We'll see how this goes

So last weekend I rode up to Denver and it was an awesome day. I looked at the 10 day forecast and all looked pretty good - all the way down to Tucson, so I decided to make a run to Tif's house this weekend. Take Friday off and see if I could make it down in one day. Something I've been wanting to try for a long time so I figured I'd go for it. Tina and I are going down first week of June, but we'd take 2 days to get there. I figured I'd try it by myself this weekend. Just to see if I could do it in a day. Weather was looking good, all except Friday which had some chance of rain, but wasn't looking too bad. This morning I checked and:

Snow showers in the morning. Highs in the mid 40s and lows in the mid 30s.

Hmm... not looking all that great - but I'll check other towns along the route. If I can just get out of town and south before anything hits I'll be fine. But we'll see...

iPod

Downloaded some new music last night and reset some of my playlists. Listening now as I work: White Rabbit, My Glorious, Sunday Bloody Sunday. Quite the mix. :)

Jaime is always listening to mid-60's to mid-70's songs lately and saying, "You know, when you really listen to those words, you think 'Wow, they must have been on drugs!'" - Yeah... I'll have to have her listen to White Rabbit. :)

Spring begins

Rode with Terry up to Freedom Harley in Denver - then back through Pine, Deckers and into town. I have my spring sunburn where I didn't quite get enough sunscreen... oh well, it will tan up. Well tan for me anyway. :)

It was a beautiful day. Actually took my liner out of my jacket, wore summer gloves, etc.

Boycot tAbsolute Vodka

From the Boycott Absolute Vodka website:

Sentiments that the Southwest United States rightfully belong to Mexico are so prevalent in Mexico and among illegal aliens that the Absolut Vodka company ran this ad on a billboard and in a Mexican magazine called Quien

The ad's message to the Mexican audience is "In an Absolut (ie Perfect) world, 1/3 of the US is returned to Mexican control.

American Idol - Song Writer

My cousin is a finalist in the American Idol Songwriter competition for this season. If you could do there and rate Only Love a 10 - that would be cool. :)

Thanks!

UCCS Dean's List

Looking at the Spring 2008 Dean's List (3.75-3.99 GPA) under 'W' you'll see:

WAECHTER, LAURA ANNE
WAGNER, JAIME MARIE

Yes... that is the Jaime Marie Wagner! My kid... on the Dean's list.

You rock smart kid!

Turkey Sausage Meatballs

Modified version of Rachel Ray's Roast Chicken Sausage Meatballs. Had this at Tif's and it was awesome, so Jaime and I made it last night. Quick, easy, and tastes great.

We didn't do the Mac & Cheese, just the Meatballs. We didn't use fennel, because Jaime doesn't like it. And we made probably 28 or small meatballs. I actually put olive oil on the bottom of a glass 13x9 pan, then some in a bowl and rolled the meatballs in them. I cooked them a little longer too. After about 20 minutes I drained the olive oil and grease into a cup, then spooned a bit back over each meatball and put them under the broiler for 4 minutes, to give them some good color.

Here is the list of ingredients, just in case the above link goes away. The mac & cheese with it is really good, as we had that at Tif's house.

1.25# Ground Turkey
Salt & Pepper
3 Rosemary Springs, stripped and finely chopped
3 Garlic cloves grated
1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
1 C Ricotta Cheese
1/2 C Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Egg
1/2 C Bread Crumbs

Mix ingredients. If too wet add some more bread crumbs (the above worked just great for me).

Coat w/ Olive Oil, lightl grease pan, bake at 450 for 17 minutes (I did 20 and then broiled for 4)

It Harkens

Trapped in the darkness
Cold, Claustrophobic
The fire dies
No hope for Spring
Winter never ends

Clouds break
Sun sparkles off ice encrusted snow
Harkening back to warmer days

Crisp mountain air
Crystals twinkling deep in rushing streams
Wild strawberries sweet to the taste
Wildflowers sweet to the senses
Marmots, mischievous eyes poking through long blades of grass
The Son beats down and warms the soul

Trapped in the darkness
Sparkling snow harkens
Promises that Spring will return
Its sweetness, warmth and mischief

Army of Two

Watching TV tonight I saw a trailer for Army of Two. Went to You Tube and found an Army of Two Teaser. There are quite a few others as well. Game comes out in a few weeks. Looks like I know what I'll be spending some time doing in mid March. :)

Shout Out

21:55 and not much going on. Writing bug reports, reviewing code, general cleanup of tasks I couldn't get to during the day.

Poured myself a Diet Mt Dew and added a couple shots of Green Soju... haven't drank any of that for a while. Reminds me of the Chavezes... Been a long time since I talked to Spanky and Jacque... Hope you guys are doing well.

It entices you

What is it about the darkness that so entices you?
He stands in the light and gently calls your name,
Yet all you hear are the whispers behind the doors.
You go closer,
Seeking, looking, you can't find them.
They run in front of you, whispering, calling.
You follow them through the twists and turns,
Until the darkness engulfs you.
They suck you in and become a roaring in your head.
You become drunk with the sounds,
Turning, twisting, losing all sense of time,
All sense of reason.
You no longer hear His voice.
You wake to find yourself battered and bruised
Senseless
You wonder how you got this way?
Then you hear His voice and are calmed.

Then it all begins again.
He stands in the light and gently calls your name.
You hear the whispers in the dark,
Knowing better you seek after them,
They entice you.

Green Chile

Had some pork chops left and decided to make some Pork Green Chile. Having eaten plenty of it, but having never made it, I decided to go simple. Yeah... I guess I could have actually looked up a recipe, but I decided to just give it a shot. Turned out pretty good. :)

---

1 medium onion, diced
6 tomatillos, diced
1 red Fresno pepper, split, de-seeded and sliced thin
1 Anaheim pepper, split, de-seeded and sliced thin
1 large can chopped green chiles (approx 27 oz size)
3 cooked pork chops, cubed
2 tbs olive oil

---

Add oil to 4 quart sauce pan, add onions and tomatillos and sautee till onions are translucent. Add peppers and sautee for a few minutes. Add green chiles and pork, stir and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.

---

Could have used fresh roasted Hatch green chiles if I had any. Also could have used any form of pork - and as much as desired.

I did not salt or add any seasoning! Could have added some cumin, etc.; but it turned out well.

We had some frozen chicken enchiladas , so microwaved them, smothered them with the green chile and cheese, then severed with black beans, sour cream and diced avocado. Yum!

Kian 6 month pics

We were down at Tif's for Kian's 6 month birthday. First eating of a banana. Yeah... not everyone may enjoy food smeared all over a baby's face... but I think its very cute. :)

You can check out all the pics.

Researcher says Sears downloads spyware

From a ComputerWorld article:

Sears and Kmart customers who sign up for a new marketing program may be giving up more private information than they'd bargained for, a prominent anti-spyware researcher claims.

...

"The software is not something you'd want on your computer or the computer of anyone you care about," Edelman said in an interview. "It tracks every site you go to, every search you make, every product you buy, and every product you look at but don't buy. It's just spooky."

Boeing 787 - good news / bad news

The good news is that there will be internet access from any seat in the plane, the bad news from

FAA: Boeing's New 787 May Be Vulnerable to Hacker Attack

Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet may have a serious security vulnerability in its onboard computer networks that could allow passengers to access the plane's control systems, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

But they are talking about making it more secure before the planes roll out.

Sarah Connor Chronicles

And while I'm being geeky... I'm really stoked about the Sarah Connor Chronicles series that will air on 14-Jan-2008. First I'm a Terminator fan anyway (ever since my Philosophy of Space and Time TA suggested I watch it while I was at the UofM, as it was consistent with current theories of Time Travel), and more importantly... Summer Glau (yes, River from Firefly) will be playing a River like role - which will be really cool. Hopefully it is good and gets good ratings!

Oh... and other things I've seen her in are the 4400 and The Unit. Both shows I follow - although I didn't like her characters there as much, as they weren't as tough as River and Cameron and were kind of more regular people... well not the 4400 since she was one of the 4400 - but still, she wasn't so River-esque. :)

Some Firefly is better than No Firefly

So I'm in the mall today, going to Radio Shack to get a Y-connector, and on the way back I noticed the comic book store has novels as well. So I stop and ask the guy if there are any Firefly books, or are they just comics? He tells me that there is one comic, but he is out. However, there is a new Serenity comic book coming out in March! I tell him cool and start to leave.

G: Do you want to pre-order it?
M: Nah, I'll just get one when the come in.

He proceeds to explain that last time they had Firefly comics they sold out just on pre-orders and not everyone got them... so I might want to pre-order. Given it didn't cost anything to do it... I signed up.

So... now I've actually pre-ordered a SciFi comic book - 3 months in advance... Yeah... guess that makes me a Geek. I just had to laugh - and call Tif - 'cuz I knew she would appreciate it. I turned her on to Firefly and now she is hooked as well.

The advancement of Artificial Intelligence

Eliza was an early AI program that was sometimes said to act as a psychiatrist. We studied it in AI classes. How could a computer respond to questions and adapt? But it was pretty easy stuff as it just mimicked back what you said to it. I had a version of it on my Mac and played with it a bit.

Social engineering is a technique used to gather personal information from people by cyber criminals. I first came across the term when starting at MCI in relation to people calling and getting PBX information. How to hack a companies phone system so you could use it to make long distance calls.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) "bots" are "robots" (computer programs) that join a IRC channel and then monitor it. They can be good or bad. I've run them before to record all information on a channel and write it to a file, so we can always go back and remember what was said. There is also an infobot named purl which records information as it seems it or as someone tells it, and then monitors questions so it can answer them back later. An interactive "person like" way to store information on user chat channels so that someone doesn't always have to be on and responding to user questions.

Now, in Russia, they've all been combined. Now when someone is on a singles channel (or some other channel) and someone starts flirting with them, striking up a conversation and then asking them personal information... that "person" may not really be a person. It may be a new flirtation bot built to do just that... gather personal information from a social engineering point of view. That information can then be used to steal that personal information - which can then be used in any number of cyber crime sort of ways.

We've come a long way since Eliza...

Carrier security outsourcing making connections

For those that wonder "So... what exactly is it that you do?" This article doesn't really answer that, LOL, but what I do contributes to this stuff. In particular some of the stuff I've been working on lately is pretty interesting and is related to this quote:

"There will always be opportunities from an attack perspective for us to take action and protect customers on the backbone, and we'll do that," she said. "We've also driven a lot of internal innovation in last three years for fighting issues such as targeted attacks; we're building out the honeynets and doing more correlation of data. Now we're in the phase of launching services as both stand-alones and value-adds."

Tif and I on Mount Lemmon

As I mentioned in the previous post, Tif and I went up to Mount Lemmon. The ride was really nice and we actually drove through the town this time. Last time Tina and I went up there the road was all torn up with major construction.