost completed state.

The job front is looking quite interesting indeed. In the re-organization they did, I was offered a job at the same level, same pay rate in the new organization as I already had which is good. From what I hear many people were very unhappy with the transition and some had very significant pay cuts. A pay cut could have been disasterous for us in the middle of a remodeling project and all. I accepted that offer and will start in the new org Nov 14. (same job, same coworkers, different management is all) Since Jeff moved out of the office, I sure hope that they decide to move someone else in there since the office is awfully lonely without a coworker to share it with.

In other job news, I applied for a few other positions in Information Security during the re-organization as I wanted backup in case something went wrong during that transition. For those that don't know I am currently working as a System Admin, but am working on a Masters in Information Security and want to head down that path career wise. I applied for a position I wasn't necessarily qualified for, but was one in the Information Security field where I was headed. The hiring manager called be back and said that since I am new to the field I would have a very hard time being successful in that particular position. However, he still wanted to get together with me to see if I might fit into some other opportunities in the InfoSec field. I met with him last thursday, and afterwards he passed my information and resume along with a recommendation to another manager who I am meeting with tomorrow. This is very exciting, and I would to get one of these jobs as a computer security or information assurance engineer. If nothing works out, I still enjoy my old job, but I have my hopes up for the future.

All -- make sure everyone gets out and votes tomorrow. This is one of the most important elections that we've had in California, and there are some extremely important ballot measures. Arnold promised he'd change California, and here is our chance to make that change. These will bring change for years to come.

Ben's Voter Guide:

Prop 73 - Yes - Require parental notification for abortions
Prop 74 - Yes - Extend Teacher Tenure to 5 years, and allow firing after 2 consecutive negative performance reviews
Prop 75 - Yes - Union Dues cannot be used for political purposes without prior authorization
Prop 76 - Yes - Slows down the rate at which the budget can increase each year. Governor has authority to strike spending from budget if there is an inbalace that the legislature can't resolve.
Prop 77 - Yes - Retired judges draw legislative districts instead of legislature. districts approved by voters
Prop 78 - No - Discount perscription drugs to low income families
Prop 79 - No - Discount perscription drugs to low income families
Prop 80 - No - Electricity regulation

How 'bout them angels

Man... I was really rooting for another Angels World Series victory like they had 3 years ago. 3 years ago was so much fun as I watched all 7 World Series games in Downtown Disney with 10,000 other fans crowded around 3 giant jumbotron screens. It was such a high energy celebration.

The Angels were off to a great start this year. 3 games on 3 consecutive days in 3 different cities and 3 victories - First in New York, then in Anaheim, then in Chicago. The last victory in Chicago no one expected them to win since they were so road weary, but they proved everyone wrong. Then comes the second game in Chicago. 1-1 in the bottom of the 9th inning, 2 outs, and the umpire makes a stupid call on strike 3 that put a man on first instead of ending the inning. Every replay, and every television announcer clearly stated that the ump made the wrong call. The next batter hit the ball to allow the White Sox to win. The umps call gave the White Sox the victory instead of allowing a fair battle in extra innings. No one knows who really should have won that game, but the unfair loss in Chicago sank their spirits. The Angels then went on to lose 3 in a row in Anaheim to give the White Sox the American League championship. I guess this year isn't their year this time. Maybe next.

(As I'm writing this, there is a cool lightening stom going on outside. :)

Prop 75 - Restrict Political Contributions with Union Dues

Vote Yes!

This law prohibits public employee unions from using union dues for political purposes except with the consent of individual employees.

All I say, is that it's about time! My only complaint is that this only covers public employees and not private sector employees. However, it's a step in the right direction. Let's pass this and then tackle the private sector in the next election.

I heard on the news today that many teachers are crying out because the teacher's union is raising their dues by $20-30 a month to payback a loan they the union took out to help fund the latest television slime campaign against the governor. That is simply unfair. And teachers simply have to pay the extra fees regardless of whether they supported that ad campaign or not. This now gives them a choice. My wife has to belong to a union for her job and I cringe every month when she pays her dues knowing that at least half of them are going to liberal political purposes. In the last election, I voted opposite the union on every single item. So why is my money going to support their views when they oppose mine?

The opponents continue their rant about teachers being under attack with this law. They claim that there is a hidden agenda to limit the effectiveness of the union. duh! It allows those with opposing viewpoints to contribute their money elsewhere. If enough people do this, then yes it will limit the power of the unions. Unions have too much power anyway, and the liberals can't tell the difference between an attack on unions and an attack on individuals. They like to personalize it to appeal to our emotions. Under the new law, the unions will get the political contributions of those who actually agree with their political views. Perhaps this will make the unions more moderate or conservative in order to keep the money coming in from people who can't stand the liberal left.

The other complaint from the opposition is that it limits the effectiveness of the public employee unions while doing nothing with the private sector leaving their unions powerful. I grant them this, but we have to start somewhere. Let's go after the private sectory next. My wife works in the private sector and will not reap the benefits of this law. But I want to see a similar law on the next ballot targetted at the private sector.

Vote YES! and give public employees a choice as to where they contribute their political dollars.

Prop 74 - increase probation length for teacher tenure

Vote YES!

Prop 74 would increase the length of a new teacher's probation from two years to five. This requires teachers to perform well for longer and gives principals more time to evaluate teachers before they are granted tenure.

Under current law, tenured teachers are very hard to remove for unsatisfactory performance. This law allows schools to fire tenured teachers after two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations.

I really hate the bogus lies that the opponets to this proposition use in their ads. They don't really say anything about the increased probationary period, but they are really opposed to the rest of the law. They try to appeal to our emotions by saying that this proposition is an attack on our teachers and designed to punish hardworking teachers. There is nothing farther from the truth. This law does not punish or attach teachers. It simply ups the standard. Poor performing teachers are the only ones who have to worry. Good teachers have nothing to worry about. Even an occasional unsatisfactory review won't deny them their teaching job. Under this law, tenured teachers can be fired after two consecutive unsatisfactory reviews. There is nothing novel about that. If I got two consecutive unsatisfactory reviews in my private sector job, I would certainly be fired. Since we're entrusting the care of our children to these teachers, they really should be held to an even higher performance standard, but sadly, the opponets of this law don't want that. Instead they want to lie to everyone and appeal to our emotions.

Vote YES!

Prop 73 - Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy

Vote YES!

Prohibits abortion in California for a minor until 48 hours after a physician notifies a minor's parent or legal guardian, and permits judicial relief if someone is attempting to coerce a minor into having an abortion.

This Proposition partially reverses a 1953 state law that allows minors to receive pregnancy care and abortions without parental consent or even notification. A minor can't normally get an aspirin from the school nurse or even a flu shot without parental notification, so why can they get abortions? The opponents argue that this law would complicate situations in abusive households when parents received notification. Perhaps in those situations the minor would think twice about actually killing their baby. Or if they really felt threatened, the law does allow the minor to go to Juvenile court to get a waiver to this law with insinuating circumstances.

While it doesn't prohibit the heinous act of murdering unborn children like we all want, it is a step in the right direction. Most parents have invested attention and love in their daughters and care about them. While the minor still has the ultimate choice, the parents can help her understand all the alternatives and obtain better care.

This law doesn't go as far as we all want, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Vote YES!

Coming soon....

My take on the latest California ballot propositions. I know it's early, but the false emotionally charged TV ads are already getting on my nerves.

Awesome Halo Game

Ok, I just had to share this because this game was really awesome. Check out my shots fired. In this game, two of us went around in the jeep for the entire game killing people with the turret or running them over with the jeep.

Penny Pinching...

I got this from an old friend and thought it quite funny.

Look at my piggy bank after I bought gas yesterday.


In other news, we are remodeling our kitchen. :) We bought new cabinets over the weekend. Now we just need to pick out a countertop. We're getting white cabinets, and probably a blue with white marbled countertop. We're really excited even though redoing a kitchen isn't really that cheap.

New Digital Camera

We purchased a new digital camera this week. It's a Casio exlim ez-z55 for those who care to know the details. So we had to go out and take some pictures to test it out. There is no better place for pictures than the beach, so off we went yesterday on a picture quest to Huntington and Corona Del Mar beaches. Here are a few small samples below, but all the shots are in a photo gallery on our website. For those who haven't visited our website recently, I finally changed the template and will be updating content soon as well.

My Green Thumb (or lack thereof)

So I was looking at our flowers this evening, and it seems like no matter what I do, I always seem to kill our flowers. Takes these ones for instance:

The plant in the pot on the left died shortly after planting. And the one in the middle has just a smigen of green trying to hold on. The rest has long died off. The one on the right really wants to fight but is it a lost cause? It's not like I don't water them.



These ones are really dead. There's no question about it, I'm a plant murderer. Can I be forgiven?




This is my one hope. A large ficus tree we have near our front door is just doing great. There are even some impatiens in the pot with the tree that are also doing well. Our tree is doing so well, that we've had to cut it back several times because it gets too overgrown and bushy for the location. Both of our parents are also quite surprised at how well this plant is doing since ficus are supposedly hard to grow and keep looking nice. So why do I succeed with a ficus and fail with all the other plants we tried? So do I really not have a green thumb with all the dead plants? or is there some hope after all with the ficus?

Summer Grades

Grades are in. I got a 93 on the final for my summer law class which gives me an A in the class. WooHoo!

Checking In...

Wow, it's been over a month since I last posted. sorry, I'll try to not let that happen again. Let me know if you're still reading this after that period of silence. I really did not fall off the face of the planet, so to catch everyone up with the events of the last month, here goes.

Amanda and I went to Vegas at the end of June to celebrate our anniversary and Amanda's birthday. It we stayed at the Venetian hotel and enjoyed gambling our hard earned money and seeing the other attractions there as well. Amanda's big boast is how she turned $50 into $200 at the blackjack table the night of her birthday. A big birthday present as the dealer put it. I wasn't so lucky, but then again, it wasn't my birthday.

Coming home leaves me to work on my summer Law class for my infosec masters program. This class was taught using the socratic method in an online discussion board medium. We had an awesome professor, and I really enjoyed the class, and the discussion overall. When you study Law, you realize there are so many things we don't consider in our everyday dealings with people. It really provoked my thinking into some issues (perhaps more on this later - does anyone want to know some of the implications of the recent MGM v Grokster decision?). Still don't know what my final grade will be though. We had a killer take home final exam due last weekend. We had to read a fact sheet about a case, and then answer 20 questions. Of course, our answer to each question had to be well researched with appropriate supporting citations. It took me 10-12 hours of work to complete the final exam.

Next weekend my brother Mike is getting married, so this week will be busy with preparations for everything. Yesterday we had an evening at Rainforest cafe, Dave & Busters, and a poker game for his bachelor party.

The trials of home ownership are proving interesting for me right now as I discovered yesterday that the drain pipe for the condensation out of our air conditioner is clogged. This is causing the condensation to back up and overflow the pan which really causes a mess. For now, I've rigged up a way to vaccuum up the water before it overflows. What this means, is that about every 4-5 hours of running the air conditioner, I vaccuum up about 1 1/2 gallons of condensation out of the drain pan and drain pipe.

Well, that's enough for now. Goodnight everyone.

More or Less Rain?

Is there ever a right amount of rain? I keep hearing that this year is going to be a bad fire season because of all the rain (possibly worse than last year when we got barely any rain). Apparantly with lots of rain, the brush grows thicker, so when it dries out like it does every year, there is now more brush to burn. But they also complain about bad fire seasons when we get little rain. You'd think that with less water there would be less brush, but I guess it's just drier. Whatever. I don't buy it at all. Is there a right amount of rain that will give us a "better" fire season? or are they going to complain every year that it is going to be a bad fire season.

I thought of this as I saw two brush fires recently. The first was on Father's Day on my way home from my parents house. There was a fire off to the side of the 57 freeway near the 10 freeway. Then today on my way to my niece Katie's dance recital, there was another fire on the side of the 57 freeway this time in Diamond Bar. They should just make it extremely illegal and really start cracking down on people who throw cigarette's out the window especially in fire prone areas. Have you ever seen someone pulled over and fined the $1000 for littering for throwing their cigarette out the window?

Credit Card Liability Questions

I wrote this for my summer law class, but I feel strongly about it, so I'm also posting it here:

I wonder if the CardSystems/MasterCard case will shed light into this issue of liability as it's exposed. "The data security breach, possibly the largest to date, happened because intruders were able to exploit software security vulnerabilities to install a rogue program on the network of CardSystems Solutions"[1]

I am expecting to see some interesting fall out: (my predictions)
1. CardSystems Solutions will be held liable for not fixing software vulnerabilities or otherwise exercising care to protect customer data. This is a given similar to the TJ Hooper case.

2. Since none of the banks are going to do anything about the known compromised accounts except watch them for fraud and only intercede after fraud happens, I would expect there to be some action against the banks for failing to notify customers that their accounts were compromised. I'll have to do some more research to see if there is any legal precedent for this.

3. Ultimately, except with American Express the merchants are the ones who are going to suffer with the fraud related chargebacks. American express has stated that "American Express would bear the financial burden, assuming the merchant has followed all standard card acceptance procedures."[1] Does American Express's decision set another precedent that the other card companes will have to follow? or will there be another legal battle between the merchants and the card companies over the fraud related chargebacks.

4. Assuming 1, 2 and 3 happen, All the fingers are still pointing back to CardSystems Solutions. And there will be serious ramifications for that company.

While we don't know all the details yet, it seems like a clear cut liability case as CardSystems could have kept their systems patched, or better used technology such as Firewalls, IDS, and other security software (I am not doubting that there were some of these in place).

[1] http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5754661.html

New Web Page Template

We're finally getting around to updating our webpage. We've put together a new template that you can check out at http://www.benlovesmanda.com/new. Let me know what you think. This one will be much easier to update than the previous one which will make it easier for us to keep up to date. Hopefully we'll find time in the next few weeks to complete the new website and replace the old one.

Weekend Fun, School Starts

I just enjoyed a nice weekend with lots of xbox game playing and a trip to Disneyland Sunday evening. I decided to re-sign up for my xbox live online gaming account that I cancelled back in March because I hadn't used it in 2 months. I also spent the first weekend playing several hours of halo2 online since New Years.

It's nice to finally get back into some of that fun, and I hope it lasts, but for the next 7 weeks, I'm going to be a busy boy studying for the next class in my masters program. A law class on cyberlaw. It's the first law class I've ever taken, and it looks to be quite a challenge. There is going to be tons and tons of reading and doing case studies. Also 3 major papers and a written "take home" final all in 7 weeks. Everything including our our online discussion has to be propery cited. An opinion given without proper documented support as well as synthesis of the citation is a negative contribution to the discussion and counts as negative participation points. I hope I survive - I guess Torrey should have prepared me for some of this. In fact the early discussion from today reminds me very much of Torrey.

I'm taking a break during the middle of my class for a little while because it's our Anniversary and Amanda's birthday. We're going to Vegas for 4 days from June 27-30, and staying at the beautiful Venetian hotel. Who knows, maybe I'll win some cash while I'm there too. :) I just hope it doesn't set me back too far in my class to miss those days.

Memorial Day

A time for remembering. Remembering troops who have died to protect our country. I suppose it's also a time to remember great movies by watching the original Star Wars trilogy after seeing the new Episode III. What did you all think about the new Star Wars film? I thought it was great aside from a few small plot points.

Great quote from Empire Strikes Back: Sir it's quite possible that this asteroid is not entirely stable.

Well, I'm on call for work tonight for some upgrade that's going on. I hope I don't actually get called, but I'm supposedly the expert on this system if something goes wrong.

16 Reasons Why Alcohol Should Be Served at Work

I found this on our network at work and it's quite humorous.

16 Reasons Why Alcohol Should Be Served at Work

1. It's an incentive to show up.
2. It leads to more honest communications.
3. It reduces complaints about low pay.
4. Employees tell management what they think, not what they want to hear.
5. It encourages car pooling.
6. Increase job satisfaction because if you have a bad job, you don't care.
7. It eliminates vacations because people would rather come to work.
8. It makes fellow employees look better.
9. It makes the cafeteria food taste better.
10. Bosses are more likely to hand out raises when they are wasted.
11. Salary negotiations are a lot more profitable.
12. Employees work later since there's no longer a need to relax at the bar.
13. It makes everyone more open with their ideas.
14. Eliminates the need for employees to get drunk on their lunch break.
15. Employees no longer need coffee to sober up.
16. Sitting "Bare ass" on the copy machine will no longer be seen as gross

How many engineers does it take to keep a bathroom clean

I really want to post this sign in our restrooms. I guess it doesn't matter how many well educated engineers you have in a building, you still end up with pee on the floor. I've walked in our restroom at times and been absolutely disgusted. And then the sink ends up with a sheet of water on it from people dripping their wet hands.

Support

Support -- so it'd be nice if different groups coordinated their absenses. We had an "emergency" issue yesterday that required the support of Network Engineering, and the Firewall Team. Only between vacation, sickness, and jury duty, there was only _one_ firewall engineer in the entire company who was available to work with us yesterday. And even this person had other priorities that caused her to not answer pages and make us wait 2+ hours for assistance. All the while I was in a different building without a computer to work on and my lead was in Florida on the other end just sitting twittling our thumbs waiting for a call back. Same story trying to get a hold of Network Engineering... seems nobody was also around yesterday. Now I know they are two different teams, and you can't really plan for sickness or jury duty, but come on... yesterday was just ridiculous.

On a nicer note, there is a new NASA program on site that I get to help design the network for. I love all the cool little projects and programs that we get to work on. :)

Grade Reports

Well, Finals went much better than I expected, and I ended up with an A and an A- in both of my classes. Now on to all the paperwork to get work to pay for the courses. (You need a minimum of a B for reimbursement) My first final was way easier than I expected, and other than having to deal with some registration issues at the testing center (they didn't have my student id, so the test wouldn't load), I breezed through that final in less than 15 minutes. Way easier than I expected. My second final was an essay one, and it took me a little over an hour to complete. When I walked out of there, I felt like I was so dead because the questions were on things I hadn't studied as much. Out of 7 questions, I knew I got about 3.5 right. I completely blanked on one, and had absolutely no clue on another. I guess I came up with good enough answers as I ended up getting 38/40 on this final. go figure. The prof said he was curving the test, so I guess that's my curved score. I don't really know my raw score.

New Computer Security Website

Drumroll please...

I'd like to officially announce the launch of the Hepteleos Computer Security Guide website that Jeff and I have been working on for some time now. There are still a few quirks to work out, but the page is now functional and there is content. More content will be constantly added since thanks to blogger, I have an easy way to add articles and content. Most of the page layout is courtesy of Jeff and the content is mine.

For your bookmarking pleasure you can visit the site through either of these links:
http://www.hepteleos.com/
http://www.computersecurityguide.com/.

Please also sign up for our mailing list, and we will send computer security notifications and reminders to your email box. We promise not to spam. =)

Still Coming soon:
Links to other security resources
Bookstore - possibly a full fledged store
.....Let me know what you would like to see.,

Phone Advice Please

I hate Best Buy. Let me say it again...I hate Best Buy (and panasonic)
Don't ever buy an extended warranty or product replacement plan from Best Buy.

A year ago, Amanda and I bought a new Panasonic cordless phone set. 2 handsets, expandable to 3, with an answering machine. We also bought a product replacement plan to go with it just in case. Well, we didn't even have the phones for 6 months before we started having problems with one of the handsets cutting out on calls. The other one was fine and still is fine. We lived with it for a while until the battery also died and won't keep a charge. We haven't even had the phone for a year, and already one of the handsets is dead. They have also been interfering with our wireless internet since they use the same frequency.

In January, I tried to use the product replacement plan to replace our phone. I find out that you cannot return the phone to the store. You have to call an 800 number and they mail you a prepaid mailing label and RMA slip so you can ship the product to some claim center. Once they receive the product and check it out, they then send you a voucher for the original purchase price that you can take into a Best Buy store and use it like cash for anything in the store. Well, our problems started when we never received the prepaid mailing label and RMA slip in the mail. After 4 or 5 weeks, I call back and say I never received anything in the mail. They verify my address (they were missing the unit # of my condo the first time, but that has never stopped mail from being delivered to me), and say they are going to resend the RMA label and I should receive it within 14 business days. Another 3-4 weeks go by with nothing arriving in the mail. I call a third time, they supposedly resend the label, again it never arrives.

I call a 4th time, this time I'm really PO'd at the process. I really just want to take my phone back to the store and deal with it there. The lady on the phone is apologetic and offers to send the voucher in the mail right away so that I can get my new phone and not have to worry about waiting to send my old one back first because of the problems. The voucher never arrives. I called last week after waiting 3-4 weeks to find out about the missing voucher. The person on the phone this time looked at the status and it showed that there was "an error" processing the voucher.... I wonder of there was also "an error" processing all the previous things they supposedly sent me. This person asked me to hold while he looked into the error. He came back on the line and said the error was fixed (without explaining what the error was) and my voucher was on its way and that I should receive it within 14 days. 2 days later the voucher finally arrived in the mail 4 months and 5 calls after my original attempt to redeem the product replacement plan.

So now I have a voucher for $136 to use at Best Buy and I'm not sure what kind of phone to get now. Definately not panasonic again because of our problems, and Amanda knows someone from work who also has a panasonic phone with problems. Problem over half the phones Best Buy sells are Panasonic. We bought a Motorola phone after our wedding, and that lasted less than 2 years before the phone was completely dead. It was a crappy phone that we didn't like anyway - so motorola is out. Since 2.4GHz was possibly interfering with our wireless internet, that leaves the 5.4 Ghz phones. With panasonic and motorola out of the picture, the only remaining brands that Best Buy carries are AT&T, VTECH, and Uniden - and they have to support multiple handsets. Which one to get?

I long for my old phone back. I had a Toshiba cordless phone that was a rock. It lasted me over 12 years from 8th grade through high school, college, apartment life, and our first year of marriage before it finally died. Why can't I find another phone that will last us like that? Best Boy doesn't sell Toshiba, and I don't even know if they make cordless phones anymore. Whatever happened to quality craftsmanship these days?

I am never ever buying another product replacement plan from Best Buy. Possibly never shopping at Best Buy again either.

Scary Finals

I have finals in a week for the two classes I'm taking - May 4 and May 5. I'm scared of what's going to be on them, don't know what to study for, and starting to panic. The thing about Master's classes is that they don't give you nice little study sheets for the finals. Is there going to be a study sheet someone asked? The syllabus would be a good place to start the Professor said. Fortunately the syllabi for both classes listed very clear objectives for each week.

My formal methods class which I only semi understand has a 40 question multiple choice final worth 40% of the grade in our class. This class has been challenging. The first half of the class was spent covering first order logic, and fomal methods in the Z specification language which is based on set theory and first order logic. The second half of the class was spent reading very academic papers on Information Security which used these formal methods to develop formal proofs about the security models they were presenting.

My operating systems class was much easier since I also took an operating systems class at Biola. But this final is going to be 7 questions also worth 40% of my grade. I'm really not sure what to expect here.

I wouldn't stress so much except that I have to get at least a "B" in the class in order for Northrop to reimburse me through our tuition reimbursement program. Having to pay for the class out of my pocket if I don't do well enough is a good motivating factor, but stressful as well.

if at first you don't succeed, then try, try again...

Ok, this is just scary... 272nd time a charm for man on driving test. I don't really want to be happy for him - I'm scared of what he'll do to all the other drivers on the road. Driving just doesn't seem like one of those things you should learn how to do by trial and error.

Greetings from Florida

Well, I'm now in Florida moving those servers that I told you about previously. This whole thing went smoother than we ever thought it would. In fact it looks like we'll be done way early. The servers are in place, configured and seem to be working. There are a few issues that we need to take care of in the morning, but other than that we're done and this was a very successful trip. We planned the extra day just in case something went wrong. Since we're not leaving till Saturday, when we're done working tomorrow we are going to hit the beaches and one of the IT guys in Melbourne is taking us sailing tomorrow afternoon. Then on Saturday we'll hit the Disney parks before we fly back on Saturday night.

You gotta love Spring break in Florida. The weather is perfect. It's sunny but not hot or humid yet (although today had a bit of humidity) . (Funny thing - as I wrote this we just has a brief thunderstorm roll through, the first since we've been here) The only problem is that everyone wants to gouge you. We tried to get a hotel in Melbourne where we're working, the problem is that with spring break, all the hotels near the beach have tripled their prices and sold out of rooms. When making my reservations, I waded through 5 pages of sold out hotels before I found one that had a room available. When we drove by it after we got out here, I immediately cancelled the reservation as it was a trashy hotel in a junky part of town. We ended up staying back in Orlando about an hour drive away. I guess I'm used to the hour commute to work in the mornings. We got a very nice Sheraton hotel by the airport in Orlando for much cheaper than the junky hotel in Melbourne by the beach.

Florida drivers are horrible. I felt uncomfortable driving here when Amanda and I were on our honeymoon, but I think they've gotten even worse. Or I guess I've gotten used the LA drivers. Florida drivers - don't signal, just change lanes even if there is no room, will pull out of a driveway right in front of you, run red lights, and drive eratically. You frequently rapidly come upon someone who is going 20 in a 45 or 50 zone - and everyone just swerves around them without looking even if there are cars in the other lane.

How do they do it?

Long update...Breathe deeply...

How do people normally backup entire computer systems and restore them on different hardware when systems crash? It seems like it would happen all the time. Yet there is neither very many tools to do such a thing, nor wads of documentation to scour on the internet regarding this when things go wrong. It seems that in today's world, it's easier for someone to build a new system from scratch, and then restore any user data on the system from a backup, rather than restore an entire identical system from a backup.

I had the opportunity to do such a thing this week except that the computer didn't crash first. We are moving 4 servers to Florida next month, and we had to build 4 temporary servers to keep operating here in California while the real servers are in transit to Florida. The temporary servers had to be exact copies of the real servers so anyone using them wouldn't know that they were on a different system. If fact the goal is to move the servers without causing any impact. However, to get back to my point, nobody seems to build exact copies of servers on different hardware anymore. It wouldn't be an issue if the temporary servers had identical hardware to the real ones. Since all this has to be done after hours as well, it was a few long days this week. Jeff and I worked 12 hours on Wed, 15 hours on Thurs, and 12 hours Today - and that was only for 4 systems. Even after we did that, there are still some problems with the temporary servers - stuff didn't all copy right or something. But at least the applications seem to be working. And there is overtime $$$ for the extra hours.

On another note, Gas prices seem to creep even higher and Oil has hit a record high of $57 a barrel. This is even after OPEC said they were going to put another 500,000 barrels per day into the market. You'd think that an increase in supply would lower oil prices. But this is a different market now. OPEC no longer has control over the market by their traditional supply/price fixing, profits now are king at the expense of consumers. It seems like we are repeating history. In the past, the end of an oil price boom does not come from an increase in OPEC output to provide a surplus supply, but rather a recession in the oil consuming world. High oil prices cause inflation, which cause rising interest rates and eventually the falling profits and stock markets. Eventually there will be an economic crisis in this or other high demand countries which will slash oil demand and reduce prices to something more in line with what consumers can handle. No oil price boom has ever ended without causing a recession in the oil consumer countries. The real question is how long it will take for this to happen and whether it will be gradual or sudden. In the mean time, I guess I just have to continue to whine and complain about the price at the pump and grumble even more as it goes higher. Bush's plan for exploring the Artic for Oil is good in that it will make us less reliant on OPEC and foreign oil, but it won't do much to end this era of high prices we're in.

I haven't written much about our vacation since we returned. I hope you all enjoyed the pictures. They turned out wonderfully, and Napa is such beautiful country. Of course we visited in the spring when wildflowers were blooming and everything was green for California. We toured several wineries and tasted the different varieties of wine bringing home a number of bottles we just loved. We stated in the cutest Bed and Breakfast that was a historic Victorian mansion. To make it even cuter, they were filming the show "Trading Spaces" at the Bed and Breakfast where they traded with another B&B to redo one room. On our way home we traveled through San Francisco, and on down HWY 1 along the coast. That is a stunning drive if you've never done it before. I could go on and on for hours about the trip, but I put it better in speech rather than in print.

Napa Pictures

We just returned from our vacation to Napa. I'll post more about it later, but in the mean time, you can view our pictures here.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Wow, I'm old. I'm off to enjoy my Bday at Disneyland and whatever else Amanda has planned. What a way to start a week of vacation!

I hate the msn homepage

I've used the MSN.com webpage as my browser homepage for years. I always enjoy the articles they post usually creating some sort of diversion as I'm online. However, I absolutely hate the new re-designed page. The msn search dialog now steals my curser as soon as the page is fully loaded. It doesn't matter if I've already typed in half of an address in my address bar or in the google toolbar. When the msn page fully loads my curser automatically gets put in the msn search dialog. This nearly always causes me to have to re-type whatever I had been previously typing in another place. Also it seems like most of the links now go to video news stories. I don't want to click on links when I first open a web browser to watch some news video where I have to first watch a 30 sec ad. I click on links because a headline looked interesting, and I want to quickly see what the story is all about. You can't do that with video. I've gotten to the point now where as soon as I click on a link and see it's a video, I hit the back button and don't waste my time.

So I'm going to switch browser homepages now. Any suggestions on what I should use as my new homepage? I already have the google toolbar so I don't need google as my homepage. about:blank also doesn't do anything for me. It's got to be something interesting. That's why I previously liked msn. The page loaded fast, there were always interesting headlines, and they were constantly changing. Suggestions?

And they're still rising

Gas today was at $2.19 and word is 'still rising'. When is it ever going to stop? Is anyone else as PO'd about this as I am? When can we return to the good old days. I remember one occasion when gas reached 88 cents a gallon while I was at Biola - an entire trip to northern california and back for $22. Then I was whining and screaming when it hit $1.60. Now the oil companies are just pocketing the increases. And to think that the forcasts are for $2.50+ this summer...

On a better note, Amanda and I are going to be enjoying a nice vacation in Napa next week. I get to enjoy my birthday and a week off of work at the same time. Can you believe that I'm really going to be 27 next week? Geez...I really am an old fart. Well, Amanda's grandma has given us several bed and breakfast gift certificates as gifts in the past. We're finally using them, and this is going to be a wonderful vacation.

Also I hear good news on Amanda job front, but I'll leave her to tell all.

Well, I'm off to study now and then work out. Operating Systems here I come.

MSN Money - The Basics: How 7 experts would invest Social Security cash

MSN Money - The Basics: How 7 experts would invest Social Security cash

Most of the experts are in favor of these "private accounts". I just wish they would go further and allow us more than 4% to put into them.

Someone else feels the same way

So I was getting gas again today, and I was inspired by the graffiti on the pumps. Someone wrote F*** Gas Prices just above the price area. Glad someone else feels the same way - time to revolt.

How much do they really care

So I received this email today...

MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES POWER CORD REPLACEMENT FOR XBOX

Dear Xbox
Customer:

I am writing to provide you with information about a free
power cord replacement program for Xbox.
...
We are providing replacement power cords because component failure in a
small number of consoles - fewer than 1 in 10,000 - has caused burning inside
the console or melting of the power cord where it connects to the console.
...
Your new cord should arrive in two to four weeks. Until you receive and
install your replacement power cord, turn off your Xbox when it's not in use.

So while I wait for my replacement power cord to come, I could own a defective cord that would melt my system housing. They don't say anything about taking any precautions except not leaving your system on 24/7..but wait, I guess I have to have time to play first so this really doesn't affect me too much. I'll try to limit the amount of time I play in my "spare" time until a new cord comes.

The time machine

So I finally found some time tonight to play computer games. It's been at least a month since the last time I was able to sit down and play for a little while. I finally installed Half Life 2 on my computer and got past the first level. I played it before on Jeff's computer, but the box has been sitting on my desk for several weeks now waiting for me to install and play. Hopefully I'll find some time soon to play some online action as well. Halo2 and my XBox have been collecting dust for the past month as well.

It all comes down to I have too much to do right now. I'm working full time - I actually put in about 94 hours over the past two weeks. I'm teaching 2 classes at Biola. I'm also taking 2 classes for my masters program in information security. By the time I spend some quality time with Amanda and do my chores around the house, that leaves zero time left for fun like video games. I'm also trying to get a website off the ground and have found no time to work on it. Oh well...someday.

How much can they steal from us

So I had to fill up with gas today. It cost me 29 freakin dollars! Now, I don't drive a gas guzzler or anything, my car gets modest gas mileage, but gas prices are now sitting at 2 freakin 16 per gallon ($2.16/gal).

And they're set to go even higher...just on the rumors that opec might cut oil exports. Umm...hello there...they haven't even cut the output yet and already gas prices are being pushed even higher. Somebody is pocketing that money at my expense. Thief!

Besides, if oil prices are already at all time highs, why in the world is anyone even considering cutting production? That would only push prices still higher. The only reason is greed - those greedy bastards who control oil production and are only interested in the money.

Domestic oil companies could do something about it by exploring more in our domestic oil fields, but they also want to increase their profits. If oil prices were high, and gas retailers were merely passing the cost on to us, they should not be making any more profit. But instead, they are using high oil prices to pad their profits even more. Chevron and other companies are in the process of releasing earnings reports, and their earnings are at all time highs. Thieves!

Someone better organize a consumer revolt. I already carpool in to work, so I only have to drive every other day. I also have the alternative of riding a train to work. The train seems more appealing every day - I mean, I want to contribute as little as possible to lining the pockets of greedy oil companies.

The biggest fraud ever

So I have always disliked the Social Security system

This is one of my pet peeves.

The government takes nearly 13% of my income and places it in the Social Security system. Money that I could invest better on my own. I recently calculated how much I could save between now and when I'm 65 (40 years from now) at various rates of return. I also calculated how much I would receive if I took that balance in a 30 year annuity of equal payouts until I reached age 95. Chart with raw calculations.

Basically:
Assumption: current annual income $68000 a year with no future raises in next 40 years
13% of income is saved

Return	Amount Saved	Yearly Retirement Benefit
3%	$682,984	$34,845 per year
5%	$1,127078	$73,318 per year
10%	$4,701,186	$498,698 per year
12%	$8,779,296	$1,089,893 per year

When you consider that 5-10% average return is easily accomplished using very conservative investments, you can quickly see what a fraud this whole social security system. When you combine the contributions for both a husband and a wife, it is even worse. Even someone earning the median income of ~$32,000 could retire a millionaire and have a retirement income of over $100000 per year.

I believe you should be able to opt out of the Social Security system and invest your money the way you choose, in our own account. An account that I control, and no politician can touch. Granted most people aren't disciplined enough to save that much money on their own, so there could still be a mandatory payroll tax that goes in these account much like our Social Security contributions now.

Why can't this be done? Both Republicans and Democrats alike will say that it can't be done. They say that my contributions are needed to pay benefits for current retires. That is completely ridiculous. Instead of keeping my money safe and letting it reap the benefits of compound interest, they squander it. Given the way money grows over time, there is absolutely no reason the Social Security system should be bankrupt as they say it will be. The only reason the current system is loosing money is that current contributions are being squandered away to pay current benefits instead of allowed to grow to pay future benefits to those contributors.

I don't want a "solution" to social security that includes tax hikes and benefit cuts like the current proposals. Partially privatized it like Bush's proposal is good, but still not good enough. I want to be able to entirely opt out of the system.

Well Here Goes...

I may not be the most talkative person in the world, but here is my list of rants and ravings. enjoy...