Archive for the 'Friends & Family' Category
To all the fellas out there that don’t shoot blanks and can actually “father” a child, this day’s for you! Happy Father’s Day!
I hope that all of you dads out there cherish the kids you have helped bring into this world. Know that children are a blessing. True, they may get on your nerves from time to time, but take a minute to think about what your life would be without them. You would be nothing without your kids. Sure, you think your life would be easier, you’d have more time for you and your own selfish gains, but is that really a worthy sacrifice? Would you give up your kids so you would have more fun, or so you think?! I doubt it!
I have nieces, cousins, friends with kids, etc. that I get to spend time with. Sure, they look at me and give me those big “I love you” eyes. They’re cute as hell. They want to be near to you, sit with you, play with you, but I can guarantee you that they don’t look at me the same way they look at their parents. That’s what you need to cherish! The love your kids have for you, the way they look at you, cry for you, and long to do things with you! That’s the good stuff…
So, on this special day for dads, take a minute to really look into your child’s eyes. Look into their heart and soul, and see the love they have for you. If you really take that deep look and can see what you mean to them, I can almost promise you’d see your children from a different perspective from now on.
Kids are a blessing, cherish them…
Until next time…
So, I am already behind on my journaling for the month of June. But, I have a really good excuse… Or so I think.
Friday evening, my brother-in-law and cousin-in-law (can’t I just claim them as brother and cousin?!) came over for the weekend. We hung out playing World of Warcraft (WoW), listening to music, and we spent quite a bit of time making a beat for an upcoming song. We went to bed around 4:30AM Saturday morning.
Saturday morning, Caleb, a.k.a. Nfinight (damn, he was young in that photo), a.k.a. brother-in-law, and I started a new character on WoW. We both were running a Dwarf Hunter for the Alliance. Caleb started his character before me but we had a great time doing some quests, grinding, training animals to be our pets, and exploring.
Saturday afternoon, I had a birthday party to attend for my niece, Cami. I also had a work function to attend. I got home from both around 7:00PM and played some more WoW with Nfinight. A little while later, Paul, a.k.a. P.Q., Big Shteve, and Josh, a.k.a. Piano Man, came over and we did some recording on a song we started the day I broke my hand. We may not have made a lot of progress Saturday evening, but we had a great time hanging out. Oh, and I also became a Human Saltshaker Saturday evening, but that’s a whole different story altogether… Needless to say, we stayed up until around 5:30AM Sunday morning just kicking it.
Sunday… Ah, yes… Sunday. A day for rest and relaxation. I kind of went back to some old school traditions yesterday and didn’t do any kind of work… I mean, it was the Sabbath, right?! I guess it depends on which religion you ask. It could be Saturday or it could be Sunday. Either way, I didn’t do any type of work yesterday. I played WoW all day! From the time that I woke up until the time I went to bed… WoW! Or, WOW I played a lot of WoW!
So, I did miss a couple of days on my June promise, but here is a recap that should make up for the two days I missed… I will try to come up with enough content, technology, gaming, or related to me personally, to get 31 posts this month. I promise! Who cares you ask?! ME!!! And that, kids, should be all that matters.
Until next time…
… and the vacation is officially over…
I arrived home this morning around 3:30AM CDT from a 5 night, 6 day trip to Goodyear, Arizona. I was visiting a good friend of mine, Bruce (Photo), and had an excellent time. We saw many cool sites, including Tombstone, AZ, which I am very excited about. I will be posting some photos of my trip (as well as the technical articles I promised earlier) on here soon. Right now, I am in the process of getting over the jet lag and trying to unpack and get ready for work tomorrow… Yep, ladies and gentlemen, much appreciated readers, and all .00834 of the rest of you who don’t fall into either of these categories, the vacation is over.
On the last night of my trip in Arizona, Bruce thought it would be a cool idea to do some low light photography. We both learned a little bit about our cameras capabilities, how to adjust settings for aperture, shutter speeds, etc., and had a great time to boot. Below are a few shots of the Estrella Mountain Range and a stop on the road to Cleator, AZ and Crown King, AZ (more on these two towns later).
Thanks to this little fun time in Arizona, I have started a photo set on my Flickr page devoted to Low Light Photography.
Until next time…
That’s right, kids. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Today, I turned 30 years old. People have been calling, texting, e-mailing, etc. to wish me a happy birthday and I truly appreciate it. It pays to have friends that remember you, even on insignificant days like you’re birthday. I mean, what is a birthday?! It’s a day that shows you that you survived one more year. It’s really just another day. Do I feel any older?! Uh, no! I’ve felt old since I started balding at age 17. I’ve felt old since my knees have been killing me since 4th grade. When what little bit of my hair started turning gray, I felt old. Today, I feel alive!
I look at today as the beginning of a whole new era in my life. A lot of things that have been going on for a while are finally getting to a point where I can begin to deal with them. I look forward to getting on with my life, no matter the direction. A lot of the things going on right now will help me determine my steps in the days and years to come. I look forward to getting everything in place. I am going to make every attempt to be more productive when I am not at my day job. Today is a new day and a whole new chapter in my book of life.
Once again, thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday. Thanks to everyone who has been thinking of me and praying for me. I truly believe friends are what makes the world go around and I am extremely blessed by all the friends I am surrounded by.
Until next time…
I have known about the Metasploit framework for quite some time but have never really known how to use it or taken the time to learn. Recently, Chris inspired me to try it by showing me a movie explaining how to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows related to the .ANI Header Stack Overflow Vulnerability (more on this in my next post).
Before I could begin working with this nifty little exploit in Metaspolit I had to get the framework installed on my MacBook. Metasploit is a suite of Ruby scripts and will run on virtually any Unix based operating system and Windows (with some minor tweaking). I checked the MacPorts for Metasploit and it was available as a port install but the latest version in the ports tree was 2.7. I needed at least version 3.0, and later determined I needed a development version, version 3.1, from the trunk to get the exploit I was after.
The first thing I did was upgrade my Subversion client on Mac OS X. I got the universal binary from here and installing and upgrading my Subversion was pretty painless. It installed like most other Mac applications from a package.
Flickr Updates
