All posts by Duf

I’m happy to report I am almost 24 hours post Moderna shot number one and doing ok.  I definitely feel some overall tiredness, I believe the scientific word for it is a general sense of “blah”.  I also had the stitches removed from my face yesterday afternoon.  That too went well and so far, knock on wood, I don’t have any Bells Palsy symptoms popping up.  I am hoping by this time tomorrow I feel 100% normal, until I get the second dose a month from now which I expect to be more impactful. I got home a little early yesterday which was nice, I didn’t have much energy so the night consisted mostly of watching some recorded shows and WoWing it up.

The administration of my first Moderna shot went smoothly.  There were a lot of people waiting as this was the last day for first shots for county employees.  Once my form was filled out and handed in I was pricked and sitting in the 15 minute cool down chair in no time.   For most people, the first shot is pretty uneventful with a sore arm being the most common complaint.  Dose two is often a different story.  My buddy at work got his second shot yesterday and confirmed feeling like shit last night although he made it into work today.  I have heard similar tales from others with that shitty feeling last for a couple of days max.

Today the stitches get yanked out of my face.  I am crossing my fingers no Bells Palsy develops this time around like it did in 2019.  The best part of the double medical procedure schedule is I get to call an early end to my work day.

I was relieved to see the guilty verdict in the George Floyd murder trial.  If there was any other outcome the protests would have been massive and deservedly so IMO.  Hopefully this and other recent incidents are pushing the needle of change in the right direction, despite the Trump era doing all it could to pull it back as hard and as fast as it could.

Tomorrow I get my first dose of the Moderna vaccine and I follow up in the afternoon with getting the stitches in my face removed.  I have some mild apprehension about both procedures.  I would be lying if I said the death of my high school gf after receiving the vaccine was not on my mind.  Granted I am in good health and should not have similar risk factors, still, the little seed of doubt is there. I also keep thinking about the year and a half mystery fatigue syndrome I dealt with which seemingly was timed up with my receiving a tetanus booster shot.

The last time I had stitches removed from my head by the dermatologist the next day I developed Bells Palsy which lasted for about two weeks.  I basically lost control of one side of my face during that time, it was not pleasant. I was lucky it only last two weeks, in some cases it can continue for years.

My expectation is I will emerge from both procedures largely unaffected but there is no 100% guarantee with anything in life, you just hope to fall on the winning side of the odds.

I had a hectic day at work Friday, trying to keep several balls in the air at the same time.  Some of it was related to the migration work we had to do on Saturday.  Unlike the week prior this branch was larger, more than double the amount of staff.  Luckily we also had more hands on deck to help so things went smoothly.  There was an extra chapter of work on this branch as once the migration was done I rewired the network rack which had a cabling nightmare going on.  I cleaned it up the best I could but the layout of components at this branch doesn’t allow me to organize things as much as I would prefer.  I got home right around lunch time.

Cindy did a number of the chores I would normally do on Saturday morning so I had less to attend to when I got home.  I still had a number of things to keep me occupied during most of the afternoon.  Somewhere around four I decided to take a quick ride over to the school to zip around on my One Wheel Pint, a device that has seen very little attention over the last year.  The lack of focus isn’t because I don’t like the Pint, I love it.  The issue has been for a combination of reasons I just have not been setting aside as much riding time as I once did.  With 10 PEVs in my collection that translates into a lot of them sitting unused for long periods of time, like the Pint.

One of my goals was to try a skill someone suggested to me, a slide stop.  Before I got a chance to practice the skill I found myself face down in the dirt.  It happened when I transitioned from asphalt to grass, going down a small decline.  I wasn’t paying close attention to the height of the nose of the board and it dug into the ground, sending me flying.  Luckily the impact wasn’t horrible, my biggest injury was a brush burn on my right knee as the knee pad had slipped down.  The skill came relatively easy to me and is something I would like to use more often as it is a quick, cool, and easy way to dismount the board without doing an awkward, stationary heel lift.

I couldn’t stay that long because we were meeting Deb for dinner.  We again ate at Brooks Burger, Cindy just loves the burgers there.  I could definitely tell that season is shifting as the crowd was not as big as the last time we visited a few weeks back.  After dinner Deb followed us to the house where we enjoyed a desert she baked.  We started watching Synchronic on Netflix.  The girls weren’t that into it but I found it interesting.  We stopped watching it after maybe 45 minutes but I finished it myself later (give it a B)  Deb headed out, it was a nice way to spend our Saturday evening.

Sunday was more conventional in it’s pacing meaning I did the chickens, did my weekly bill paying session and then Cindy and I did an errand run including DD, the post office, and Home Depot.  The afternoon was pretty laid back with minimal housework.  Last night Cindy and I did another round of virtual mini-golf and then I hung out in VR making a quick VR Chat pit stop which was ridiculous as always. I opted into Big Screen where two clearly older men were having a lengthy conversation in the theater lobby before I went into a “drive in” where I watched 30 minutes of Hobbit 3D with a dozen other people.

Late Friday I got a text from Todd with some pretty shocking news.  He told me my ex-girlfriend from high school had died Thursday night.  Evidently she got her first vaccine shot Thursday morning.  I am not sure of which brand.  She had a normal day but evidently died in her sleep that night.  I was stunned.  I haven’t had contact with her for years and we never were on good terms after the split but this still hit me hard.  She has had decades of health problems so she definitely would have been in the high risk category but this still is not an outcome anyone would suspect.  The news instantly made me feel my mortality, front and center.  You just never know when your clock will be punched, better enjoy the moments you have.

It’s a crushing loss for her family and I wish them my sincerest condolences.

So I had been trying to get scheduled for the Johnson & Johnson shot for a few weeks unsuccessfully.  This week they announced they were suspending the vaccine because of a handful of women that experienced blood clots.  The length of the suspension is unknown but when I got a notice that they were doing the last round of employee vaccination with the Moderna vaccine I decided to pull the trigger and sign up.  My appointment is next Wednesday.

I know a number of people that have gotten the Moderna shot.  A number of them have had reactions which typically mimic flu symptoms albeit for only a couple days. This seems especially true after the second dose is given.  I’m not getting the shot because I have concern for myself dying from Covid.  As I mentioned previously I am pretty certain I already had covid back in December of 2019.  I am getting the shot to remove the proof of vax hurdle that will almost certainly be erected around doing certain activities as well as give Cindy some peace of mind.

For as long as I can remember I have dreaded the prospect of old age.  Part of the reason for that is the possibilities of losing your mind along the way, where you forget most aspects of your life and become more or less an empty husk.  When I look at my family history, there seems little chance I can avoid that fate if I live long enough.  Both of my grandparents on my mom’s side had dementia, not knowing who I was later in life.  My dad’s mom had some similar issues as well. The biggest thing I remember with her is how she would call the grand kids by the wrong name routinely.  She would of course instantly correct herself but it happened so often it stuck in my memory.  As my mom got older she quite often would forget things she said recently and tell me them a second time.  Sometimes I would correct her but most of the time I would just let her repeat herself. I now find myself exhibiting some of these characteristics, already.

The calling people/pets by wrong name thing has been going on for a little while.  I will be out in the chicken yard, looking at one chicken and calling it anothers name.  Of course the chickens don’t care but I certainly do.  I have had this weird issue where I can “misspeak” while typing.  This isn’t a typical typo, instead an entirely different word gets punched out by my fingers inexplicably at times. I also exhibit episodes of forgetfulness where I will tell someone something a second time or I will forget they told me something previously.  It’s frustrating and concerning, considering I am only 53 with a potentially long road ahead of me yet.

I think my adult focus on health and fitness has always had an aspect of me trying to change the typical outcome of aging, not only with the body degradation but the mind as well.  I hoped that living a healthier lifestyle than my parents/grandparents would short circuit whatever is the root cause of cognitive decline.  The realization that it doesn’t seem to make one iota of difference is a hard reality to acknowledge.  No I don’t think I will be a vegetable anytime soon but I find myself making conscious efforts to double check my thoughts and words to avoid embarrassing myself day to day. It’s awesome to be old.

This weekend I again will lose half of Saturday doing another office upgrade.  After that I hope to rebound quickly into our normal weekend routine.

My skin cancer surgery went down yesterday morning as scheduled.  At my last visit he sliced the top of the affected area off for the biopsy.  Since then that area has healed and looked almost normal.  When I sat in the chair I pointed out to him that what remained seemed very small.  He said he could still see from the texture on the surface that there was still cancer cells there.  Since the spot that remained was very small, about the size of a couple BB’s, I figured this would not be a tough MOHS procedure and it wasn’t in regards to the cutting out portion, which didn’t take that long.

After waiting roughly 30 minutes I was told they got all the cancer cells and I should return at 11AM to get closed up.  During that two hour hiatus I played some Hearthstone on my phone, got coffee, dropped off some packages at the post office and even had time for a brief ride on the One Wheel.

The closing procedure took longer than I expected, I felt like a football having it’s laces pulled together.  Later in the evening when I looked at the incision I was surprised to see a curved line that was at least 3 inches long, way bigger than the small spot that was cut out.  I suppose this is done to minimize scarring and have any lines sort of melt into what is already there.  The dermatologist has done a good job before with minimizing the end result of the multiple removals of flesh from my head so I am confident the end result of this again will be good.  I was just surprised at just how big the incision line wound up being.

I had orders to take it easy the rest of the day as anything that would get your blood pressure elevated is not a great thing right after surgery.  I decided that mowing the grass was not one of those things.  I put a buff awkwardly over my head like an oversized bandana to keep the bandaged area covered and then put my oversized hat on top of that.  I zipped through the mowing in maybe an hour and a half.  Unfortunately the high temps had me sweating which in turn resulted in the bandages coming loose.  Technically I was supposed to leave the original bandage on until today but they were useless by bedtime.

Showering was annoying as you weren’t supposed to get the area wet right away either.  I used a combination of weird head angles and a wash cloth to clean my hair and face the best I could.  Cindy then redid the bandages before bed which thankfully stayed in place through the night.  Walking around with a wound to the head is never a great time but it’s happened so often now I almost used to it.  I guess anything, when it happens enough, can become routine.

Tomorrow at this time I will be getting skin cancer cut out of my body for likely the 10th or 11th time.  I lost count awhile ago.  It seems like I am on a gerbil wheel sometimes or a game of whack-a-mole.  They cut out a patch and a new one forms shortly thereafter.  They left a message giving me an estimate of what my portion of the bill would be after insurance, acting like they expect me to pay that up front.  If they try to enforce that they will get major push back from me, guaranteed.

It’s funny in the world we live in how quickly vast stereotypes are cast on people simply by who they voted for in the presidential election.  If you voted for Trump you are a gun loving, bible thumping racist and if you voted for Biden you are socialist, entitled, give me everything for free, snowflake liberal.  The truth is although there are certainly a lot of people that do exhibit those qualities in both parties, there are far more who have a mixed bag of beliefs.

I have said countless times how I am very much a “greater good” person where I try to support ideas with big picture, long term benefits like recycling, green energy, less meat consumption, acceptance of differing races/belief systems, and many other “liberal” ideas. However I am also a firm believer in personal responsibility, hard work, and not rewarding laziness, which some people claim liberal agendas promote. I get very irritated with entitled individuals who expect the world without putting in anything resembling hard work.

You would think with most people having a mix of both red and blue ideals that it would translate into an ability for our politicians to leverage that into compromise to allow our society to move forward as a whole.  The reality is keeping harsh and unwavering red and blue lines is good for the business of political power where the division is useful to keep stalemates in place where nothing significant can change and instead we just keep circling the drain towards our own extinction.

Since I stopped running last year my replacement hard cardio has been using Cindy’s Echelon spin bike after work on Fridays.  I actually did a LIVE class this past Friday and it kicked my ass.  It was a Tabata style working out where you have quick 20 second all outs followed by 10 second recovery.  It kicked my ass, maybe a little too much as both of my knees were aching afterward.

I set the alarm Saturday morning since I had to go to a branch.  I set it early enough that I could go out to the chickens and clean their water containers before I left so Cindy wouldn’t have to do it.  I got to the Immokalee branch about 8:30 and was out of there by 10.  It’s a small branch and things went smoothly which I was pleased with.

When I got home Cindy and I headed out immediately to pick up a big load of castle stones and rocks at Home Depot.  Cindy was redoing yet another landscaped area in the back yard, combining an area with a couple cactus with the banana trees.  We bought 40 castle stones for the job which turned the Tacoma into a low rider for the drive home.  During Saturday afternoon Cindy was busting it out there getting stuff rearranged and planted.

While she was out there I was busy in the hobby room doing some more cleaning, organizing and purging.  I was in there a couple weeks ago doing the same thing but it was on items on the tables and wall shelves.  This time I dealt with things on the floor as well as the closet.  I again filled up the trash can as well as having items to recycle.

One of the things that I am going to finally part with is the medium sized box filled with old stuff from my mom’s file cabinet.  I held onto it just in case there was a chance I might need something in there. We are closing in on seven years now so I finally felt comfortable letting it go, at least the papers that is.

I also got out for a brief ride Saturday.  Brief rides seem to be all I have been doing lately and it’s a bit depressing.

Saturday night Cindy and watched Godzilla vs Kong, something that we just saw not so long ago.  It’s hard to imagine that they can keep coming up with plots to put these two super creatures together but they did it again, and I liked it.  Sure you have to disengage the part of your brain that appreciates thoughtful dialogue, deep story lines, and top level acting.  However once you do that and just enjoy the movie as it is, huge monsters fighting, it’s all good.  I’d give it a B+.

Sunday was forecast to have some strong storms but you wouldn’t have known it in the morning with clear blue skies and rapidly escalating temperatures.  I wound up working on a few impromptu projects like attaching legs to the pallet we had the castle stones on and splicing in a piece of wood in the border around the lanai opening to replace a rotted portion by the ground.  The splice requires a lot of wood putty to fill the gap but it should turn out ok once sanded/painted.

Late in the afternoon the storms rolled in with a vengeance, dropping more rain than we have had in months.  I used it as an opportunity to play the most WoW I have in several months as well, probably getting a good 5 hours of play in.  I enjoyed it of course but always have some degree of guilt about not being more productive during that period of time.

On Wednesday I have yet another skin cancer surgery which is never fun.  I am somewhere around double digit surgeries at this point and I am sure it won’t be the last.

This weekend through the first of May will be a string of shorted weekends due to a push to get the remaining branches converted to the new drivers license system.  That means I will be losing Saturday morning for the rest of the month, putting me behind on chores , retarding everything else in the process.   It’s inconvenient to work on weekends but compared to many in the IT profession I do it far less often than the norm.

After chores I am going to have some labor on my hands.  Cindy is going to need a bunch of castle stones and pond pebbles to convert one of our old landscaped areas into a larger, mostly succulent space.  It will be a lot of lugging and hauling but I think the end result will be worth it.

I don’t really don’t have much more to say other than I hope the portion of the weekend I have left to enjoy is indeed, enjoyable.

Once a Trump presidency became a scary reality there have been countless examples of just how inept, broken and dysfunctional of a human being the man was on so many levels.  Well you can add password security to his long list of flaws.  This story came to me via a podcast I subscribe to, Darknet Diaries which talks about a variety of IT hacking incidents and scenarios.  The last three episodes have told a pretty terrifying story of just how clueless and lazy our former Big League leader was/is in terms of password best practices.

Back in 2012 LinkedIn had a data breach that exposed millions of users personal data.  Some of that data included password hashes. When the breach was revealed of course LinkedIN eventually notified users and advised them to not only change their password on LinkedIn but also on any other sites that they use the same password on as it was now potentially exposed.

Several years later, in 2016, somebody had cracked a bunch of those password hashes and published it on the internet.  A group of ethical hackers in Denmark  called the Guild of Grumpy Old Hackers was looking at this data that was released into the wild.  They searched for various people and one of those people just happened to be the then presidential candidate, Donald Trump.  Donald did indeed have a LinkedIN account at the time of the breach.

So these guys for the heck of it went to Twitter and thought they would try the password that was exposed in the LinkedIN hack on Donald Trump’s Twitter account.  Yes the Twitter account that he cherished and bragged about to the world.  Imagine the hackers faces when they entered the 2012 LinkedIN password in the @realdonaldtrump sign in page, and it worked….   The guy was using the same password from the 2012 hack, which he surely used elsewhere as well.  The cherry on top was just how stupidly simplistic the password was, “yourefired”  I kid you not.   The ethical hackers after a lot of effort did eventually make US authorities aware of this gaping hole in basic password security and it was addressed.  So whew, crisis averted, I am sure Donald learned his lesson, right? Wrong.

Fast forward to October of 2020.  This same group of hackers were curious just how secure Trump’s Twitter account was leading up to the election as it had been weaponized to unleash disinformation at a torrid pace.  They had heard on the message boards that at Trump rallies they offered free wifi.  The password on that wifi was posted as “maga2020!!”  So the hackers first tried to verify if the account utilized 2FA (two factor authentication), a pretty standard safety practice present day that requires secondary verification by SMS or email when a logon is detected from a new location.  Surely the Twitter account of the president of the USA would have 2FA turned on.  It did not.

Once they confirmed 2FA was not on they tried variations on that wifi password that was posted on the internet.  It took them only five guesses until they guessed right, “maga2020!”  Yes, Trump’s Twitter password was “maga2020!”  The hackers were flabbergasted that four years after they found just how insecure Trump’s Twitter was, it still was, with another weak password and no 2FA.  They notified authorities and initially were not responded to.  They got frustrated and posted news of the breach, leaving out specifics, which finally got them a phone call from the Secret Service.  Trump, reacted as you would expect.  An inquiry by the Dutch authorities, surely pushed for by the Trump administration, was launched against the Grumpy Hackers who have documented over 5000 ethical hacking cases where they find vulnerabilities and report them so they can be fixed instead of exploited.  The investigation found the Grumps innocent of wrong doing, thankfully.

As I began with, unless you are a MAGA worshiping cultist, you already knew the level of incompetence that was circling around the White House for the last four years.  However I am thankful that we have groups like the Grumpy Old Hackers to protect us from lazy, sloppy, ignorant, yet powerful individuals that don’t know/care enough to do the basics to help prevent a cybersecurity breach.