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.

 

Cap'n Jack & The Axe: Adevntures in the AZ Badlands

Since we trailered Captain Jack to AZ; I figured I should make take the opportunity to do some good rides. Nothing too long, since I wanted to spend time with Tif and the Pea; but just get out and take advantage of the warm AZ Nov. weather. A few hours here and there.

So - the last Friday we were there I decided to head down to Madera Canyon. I had been looking for an 'M' for Harley ABCs Tour, and it had shown up. Tif and I went and got the 'M' at Mount Lemmon, but the web page had looked cool so I decided to head down. Tucson is pretty cool in that; although you'd think it was pretty much "pure desert", you can get an hour or so out of town and be in all different kinds of terrain. Another "ride up into the mountains" sounded fun.

So I did some google mapping and found a pretty good loop. South out of town, down the S Nagoles Highway, then down Whitehouse Canyon Rd and into the Canyon itself. Coming back out I'd take E Box Canyon Rd, over to Hwy 83 and north back into town. All in all a pretty good ride and shouldn't take too long.

So we (Captain Jack and I) head south out of town, and avoiding the interstate, we take Sahuarita Rd west to Nagoles... only deal is that they are graveling it and its got fresh gravel. Not to great on the bike, but we brave it - at least traffic is flowing at 25... Until we hit the one lane. So Cap'n Jack and I kick back in the 90 degree heat, Aerosmith blasting, and trying not to get too fried. After about 5 minutes I turn him off (to keep cool - or at least not get so hot) but still listen to the tunes. Finally the pilot car comes and we are on our way. I'm not sure how much longer this construction is going to last; but at least Wilmont should be soon and we can head south (not wanting to take this road all the way to the Nagoles Hwy).

We get to Wilmont... and its a dirt road - so we continue on our way. Finally we find a paved road heading south and we roar off, picking up some speed and some wind. Going along through the Pecan orchards; the temperature drops a good 10 degrees. Its awesome... until 5 miles later, yup - it turns to dirt. So we turn around, head back north and stay on Sahuarita till we hit the Nagoles Hwy, and head south on that, following the signs to Madera Canyon.

We are heading south, and then east, but it doesn't look like we are going to get that much closer to the Mountains... but then the road starts heading due south and says the National Park is about 8 miles ahead - so we should at least get into the foothills. Cool deal.

We then get closer to the park and see this sign, about 20 feet past the park sign:

Just in case you can't read that... here is a close up:

Yeah... that's right

SMUGGLING AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY BE ENCOUNTERED IN THIS AREA.

Gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling doesn't it? Especially when I've seen like ONE car so far.

Anyway, we are up for it and continue on. I get into the park and it is pretty cool. Saw: deer, wild turkeys, quail, squirrels and all kinds of birds. And there were plenty of people around picnicking, hiking, etc. Up into the canyon, dessert giving way to foothills with all kinds of trees, little stream. Very nice.

Coming back out of it we head north on the road and get to the Box Canyon turn off. "14 miles to 83".... and the road is dirt! But it doesn't look "that bad", and surely its not all dirt - so off we go.

A little nervous, given the sign and all; but we're doing 35 - 40, so moving right along. Then we see a sign (after about 5 miles) that says something like "9 miles of narrow road ahead". 5 miles back or 9 miles ahead? We continue on.

And the road just gets worse and worse. We are now doing maybe 10 MP, and sometimes almost coming to a complete stop as we cross what look like 4 wheel drive roads. Single lane, switchbacks, soft dirt or rocks everywhere. I'm expecting someone to jump out at any corner... Kind of get this "Badges... we don't need no stinkin' badges" picture in my mind.

Anyway, we continue on. And we are going slow enough to see the 3 inch flying bug things in front of us that keep slowly flying out of our way as we pass.

The road keeps switchbacking up and up. Not like going over Independence Pass or anything, since we are in the hills... but still very twisting and you can't see more than about 10 feet in front of you and some of the corners feel like they are about 5 miles wide. We did see one truck on the road. We pulled to the side and he passed us in the opposite direction and then we ate his dust for the next mile or so. Eventually we started heading back down and came to this little canyon.

Pretty cool! The only place I stopped to take a picture. The rest of the time we just kept moving! Before we got to 83 we did hit pavement finally and went through some ranch land. Again... a different part of AZ. Looked like CO to some extent. Pasture land, windmills, cows, trees. Very pretty. Then hit 83 and roared home.

All in all, quite the adventure and it all turned out well. I wouldn't do it with Cap'n Jack every again - but a dirt bike or a pickup might be fun. It was very pretty.

Brian's response when Tif talked to him on the phone and told him I went down to Madera and then across Box Canyon on the bike by myself... "Is he nuts?"

:)

The Biker Pea - Bad to the Bone

PeaBaby's first "ride" on a Harley. OK... so we didn't actually move, but it was on so he "felt the rumble!" He told me he can't wait till he's old enough to go for an actual ride!

Creamed Leeks

Sunday I made a good, but very rich, dinner. Not really on my diet... but hey, it was only one dinner.

Chicken Marsala
Onion Risotto
Creamed Leeks

YUM!

1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C butter
5 Leeks, cut in about 1 inch sections, washed well! (soaked and rinsed 3 times). Used the "stem" part as well as most of the "leaves" part.

Heat the oil/butter and saute the leeks for about 5 or 10 minutes till soft. At this point I had quite a bit of liquid, so I poured some off. So you can probably use less oil/butter or more leeks.

Poured 1 C of Heavy Whipping Cream on them and let them saute until the sauce thickened, about 15 minutes or so.

Seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

That's it! Easy, rich and a great taste. Definitely something I have to keep in mind as a standard.

Just like when she was little

When Tif was a little girl (2 or less) and I had the Camero in Big Timber (1968 Camero SS with a 500HP 454 in it, 3/4 racing cam, straight-line shifter), when we would cruise the drag, the car would always lope. She would sit in the back seat and say "Hot Rod Daddy, Hot Rod!", wanting me to hit the gas and make the car rock.

I took her for a rid up to Mount Lemmon a couple of days ago. I took off from the stop-light and put it through the first three gears. From behind me all of a sudden I heard her start giggling. "I LOVE it when you do that!"

Yeah, took me right back. Some things never change. :)

Riding around town

We trailered the bike down here and I've been itching to go somewhere. We forgot to pick up bagels at the store on Friday, so I said I'd go get some yesterday. Brian's favorite is Einstein Brothers - which is about 40 minutes away - longer if you get a little lost and take the long way!

Tif and Tina were going to do some shopping and Brian was working, so I took the bike out for a ride. Ended up spending about 3 hours out. Went and got bagels, then stopped at Trader Joe's and got some coffee and carb-free chocolate. Then stopped at Eegee's for a Hot Pastrami sandwich and a lemon eggee. Yum. There was no place to sit inside, so I just sat outside on the sidewalk, back up against the building, eating my sandwich and slurping down the eegee. It was pretty warm out, but there was a little breeze. Very cool. After getting some snow at home I have no problem sitting in the shade in almost 90 degree weather, sucking on an eegee to stay cool. AZ is great. :)

Then rode back towards home, got stuck in some traffic (something was going on) and turned around and took another long way home.

All in all - a great drive, warm weather, good food. A fun time. I'm very glad we brought the bike!

Watching the "boys" come home

Friday a squad of A-10s returned from Afghanistan. Brian was working so was there, and then Tif, Kian and I went over to see them return as well. It was pretty cool. We hung out in the hanger for a while and then went out to the line and watched them fly in, come down the airstrip and pull into their individual spots. There weren't *tons* of people there, but probably a good 50 or so. Mostly family members and friends.

It was very cool watching them fly in and then come down the line and pull into their spots. Basically a big carport kind of thing - structure with canvas over the top and about 1/2 way up the sides. Each plan has a spot and the family and friends of each pilot were waiting where they park. These guys had been deployed for 6 months I believe. A few things that stuck with me:

• They've been deploy for 6 months and have done a ton of sorties, dropping quite a few bombs, strafing runs, etc. They have hit targets in the hundreds. They fly in support of ground troops. They had the stats up on the board. In any case - lots of action, and yet we never hear that there is a war going on in Afghanistan. All we here from the Main Stream Media is how we pulled out of Afghanistan to go to an un-just war in Iraq. Well there is a war going on in Afghanistan and we have folks over there fighting it every day.
  
• I'm feeling my age. We hung out for a while with some of the wives waiting for their husbands to fly back. All "women" that Tif knows. There is Tif and Kian talking to all these wives and their children. They all look like kids to me. Girls with their kids, waiting for their boys to return home from war. Boys who have been over there fighting for us, protecting our country. Missing 6 months of their child's first year. And they'll be going back. And its just what they do. I'm impressed by all these kids do for us (both the young men and women), and saddened by how little we do for them as a country.
  
• It was very cool to watch them pull up. They have to sit in their planes *forever*, ok - maybe 5 minutes, while the ground guys get the plane all set. During this they are giving thumbs up, mouthing "I love you" to their wives / girl-friends, waving to their kids, etc. Then finally they climb off the plane, run over and hug/kiss their wives (who they haven't seen for a long time), then hug their moms - who cling to them, then their dads, then shake hands with all their friends. It was very touching.
  
• The noise of the plane has a rectangle on it, with a dragon, and silhouettes of bombs, rockets and other things. This represents bombs dropped, strafing runs, etc.

It was all very cool, and I'm glad I went.

The grief I take ;)

Stopped to pick up new cell phone batteries for Tina and Jaime on my way into work. Took Tina's phone so that I could make sure the battery was correct. I was riding the bike. Went into the store and there was a woman waiting around and all the customers were in the back. Eventually the clerk came out.

C: Can I help you?
M: I glance towards the woman.
W: I'm already being helped.
M: Can I get two batteries for this cell phone?
W: *You* carry a *pink* cell phone?
M: It's my wive's.
W: laughesJust harassing you... surprised to see you with a pink cell phone.
M: Yeah - its my wife's.
W: I know, but its just funny with you riding up on a Harley and all.
M: Well I told her I'd stop and pick up a battery for her and my daughter.
W: Yeah, no problem. There's no way *my* husband would do that for me. I just had to give you grief. It just looked funny.

People just don't expect you to flip out a pink cell phone when you're riding a Harley and all dressed in leathers and everything. :)