Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas...Everyone.

I sure got spoiled. What did you all get?

The proud owner...

of a brand spankin new 2006 Mitsubishi Endeavor. And, since it's a 2006, we got the car for nearly $10,000 off the sticker price. =)

An Interesting Experience

Yesterday, Amanda and I went shopping for a new car. Not because we really need one, but because I have an itch for something new, and we really want to cut our monthly payments. The payments on the CRV are killing me, and we really want something $100 less a month or more. So off we went to browse the dealerships looking for a new car.

We started with Mitsubishi. The salesman points us to an Mitsu. Endeavor SUV he claimed was sitting on the lot and they were really motivated to move. We climb in, like it and decide to go for a test drive. The battery was dead. The salesman had to pop the hood and jump start the car, all the while saying it had just been sitting there and they would make sure to include a new battery with our purchase. Once the car started, it was really low on gas, so he said we would need to get some gas. He walks in to the office and brings back a fuel voucher so he can fill up the car and proceeds to drive off the lot with us to the corner gas station. He parks the car at the pump, leaves the engine running (isn't it normal to shut off the engine when pumping gas?), and runs inside (I guess with a fuel voucher he had to go inside instead of using pay at the pump. Whatever happened to a corporate credit card?). He comes back and proceeds to fill up the tank...with the engine running and us customers still in the car. Our test drive did go well after that. But man, talk about a rocky start. That guy really wasn't earning points with us. When we got back, I asked to see the car next to this one, since I liked the color better. He put the key in...and nothing. Yet another car on the lot with a dead battery. Come on... We let the guy down nicely and continue our quest.

We went to Toyota next and hated all the cars we looked at. As we were leaving, another salesman who was not helping us, practically jumped on the hood of our car and pointed to the Disneyland parking tag on Amanda's car. He literally asked do you work at Disneyland, do you get free tickets? We rolled our eyes and thought, Not for you. Next. We couldn't wait to get out of the Toyota dealer. They were vultures there.

How did we fare? We looked at the Toyota RAV4, 4Runner, and Highlander and hated them all. I don't even fit in the 4Runner, I was bumping my head on the roof of the car. I guess they only make them for really short people. Honda Pilot was ok but very similar to the CRV only bigger. Nissan Murano was really nice (and ended up being my second choice pick) but it is a little too expensive. The new 2007 Nissan Altima is really sweet, I loved it, but it's a car and I really want to stay with an SUV if possible. And the Nissan salesman was the nicest and least pushy the entire day. Gold star for him. The VW Toureg...it's the one I really want, but at $37,000, it's way out of our price range.

In the end, I really liked the Mitsubishi Endeavor the best despite our dealership experience. If we do end up purchasing it, it will definately be from a different dealership.

John Kerry's Outrageous Remarks

John Kerry made some absolutely outrageous remarks today talking to a group of college students in a campaign speech for Phil Angelides.

Kerry said, "Education, if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

That is just outrageous and downright disrespectful to all of our troops who fight for our country. And this coming from the mouth of a guy who fought in Vietnam.

I work for the Air Force, and work with some very bright and very well educated guys - many of whom have had at least one tour in Iraq during this war. People are in the military because they want to be, not because they couldn't do well in life. I can't believe this guy once tried to become the commander in chief of our nation and our troops (the same troops he is dissing now). He doesn't deserve anything after a comment like that against those who serve.

Even if you don't support the war, you don't say something like this. I hope the media catches wind of this, and you go down Kerry. Statements like this are totally unacceptable.

I've been busy

I've been really busy recently, but took yesterday off to spend the day with Amanda and work on our house. We cleaned out our garage and fixed up our study. I ordered some garage door remotes, and once those arrive we will finally be able to park in our garage - it only took 6 months to get fully moved in. On the work front, we are in the process of recompeting for our contract. We all have every reason to believe that we will get to keep our contract, but if they select a competing company, we will all be looking for jobs in November. However, I'm not really worried since I got a call from my old manager two weeks ago saying that if things ever went sour here they would take me back in a heartbeat. Nice to have that fallback. This coming weekend Amanda and I are taking a trip up to Monterey for a family get together.

On the blogging front, I have a few topics to blog about over the next few weeks. Let me know if you are not interested in these or would like to suggest a different topic.

• Oil and Gas Prices
• 91 Freeway Construction
• Annual take on the ballot measures

An Interesting Puzzle

http://n.nfshost.com/

Still Plugging

I'm still here, I'll have another update for you all soon.

I am still in the photo contest. I don't know how long it lasts or how many semi-finalists there are, but I mailed in an afadavit that I own the copyright to that picture. The final competition will be held in the Fall of 2006.

On another note, some of you know that I recently applied to be a writer for the PC Support section of about.com. I recently got the following email from them.

Your Prep site has recently come up for review, and we regret to inform you that it will not be promoted to the live environment.
Below are some comments from the site's editor that will further explain how we came to this decision:
=======================
Thank you very much for all of your hard work during prep. Unfortunately, we have decided to graduate another candidate.
This was a tough decision, and several people looked over your site. The tutorials you created were really helpful. Ultimately, we felt the writing on the other candidate's site was a bit more smooth. Again, this was not an easy decision, and we really thought you did an excellent job on the sample site.
Thank you again for all of your hard work, and we wish you the very best of luck in the future.
=======================
Thank you again for your interest in About.com. We hope that your experience was pleasant and valuable and we wish you the very best in your future endeavors.

Big surprise!

I received the following letter in the mail today: "After thoroughly reviewing and discussing your photograph, I am pleased to inform you that our Selection Committee has advanced your contest entry, 'A moment alone,' to semi-finalist in the People category in the International Open Amateur Photography Contest. Your photo will now be automatically entered into final competition to be held in the Fall of 2006...."

On a whim, I submitted this photograph in the contest and it has done far better that I would have ever thought. Who knew.

Let the Hack Attacks Begin

Defcon comes to town, let the hack attacks begin...

Apple just released 26 security patches for Mac OS X.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33445

"The dangers may have been exaggerated, of course. Security specialist, Symantec, said that it doesn't know of current attack code for any of the issues, although some may not require specific exploit code."
But Symantec's claims seem silly now after reading this next article

Hack a Mac in 60 seconds Security smugness dissolved
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33458
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/08/hijacking_a_macbook_in_60_seco_1.html

I am going to Defcon in Las Vegas this weekend and anticipate quite a weekend.

Backseat Driver's Manual

This was a hilarious advertisement booklet for a Jetta that I found in a recent magazine. Click on the images for a larger readable version.

Time for School...Again

Just 2 semesters left before I graduate...but it's time to order books for the Fall semester now. Classes start on August 28 and run until mid December. It looks like the courses that I am taking this semester are going to be Advanced Secure Software Engineering and Advanced Network Security. Both of these classes seem (at least by the titles and textbook titles) extremely relevant to my current job. And while the books are expensive...I already own the last one, so one less to buy.

The books are as follows:
CS621 Advanced Secure Software Engineering:
Using the Common Criteria for IT Security Evaluations by Debra Herrmann

CS660 Advanced Network Security
Network Security: Private Communications in a Public World by Charlie Kaufmann, et al.
Internetworking with TCP/IP, Vol 1 by Douglas Comer

On another note, I was accepted into a training program to be an about.com guide for the focus on PC support topic. If I successfully complete the training program, I will "own" that topic on about.com and will write a full article once every two weeks and a short blog entry 3 times a week. It pays well and will be a good supplement to my income since I'm not teaching at Biola this sememster.

Meet Max!

I'm back after a long break. I'll try to post more often now since I'm really not doing too much. Our home is slowly taking shape, so I'll post some pictures in the next day or two.

But first, I thought everyone would like to meet Max the newest member of our household. Max is a 10 month old yellow Lab mix that we got from the irvine animal shelter.

May

I really need to update more than once a month. May began hectic and ended just right. So here's the month in a nutshell.

The beginning of May saw me in Colorado Springs for a conference on cross domain solutions. If anyone is interested, a cross domain solution is a device that can sit between networks of different classifications. Say if you want to connect to a secret or top secret network, the connection would require a cross domain solution in the middle to act as a guard.

Following the conference, I flew from Colorado to Indiana where I was a groomsman in Rachelle's wedding. Rachelle has been a wonderful friend since my freshman year at Biola. She was in my wedding 4 years ago and it is an honor to be in hers now. It was a wonderful wedding, and I don't think there was a dry eye in the sanctuary when her groom sang her a song that he composed himself. They then drove away in a replica 1964 Shelby Cobra that he also built himself. Now that they're back, the Cobra is up for sale if anyone is interested.

Once back home, and with school finished, it is time to settle in our house and embark on the next project. BTW - I got an A and an A- in my two classes if anyone is interested. We bought some new bedroom furniture and finished putting together our master bedroom. With new furniture and everything put away, it looks like home again. One of these days I really will post some pictures for everyone. With one room down and several more to go, I also started thinking about our next project...landscaping the yard, so I killed what grass was growing in our front yard. Rainbird has a cool sprinkler design service, so I sent them a diagram of our yard so they could design a sprinkler system for us.

The last week of May saw me in Colorado Springs again. This time for a training course on the DITSCAP process. In case anyone is interested, the DITSCAP is the process we use when certifying and accrediting computer systems for use. While in Colorado Springs, I visited Keri and Calvin and we had dinner one night and played cards.

I got back from Colorado just in time for Memorial day weekend. To some Memorial day is a time for BBQs, for me, it was time to embark on our landscaping project. But first a little detour. Saturday was spent searching for the right dog for our house. Sunday, My dad came over and we rented a sod cutter and started ripping out the old grass that I had previously killed. That pretty much took all day, and so on Monday with all the old grass gone, we started digging trenches (we did rent a trencher so this part wasn't so bad) and laying new sprinkler pipe. We're probably about half done with the sprinkler pipe, so tomorrow we need to finish. The good thing is that all the trenches are already dug, we just have to lay pipe, install the valves, timer and get everything working. Once the sprinklers are in, we can plant the new grass in our yard.

On Wednesday (May 31), I stayed home from work and we visited the Irvine Animal shelter to bring home "Max" a puppy that we saw on Saturday. On Saturday he was on hold for someone else, but they never came to pick him up, so we grabbed him. He is a really cute yellow Lab/retriever mix around 9 months old. Max has tons of energy and will certainly keep is busy looking out for him. I owe everyone pictures of Max just like I owe everyone pictures of the house. Stay tuned...I really hope the next update is much less than a month away.

April

April. Where did it go?

This has been an insane month and it is finally ending.

To start off with, we moved into our new house on April 8, so the first week of the month was spent packing and getting ready to move. But I never got a chance to fully move in because the next weekend (Apr 16) I had a major project due for my Database class. The following weekend (Apr 23) I had a major project due in my Cryptography class. Then Mon-Wed this week, I was in Baltimore, MD for a business trip.

Now it's study time for finals as next Monday I have my two finals back to back, one at 8 and the other at 10. Wish me luck. Then it's on to the airport in the afternoon for a business trip to Colorado Springs. Then on Thurs I fly from Colorado Springs to Chicago for my friend Rachelle's wedding. Finally on Sunday I get to fly back home and end the insane month of April and first week of May. Hopefully then things will slow down and I will have some time on my hands to actually put away all the boxes we still have in our garage and do the things around the house that I want to do.

Trains vs Busses Ammunition

It amazes me when I hear opponets of an expanded light rail transit system. They claim that since rail lines (both heavy and light rail) are more expensive to build, money would be better spent expanding and improving bus service. Well, the Orange County Register just released some statements showing the big difference between the two in the county:

Train riders have a median household income of $72,000-plus a year, while 79 percent have access to cars. Half of the bus riders have household incomes of less that $20,000 , while more than 70 percent don't have a car. The statement was that trains aim to get people out of cars while busses aim to get carless people where they need to go.

These figures are quite striking. There is almost a class difference between the people who would ride a train and those who would ride the bus. With this in mind, more busses would increase access for those without cars, but would do little for congestion relief. Typical businessmen just have some sort of block against taking the bus. You need an efficient rail system that provides a good alternative to the freeway in order to get the average businessman off the freeway and into a transit system.

House News

The move is rapidly approaching. This weekend we signed all the loan documents for our new house, and we are hoping to close escrow this friday. That will allow us some overlap time to make sure everything is ready to move. Currently we are planning to move the weekend of April 8-9. Anyone want to help? As soon as we get moved in and the weather warms up some, we'll throw a pool party for all to enjoy and see our new house.

As far as selling our house, we received a lowball offer on our condo this weekend. We also received word of another potential offer but it hasn't shown up on the fax yet. We sent back a counter to the original offer today standing firm on the price. We certainly can't afford to go as low as the lowball is asking. We'll see what happens from here. There have been more showings of our house this week than we've had the entire past month.

How the illegals justify themselves

They believe the proposed legislation unfairly targets Latino immigrants.

This is baloney. We aren't targetting Latinos as a group. It doesn't matter where you are from, Mexico, China, Canada, Cuba or Iraq, you can't come to this country illegally. There is a process for coming to this country legally. We have nothing against immigrants who follow the legal process, we are against people who short circuit that process and come here illegally.

This is a country of immigrants, and this country would not be possible without us.

This is a country of legal immigrants. Law abiding individuals who contribute to our society.

We work hard to get here and we work hard after we're here, but this bill is trying to take all that away.

This bill will take nothing away from you if you are here legally, and it will do nothing to stop more legal immigrants from entering the country. Other immigrant groups are not protesting, why is it that Latino immigrants both legal and illegal are the only ones protesting?

We may be illegal immigrants, but we are human. We deserve the same rights as everyone else, not be treated like criminals.

If you are here illegally, you broke the law. Simple as that. Lawbreakers are punished when caught. Why should we make exceptions and not treat a group of lawbreakers as criminals.

More Moronic Politics

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11964167/
"In reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, laws creating drug-free zones around schools spread nationwide. Now, hard questions are being raised — by legislators, activists, even law enforcement officials — about the fairness and effectiveness of those laws."

What? establishing a drug free zone is not fair?

"such laws, which generally carry extra-stiff mandatory penalties, have done little to safeguard young people and are enforced disproportionately on blacks and Hispanics."

Who says so? Anyone who possesses drugs near schools or parks should be punished severly. These are our kids we're trying to protect. Zero tolorance is a great policy, why get rid of it? enforced disproportionately on blacks and Hispanics The law is colorblind. If more blacks and hispanics are getting picked up for this, then has any one considered the possibility that more black and hispanics are using drugs in or near schools and parks that whites?

but ample evidence that the laws hurt communities of color

It seems to me that any attempts to get drugs off the streats will actually help communities. If communities of color have a larger drug problem, then larger enforcement will only help those communities and not hurt them.

Instead of declining, drug arrests in the zones have risen steadily since the law took effect in 1987

Instead of looking at drug arrests, why don't you compare drug use statistics. Have they gone up as well? Perhaps cops are just enforcing the law more stringintly now trying to crack down on drugs in high use areas.

Though intended to deter drug sales to youths, the laws have been applied mostly to adult-to-adult transactions

So don't use this as an excuse. The transactions are still going on. If it were up to me, the zones would encompass the entire city and violators would get stiffer punishment and treatment. Besides, most youth sales occur on campus in areas where a patrol or under cover officer wouldn't normally be able to observe.

Stupid Illegals

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11442705/
What are these people thinking? 200,000 people marching in downtown LA to protest the pending legislation to make being in this country illegally a felony. They must all be on drugs or something. Can't they see we're not against LEGAL immigration? I fully support anyone who comes to this country legally. What we are against is illegal immigration. And no one seems to get the distinction. Illegal immigrants violate the law to get here, pose potential terror risks since they haven't been properly screened, and most importantly, they cheapen the status process that all the legal immigrants went through to come to this country. This country is a country of immigrants, but those immigrants entered the country through legal means rather than overstaying a tourist visa, hopping a border fence or paying off a smuggler. I would think that any immigrant who came here legally would fully support attempts to curb illegal immigration, but that does not seem to be the case. Sad story.

Costa mesa is passing an ordinace to allow it's police to check the immigration status of people they pick up for other felonies. People are protesting that as well and business is down 20% in the city since that was announced even though it hasn't passed yet. Latinos are scared that they'll be stopped while driving through the city and not happen to have the right paperwork with them. Is everyone a criminal or do they just not understand the law? If the cop just happens to pull you over, he won't check your immigration status. Now if it's a felony stop, he'll do a background check on you and find out your immigration status. Legal residents have nothing to worry about, come back. Illegals also have nothing to worry about here unless they are planning on commiting a felony in which case we don't want them anyway.

Adventures in Albertsons

First of all, I was extremely disappointed to see that the nice Albertsons-SavOn by our new house is closing. Sad...I wonder what other grocery stores are nearby.

But to get to the main point, the nice Albertsons-SavOn by our current house is also closing. The signs went up this weekend. I figgured this had to be something about the sale of Albertsons to that other company from back east and that they would eventually reopen under a new name or something, but no. I come to find out today that only the _nice_ Albertsons-SavOn by our house is closing, the _old crappy_ Albertsons across from Target is not closing. You all remember Amanda's adventure in the old Albertsons? Dread about what shopping is going to be like until we move.

Now why the hell would they close a nice large Albertsons-SavOn combo that gets decent business and keep open an old, dingy, small Albertsons whose parkinglot is always empty? My only guess is that some bean counter at corporate who never saw the stores in person decided that two Stores within 2 miles of each other couldn't coexist so lets close the one with more overhead even though it is much nicer and makes more money.

Fast forward to today. I go to buy some groceries on my way home from work. I have to go to the old Albertsons since the nice one only has clearance items and doesn't have anymore fresh meat. First, when I get there, they are out of shopping carts. After parading around the weirdly laid out store in the crowds cramming everything into my little hand cart, I'm finally able to check out. I get to the car and realize that they charged me $6 each for 2 6packs of propel that were advertised at 5/$15.

I go back in to get that adjusted and wait at the courtesy desk for 30 minutes before I am taken care of. The first 15 minutes are spent waiting for a clerk to even acknowledge that there are people waiting at the desk. The next 15 minutes are spent waiting for the 2 people in front of me to be helped. When they finally got around to helping me we walked back to the shelf and the price on the shelf certainly said 5/$15, but the deal ended on 3/3. Today is 3/6 - hello - take down your signs already then. They did refund my money and gave me the propels for free, but only after wasting 30 minutes of my time. Was that much money back really worth that amount of time?

Then when I get home, I drop and break the jar of marinade I was planning on using with the meat I just bought. Back to the store again I dreaded.

Top 10 Wacky Street Names

The complete top 10 list included:

10. Tater Peeler Road in Lebanon, Texas

9. The intersection of Count and Basie in Richmond, Va.

8. Shades of Death Road in Warren County, N.J.

7. Unexpected Road in Buena, N.J.

6. Bucket of Blood Street in Holbrook, Ariz.

5. The intersection of Clinton and Fidelity in Houston

4. The intersection of Lonesome and Hardup in Albany, Ga.

3. Farfrompoopen Road in Tennessee (the only road up to Constipation Ridge)

2. Divorce Court in Heather Highlands, Pa.

1. Psycho Path in Traverse City, Mich.

Hmmm...I don't know about conventional. Certainly I would be a really bad dacer or comedian, but come on... Time Keeper, Secretary, Bank Teller? What is the world coming to saying that engineering type folks should be a Mail Carrier? I guess if I'm ever unemployed, I know what I could fall back on.

Your Career Type: Conventional

You are orderly and good at following a set plan. Your talents lie in working with written records and numbers in a systematic, orderly way. You would make an excellent: Bank Teller - Bookkeeper - Court Clerk Mail Carrier - Post Office Clerk - Secretary Timekeeper - Title Examiner - Typist The worst career options for your are artistic careers, like comedian or dancer.

What's Your Ideal Career?

Happy Valentines Day

Celebrate with romantic moments and spots around the Disney parks: http://www.mouseplanet.com/articles.php?art=mm060214sl

50th Post!

Things are proceeding slowly with the house. For those who are not aware, Amanda and I found a house that we want. We are still in the offer stage as another offer came in on the hose after we submitted ours. The seller is currently bouncing the two offers off of each other trying to get more money for the house. So, it's still not official that we have it yet. In the mean time our house is on the market and we need to sell it in order to pay for the new house. It will be nice to actually have a single family home with a yard.

I found some interesting close up pictures of the B-2 Spirit bomber doing some fly bys at the Edwards AFB air show. There are some fantastic pictures here. If you are interested, there are also some pictures of the F-22A Raptor on that site.

Word Verification

I hate word verification.
These word verification thingys are really getting out of hand. The latest one was whmtgebg which is the longest I've seen (and apparantly not correct because I entered it wrong). At least I can usually make out the letters on blogger better than most other places. Half the time on other services, I go through 2 or 3 tries before I actually enter all the letters correctly. There's got to be a better way of stopping the %$#& without hindering everyone else.

Ding-Dong Ditch

Did you ever play Ding-Dong Ditch as a kid? There is a group of young (age 10-12) kids who are running around our complex right now and think that it's funny to ring everyone's doorbell as they run by. Needless to say I just got dinged (my doorbell doesn't go dong).

What is it with electronics these days

So our DVD player died today. This is our 2nd DVD player that died in the past 4 years and each seemed to only last about 2 years. What is it with these things. It's not like these are noname brands where that would be expected...I'm talking about DVD players from Sony and Panasonic.

Our first DVD player which we bought 6 months or so before we got married was a sony DVD player which I really liked. It wasn't a cheap one either, but after about 2 years it started skipping while playing dvds or sometimes not recognizing them all together. Sometimes it displayed a C1300 error message which is caused by a bad pickup assembly. Turns out this was a common problem on Sony DVD Players from that time period. Some were threatening Sony with a class action suit over the faulty parts, but I never heard anything more about it.

Since the Sony died, I bought a Panosonic next. But just today, it died with the dreaded H07 error which means the motor is dead. This link shows that this is a common error with Panasonic DVD players in general. It won't play any movies at all right now. They all seem to die with this error after 13-24 months. One person even posted that he was lucky his lasted for 33 months. Several people even mentioned how their kids noname $50 player outlasted their nice panosonic one. It seems the group was removed, but one person started an H07 Hunters MSN group to see how many people were affected by the junk panasonic players.

We really should start a class action suit against Sony and Panasonic for the junk that they are producing. 2 DVD players in 4 years is outrageous, and when you combine that with the horrible Panasonic cordless phones and Best Buy experience I previously blogged about, you can see that these companies built up a good reputation so they could pawn off filth on us now.

So now I'm in the market for another DVD player. I can't even wait till the new HD-DVDs come out. Any suggestions ... and don't say another Panasonic. Seriously what would be a good DVD player now?