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not forgotten

It’s been some time since I last posted here but despite that, I’ve certainly not forgotten about this journal. My life is really pretty much in a very deep groove of repetition with only incremental changes that infrequently occur. I suppose that this is a good thing since it provides one with comfort and familiarity as befits my personality.

_MG_9186.jpgOne of the major life milestones that I can post would be things like Sarah’s graduation from Middle School to High School. It’s really odd to think that she’s starting this phase of her life already. The thought that Shirley and I are parents to a high school student are somewhat unsettling in that it brings fore where we are in our lives. Although I can and often do think quite deeply on things, I still have trouble disassociating myself from the person I was in earlier days. The fact that one of my children is walking the final years from child to young adult really highlights the reality.

I am still trying to make time to get more of the old photos into the Gallery. I think this will continue for some time as I am usually caught up in my reading whenever I have a spare moment. I’ve even relegated getting my big gaming box back up to running to the back burner thanks to my all consuming obsession with reading. There are some geeky projects that need more attention sooner rather than later though. The drive where the websites are located on is showing unhappy fsck results and I think that it’s time to change it. That means running a full backup of the sites and then downing the server for the replacement. Thankfully, most of the drives out today are very cheap. I hope to get that done in the next few weeks.

I’m starting to gear up for the coming faire season’s photography. I also have some family events for friends that I will be providing photography services for as well. I recently acquired a Sekonic L-358 Flash Master light meter. Now all I have to do is actually work out how to use it. So far in some basic testing I’ve done it seems that the light meter is providing readings that appear darker when shot with my Canon 40D. I need to spend some more time getting used to the combination and then hopefully start to get some improvement in my photos.

Mom and Dad are visiting right now. With the improving weather outlook for this week, I hope that they get some more chances to hit the links. We were out at Wildwood yesterday and we spent the day with the girls with the earlier part of the morning on the beach and the remainder of the day on the boardwalk. It was a nice family day.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m going to try and improve the posting frequency as well as getting more coherent material to write but we’ll see as time goes on right?

Posted in Biography, Family, Parenting, Thoughts. Tagged with , , , .

By merana
6/24/2009

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Ya gotta give to get

I’ve been reading ALOT lately. Not formally published stuff but rather, fiction written by largely unknown authors. Their work brings me much pleasure while at the same time humbling me. Some of the stories I have read are fairly short (around 100 pages long) while some others are truly massive in scope and scale (over 2 million words). The quality of the writing also varies but for the most part the stories are engaging and allow me an escape into other lives, times and places. The ideas and outlooks presented in the stories are also captivating. While I do not always agree with what I read and how it is presented, I am open minded enough to simply accept what is given and to then extract my own meaning from them. Some concepts (like the title of this post) while simplistic, are quite universal and often evoke moments of epiphany for me. In my present stage of life, I am gladdened by my continued ability to look past my current views and to see things in new angles and in so doing continue to grow as a person.

I suppose that the satisfaction I feel from all of my reading stems from my loneliness. Not that I am short of company in either my proffessional or personal life, but rather that I haven’t developed any relationships with others similar to those I have had in my past. While I have made greater efforts to expand and deepen communications between Shirley and I, there is still a void that I cannot explain. I feel the emptiness and I am disgusted with the self pity that I feel. I have so much to be thankfull for yet I cannot seem to find solace in what I have been so graciously given. I try not to let it affect me in how I interact with others but I cannot help but suspect that I continue to lose my ability to improve relations with others because of this unsettled state.

Aside from the moaning and groaning, life does proceed quite well. Sarah is still happy with her violin lessons and has recently earned recognition from her school and our township school district for her efforts. Her star student achievements brought me great pride in her as my daughter and as the person she is growing up to be. Madison’s made it into the Honors Choir program and even got a small solo in last nights concert. Shirley is happy (for the most part) in her job as am I. The challenges at work contiue and the pace has helped to move my life through this year with alacrity.

I hope that as the year continues onwards that I will be able to resolve some degrees of my condition and despite the seemingly grey outlook, I remain hopeful.

Posted in Biography. Tagged with , .

By merana
3/27/2009

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Slashdot | Cybercrime-As-a-Service Takes Off

via Slashdot | Cybercrime-As-a-Service Takes Off.

This is wrong. Not on the ethical level (although it scream so) as much as the whole concept of cracking. The fostering of script kiddies retards their ability to discern the systems they work on as a whole. Old school hackers/crackers would usually proble and actually ‘learn’ about their subjects and in so doing could develop an appropriate level of ‘respect’ for the scope of their subject. By giving this kind of a crutch to those who do not have the ‘work-ethic’ and empowering them, we unleash a horde of gremlins into a world that is heavily interdependent on the various systems that run it.

I suppose that’s perhaps the older (hopefully wiser) me, and the revised position on anarchy as opposed to the younger wilder one. * sigh *

Posted in Opinion, Security, Thoughts, g33ky. Tagged with , , .

By merana
3/13/2009

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Sports and humanity

I got into a loooong comment discussion on Facebook about this topic and it was frustrating trying to get a coherent thought string put together with the comment limitations on posts there. So, I will continue to bent here. Joules posted about it first and after first reading it I had to think a bit. As much as I admire Joules and all of the similar opinions we share we are diametrically opposed on this matter.

Read this article first (apologies for incomplete references):

DALLAS — A Texas high school girls basketball team on the winning end of a 100-0 game has a case of blowout remorse.

Now officials from The Covenant School say they are trying to do the right thing by seeking a forfeit and apologizing for the margin of victory.

Samantha Peloza grabs a rebound in practice a week after their 100-0 loss.
“It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened,” Kyle Queal, the head of the school, said in a statement, adding the forfeit was requested because “a victory without honor is a great loss.”

The private Christian school defeated Dallas Academy last week. Covenant was up 59-0 at halftime.

A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers — even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.

“I think the bad judgment was in the full-court press and the 3-point shots,” said Renee Peloza, whose daughter plays for Dallas Academy. “At some point, they should have backed off.”

Dallas Academy coach Jeremy Civello told The Dallas Morning News that the game turned into a “layup drill,” with the opposing team’s guards waiting to steal the ball and drive to the basket. Covenant scored 12 points in the fourth quarter and “finally eased up when they got to 100 with about four minutes left,” he said.

Dallas Academy has eight girls on its varsity team and about 20 girls in its high school. It is winless over the last four seasons. The academy boasts of its small class sizes and specializes in teaching students struggling with “learning differences,” such as short attention spans or dyslexia.

There is no mercy rule in girls basketball that shortens the game or permits the clock to continue running when scores become lopsided. There is, however, “a golden rule” that should have applied in this contest, said Edd Burleson, the director of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools. Both schools are members of this association, which oversees private school athletics in Texas.

“On a personal note, I told the coach of the losing team how much I admire their girls for continuing to compete against all odds,” Burleson said. “They showed much more character than the coach that allowed that score to get out of hand. It’s up to the coach to control the outcome.”

In the statement on the Covenant Web site, Queal said the game “does not reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition. We humbly apologize for our actions and seek the forgiveness of Dallas Academy, TAPPS and our community.”

Covenant coach Micah Grimes did not immediately respond to a message left by The Associated Press on Thursday.

Queal said school officials met with Dallas Academy officials to apologize and praised “each member of the Dallas Academy Varsity Girls Basketball team for their strength, composure and fortitude in a game in which they clearly emerged the winner.”

Civello said he appreciated the gesture and has accepted the apology “with no ill feelings.”

At a shootaround Thursday, several Dallas Academy players said they were frustrated during the game but felt it was a learning opportunity. They also said they are excited about some of the attention they are receiving from the loss, including an invitation from Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to see an NBA game from his suite.

“Even if you are losing, you might as well keep playing,” said Shelby Hyatt, a freshman on the team. “Keep trying, and it’s going to be OK.”

Peloza said the coach and other parents praised the Dallas Academy girls afterward for limiting Covenant to 12 points in the fourth quarter. She added that neither her daughter nor her teammates seemed to dwell on the loss.

“Somewhere during that game they got caught up in the moment,” Peloza said of the Covenant players, fans and coaches. “Our girls just moved on. That’s the happy part of the story.”

Continued…

Posted in Opinion, Thoughts, rant. Tagged with , , .

By merana
1/26/2009

1 comment

Detached Spectator

_MG_4042.jpg

I feel strangely detached today. I guess I always tend to get this feeling when I look at other peoples photos. I ran into a set of them on Facebook today that brought on the emotion. I saw lots of people I know casually through the faire and I saw them in their lives outside of the frame of reference I knew them in. I saw and felt the emotions in the photos. The joy, abandon, caring, and joi de vive that they lived. I look and that and I look back on my life and look for things to compare them to and I am left quite bereft of any equivalents.

I suppose, the fact that a lot of the photos had them all socializing and sharing times with one another over a bottle of something or other, but then there were also times of intimacy and pure cameraderie. Or so the pictures tell. Since I do not really drink, I would have still been a bystander as such events (as I always have been) and would have witnessed such goings on with the same detachment that I feel today. I can’t understand what it would be like to simply drink until I felt numb. The only times I’ve ever done that have been disastrous at best and near fatal at worst. Hence the thought of partaking to any level above a sampling sip is quite beyond me. So does this mean that I will never be a real participant in any such activities other than as the bystander? And is that really so bad? Perhaps my longing is mirrors the old saw of; ‘The grass is always greener on the other side’…

I believe that I am become the product of my reclusiveness. I find it hard to think about breaking from my routine of going to work and then coming home to spend my time in relative solitude apart from the company of my wife and children. I had trouble seeing myself in social situations outside of the norms that have been established. I hope to break from this a bit more this year. Once the weather warms I want to get out and spend some time shooting on my own. To plug into my music and wander places with my camera and to record the things that I feel while I walk alone. Perhaps in that way, I can atleast share something of myself with others that will help me become more than just another silouette standing off to the side in a crowd.

Posted in Biography, Thoughts. Tagged with , .

By merana
1/19/2009

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It’s Baaaack. Oregon, Once Again, Pursuing GPS Driving Tax | Techdirt

via It’s Baaaack. Oregon, Once Again, Pursuing GPS Driving Tax | Techdirt.

What the heck goes through legislators heads when ideas like this come up. I understand the driver behind it but I would expect that with improvements in toll collection automation, that they would instead go that route rather than this cocamamie scheme.

Posted in Opinion, Thoughts. Tagged with , , .

By merana
12/31/2008

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Moving right along

Wow. Has December every just raced right by like this one… Just a few days away from New Year’s Day and  it has hardly felt like the month has even had a chance to unfold. I’ve got two days of work then New Years followed by the Mummers Parade shoot and then one day of work to break stuff up in between. I need to get some kind of a warm cap to wear for that walk today as well as some other knick-knacks and then burrow right back into the house for the rest of Sunday.

Odd weather outside right now. It’s actually over 60 degrees F right now. Strange but no unwelcome. I even got in a five mile walk while carrying my loaded camera bag yesterday. With any luck I can keep that kind of excersize up into the new year as well. I need to get outside and scoop out some of the leaves that are causing the pond net to sink. I think I’ll also try using some tent pegs to pin the edges down instead of just the rocks.

Hope your Yule was good and that the New Year looks equally promising.

Posted in Uncategorized. Tagged with , , .

By merana
12/28/2008

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Rapid slide

That’s what December feels like. I can’t believe were’re already half way through the month. Every day seems like a breath in a very fast race. I’m trying to think of how to sum up what life’s like at this moment and it’s a struggle. Everything is normal and in general pretty good. We’ve got challenges and trials ahead of us but who doesn’t? In fact, looking at our lives right now I can’t say that we’re actually lacking for anything. The girls are all healthy and in fine spirits (aside from the normal every day hormonal episodes so common in our household), my car is back to running in fine form. Work is challenging and rewarding and I look forward to going to it everyday (aside from the commute back home).

I’m spending a good deal of time on Facebook and although I could write these entries as Notes there I choose to keep them on my own server. I’ve been blogging for a long while now and I can’t see stopping or breaking from my routine. Oh, sure the platforms may change but so far, I’ve always tried to keep all of my entries on my own server (with brief exceptions in the earlier days). Its fair to say that Facebook is pretty much where my social life is. I get to interact with others I know and in many cases also get to know them better as well. Although I am forced to wonder how well I would do in interacting with the live people behind the profiles.

I suppose one of the things I am dealing with now is my own attitudes towards others. I am a very driven person and since I really don’t have much of a social life I have the luxury of being pretty much focused on my own geekiness full time. Hence I spend a great deal of my time esconced in many technologies that are both applicable to work and to my career. I don’t really have an ‘off‘ button for my work persona; It’s more like a ‘suspend‘ mode but everything still goes through that work/professional filter. Couple this with the fact that I tend to pick stuff up very quickly and that usually results in the person that most others in a class or office setting get to hate. The person who blows the bell curve or becomes the ‘fair haired boy‘ of the office. It also makes me uber critical of folks who talk a good game but can’t really play at the level they profess to be. As archaic as it may sound, I like ‘titles‘ in the work place. They put things into a sense of order and when matched properly to function and relationship to the organization, can go a long way towards helping make the organization more efficient. It also allows for a personal and professional growth by helping to identify gaps in skills, knowledge and experience that can then be used to help the individuals within the organization to move forward in an orderly manner. Hence, when I see people mistitled in an organization, it makes me a bit nuts (to say the least). Especially when individuals who are clearly unable to meet the definition of the title walk about blithely claiming a right to it’s use.

This ‘impersonation’ is harmful to everyone. It denigrates those individuals who have won the right of use through years of hard work and study, and the people who would go to such a person for help. It even harms the individuals who masquerade the role in that they will usually end up in a place where they are expected to perform per the role only to be revealed as in capable in a very public setting. Then their organization suffers even more in the ensuing chaos. The faith of the customer base, both internal and external, then fall leading to poor interrelationships within business units.

In case you’re wondering, I am dealing with this situation today. And that’s enough said about that….

We watched Step Brothers last night and I think I lost IQ points. There were some funny moments but in general, I found watching it to be an excersize in discomfort. I’m glad we didn’t buy that one or go to the theaters to watch it. Tonight we’ll watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Now that we’re back to actually watching movies at home again, I think I’ll restart the Netflix subscription. Renting from Blockbuster is just too damned expensive. Just those two movies is almost over ten bucks!

Well… That’s enough dawdling for now.. Time to start diving my log files with Splunk! Happy Monday all.

Posted in IT Management, Opinion. Tagged with , , .

By merana
12/15/2008

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Thoughts on Twilight

Twilight the movie

Twilight the movie

Ok, those of you who know me to any degree are probably asking “Why did you go see that?” Well, the answer is simple, I wanted to and so did Shirley. Sharing time together for us sans kids is a very rare and special thing. We get to forget about being Mom and Dad and simply become our selves again. It’s absolutely refreshing and energizing.

The movie itself was liked well enough by both of us. I haven’t read the book but I think I am going to. Perhaps even the whole series. I am curious to paint the pictures with my own imagination. The faces of the characters defined by the actors but the scenes themselves crafted from my own comprehension of what the author presents. For the movie itself, I like what was presented. I struggled with some material with respect to how it was interpreted or delivered but then, I did not know how it was laid out in the book. For example, the turmoil that Edward Cullen displays through out the movie was unsettling. Not in the material but rather the presentation. I would imagine that a being that chronologically old would have more ‘maturity’ and that although the turmoil/angst was experienced, that it would not manifest so physically. The earlier aversion during their first class together would have been as far as I felt that physical presentation of that conflit to show. Later displays seemed brash to me. Not a failure on Robert Pattinson’s performance as much as perhaps the direction.

I was surprised to see that Kristen Stewart’s character very much mirrored what she was like during her interview on the Today show. I guess the casting got it right for that part. Her own performance in this was satisfying and terrifying in its own way. I have a fourteen year old who is soon to come into that moody phase and watching the performance held a dual sense of anxiety for me personally. That and the fact that I have a total of three occasions to go through that whole cycle.

The plot and story lines were also appealing. I like the tie in with the native tribes and the juxtaposition of the age old wolves vs bats enimity throwin into the mix. Casting overall was really well done. I found all players in the roles to be marvelous and did not break my enjoyment of the film as a whole. I see that the sequel is already in pre-production with a planned release date in 2010. If opinions were backed with dollars in this hard worn economy, then the fact that we will also go to see the sequel should prove the sincerity of mine.

Posted in Family, Opinion, Thoughts. Tagged with , , .

By merana
12/11/2008

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Productive and Passive

Here I sit. Just waiting for my front wheel to get re-mounted to a new rim. This will end a spate of productivity over the last few days. In this past weekend we managed to get the leaves out of the back yard and the front planter, get the lights put out, finish all of Kelly’s headshot edits, burn the DVD with the images, visit the Doctor and get new prescriptions, and finally get the front wheel fixed. I think I deserve a reward… Maybe I’ll treat myself to go and watch Quantum of Solace… Shirley’s not really into Bond flicks so I don’t feel guilty going solo to this. That and the fact that I really don’t know too many folks in my own area that I pretty much need to go on my own to stuff like this.

Tonight more indulgence with Age of Mythology and Guitar Hero. Life is Good! :)

Posted in Biography, Guitar Hero, Thoughts, blog. Tagged with , .

By merana
11/24/2008

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