January 2007 Archives

I got a few comment spams today which made me go back and read some of my old entries. Dang some of those are really funny, I also noticed that I've been posting less than daily for almost two years now so you really shouldn't expect much. :) Firefox integrated some kid of spell checking feature in the last release, so now it underlines all the misspelled words in my entries. Which you should keep in mind if you do go and read any of my old entires, there are a damn lot of typos.

I'm completely swamped on the videogame front right now. New WOW expansion, Neverwinter Nights 2, Final Fantasy 12, Rogue Galaxy (Space Pirates!) , and of course XBOX 360. I may have to activate online UNO I hear it's all the rage.

The CISSP exam is over now. I went to what is possibly the worst hotel I've ever seen (Clarion at DFW) to take it. IT smelled really bad, the room where we had to take the test was freezing, stuff was peeling off the walls and only 2 of the 4 stalls in the bathroom were functional. The exam itself was brutal, 250 multiple choice questions. I spent about 2 hours initially answering all the questions I knew, then went back and read over the 30 or so I wasn't sure about. Then I spent another 1 hour so re-checking every single answer. I found 6 questions were I had either mis-read the question or simply marked the wrong answer, so I guess it was worth it There is nothing worse than rereading an entire exam that you have just finished. They say it takes about 5 weeks to find out if you passed. I'm hoping it won't take that long.

Saturday night, the whole crew went out to the Bavarian to celebrate. Okay I went to celebrate I think everyone else just went cause they like German Beer and food. I drank way way too much beer. I did complete my stien club memebership though.

In other news I am officially old. Seven german beers Saturday night totally knocked me on my ass all day on Sunday. Also my knee keeps giving out and the Doctor can't seem to come up with a better explanation than "that just happens when you ge to your age" I'm having an MRI on it Friday, there has to be SOMETHING wrong with it that they can fix.

In other other news, my newest fascination is Steampunk.

I've been meaning to post for a while. I actually have stuff to write about now, but I've been so busy this past 2 weeks I've never gotten a chance.

2 weeks ago Elanna and I went to see our new niece in Florida. We had a nice relaxing weekend and it was great to see Elanna's brother and his wife. Elanna and I have gotten 1 nephew and and 1 niece already in this past year, and Halo's wife is about to give birth to our third! While we were in Florida, I found out that my company finally approved me to take a Boot camp for the CISSP exam. Part of the boot camp is that you take the exam and the end of it. I didn't really trust the fact that the Bootcamp would TOTALLY prepare me for the exam so I had to begin studying like mad.

So that would be pretty busy except I also started my latest Masters degree course. I didn't think that would be a problem, since in the past the first 2 weeks of class didn't require much work. Well not this time, the university decided to shorten all online courses to 12 weeks from 15, so now you jump right into it. So now not only was I studying for the CISSP, but I was having to keep up with my course work. Oh but it gets better, I also was drafted by work to fly to Colorado last week and give a talk to some our our customers about Security. I have so much security on the brain now I'm dreaming about it. At least with the weather that's been going on I had plenty of time to study while sitting in airports.

The CISSP bootcamp runs all this week, and when they say bootcamp they mean it. The class runs 8am to 8pm, Monday through Friday, then Saturday from 8am to 3pm is the test, so if you talk to me this week and I start to to reference access control methods or physical security devices. It's completely normal I assure you.

Demigoblin, Elanna, and saw Eragon before Christmas. It was really bad. Rather than tell you how bad I'll just share this review one of my friends sent me.

"Saw Eragon last night with Spanish subtitles. Nearly chewed off my arm. That movie sucks. Complete and shameless Star Wars rip off. They could have saved the production cost by taking a cut of Star Wars and superimposing a dragon over the x-wing fighter. Also, you would have to remove the story, dialogue, and direction that Star Wars had. Then you would have Eragon. John Malkovich and Jeremy Irons should be required to hide in shame for at least a year for having been a part of that film. In the last reel, for some bizarre reason, the "princess" was wearing a giant feather on her head. I mean like a native american kind of a feather. Like from a duck's ass. For some reason this struck me as incredibly humorous and I had to really concentrate to keep from laughing very loudly."

The holiday whirlwind is over now. I was in St. Paul working till Dec 21st then we headed out to Oklahoma to spend time with our families. I had a great Christmas. We spend Christmas eve with my family at Halo's house and Christmas day with Elanna's family. Unfortunately, my Dad's family had Christmas before we got in town, so I didn't get to see them. If my grandmother is reading this, we'll be back in Oklahoma shortly and we'll get together.

Elanna, the best wife ever, got me a new Xbox 360! The wireless controllers are great, it's so nice to sit play a game without stringing cables all over the room. I, of course, had to immediately go out and buy 3 more controllers and the wireless network adapter but that's just my need for "gadgets." We've been playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Star Wars Legos all weekend.

For New Years I was invited to be a co-host for a large New Years Eve party that some of my friends were throwing. "Invited to be a co-host" means "help us pay for it" of course. We had over 100 people respond that they were coming and I think at least that many people showed up.

I took last semester off from school because of the wedding and honeymoon, but I start back in a few weeks. I'm actually looking forward to getting back to school. Only 5 classes left! This class is over E-commerce security, which I'm guessing means web server and Database Security.

Oh I've had the comments turned off on purpose. I was getting flooded with comment spam, eventhough I have 3 different comment spam filters. I'll turn them back on now, hopefully if will have died down some.