Category Anything and Everything

Best part is it’s free!!!!!! Very complete, and it cleaned up an ton of stuff on my box as well as immunizes against known exploits! Get it here!

Wow getting blacklisted sucks. As a result of a misconfiguration I made in our firewall, I inadvertently had an open 8080 http proxy on our box for a week or two. This was eventually sniffed out by spammers and they were spamming away through our box. I stopped it as soon as I found it but as a result our IP address has been blacklisted on a number of spam lists. Trying to get off these lists is cumbersome at best and in some cases downright impossible. Frustrating.

You think you have problems? Look at what this angry Reading, PA resident posted regarding the latest polls that indicate that Reading, PA is among the nations 25 MOST DANGEROUS CITIES! No wonder I moved huh?

I have to admit I am getting more and more into Linux. I am picking up bits and pieces here and there and just bought a book about Suse Linux I am working through. Except for gaming, there is no apparent disadvantage to me of running Linux and a lot less issues since you aren’t running Winwhatever which is the number one target in the world for hackers to attack. Learning a different OS is somewhat similar to learning a new language. If I were to make a comparison I’d say I can carry out a crude conversation in Linux right now but if you spoke too fast I would be lost. 🙂

The only things my gym has going for it is the fact that it is 2 minutes from work and it’s cheap. In the 2 years I have been a member there, there has been no new equipment purchased, they reduced the amount of space that was useable by the members and it is the dirtiest gym I have ever been in. The water fountains are permanently discolored and are only washed by the spit residue members leave on it. I try to avoid touching them and rely on my bottle of water. They constantly play these horrible techno dance crap cd’s that sound like they are permanently skipping. The music may be enjoyed by the teenage girls that go there but since I can count them on one hand, I’m not sure what the point is of blaring that shit. The men’s bathrooms are so bad that I do everything possible to avoid going in them. Today I forgot to take a leak before going to the gym so I had to go while I was there. Terrible. The urinals look like they haven’t been cleaned in weeks. If someone blindfolded me and took me into the bathroom and asked me to guess where I was I would say a strip club or a truck rest stop. Gross.

Today, Ali and I go to the orthodontist to get our next set of aligners and to have PROXIMATION done on our teeth. Proximation was described to us as thinning the teeth to give some additional clearance to move and straighten them. Ok great. What wasn’t great was the way the process was described, like using sandpaper dental floss on a jigsaw. Somehow that imagery does not seem very appealing. Hopefully it is better than I am anticipating it being.

Have you ever known anyone that looks like a yard gnome?

Some pretty cool stuff done by the home movie maker. Broadband required.

As you can tell by the title of this entry, I had an enjoyable 4 day holiday. No rush, no fuss with a little bit of excitement thrown in there. Long entry warning.

On Thanksgiving day I awoke relatively early and had a relaxing morning. I played Call of Duty, watched some of the New York Thanksgiving Day parade and did some work on my RC planes. I also took my jump in the pool. It was around 70 or 71 degrees, nowhere near polar bear material but cool enough to wake me up. Not having to worry about preparing Thanksgiving dinner and/or prepare for a large family visit really simplifies things. We got to the restaurant right about 2 oclock. We were able to be seated immediately. The food was great but there were a few glitches in the meal. First, the iced tea that my wife ordered was accidentally made with coffee, then one of the turkey dinners came out without the turkey and finally, when the bill came I was charged for the bill of the table of 9 behind us. All of the problems were addressed, the waiter was very nice and the food was very good so it didn’t really bother me much.

The entire thanksgiving dinner experience only took a little more than an hour. My mom had mentioned she would like to go to the beach on thanksgiving since she never got to do such a thing. We headed towards downtown, we had a lot of time on our hands so we decided to make our second annual thanksgiving day trip to K-mart. Unlike last year, we found very little of interest, in fact the store seemed to be filled with mostly crap. We bagged out of there with a stocking for Nicki and a thing to hold Alison’s pampered chef stuff.

We went down to the beach. It was probably around 4 when we got there. We were surprised with the amount of people that had the same idea as we did. A lot of people were hanging out, in the water, fishing and even some appeared to do their thanksgiving feast on the beach! We walked down to the Naples pier and hung out for the sunset. Beautiful as always. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera.

After we got back I went hard core into Call of Duty and finished the game. Bummer because I was planning on that entertaining me for part of the weekend. It is a great game with a bit of a disappointing ending. The beginning of the russian campaign is right out of a movie I saw in the past year where the russian soldiers are coming to stalingrad in boats with their officers telling them if they run they will be shot. It was freaky. I mean it was right out of the movie.

On Friday we planned to take Nicki to the dog beach we heard about. Before we went I wanted to get a run in. I had Ali take me to the end of the street and drop me off. It was 1.7 miles back to our driveway. The run went ok but I could tell the difference running on a hard road versus the treadmill. I felt a twinge of pain in the knee that I haven’t felt to this point. I guess I will stick to treadmill running for now. As I trudged up the driveway trying to catch my breath, I see a dog’s rearend go around the corner of the house. Hmmm. My mom had mentioned she had seen 2 dogs walking around our property three days this week, evidently they were back again. They were 2 cute little dogs, one was some sort of pug mix that was walking around peeing on everything and the other was some sort of mini collie dog. They were both very cute but you could tell they have had it rough. However they had collars and my mom said earlier that week they did not have collars. So obviously someone owned them. Ali was very distraught about the idea of stray dogs and was afraid of them getting hit by a car. She called animal services and they said they would come out. I felt bad about the idea of them going to the “pound” so I went out door to door with a picture of the dogs to see if I could find out who owned them. I went around for a half hour or so, no luck, noone knew them. Just as I got back the animal services van pulled up. The guy was very nice and explained that the dogs would get cleaned up, get shots and then have 5 days for the owners to claim them. After that a “decision” is made. We asked what that meant. What it meant was they decide if they are going to go up for adoption or put to sleep. Of course the thought of sending them to their possible demise made Ali feel terrible. She was crying. The guy explained that since they were little dogs the odds of them being adopted was very good. He loaded them up and took the little guys away. I felt bad as well, they were very friendly and just wanted someone to take care of them. We were finally ready to take Nicki to the dog beach, a couple hours later than we planned but oh well. As we pulled out of the driveway, we are stopped by the kids from 2 doors down. (I didn’t ask them about the dogs since I knew they didn’t have any) They asked us about the dogs, we explained what happened. They said they took them in a week ago as strays. Supposedly their dad left them on the porch but left the door open so they could go to the bathroom. Translation – he hoped they ran away. I don’t think the kids realized this. Anyway we told them all they had to do was call animal services and they could get the dogs back. I will be surprised if they call, I haven’t seen the dogs reappear at their house. In an attempt to find the original owners, we made 2 huge signs with their pictures and posted them at the end of the street with the animal services number. Hopefully it all works out.

We found the dog beach. Nicki is very nervous around strange dogs and people. She was excited but scared as she hung very close to us. A few dogs came up to her to say hello and she circled Ali with her leash and almost tripped her. We kept her far away from the action most of the time. She actually got all 4 feet in the water, a first for her. Eventually I told Ali we should take her off her leash and let her run free, there was no imminent danger and she obviously would run to us if she is approached by other dogs. Ali cautiously agreed. Nicki had a good time running free except for a couple incidents, the funniest of them was while she was standing in a small area of water looking around. One of the dogs was hyper and came running towards her and she didnt see it. It broadsided her and knocked her into the water, it looked funny as hell and of course she yelped and came running to us for aid. By the time we left she was a sandy, wet exhausted mess. We’ll take her back to the beach again.

On Saturday we had a Pennsylvania like weather shift, it went from the lower 80’s on friday to being in the 50’s for most of the day on Saturday. It was also super windy so it felt even cooler. Brrrrrrr. On Saturday we did some home chores and I mowed the grass in the back for the last time this year. I think it was the first time I mowed grass and didn’t sweat one drop. We spent the rest of the day relaxing. I watched a good part of Matrix 2 again in an attempt to clarify Matrix 3. (It didn’t help much) We also watched The Core. A middle of the pack movie that I would not wanted to have paid to watch in the theater.

Sunday the only real “work” I did was put up xmas lights on the palm trees out front. They look nice, I’ll try to get a pic of them up. The rest of the day was primarily football watching, including ANOTHER big Eagles win. 7 in a row. Of course I was wearing my jersey. 🙂 It is the first time they have won 7 in a row since 1980. I remember that streak in 80. I love the fox pregame show (as I mentioned before) however I think this will be the last season of Jillian Barberie doing the weather spot. She is hitting the wall. She just is looking bad and when your primary job is to just look good that doesn’t bode well. When she first started a few years back she was smoking hot. It’s weird, it’s hard to explicitly identify what is going bad but it’s just bad.

Ali spent a lot of time putting together an Amazon order to take a chunk out of our Xmas shopping. Almost 400 bucks later we still have a ways to go. 🙁

A good 4 days, the best 4 day stint I’ve had in awhile.

I put in almost a mile and 3/4 on the treadmill over lunch. Since I stopped running several years ago I still have done aerobic exercise on a regular basis, stuff like the stationary bike, cross trainer, steppers and recumbant bikes. Although those get your heart rate up it is nowhere near the same as running. On the treadmill you have to get through that point of discomfort where you just want to slow down or stop. When you are done running you feel spent, spent in a complete way that other machines can’t duplicate. The only other aerobic machine I ever found that hammered me like running does is the versaclimber. You know that thing Dolph was using in Rocky IV? 10 minutes on that thing seemed like an hour if you pushed yourself. By the end of next week I’m hoping to be able to put in a 2 mile run without passing out.

I heard on the radio some group is threatening to sue any manufacturer that continues to use the Master / Slave designation that is used in the computer industry to indentify hard drives in a multiple drive configuration. They don’t like the idea that it could be perceived as racist in origin. COME ON! How f’in ridiculous and petty can you possibly be? My Green Bay goodwill has all but evaporated already. Morons.

I am a sucker for Van Damme movies. I have seen most of them multiple times but that doesn’t stop me from stopping the dial whenever I see one. Last night I stumble across Kickboxer. One of the best ones and arguably the best shape Van Damme was in for any of his movies. I came in right before the final fight scene with the Tung Po. The fists in broken glass, Tung Po calling his shots and the Van Damme coming back and destroying him once his brother was out of danger. Classic. I never tire of it. 🙂

My wife asked me last night who would win between the big 4. The big 4 of course being Van Damme, Arnold, Steven Seagal and Sylvester Stallone. I said in a movie, I think Arnold would win, in real life Seagal would win since he was the only real martial artist. However of the 4, Seagal is my least favorite.

I have seen the American Idol Christmas special advertised for a few weeks now. This means it was probably shot in October. It was on tv last night. First off it is absolutely ridiculous to me to have Christmas shows on before Thanksgiving. Makes no sense. Regardless we decided to tune in. It was dumb. It looked like good ole Rueben was sucking on a green lollipop before the show because his toungue had huge green spot on it, very funny. I just wasn’t into it. Halfway through I told Ali that this was dumb. She agreed and we flipped over to watching another hilarious I Love the 80’s episode on the Tivo.

Down here it is a little tough to get your mind around the idea that it is the holiday season. The warm sunny weather makes it very hard to shift into a holiday mode. Not that I’m complaining but it is one of the minor trade offs you make living in the sub-tropics. The idea of seasons becomes very distorted. Up north when I worked for Entre/Ameridata/GE this was a very special time of year. For the last 2 months of the year I would take off every Monday. 3 day weekends till the end of the year. Also the day before Thanksgiving we would normally slide out at 12 and then participate in a company touch football game. It was always a blast and I always came out of it with some sort of injury. One year a pulled groin, one year a concussion from gettin spiked in the head, it was always fun.. Some of my favorite memories of working there came from the Thanksgiving football game. Who can forget the moment “heartpunch Kliney” earned his nickname by punching would be tacklers in the heart to momentarily stun them? Or when Paul Hulmes almost got into a fight with one of Tim’s friends over excessive rough play? Or one of my all time favorites, when Emmett dances around loud mouth Monty making him look like a complete boob. Thanksgiving was definitely one of the things that was a lot more fun in PA. Down here the day before Thanksgiving means we get to wear jeans, woohoo.

A plus of my job is we get the day after Thanksgiving off as a paid holiday. Our 4 day weekend has no major plans. I feel an urge to attack tiling one of the bathrooms but I am going to resist filling my holiday weekend with hard work. Instead we will do some casual house work, may take my mom downtown to see it decorated for the holidays, possibly take Nicki to the dog beach to run around and a generous dose of doing whatever I damn feel like doing. I may try to do some Christmas shopping, I have done absolutely zero to this point. Have a nice holiday.

When I lived up north, I had a goal of being able to run a 10k(6 somethin miles) race. I was up to being able to run 5 and a half miles. However, the knee injuries I had prevented me from hitting that goal. My knee has felt good for awhile now since I scaled my volleyball playing back to next to nothing and have been taking my flaxseed oil for at least a year now. The other day the idea popped back into my head about doing it. I’m not getting any younger. So last night at the gym I decided to hop on the treadmill. I walked a quarter mile, stretched a bit and cranked the speed up to 7. I sweated and huffed through a mile and a quarter, slowed it down and walked a half mile to cool down for a total of 2 miles. Ugh, I have a long way to go. The good news is my knee felt fine but the muscles in my calfs and hips are sore from using them in a way that is foreign now. I’ll keep at it and see how it goes. It bugs me when I set goals that I don’t hit so hopefully I can check this one off in the next few months. At this point being able to run for an hour straight seems like a very daunting task.