Sometimes she just amazes me...

I do it all the time... we all have. You start something, like a diet or learning a language, and then you quit. Someday, I'm going to learn the guitar! Yep... I sure am (don't hold your breath). Well,

Joy doesn't do that. She is the first and only person I know that says she's going to do something and then just does it. She doesn't need support from friends, she doesn't care if it's 'cool' or is in the latest fashion (like one of her more retarded friends does). She just buckles down and knocks it out. She wanted to learn to play the harp and she's awesome at it. She's never, ever applied for a job and not gotten it. She's never had a job where she wasn't promoted above her peers faster than anyone else. A few months ago she wanted to learn how to knit and sew. This is her first project, she just finished it.

It's wild because, she really follows through on what she sets out on. It's awesome, and it forces me to be motivated at the same time, which I love. So, I thought I'd share this pillow with you and some insight into my life with Joy. She's the reason why I push myself forward. If it wasn't for her I'd probably be working for Ian.

They killed Apature Science!

Where did my ASP go?

I made this pretty cool (or atleast I thought) ASP page for my CS degree... about 2 years ago. I would check on it ever so often just shocked that it was still being hosted. Well, it's dead. We had to do a buisness page, so I made one of Apature Science... the company from Portal. It turned out really awesome. I even embedded the games ending and had a page for cake. Oh well, it was cool while it lasted.

Guns and Bees

Joy's uncle Tim invited us out to his lease to shoot some jugs of water on Memorial day. It was awesome! I never really got to shoot to many guns as a kid, which is probably a good thing. It's funny because I've always been an really good shot. Whenever I have gotten the chance to shoot I usually start out by proving my incompetence through leaving the safety on or dropping the clip in the dirt (I did both this time) and then I'll not miss the whole time I'm out there. I guess all those years of Duck Hunt paid off. (I still hate that dog!)

Hayden got to shoot a .22 for awhile. He was really good at hitting this tree behind the targets. If we were smart, we would have put a bottle in the tree... he would have knocked it right out! I love getting him out to do redneck stuff. I was really hoping to get him to shoot the 20 gauge, but after watching us shoot the 12 gauge... he was a little gun shy. I honestly think that is the first time I've used that saying literally.


Now, I didn't do all of my shooting with the rifle resting on a feed bag, so give me some credit. Joy decided that this picture of my ugly butt needed some prettying up, so she added her beautiful thumb to it!

Joy even got into it and took out this menacing gallon jug at about 25 yards. Once she figured out how to get the rifle in and rest her cheek against the stock, she was an regular Annie Oakley, well a Vietnamese Annie Oakley (which I think is way cooler).

We were shooting somewhat near a beehive and I decided that it was a good idea to go and piss them off... because I'm retarded. I had one come over and buzz by me and I swatted it away. I guess it released it's "kick this guys ass" pheromone because I was almost instantly swarmed. I quickly remembered my extensive Air Force training and ran around screaming like a little girl. I took off out of the camp and away from everyone as fast as I could. I got stung 11 times in about 1 minute. It was pretty intense. Oddly enough, the bees didn't bother anyone else. I guess the go after the overweight and feeble first. Luckily Tim's daughter, Becky, had a bunch of Benadryl on hand... which made the ride home so enjoyable.

All in all it was an awesome trip. When we got home it took all of our effort to stay awake long enough to wash off the bug spray before we all passed out! Hayden had a ton of stories to tell at school the next day and I had a wicked cool farmers tan and some big bee stings to show off. Good times!

Hayden's play and our stupid camera

Hayden is almost done with the first grade! Since his disastrous run at Kindergarten, he's made a complete 180 and is doing way better in school. We were really worried about him, but it turned out that we just got stuck with a really, really crappy school for kindergarten. So, here's a pro-tip... if greatschools.com tells you that the school your kid is in is a 4... get your kid out of that school!

Hawthorne Academy has been a godsend for Hayden. He's had to really bust his butt there, but the hard works really paid off. His teacher is the best and she's responsible for how far he's come from when he started the year.

They had an end of year play called 'The History of America'. Since we're in Texas I figured it'd be named 'The History of America: How all the founding fathers were totally Christians and all loved Glenn Beck and how there was never any slavery either... it was a trade triangle'. I guess they opted for the shorter title.

Hayden was a pilgrim for the play. It went really well until I decided to use our crappy camera. I've had a love/hate relationship with this thing for a while. Sometimes it pulls off these awesome shots and works great for a whole event. Other times, like during the play, it sucks. Since it was semi low-light, the camera went full retard and would not work. Every picture was crap and it would randomly lock-up trying to do it's pre-processing on the photos. So, when Hayden and the other pilgrims sang their song about how they were about to screw the Indians out of their land... my camera died. Good times.

The play went really well and Hayden had a blast. We got some really good hot dogs from our favorite place after that so it was all good. The big problem now is that I'm quickly loosing the argument against Joy over getting and D-SLR camera. I think I'll get her one before summer is out... I'm pretty much agreee with her that we need it after this mess.

To play a video game

For some reason, I decided that I needed to be able to play old arcade games on my LCD upstairs. It actually started at work with a conversation with a guy about this Xbox I hacked for him. When I gave it to him, it had a MAME emulator and the Simpsons arcade game on it. He had messed with it and it stopped working. I was explaining how to fix this when I got this idea to set up an arcade game in the game room... it seemed fitting.

We had a media PC hooked up to the game room TV back when it was a 32'' CRT. I kind of forgot about it since we got the big TV downstairs. When we got the 46" in the game room, I replaced the media PC with a netbook. I decided to take today and get MAME running on it.



Getting the emulator to work was pretty easy. The hard part was getting my controller to work with MAME. I started out with this really nice software called Pinnacle. It was reccomended by a few sites I checked. I downloaded the trial and it worked like a champ but they wanted $20 for it! That's way too much money for a gamepad mapper. So, I looked for an opensource alternative. I found JoytoKey. It did the same thing for free so that rocks!

I played through Golden Axe and started up on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. I think I'll finally beat The Simpsons after that. The cool thing is that since it's running on the netbook, I can take it with me when I travel. Maybe next time I'm at NSA, I'll throw some Shinobi up on the projector during one of my briefs.

I'm still going to use IE

Check out this really cool advert for Google Chrome.



I'm going to stick with IE for now though. I was a big Firefox supporter because of how it handled tabbed browsing and, at the time it performed better than IE 7 and way better than IE 6! I have to say though, IE 8 works really well with Windows 7. For now, that's where I'm staying.

The problem is that Joy would use IE and I'd stay on Fire Fox. This would keep all our cookies happy. Now, we both fight by logging each other off our respective sites. It's not like we don't have enough PC's. I have my desktop, Joy has hers... there's Hayden's netbook, my netbook... we have the server under the stairs. Hell, we even have browsers on the 2 media centers. Not to mention the PSP and DS browsers... and my phone... and her phone... well you get the idea.

I guess I have to start a campaign about how awesome Firefox is so she'll stay off IE. Man, that's going to feel weird.

Playing golf

Instead of working, I got a chance to play golf. I really hate golf. It's boring and Texas is really hot. Some idiot decided that we should have a 1300 tee time, so it was extra hot. The two things that made it fun were that I got to drive the golf cart and that we had beer. I'm proud to say that I waited a full 3 and a half holes before trying to pull a donut. Whenever I tried to hit well, I just hit a miserabley short drive and when I decided just to whack the hell out of it, it went flying... hard right.

It was a good day over all... a lot better than going to work! Tonight turned out really nice with a strong wind at about 76 degrees. I've got all the windows open and I'm going to vacuum a little. Yeah, I'm a wild man!

Hacking the Wii

So, I got the Wii to play games right off a USB hard drive. It was actually pretty easy to do... and it took me till 1:30 am to finish it.

Windows 7

Man it's been busy lately. I've taken up a second job of sorts. I've started a small side buisness called Network Engineering Solutions where I take small business networks and make them not stupid. It's funny, I actually feel sorry for some of these people. They hire "professionals" that have no idea how to run a network or set up a back-up plan or anything. This one account I have was just a mess. The guy had them buy a network printer, which he added localy to each PC, there were share files everywhere... just a huge mess. So, like I said... it's 99% common sense.

Anyway, I've decided to go all out Windows 7. I've got a copy on the mini 10 and on the main Windows PC. So far my only problem has been Logitech mouse drivers. Turns out it's the crappy drivers. My old drivers (that I got with the mouse) worked awesome!

So, things have been crazy busy. We finally got a new TV for the upstairs and finished up the seiling fan installs. Hopefully, this will drive down the electic bill this year. I have to get back to college and get a Masters... so that will be fun. I also have to get my CISSP. Joy is plugging away at work. I think she's getting sick of her job. I hope not... she's good at it and seems to like the schedule. We're just pushing forward. Hayden's doing really well in school now. The big question is whether or not to hold him back. His reading isn't awesome... I guess we can press forward and just really work with him over the weekend. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Grandma Sno is having a birthday, so we'll see some more of Joy's family. That's always a blast. Donna was down a few weeks ago and out of all the awesome stuff she made the only thing that stuck is this stew she made the first day. It's actually really awesome so it's all good.

Work is good, I'm doing well and got a good raise this year... but I've been getting good raises every year... one way or another! I like being a Sr Systems Engineer... it sounds important. I know Joy hates the travel but it's helping pave the way for our future. Honestly, if I have to travel a little to give my family a better life... then so be it.

Men with purses... the new hotness

Ipad man-bags are about to become a reality.

I was thinking this last week. IPads are going to have to be carried in something right? That means that there's about to be Starbucks full of hipsters with man-bags... and armed rednecks. I think that this apocalyptic combination will be soon be the source of tremendous lulz... and gunshot wounds.

I don't like Macs. I'm not a stranger to the tech. I've used Apple products in recreation as well as at the office. They are great machines. They're just not $3,000 great machines. For 3k, I expect sentience... or at the very least games. The Mac fails to deliver on both these fronts. Now, they do some cool things. The audio and imagery tools are really outstanding. If you're a graphics artist or a musician this is the platform you want. If you're going to surf the web at your favorite trendy coffee shop.... you're a douche.

From where I stand, the IPad is a failure waiting to happen. It's that perfect awkward size, too big to be portable and too small to be functional. Unfortunately, that won't stop the hipsters from surfing the web on their shiny new IPad... that they brought in their man-purse. I weep for my generation.

Real men take security seriously

I don't know if life could be considered a competition but, if it's your job to drive this thing around... you lost.

Fun with the kids

It's 65 degrees or so outside. Time for the kids favorite after dinner game. Spin And Puke!

Awesome Inc. is back in buisness!

Hey Ben, how did you spend your weekend? Why, building a network for a dentist office of course. I was recommended to this dentist by one of my old co-workers... which is always nice. She has this awesome system that is just configured and managed really poorly. They have a PC at every dentist chair. Hello Pandora!

She has a really cool direction that she wants to take her business and I think this is going to be a lot of fun to do! It also helps that I'm actually getting paid to help someone for a change. Yeah, I'm talking to you Jake... and Dad... and Kelly... and Jeramiah... and most of the guys at work...

The trouble I get myself into

For awhile now I've been thinking about devising a way to hide my spare key for my truck on the truck body itself. The idea being that if I ever locked my keys in my car, I could simply retrieve the spare from it's inconspicuous location and gain access back into the truck without bothering anyone else. Although it seemed like a simple exercise, I found myself baffled to find an appropriate hiding spot on the truck that would not only conceal the key but protect it from being jarred loose in transit.

Well, tonight was my eureka moment. While walking to the truck to recover a lost binkie for Serenity, I found my answer. The stake-hole wells on the bed of the truck. "Who would ever look into one of these holes for a truck key?" I chuckled to myself as I quickly plunked the key into one of the wells. It fit perfectly.


It was only after hearing the key hit the bottom of the well did I realize that I did not consider the second half of my plan... how to retrieve the key. It took about 10 seconds of trying to realize that my key was now completely inaccessible to me. I'm an idiot.

Walking back inside, I deduced that the best way to retrieve my key was to use a rare-earth magnet tied to a stick. I have no idea why this was my first choice but it was the one I went with. After tying the magnet to a small stick with some of my wife's knitting yarn (which was no small feat in itself) I was ready to retrieve my key.

This was when I made my second startling discovery of the night. Car keys are not magnetic. So, using the magnet was, for the most part, useless. Unfortunately, the truck is very magnetic and attracted the powerful magnet right away, which slipped right out of the yarn and lodged itself directly over the key.

So, I essentially solved my problem. The key is in a very inconspicuous place, being covered with a rare-earth magnet and all, and is also relatively secure... also due to said magnet. So, with the exception of me having no way of retrieving the key itself... my efforts were mostly a success. And on that note, I'm going to bed!

Tales fromt the slow cooker...

I made an Italian meatloaf today. The instructions were to garnish the meatloaf with onions... I decided that meant to make it look like bones in a fossil or something. I think it looked pretty cool.



The verdict was that it came out very tasty. It was pretty awesome because the pan is removable from the Crock Pot, so I made it the night before and put it in the fridge. In the morning I just put it in the cooker and left for work. It worked out pretty awesome. Up next is mushroom chicken and then Chinese pot roast. I'm worried about the chicken because I opted for fresh mushrooms over canned like the recipe called for... so we'll see how that goes. Just whenever I think of canned mushrooms... I think of Botox. Gross right?

I'm going to try and run the Warrior Dash this year. It's my new plan to get back into shape. I've cut out soda and my very bad for you but oh so awesome Mexican food lunches, so we'll see how it turns out. I'm pretty stoked!

Lastly, I'm going to try some writing. I've been thinking about it for a while. It's mainly for Joy, she really wants me to try. It'll end up pretty sucky but, hey... it might be fun! Only time will tell.

Man-burgers on a rainy day

Fry up some burgers and get them brown on both sides but still pink in the middle. Wrap them in foil with a healthy dose of onions and bake them at 425 for 15 minutes. They turned out awesome! Of course, the kids needed tons of ketchup and I needed some hot sauce, but other than that they were perfect!

I'll admit that I'm a horrible cook, but sometimes I actually make something edible.

Crock Potting!

In a continuing effort to starve our kids, we've decided to try slow cooker recipes for a while.

The benefit of the slow cooker is that you put all your ingredients into the pot early into the day and then simply have to check back later to find the disgusting mess you are left to eat.

My first attempt was orange chicken. It was shit.

We're going to try something else later... for now, I'm ordering pizza.

Nashville

I think my boss lied to me about the job I took. It was suppose to be Information Assurance, which is a big field that is really emerging right now. I think what I really do is IA. I Argue. For the most part I argue with people over the phone... but on rare occasions, I get to travel somewhere and argue with people face to face. That's way more fun!

We're staying at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, which is this huge Hotel/Atrium/Conference Center. It's massive! It's a hotel with a huge atrium/shopping area attached, and then another equally large Convention Center connected to that. The place was just wild. The vendors that were there threw receptions each night so we were invited to eat pretty crappy food and have free drinks... so that was nice.

We got to see the Country Music Hall of Fame...

which was unfortunately as boring as it sounds. From what I can tell... Hank Williams Sr is God... and Hank Williams Jr is Jesus. Oh, and Hank Jr killed this bear.

I happen to know it was an actual bear and not a tree stump or a Volkswagen, because it had this shiny little tag on it.

In any other museum... that would be stupid, but in the Country Redneck Mecca Hall of Cousin Dating... it fit right in. I can almost imagine a guy, most likely a Jeb or a Skeeter, walking up to the display and saying "Hey, Lerleen! Stop breastfeeding Walker and Texas Ranger and come over here. Man look at this big ole.... um... wait there's a sign here... B- B-e Beaver!"

We saw Elvis's car. It has a TV, phone and a speaker system with an amp and microphone in it.

All in all it was a good trip. It was way to long for me and after being in Baltimore just two weeks prior was way too long to be away from Joy and the kids. I did get to re-watch every episode of Firefly again! But that always leads to day dreams of storming Fox studio's with a BB gun ala Chevy Chase and Wally World.

Maybe if I shoot a security guard in the ass enough times, I can get them to revive the series.

Baltimore

We've got crabs!

Well, I'm back from the trip to Baltimore. The good news is that we met with the NSA folks and actually made some good progress. The bad news is I had to sit through a joint meeting on COMSEC. Anytime you get to watch the military machine in action it's like... the Red Bull Flugtag. For those of you that don't know, the Flugtag is an event where amateur adventurers create gliders out of cardboard. Some are very elaborate and are simply horrible, others are very simply designed and also pretty horrible. Then there are the very few that actually get a few feet before crashing into the lake below. That is pretty much how a joint military discussion works.

Like I said, the good news is that we actually made some progress and we have a good way forward. Also, thanks to my buddy Dave, I think I can get a decent job up in Maryland. So, add that to the possible escape routes from Suck Antonio. Oh and it was cold up there... really, really cold.

We went to a place called the Rusty Scupper. It's a restaurant right off the Baltimore harbor and it is awesome. If you can, get the crab cakes and the cream of crab soup. I also had the swordfish steak, which was also unbelievable. My next task is to find a way to get Joy up there. The view itself is amazing. Just a great place to eat.

So all in all, it was a good trip. I did forget my belt for my suit and spent my first brief constantly pulling up my pants. That wasn't too cool, but we snuck out and grabbed a new belt soon enough... and hey, it's reversible!

I'm just so glad to be home!

Almost had to wear a long sleave shirt today

Just another Texas winter day. Grilling steaks after wacthing the Cowboys get embarrassed. Ye-haw!

The new suit

I'm going for the "please keep me employed!" look.

Hide and seek with Seri

i just spent 15 minutes cramped in the back of my closet to find Serenity playing with her doll house. I guess we're done playing hide and seek.

Iron Chef!

Did I just forget to pick up cheese for dinner and used string cheese instead? You bet your dupa I did!

International Computer Repairman of Mystery!

I helped my brother Jake with his computer problems yesterday. He has a 2003 server and 8 clients. I used a site called Log me in to access his PC's from here. So, while sitting at my desk in San Antonio, I configured his domain in Buffalo. Considering the weather there... I deem this the only sane way to work in Buffalo at present.

I set up his server as a DC and DNS with root hints out, I created some log on scripts for mapping his drives, I got shadow copy running and protected his shares as well as his roaming profiles and made some user templates for Active Directory. It was really fun!

While working I had three consecutive thoughts. First - This is totally bad ass. Second - Although I can tell a bunch of people about this... I will be one of the few who thinks this is totally bad ass. Third - I don't care... this is still really bad ass!

So yeah, I can set up Windows networks from a geographically isolated location. Booya!

At least there's a nice view.

Another all day meeting... hey there's free hot chocolate!

Just another winter day in Texas.

It's a little over 60 degrees out. Perfect playing weather!