Well....

So I finally pulled the trigger and decided to get a new bike.  Didn't get a Triumph, like I thought I would, and didn't get a Harley (Not ready for that yet).

I got a VFR800.  It's the bike I wanted since I got the Katana.

I don't have pics yet, they will come when I pick my ride up, but it's 2007, low miles and candy red.  Don't think there is a better color of bike yet.

More info to come when available.

Goal accomplished...

Way back when I started my "get healthy" kick I honestly wasn't sure I'd ever get this far but today I got the Goal Accomplished achievement in Lose It.

In 5 days it will be one year since I had a cigarette.  Yes I still occasionally miss them, but not enough to start again.  Hard to believe it's been a year.  It was very hard at first but I'm so glad I quit.

Since January I have lost 91 pounds, and I'm not allowed to go to the gym right now (haven't been allowed since 8/10).  I'm really missing the gym, but I hit my initial target weight this week.  I've subsequently reset my goal to be about 10 pounds less but that should be pretty straightforward.

A lot of people ask me how I did it.   Here's what I did:

Smoking: I picked a date and quit cold turkey.  No drugs, no cheating no nothing.  Yes it sucked, yes I was an ass, yes I was crabby and yes I put on about 25 pounds quitting.  The weight pushed me to part 2 of the plan.

Weight:  I started by just changing my diet and going to the gym.  At first I just logged my weight on the phone, then i got the Lose It app which I use to track my food intake and exercise amounts.  You can see how you're doing every day.  At my peak I was going to the gym 4-5 days a week.  I cut down to 4 days and one day of Yoga with Merinda.  When I cut my arm I had to stop the gym but will start again as soon as I'm medically cleared for the gym.

I do my best to record EVERYTHING I eat.  It's ok to go over your calorie target.  It's ok to gain a little every now and then as long as your overall progress is down.  Hell, you'll have weeks where you don't lose anything and just gain.  It's the same as smoking, just keep at it, and keep working and the weight will come down.


The hardest part for me will be to keep the weight off.  That part starts now.

damn damn damn....

So the day I've dreaded for the past few years has finally come...  My CISSP has expired.  I knew it was going to happen and I did little to prevent it.

Yeah I could have proctored exams (actually after doing this once NO I CANNOT.  It's absurd that I can get 8 CPE's for watching people suffer and giving up a weekend day.  ISC explain to me how watching people take a is FURTHERING my education)...  I could have watched webinars etc...  I kept hoping to go to a conference but didn't get to go.  

So now I'm faced with two equally unpleasant decisions.  Do I buy the latest guide and go take that horrid exam again, or just do without the worthless cert, and yes I believe it is an absolutely worthless certification.

Honestly as long as I'm employed I really don't care if I have it or not, but if I need to look for a job it's going to be a challenge to get one in short order, so....  I guess I'll need to pony up the $500 and buy a cram guide or 2 and take the fucking thing again...

ARGH!

The shitty part is, one of the other guys here gets sent to RSA every year to maintain his CISSP.  If I'd been sent to a conference this year and last year I could have probably scraped together enough stupid classes to keep it.

whither linux

I don't think it would be a surprise to most people that I am a huge fan of Linux.  It is coming up on 20 years since I first installed Slackware.  I bought the cd set at a computer show and installed it on my pc.

I remember that because of my Diamond S3 card, and the "secrecy" over the timing/refresh rates I couldn't get X running and when I showed my friends they asked "so what can it do?".  They were skeptical, but I was sold.  I eventually got X working and that was that.  Fast forward 20 years and I've had laptops that run it, servers that run it and even work computers that run Linux.  Suffice to say there is little I haven't done with Linux and I've only ever used Windows for work and gaming.

There's one small problem now, I've been using a Mac at work.  I switched because my work laptop was unstable when it ran Linux.  It would randomly lock up and nothing could recover it except for a hardware reset.  I finally decided this was unacceptable for work.  I ran windows 7 in a VM for office etc... and that kept getting corrupted.  I still don't know why, but I suspect it had to do with the switchable graphics.

Anyway now that I have the mac, the more I use it the less I want to use Linux.  I have a rock solid UNIX laptop.  With other hardware I've been able to replicate this under Linux but it's required almost constant tinkering, and I'm just getting too old for that shit.  Maybe I should use a different distribution, but I do prefer source based ones.

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm the type of user Linux can ill afford to lose...

It's been a little while

Lots going on, not much writing though...

First, although I believe what the NSA is doing is unconstitutional, I have no sympathy for Edward Snowden.  He apparently planned to work for the NSA in order to expose secret programs.  That, my idealistic friend, is espionage, and as such you are screwed.

Second, if you thought what you were doing is correct, why would you travel to China, Russia, then plan to go to Cuba and Venezuela?  Hell the only places left to go are Iran and North Korea.  If you believe you're acting as a patriot you don't go to those countries for safety.

Sad to say I do not believe he acted out of idealism or patriotism, I believe he acted out of a desire to be famous.  Otherwise give the story to the New York Times, or Washington Post under a pseudonym and let the papers protect you which they have proven they will.  I doubt even the NSA would take on the first amendment.

On a different note, It's coming up on 6 months since I started back at the gym.  I've been going up and down on motivation.  Don't get me wrong I can count on one hand the number of times I've skipped going to the gym, but I'm ready to be done with dieting...  It's just a drag at times.  What keeps me going is that I have a whole closet of clothing that fits again (with a few exceptions), and I've lost most of the weight I want to.

Just need to keep myself going for another month or 2.... Then figure out how to maintain, which is something I've never been good at.

Last thing, I've decided to fix the motorcycle.  I really wanted a new one, that wouldn't require as much maintenance, but that would have meant spending money I don't think would be appropriate.  So much to my surprise I've learned all about carburetors.   Barring an idle issue, it's mostly running.  I know what I have to do, I just don't want to.  I really need to disassemble them and do a chem dip on all four. I was hoping to put that off until the fall/spring, but we'll see how it goes.  The bike runs fine, but won't hold its idle without the choke.  The reason I wanted to wait for the full rebuild was I want to ride it through the summer and get used to riding again and then tear them down, get a jet kit, advance the ignition and possibly swap out the cams.

Of course the other option is to buy a set of rebuilt ones with a jet kit installed.  I still need to sync them in that case. 

Step parents

I want to apologize to my step mother today. Yes I know it's Father's Day, and sadly Connie passed away almost 18 months ago, but maybe she will see this. 

See I've come to the realization that being a step parent is akin to getting a bucket of warm spit as a gift.  There is precious little of the joy of parenting but all of the headaches. Nobody ever calls you mom or dad, you're lucky if they even acknowledge you, that is until they need something.  Hell, you're even lucky if you get to have input on any major decisions.

Don't get me wrong I wouldn't change my life. I love my wife, and I do love the kids, but It doesn't change the fact that I'm reminded of how shitty it is to be a stepfather on Father's Day. 

And happy Father's Day dad. I love you!

Well

I've long assumed that the US Government has the ability to look inside AES encryption, and has backdoors built into every domestically produced piece of software, but I would have never expected something like Prism (if you believe it's true and I do).   I suppose I should have but I still held onto that shred of optimism that we still follow the laws of our country.

I've lost it all now.  What a fool I am.

The sad part is my wife is a UK national.  My three stepsons are all UK nationals and I'm sure all of us are under surveillance by the US government now.  After all, it only takes 51%.

We've enriched those tech companies that took part.  Google (I'm writing this on a google product and using their browser), Microsoft, Apple (using a macbook pro) etc... so that they can turn around and sell our information to the government because we might be a threat.

If my family is considered a threat to national security the US is in a whole lot of trouble.