Flack

I've been waiting a couple years for the price on those things to drop. Still waiting ...

Sunday was day two of our three day weekend. The first thing we did today was go to the zoo. I enjoy going to the zoo with the kids but experiencing the zoo with them is a different pace than I would personally choose. If it were just me by myself I might take my camera and sit for a long time in front of the gorilla exhibit or watch the elephants for a while. With the kids you get about five seconds with each animal, less if they are hiding behind something. The one advantage to the kids' zoo pace is that it turns the visit into a "hit and run" event, which allows us to get in early and get out before it starts getting hot. After a two hour break we called Jeff and Talon to see if they wanted to go play Laser Tag again; they did, and so we all went to play once again. This time we bought a four game package. The first game was just the four of us. Right after our first game ended nine more people showed up, so our second game contained 13 people. Playing with that many people is a lot different than just walking around looking for Mason and Talon. With 13 people in the maze, finding people isn't the problem -- keeping from smashing into one another is. It was still fun, but a different kind of fun. We learned our lesson last time and this time we brought an ice chest full of water and Cokes. After a break all 13 of us played a third game together, and for our last game another 3 people showed up so we ended up with a total of 16 people. Some of the younger kids were pretty annoying (not ours) and did annoying things like sticking their guns directly into our faces, or following us around for minutes at a time. I ended up winning games one and two, but by the last game both our stamina and scores had faded. Playing with so many people in the arena is fun, but different. I wouldn't mind finding out if they have an "adult league" or something; I think that would be a lot more fun. After Laser Tag Jeff brought Mason and myself home. Talon and Mason ended up playing videogames for a while while Jeff and I worked on hooking up a doorbell my dad bought for me for my birthday (it's a doorbell that plays mp3s -- review coming soon). I threw out all the knowledge and documentation I had and Jeff worked his way through the electrical parts. He found the doorbell transformer and after a few minutes had me holding a volt meter, testing wires to determine what was what. After a few minutes of troubeshooting we got everything working. For a test run we put on the theme from Ghostbusters but now I've got "Beat It" on there. As Jeff and I worked on the doorbell I thought a lot about our high school days. It seems like Jeff and I were always hooking up a stereo system or wiring up a computer or something back then. It definitely reminded me of those days. After dinner, Mason told Susan that his ear was hurting him, and that it had been hurting for a while. They ended up going to the doctor's office and sure enough, he has an ear infection. While they were gone Morgan and I played with a couple of learning toys and puzzles. No one had a nap today, so by the time Mason got home everybody was ready for bed.

Two weeks ago, I began Private Investigator Training class at Canadian County Technology Center (formerly Canadian County Vo-Tech). I signed up because the class sounded interesting -- nothing more. The class is two evenings a week for the next several months. I had trouble decidiing between the PI class and the Cake Decorating class, however in the end, my desire to eat a cake once a week lost to my desire to taser someone. Private Investigator Training is actually a "Phase 3" class. What I discovered (after class began) was that this class is part of the CLEET certification series of classes. CLEET is the Oklahoma body that governs the licensing of not only Private Investigators but also security guards. Before Phase 3 begins, students must sit through Phases 1 and 2, Security Guard Training. Phase 4, which I have not yet enrolled in, is Armed Security Guard Training. Our class consists of eleven students. The majority of the class unsurprisingly consists of people interested in becoming security guards. Some of the people are already working as security guards and are seeking security certification. And then there's me, the computer guy who sits quietly in the corner. During our breaks, fellow classmates and the instructor swap stories about guns and shooting people. I don't have any gun stories, so I politely listen to theirs. No one wants to swap computer stories. If the speed of an average day at work is 55mph, and the speed of the VMWare computer class I just took was about 75mph, then the speed of Security Guard Training hovers somewhere around 4mph. The class' pace is an abrupt change to my normal workday pace. It's a bit like that moment when you step off a moving escalator. Last night we covered 10 pages of the book in about 3 hours. The slow pace has been difficult to adjust to. I'm looking forward to the later phases of the class. Who knows, maybe some day I will be able to combine the private investigator training with my computer knowledge and turn that into an interesting career.

I just saw it this weekend and I thought it was terrific as well. I think the controversy that's apparently raging on is just feeding the interest for this film.

I never used to, but after visiting the 1984 Arcade and seeing their high score wall, I've started. I'm trying to think of a smaller, more economical way to track them in my own home arcade ... maybe a couple of white boards and some tiny printed out marquees or something.

I agree -- while some of these places are fun, they're not Photon. Incidently, there's a fellow just outside of Tulsa who is building a new Photon arena just like the old ones. I can't wait for it to open!!

On Sunday, Mason and I along with Jeff and his son Talon ventured over to Laser Expedition to play some laser tag. Back in the mid-to-late '80s Jeff and I were regulars at our local Photon arena the few years it was open. Little did we know back then that someday the two of us would be playing laser tag with our own sons. Laser Expedition is located off of Route 66 and Richland Road between Yukon and El Reno. The center has three separate attractions: indoor tag, outdoor tag, and the survivor's maze. As the temperature was in the high 90s yesterday, we opted for the three indoor game/maze combo package. Laser tag technology has come a long way over the past 25 years. The gear we wore at Photon, which included a battery pack belt and a helmet, weighed 18 pounds. The vests at Laser Expedition weigh a fraction of that. While the old guns used IR technology, the newer ones are more accurate and use lasers. The equipment has vastly improved. The arena, however, is very different from the old Photon-style. At Laser Expedition, the maze is made of wood that has been painted black and decorated, with black lights and spotlights illuminating the field. The old Photon arena was a giant carpeted arena with multiple "terrains" and areas. One thing Jeff and I both noted was that our old Photon arena had lots of open areas that promoted camping or sniping (hiding in one place and shooting people from far away). The Laser Expedition arena promoted close-quarters combat. More than once I walked around a corner and bumped into one of the kids. Because of the smaller battlefield, running is prohibited at Laser Expedition (it was both encouraged and required at Photon). Each indoor game lasts 10 minutes. After the first game was over, we took a break and decided to check out "the maze." The Maze is probably a lot more enjoyable when it's not 90+ degrees, as the lack of air conditioning made the area so hot that I felt like I was going to pass out. After spending 10-15 minutes twisting and turning through the maze we made our way back to the lobby where Jeff and I took a break while the kids played a round of air hockey. After taking a short break, the four of us headed back into the arena for round 2. This time instead of everybody vs. everybody, we decided to play teams. The kids insisted on taking us on, and so with reluctance that's what we did. Obviously Jeff and I slaughtered the boys, although the kids did get in a few good shots here and there. The final score was something like 800 to 12,000. It's hard to judge what the scores are while you're playing; it wasn't until after the match that we saw how bad it was. After that game we immediately played a third round and switched back to all vs. all. In the end I was victorious, but it was a close game. Our 3 game/maze package was $12/person, which I felt was was extremely affordable (in fact, I think the prices are comparable to what they were when Jeff and I were going to Photon 20 years ago). Even more enjoyable was the fact that during our entire visit, we were the only four people in the place. Going back on a Friday or Saturday might be more fun if you wanted to play with more people, but playing by ourselves with the kids worked out perfectly.

Last night I got invited to my first work Texas Hold 'Em poker party. I was a little nervous about attending, as I know two or three of the guys attending regularly play poker tournaments at the local casinos. I didn't go in with any intentions of winning. All I really hoped to do was make a good showing. House rules were $20 buy-in, which got you $3,000 in chips. Blinds started at $25/$50, and doubled every 15 minutes. First hand of the night, I drew an ace/nine. On the flop we saw a pair of nines. I bet, bet again, and bet some more. The look on a couple of people's faces said, "does this guy know how to play?" When I showed the third nine after the hand, I confirmed that I did. Everybody was playing tight; I didn't see any bluffs and few bad plays. After about ten average hands, I finally caught a good one. Jack/Four suited (diamonds). On the flop we saw two more diamonds (King and seven I think). I was close to a flush, so I bet big. The guy sitting next to me did too, and I assumed he had a pair of kings. On the turn we saw the third diamond, which gave me a flush. I bet huge; so did the guy next to me. Turns out, he was holding two diamonds as well, one of them being the ace (one of two cards that could have beat my hand). In that hand I lost about $4,000 (pretend) dollars, leaving me crippled. Two hands later I went all in on a Queen/Four suited, and got taken down by a pair of kings. Even though I went out early, I felt like I went out on a legit hand. At least no one laughed at me like they did to a fellow co-worker, when he went out. Playing with both co-workers and strangers last night was exciting. I look forward to our next poker night, where I will be a bit more cautious.

Many of you may recall my posts from earlier this year about the media PC I built that the fam and I have dubbed "PiVo" -- short for "PC-based TiVo". PiVo is actually a computer running Windows XP and the free GB-PVR software. Combined with a TV capture card and a video out connection, the computer (which is controlled with an ordinary looking television remote) allows us to record television programs to the computer's hard drive, save them, and play them back at a later date. The GB-PVR software has a lot of other really nifty options like MP3 player, photo viewer and so on, but the whole point of the machine was to record television programs. Everything else was just icing on the cake. The core of GB-PVR revolves around a website called Zap2it. Zap2it gets cable channel listings for all over the country and provides them to people for free. GB-PVR works by getting your local cable program listings from Zap2it. This is how the program knows when and what channel SpongeBob is on. This allows users (ie: ME) to select things like, "record Robot Chicken every time it's on." GB-PVR downloads my local listings from Zap2it, finds Robot Chicken on Comedy Central at 11pm, and automatically records the show. Zap2it is closing its doors. According to their website, they are closing due to "certain growing misuses of the Zap2it Labs data." I'm not sure what that means, to a free service. This essentially renders GB-PVR/PiVo useless. Sure, it'll still be able to play things we've already recorded, but to record new things it'll be back to the old days of selecting a time and a channel. Unsurprisingly, Zap2it is referring users to a new, similar company -- except this one's not free. It's $5/month, with a virtual promise that as more users sign up, the price will go down. $5/month doesn't sound bad, except that before, it was free. The real Tivo is a little over $8/month; Cox cable's DVR is $5/month plus $10/month for the box. While I really enjoy all the features and functionality of GB-PVR, the thing I enjoyed the most was that it was free.

Celebrities who share your birthday: Layne Staley Tori Amos Cindy Williams Valerie Harper Norman Schwarzkoph Ray Bradbury John Lee Hooker To you all, I say ... Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you Well, it's time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year We'll eat a lot of broccoli and drink a lot of beer You should be good and happy that there's something you can eat A million people every day are starving in the street Your daddy's in the gutter with the wretched and the poor Your mama's in the kitchen with a can of Cycle Four There's garbage in the water, There's poison in the sky I guess it won't be long before we're all gonna die Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you Well, what's the matter little friend, you think this party is the pits Enjoy it while you can, we'll soon be blown to bits The monkeys in the pentagon are gonna cook our goose Their finger's on the button, all they need it an excuse It doesn't take a military genius to see We'll all be crispy critters after World War III There's nowhere you can run to, nowhere you can hide When they drop the big one, we all get fried (Come on boys and girls, sing along, ok?) Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you Well there's a punk in the alley and he's looking for a fight There's an Arab on the corner buying everything in sight There's a mother in the ghetto with another mouth to feed Seems that everywhere you look today there's misery and greed I guess you know the Earth is gonna crash into the sun But that's no reason why we shouldn't have a little fun So if you think it's scary, if it's more than you can take Just blow out the candles and have a piece of cake Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you Happy birthday / Happy birthday to you - Happy Birthday, Weird Al

Now that Mason's started kindergarten, Susan and I have had to, once again, split up our schedules. For the past nine months, all four of us have gone to work in the same car (our daycare is right next to our building). Now, one of us has had to take the late shift at work so that we can take Mason to school at 8am; the other has to go to work early, so that we can leave work early and pick him up when school lets out. Our other two choices were putting Mason in an after school program or putting him in daycare for two hours a day. Frankly, driving separately is (by far) the cheapest solution -- and so it begins. I ended up with the early shift. There are many positives to the early shift. Whoever works the early shift doesn't have to take a kid to daycare or school -- that makes things a bit simpler. Work is pretty slow early in the morning too, so that's another plus. Another thing I've already begun to enjoy is leaving work at 3pm. After picking up Mason I've been getting home around 3:45 or so. That gives the two of us about two hours to do whatever we want to do (play videogames, read, drive the golf kart, etc.) before the girls get home. The only downside I've found so far is waking up at 5am so I can get to work by 6am. I haven't used an alarm clock in almost a year. With two kids who like to wake up and come into our room, it's been impossible to oversleep. On the late shift, Susan and I were reporting to work at 8:45am. Every day felt like we were sleeping in. Those days, at least for me, are over. For now, instead of waking up to the sun's rays peeking in through the window blinds or the quiet babbling of stirring children, I am now waking to the jarring BUZZ of an alarm clock. This earlier shift will require some obvious changes (no more watching movies until midnight every night), but the shift in free time appears to be worth the schedule change.

Yesterday (Sunday) was my 12th wedding anniversary. Saturday evening, Susan and I got a night away from the kids and had dinner at The Melting Pot down in Bricktown. Dinner in Bricktown starts with parking in Bricktown. I use a fairly unoriginal technique -- go to the final destination and then spiral outward, parking in the first parking lot that isn't full. Saturday night that ended up being about two blocks away from the restaurant. It was raining hard enough that Susan brought and used an umbrella. I didn't. I don't do umbrellas. We arrived at The Melting Pot at 7:50pm with reservations for 8pm. Apparently the food isn't the only thing that melts at The Melting Pot. We were told that the restaurant was running fifteen minutes behind, but fifteen minutes turned out to be over an hour. What really pissed us off was that walk-ins were being seated before we were. Susan really wanted to eat at this place for our anniversary; otherwise, I would have walked out (and not quietly). After an hour and thirteen minutes of waiting, we were seated at 9:03pm. It took me a few minutes to get out of my grumpy mood, but a Paradise Punch (which comes with Bacardi light rum, Myers’s dark rum, Captain Morgan spiced rum and Malibu rum) took the edge off my crankiness. The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant, and their specialty, the "Big Night Out," contains four courses. The first course is a cheese fondue. There are half a dozen or so to choose from, and we picked a spicy Mexican cheese. Each table has a hot plate built in. The waiter came to our table and made our cheese fondue right in front of us. Once it was melted, he brought out things to dip into the cheese: chips, bread, carrots, celery, and green apples. The second course is a salad. There were again about half a dozen salads to pick from. I'm not sure what one can say about a salad. It was saladicious? The third course is the featured entree. There are three different feasts to choose from; we chose the Fondue Feast, which contains filet mingon, marinated sirloin, garlic chicken, pork tenderloin, white shrimp, ravioli, rigatoni, and vegetables. The cheese fondue pot was removed and a new pot was brought. We had to choose a cooking style: we picked "mojo style" (which is pronounced "moho" but we insisted our waiter refer to it as "mojo," because that was much funnier). Once the mojo was steaming the meat and vegetable plates were brought out and we spent our time using skewers and cooking the meats (which were cut into small pieces), one bite-size chunk at a time. We were also served eight or nine different dipping sauces. I can't remember each of them but there was a cocktail sauce for the shrimp, something that resembled Chinese duck sauce, a bleu cheese sauce, and several others. Even though the meat and vegetable place seemed small, we were STUFFED and could not finish everything -- and, dessert was still to come! The fourth and final course was a chocolate fondue pot. There were eight different mixes to choose from but we stuck with the original, which contained chocolate, crunchy peanut butter, and a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream. Our dessert plate contained bananas, marshmallows, strawberries, cookies, cake, bread, and cheesecake. We were so full at this point that we had to pick and choose what we were going to eat. I stuck to the bananas and marshmallows, which were absolutely delicious when dipped in the chocolate sauce. Then again, a shoe wouldn't have been half bad either. The entire Big Night Out dinner for two people is $79. One year for our anniversary Sue and I ate at Nix (the rotating restaurant) and we paid around $100 for two 5oz steaks, salads, and iced tea. Compared to that this was really worth the money. I was still stuffed the following morning. For those who don't want all four courses, you can skip straight to the chocolate for only $14.95.

Nice! The only other exhibit like this I've seen was in 1993 or so at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Around that time they had a big display of movie special effects. Not only were there a lot of Star Wars-related items there (such as Jabba the Hutt's eyes and several movie masks) but also a lot of models from other movies including Spaceballs, Independence Day, and Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I love seeing movie items up close like that. In person some of the items look so ... fake.

Class is over; all that's left is the drive home tomorrow morning. For a class that cost $3,000, it's amazing to me how much of it some of the other students missed. The class ran eight hours a day for four days, although with breaks and lunch our actual time in class was closer to six hours each day. One of the twelve students scheduled Friday as his travel day; he didn't even show up the last day, missing a fourth of the course. There were a couple others who were consistantly late -- not a minute or two, but ten, twenty or thirty minutes every day. One of the guys scheduled his flight two hours before the scheduled end of the class. I guess it would have bothered me more if the instructor had waited around for these people, but he didn't, which the rest of us greatly appreciated. Justin did an awesome job of driving Johnny and I around this week. Tuesday we had dinner at Crystal's Pizza. Wednesday we ate at Gloria's, a Salvidorian restaurant. Thursday Justin and I ate at a small Vietnamese restaurant, and tonight the three of us ate at Chipotle's, a place that serves giant burritos. Great food every night. Speaking of food, if you ever have the chance to take a training class at a MicroTek facility, by all means do so. Not only were the employees friendly and helpful, but they offered free breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks. The training rooms also had nice Dell computers with Internet access and free wifi throughout the training center. Very pleasant experience. </end commercial> Everything's packed up now, ready to go in the morning.

Earlier this week, Justin told me he wanted to take me out for dinner this week for my birthday. After telling me that he asked, "by the way, did you bring your camera?" That, of course, has had me curious as to where he was taking me. Last night after class, the two of us met and he took me to a Vietnamese restaurant. The food was good, and unique. That wasn't the big surprise though. After dinner, Justin took me to the Fort Worth Museum of Science & History, who is currently hosting the travelling show, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination. The exhibit was split 50/50 between Star Wars artifacts and real-life scientific advances. For example, in the first room we got to see a couple of landspeeders actually used in the filming of Star Wars -- the full-size one, and a smaller model used for faraway shots. After that we found a station where we were encouraged to build our own anti-gravity machine using Lego blocks and magnets. To be honest, most of the science experiments were geared toward kids (it is a kids museum, after all) and I wasn't terribly interested in most of them, but the Star Wars costumes and models were super awesome. Thanks again, Justin! If you would like to see a couple dozen pictures from the museum, click here.

Mason's First Day of Kindergarten Through the magic of the Internet and digital cameras, Susan mailed me this picture this morning. Unfortunately I am still in Dallas and was unable to wish Mason a terrific first day of kindgergarten.

The first time I went to Riverwind Casino, I lost $100. However, Riverwind Casino offers free soft drinks. As I was sipping on my free Diet Coke, I thought to myself, "well, this is worth a dollar." So in my mind, I decided I had only really lost $99, figuring in the value of my free drink. The class I am attending this week also offers free drinks in the classroom. As I popped open my first one I leaned over to Johnny and asked him how much this class cost. "About $3,000," he said. As the cold can touched my lips I smugly thought to myself, "$2,999, baby." Throughout the day I managed to drink six cans of Diet Coke, bringing the actual cost of the class down to $2,994. That's the good news. The bad news is, over the next three days, I have to average 998 cans of soda. My bladder just cringed a little. I'm way behind the curve. I have not figured in the value of the free lunch or the snacks that the training facily offers. All kidding aside, the class so far has been great. I kind of surprised myself with how much I have understood and been able to keep up. One thing that always seems to happen is I get really excited about technology while attending these classes, but unless I have a way to apply the information when I get back to the office, the training seems to fade away quickly. This class is all about VMWare and virtual machines, which is something we work with at work. I am looking forward to applying the information from this class to our work.

I really love my portable MP3 player -- a Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra (say that five times fast). It's got a 40 meg hard drive, a screen that's easy to read and well lit, and all the buttons and features you would expect on your average MP3 player. It's physically larger than many of the newer models out there like the iPod Nano or the Creative Zen Stone, but at around the size of a deck of cards it still fits in my pocket easily. Using Notmad Explorer I can drop and drag files to and from the player with ease. In fact, I like everything about the unit except one teeny, tiny little detail. On the bottom of the MP3 player is a sliding switch that pops off the front face plate. And by "pops off" I mean a spring-loaded mechanism forcibly shoots the faceplate off. There is no way to lock the faceplace or switch into place. Not only is the switch in the worst possible location (the bottom of the unit) but it sticks just enough that it catches on everything. Almost every single time I pull the player out of my front pocket the front is missing. The few times it hasn't detached while in my pocket, the level catches when I'm removing it from my pocket, shooting the face place across the room. The only reason a person would ever need to remove the faceplate is to replace the unit's battery -- which is a rechargable lithium ion battery pack, so chances are you will in fact never need to replace it. My guess is the battery will long outlast the hard drive and whatever other electronics are stuffed inside there. Changing out a rechargable battery happens so infrequently that I'm not sure why Creative felt owners needed such a quick and easy way to do so -- every one of my kid's toys has a phillips screw holding in their batteries. Over the past year or two I've hit the switch 500 times on accident, and never meant to actually hit it a single time. This switch would be like a button on your car's arm rest that popped the hood open while you were driving. Who needs that feature?!?! The front of my MP3 player is now scratched up because more than once I've pulled it out of my front pocket only to have the faceplace pop off and go shooting (and then sliding) across the floor. I have been tempted to (and may still) place a piece of duck tape across the bottom of the unit, holding the faceplate in place. I've thought about hot-gluing the damn thing on but I'm sure the minute I did that the battery would somehow die. Yet another example of, "I'm sure this looked good on a CAD program but did anyone actually test this design?"

Ignoring conventional packing techniques, I spent my morning going to areas where I "keep things" and throwing those things into bags until the bags were full. That's how I knew I was done packing. Mason seemed to be underfoot every step of the way; rollerskating in the kitchen, doing handstands in the living room, and spinning circles in the hallway. While Morgan has both feet firmly planted in the terrible twos, Mason has graduated to the age of back talking. "Why do I have to do that? Why doesn't Morgan have to do that? How come I can't have that? Mommy let's me do that." It is a constant, grating annoyance. I now understand where the phrase "because I said so," comes from, and why parents say it so often. I ended up with five bags this trip: my laptop, a briefcase, my suitcase, my CPAP, and a small plastic sack with a few books, magazines and DVDs in it. As Mason cartwheeled around the house I carried the first two bags out to the truck and came back for the last load. I grabbed the suitcase and my CPAP and asked Mason to carry the plastic sack out to the truck. "But why do *I* always have to carry stuff?" he whined. And I let him have it. All my frustrations exploded out of me and hit him squarely. I grabbed the bag from his hands and continued to vent all the way out to the truck. "NO, you don't have to carry ANYTHING," I shouted. I didn't stop there. "I'm SO SORRY to ask you to carry a bag for me," I continued, as Mason shuffled along behind me. I threw my bags angrily into the truck and noticed Mason wasn't behind me any longer. He was standing in the driveway. Crying. Alone. I walked over to him and got down on my knees. He hugged me and I too began crying. We tried to apologize to each other but we were both crying so hard no words would come out. Eventually I stood. Mason reached his hand up and held on to mine. We walked, hand in hand, over to his side of the truck. After shutting the door, I walked around to the rear of the truck where he couldn't see me, and I collapsed. I buried my head in shame in my hands. What have I done. What have I done. After a moment alone I composed myself and got in the truck. Mason said he was sorry about the sack and I said I was sorry for yelling about it. We went through McDonald's and got some breakfast and took the long way to work. I hope Mason is able to forget about this morning. I know I never will.

...and on the road again. Monday afternoon I'm headed to Dallas for a week-long work-related training course. I finally finished unpacking everything from my Vegas trip yesterday; all the clothes from my suitcase went from my suitcase into the washer/dryer and back into the same suitcase to next week's trip. In the six days I've been home since Vegas I've been able to catch up with friends and squeeze in quite a bit of family time. One thing I've noticed over the past few days is while I missed the kids terribly while I was gone, I also seemed to have lost my tolerance for the continual noise levels they produce. Hotel rooms, while sometimes lonely, are also nice and quiet. While I do of course enjoy being around the kids, I think twelve days was long enough to forget exactly what it was like. During my Vegas excursion I picked up several videogame-related books and DVDs, most of which I haven't had the opportunity to check out yet. I'm taking them all to Dallas with me next week in hopes of diving in to at least some of them while I'm there. My buddy Justin only lives about 15 minutes from where my class is so I plan on hanging out with him quite a bit next week, but if I hit any dead time I should have a bevy of entertainment with me to keep me busy. To follow up on my last post about spam mail ... I had as much luck training Spam Terrier as I've had with training dogs in real life (which is to say, none at all). After uninstalling and searching the web I found SpamBrave, which essentially promises to do the same thing Spam Terrier promised. The difference being, SpamBrave worked for me the moment I installed it. Immediately after running the program's setup file, SpamBrave began filtering all my incoming spam into a separate folder. I would estimate that out of the box it's had a 99% accuracy rate. No spam has slipped through, and the only false positives it's detected were on messages that, quite honestly, looked like spam (broadcast messages from businesses I've bought things from, for example). The free (but time-limited) version of SpamBrave worked so well that it convinced me to pay the $29.95 and get a registered copy. The decrease in spam is definitely worth the price of admission.

Between all the e-mail accounts I have funneling into Outlook I am now approaching 200 spam messages a day. I've written several mail rules that filter a lot of those incoming messages directly into my trash pile, but dozens of them are still getting through. Fed up with constantly deleting messages, I set out Tuesday to find a program that would help me with spam. The first program I found was Spam Terrier, which had the two major features I was looking for: it works with Outlook Express, and it's free. I quickly downloaded and installed the program, which integrates directly into Outlook Express. At the top of my mail window I now have a few additional buttons, including "Mark as Spam" and "Mark as Not Spam." According to the documentation, once the program "learns" what is and isn't spam, it will automatically begin filtering junk mail out for me. The program is incredibly simple to set up and configure. So far, I've only run into one problem. It hasn't caught a single spam e-mail. Not one. I've even cranked the program's slider up to "delete everything that could possibly be spam" which comes with a caveat that it might also have quite a few false positives ... nothing. Offers for viagra, fake watches and loans continue to roll in at their usual pace. I haven't decided if I haven't given Spam Terrier enough time to learn, or if this is simply a case of getting what you pay for. I'll give the ol' dog a week before taking him back to the pound. EDIT: After searching Google I found lots of other people having the same problem. It's like having a guard dog that's always asleep. Pointless. Looks like it's back to the drawing board. Stupid mutt.

My pix -- http://www.robohara.com/albums/cge2k7

I got back from Defcon yesterday (1,100 miles, each way) and quickly made the transition back to work today. The week of sleep deprivation caught up with me; I shuffled my way through work today and am getting ready for bed right now, shortly before 10pm. I can and will post a complete summary of Defcon in the very near future, but until then I would like to tell you one major observation/revelation I had during this past weekend. During the convention I realized that a very small percentage of the people at Defcon were "doers" while the vast majority were "followers". Out of the 8,000+ people who attended Defcon, only 100 or so were speakers. Obviously, Defcon is just a tiny subset of society, and this ratio (to some degree) carries over to just about any industry. For example, there are only a few people making movies but millions of people who watch them. Something clicked in my brain this past weekend and it became very clear to me that I want to begin focusing my efforts on creating things.

After sunset, temperatures in the New Mexico desert can reach "cool" or almost "chilly" -- although apparently the experience can be negated by sleeping in the back of one's Chevy Avalanche, at which point the experience can more accurately be described as "sweaty" or "muggy." Good times ...

CGE2K7: Link Dad's Visit: Link