Wednesday, at 7:20am, at about 45th and Burnet, my Dodge turned over the 100,000 milestone. When I pulled over to take a picture of the moment, I realized that one of my headlights were out. Fortunately, the sun was rising, and I didn't have to drive a winking car for long.

After work, I stopped by the local parts store and picked up a pair of replacement bulbs. The clerk was super nice and showed me on my car how to remove and replace the bulbs. He even described how to remove some of the engine parts to gain better access to the driver's side bulb.

I went home, grabbed my tools, and got to work replacing the headlight lamps. I had feared that removing the air cleaner lid and snorkel seemed would be much more of a chore than it turned out to be, so I ended up doing that side first. The bulb came out like expected, was changed and reinstalled in a minute. Everything even got put back together without any loss of parts.
( And then things go south... )

I spent a lovely day today at a virus remediation seminar. It really was a lovely day -- I just spent it indoors, learning about malware vectors and registry exploits, rootkit scanners and encryption extortion.

Frankly, it's something I normally only dip my toe into now and again, but I took this opportunity to get caught up with best practices and learn what happens and why with the latest viruses, trojans, and botnets. I wasn't disappointed. Along with my new-found understanding of the registry, I have a handful of new tools and techniques to attack the malware that seems to be plaguing my office. The whole experience really spoke to my inner geek.

I am, however, way more paranoid than I was only yesterday. This is probably a Good Thing.

The best thing that came out of it was the realization that it's really easy to prevent most infections and otherwise escape infection without major expense. Here's a summary of malware protection "best practices":
1) Keep regular backup images of operating disks and multiple automated backups of all data.
  -- Seriously. The danger of losing expensive applications and valuable data is extreme: any or all can be corrupted or destroyed with a little effort. There is no fallback position better than a recent disk image and a folder of registered software keys.
2) Keep everything up to date all the time.
  -- So many malware vectors depend on outdated versions of the system or helper programs (like Flash and Java), there simply is no better method of virus prevention than keeping up with updates. Run update utilities regularly.
3) Don't wait for symptoms to appear: run in-depth malware scans regularly from an alternate operating system. 
  -- Malware writers don't want their victims to notice the infection. Active prevention applications are valuable, but cannot match the effectiveness of a foreign OS scan. Most modern antivirus packages include such a feature.

I cook fairly regularly, maybe on average two or three meals a week when we're eating at home (like we're supposed to). I can make a variety of things without a recipe, but I enjoy going off of these Cook's Country recipe cards. Either way, I'm accustomed to making something tasty and enjoyable. When that doesn't happen, it's a bit of a shock.

Like tonight: I was trying out a marsala pork dish for the first time. I had to go around to a couple of stores to find the marsala wine. Unfortunately, I put in way more onions than was palatable and the whole thing ended up in the trash. We ended up eating Thundercloud sandwiches.

I hate onions. I hate eating them, I hate prepping them. There's a brief moment when you're cooking them that they make a nice tonic note against meaty smells -- or in this case, marsala -- and I almost thought it would turn out well. Ugh. Next time, much less onion, maybe substitute with shallots. And maybe some cream would give it some smoothness.

After much anticipation, this weekend didn't go as well as I would have liked.

A couple of weeks ago, I found out about a local band that plays popular Brazilian music, and since I've been obsessed with Brazilian music for some time, I looked forward to going. I even convinced my wife to go with me and made a big deal about making arrangements for the kid so we could go.

I had never heard or heard of the band before, but my experience with seeing live music here in Austin is that there is so much diversity and competition here, that you have to be pretty good to get a gig. Perhaps because it's such a novel niche, this didn't hold true.

( Details, details )

Zoe had recently seen, and was explaining, "A Christmas Carol" to me. "Like, there's a Ghost of Christmas Past, and he's pretty mean. But there's also, like, a Ghost of Christmas Presents. I think I like him."

After finding out there was a Ghost of Christmas Presents, it was all she was able to think about, to the point that I don't think she knows what happened in the rest of the story. She wasn't even aware there was a Ghost of Christmas Future. I didn't ask about Tiny Tim.

It has been my intention to take Zoe to a Christian communion service at the point when I felt she was ready to grasp it. This evening, my family, including my parents, all went to an Episcopalian Christmas Eve service together. We got to hear a really good choir sing for a half-hour beforehand, and observed a remarkably standard communion service. They had the requisite super-organ and enthusiastic choir, but also trumpets and timpani drums, so it was the standard service, with great music.

( Read more... )

We got a really great report back from one of our clients this week, and it's one of those things that make us feel that all the work we put into what we do really makes a difference.

For those who aren't aware, or may have forgotten, I work at a vet allergy lab where we test and treat allergies in dogs, cats, and horses. Periodically, we get requests to test other mammals in zoos. Last year, we got a request from a small zoo in New Jersey to test one of their bears that suffered seasonal hair loss.



Our test showed that this critter was allergic to sweet potatoes. When seasonal allergies came around, the combination was just too much for her system, resulting in lots of scratching and hair loss. Her keepers eliminated sweet potato and this year, when seasonal allergies came around again -- no hair loss!



We see this with dogs and horses all the time, but somehow, seeing the improvement in this massive animal has greater weight. It's a great feeling to know we can help so many animals (and their owners)!

It was a nice day yesterday.

I had lunch with my parents and my brother at Hai Ky. All the ladies at work sang "Happy Birthday" to me and gave me a nice card. My wife and daughter joined me at Hill's Cafe where we had bacon wrapped steak. Later, after we'd been home a while, I had a slice of pumpkin pie.

My daughter presented me with a folder stuffed with manilla drawing paper, each one a "happy birthday" card from a select group of 3rd graders: her friends. It was unexpected and surprisingly jarred my emotions to get that kind of attention.

We finally allowed ourselves to get a PS3 over the weekend. Games and Netflix streaming and Blue-Ray movies! We got it with a few pre-owned games and the single controller it comes with. My brother gave me a game for it, and with the birthday cash from my parents, I was able to get another controller and another game. So nice to have a proper game system for the enormous TV. Last night, Zoe and I were able to play a game together for the first time on the new system.

It was a good day.

This morning on the way to school, my daughter asked me if it was possible to accidentally write a virus. Sometimes, she asks me to tell her what I did at work, and I try to give her a generalized summary. Usually, this is a one-shot conversation, but today it sparked a bit more.

I've been slowly introducing her to programming, and we've done a couple of exercises that help her to see what's happening when a computer runs code. I think this has sparked her interest and now she's trying to work her way through her concerns and fears about it. I can totally see a novice being strongly concerned that they might accidentally write a virus -- especially if they have no idea what's involved!

At her school, they've started a 'tech' project, where for an hour a week, they learn about computers. Basic terms, anatomy, and functionality of component parts: since she's had a computer in her room since she was four, I'm afraid this is just going to bore her to death. They eventually go to using Office software, which she's used since kindergarten, to create simple, small documents. This is a prelude to a "research project" she'll be doing next semester, resulting in a printed document and a power-point slide.

We spent last weekend making stop-action animation movies with legos. Really, it was mostly Zoe doing all the work once I got her started. She has a nifty still/video camera that she got from her grandma that takes clean photos and easily loads the results to her computer. From there, she's learned how to assemble her movie, alter the stills in Gimp, and add audio. All of the experimentation with different techniques ended up with her making a half-dozen 30-second clips.

The best clip reprises the death of Dr. Who scene from this latest season. At the climactic moment, a blue cloud issues from the astronaut's arm and knocks the Doctor back. I acted as adviser on this one, but she did all the placement, camera work, and aftereffects herself.

So this week at school, she starts a new after school program on Wednesdays. Care to guess? That's right: video production. We put her best clips on a CD to give to the instructor when she shows up. I hope it's still fun for her.

It was a remarkable daddy-daughter weekend, but it ended on a sour note.

Saturday was full of errands and adventure. I took Zoe to deposit money she had saved into her savings account, and we paid off our library fines and snagged a few books. Then, we went to Birds for haircuts. She got bangs to fix up the forehead pompom she got at camp -- just in time for picture day!

We went out to eat lunch at our favorite place (for the first time since last Spring) and went to Target to claim her prizes for doing her chores so well. Later that evening, we went to see a performance of Jungle Book at Austin High School, where Zoe got to sit with her friend from summer camp, Hanno.

( More adventures... )

The Internet continues to evolve, and my participation along with it. There are now many outlets for me to use for writing my thoughts. When I began blogging on LJ, it was my singular spot for my Internet expression. I posted links to essays I felt were remarkable, but generally only when I had something to say about it. Some posts were like letters back to the old hometown: here's where I am, here's what I'm doing. Some were memorial of a sad or joyeous event. And it was stimulating because there were these others who would frequently write their thoughts and observations and memorials. Then Facebook came around and suddenly LJ was very, very quiet. I started posting newslinks with little winks and jabs. Pretty soon, I was posting links with great frequency. Then the game shifted again.

I'll be the first to admit that my Android phone is a big reason I've embraced G+. It's easier to read news and commentary and keep up with stuff that interests me, and then it's easier to post links and tell other folks what I've found. Posting to FB from my phone was a continuous nightmare. I got to where I would always hit a desktop browser if I wanted to post anything to FB. With G+, I can post whatever length of text I wish -- although I try to stay below 100 words.

Now I am slowly abandoning Facebook for Google+, If nothing else, there's a lot more of what I like and a lot less of what I don't. I still post here, but only when I want to write a more lengthy post, or connect several links in a single post. I've also got a religion & culture blog, but I let my politics blog lapse -- I just don't manufacture enough personal bile to keep something like that going. As it is, I post my links on G+, family pictures on FB, political essays here, and cultural essays on Pokey Finger. It's a good arrangement for me at the moment.

While I settle, I'm seeing many others are still taking this time for readjustment: breaking old connectings and creating new ones. I'm hoping to keep track of the new URLs and keep some of these links alive. G+ probably has a tool for that.

PS: Whenever my daughter and I are talking, and she asks me a question I don't have an answer for, her quick response is now, "Well, look it up! You have the Internet right there!" while pointing at my phone. I couldn't have imagined, at her age, that the state of technology would have become like what we have today.