Disability Kicked My Butt

Note: This is a public blog posting of something I put on Facebook ... I'm mostly posting this in case someone is searching for similar information on conditions they are suffering from and ESPECIALLY to help people considering Epidural Steroid Injections / ESIs for Spinal Stenosis. Find the section near the end talking about Arachnoiditis and know that if you are suffering from Stenosis I personally recommend NOT doing injections. The risk is small but once you've got it you are stuck with it. The closer the injection comes to your spinal cord the greater the chance of something going wrong.

If you have stopped by and want to ask any questions related to my conditions please leave a comment or email me

Well it is official. Many of our close friends and family know, but plenty of others do not. I'm "Retired". Or rather I'm on Disability for the forseeable future (and have been since January 2013). Today marks the end of my 18th month on Disability benefits from Cisco and I've been contacted by Cisco to let me know they're putting my severance letter together and closing out my HR stuff. A heart-felt thanks to Cisco for being best-in-class with regards to how they treat their employees (and a giant sigh of relief that I went on Disability exactly on the day that, had I not, I would have been transferred to Belkin ... which provides noticeably less benefits in cases like this). Absolutely no sarcasm in that, Cisco treated me excellently.

While the circumstances are unlucky no matter who they happen to, I have been extremely lucky in the process. I have income protection insurance through Cisco that covers about 50% of my income at the time of termination (technically 67% of my base, but didn't count my bonuses/commissions, stock grants or health insurance costs). Darien and I have been able to make that workable for a year now and soon she'll be seeing positive income from her new business so we are optimistic that we'll continue to be comfortable. It is definitely a huge step back from what I was making and that is a large part of why we chose to sell our huge house in the mountains and move. After multiple back surgeries over the years with significant complications (I'll give a summary at the bottom of this for the medically curious) I just can't keep up with even a desk job, even after investing in ergonomic equipment and having a home office for a decade. And all of that plane travel I did for a couple of decades? Absolutely no way. I got to the point where I needed 12 hours laying down after a plane flight just to relieve pain and let my legs work properly again. 

The luck comes in to play that my conditions are recognized as permanent and disabling without my needing to fight constantly to prove it. MetLife approved my benefits through retirement age without my even asking (I was going to, but I didn't need to) last November. The government recognized the same thing and approved my SSDI through retirement age in February (I don't see additional income from SSDI as it just lowers what MetLife pays each month to meet my income insurance level but in a year it will provide me with Medicare). I'll still need to be examined every few years just for them to cover their policy requirements. And maybe someday I'll get REALLY lucky and they'll find a magic bio-solvent that will remove the scarring and nerve tethering in my lower spinal cord and I'll be able to return to work. 

Until then I'll be continuing to work on things here and there. I might take some contract work. I won't likely see any additional income from it since it would need to pay me more than my income protection insurance provides ... instead if I get paid by contract work it will just come out of my disability payments. But it will help me stay mentally active and trained on skills. One project I'm definitely going to be doing will be helping improve and maintain Custom Cranium's (Darien's business) electronic presences ... though that will just be a few hours each month and not provide any direct income. 

I really do wish I could keep working. I loved many of the jobs I've had over the years as well as the great people I've met through them. Some days I can get a fair amount done before I just can't focus or deal with the pain of sitting and concentrating on work. Other days, and they are random, I simply can't crawl out of bed for hours even with increasing pain medications. Towards the end of my active working my work performance was really suffering and I would have so much pile up that I'd have to crunch even more pills and pull all-nighters just to get mediocre work turned in. It wasn't fair to me to hurt like that and it also wasn't fair to my manager even though I never got significant complaints and until the weeks before my 2013 surgeries he didn't know how significant it was. Some co-workers did when they saw me squirming in meetings or using a cane to get from the car to the customer. I hate being "on the dole" but ... I crunched the numbers and I actually put nearly as much into my Social Security as I will be taking out. And I paid up on my income protection for 15+ years of work just in case it ever got to this point. 

I worked through the pain all of my adult life. I put off surgeries as long as I could safely do it (when I first started hurting they said to fix it would be a 20% chance of losing the use of one of my legs and 5% chance of losing use of both). 

So ... this is it. I'm officially declaring it. I'm a gimp and, at least for now, I'm retiring. 

I'm not saying all of this because I need a pity party. I'd have posted a lot MORE on Facebook or this blog if that was my style. I'm posting this to empower myself openly to slow down and experience what I still can. 

/Geoff Baysinger - 7/12/2014

PS. For the medically curious these are -some- of my permanent spinal conditions that eventually piled up on me. It isn't the complete list and doesn't count things like torn shoulder ligaments, ankle breaks, etc that are indirectly caused by back issues. It is just the parts of the list that really get to the heart of the matter. Some dates show onset of the diagnoses though obviously they had to exist earlier than that to present for diagnosis. Other dates show when I had surgery, which brought on complications that are actually what did in my ability to work. 

... 1989 (age 18) - Herniated discs (L4/L5 & L5/S1)

... 1992 (age 21)

• Spinal Stenosis (L4 - S1) ... masked by herniation pain and likely present from late teens ... told at that point about surgical risk of losing leg function and that I had stenosis of a level the doctor hadn't ever seen in someone younger than 45 and usually in age 60+, which is why they never thought to look for it.
• Degenerative Disc Disease

... 2003 (age 32)

• Surgery: Laminectomy L4-S1 (removal of bone to open nerve root canals) by Dr. Cathleen van Buskirk in Boulder, CO... failed due to invasion of scar tissue that made the nerve root compression worse than prior to surgery and causing 4 neurosurgeons to refuse to do further work and for me to expect to live with the pain and progressive loss of my right leg function until I finally found an Orthopedic surgeon who would treat me in 2004.
• Failed Laminectomy Syndrome - yep, that's right, turns out that surgery has a high enough rate of failure that it has it's very own diagnostic code. Sometimes the "conservative" procedure is the most damaging one of all. 

... 2004 (age 33)

• Surgery: TLIF (360 degree Fusion) L4-S1 (aka my pelvis and bottom 2 vertebrae are now one large piece after being opened both through the back as well as abdomen to add reinforcing hardware via moving my intestines to the side to reach the spine from the front ... yes ... ouch) by Dr. Ken Kurica in Colorado Springs, CO. 13 hours on the table, 7 of which were spent working on my right Sciatic nerve cluster. My right leg still works, mostly, thanks to that extra work.
• Myelopathy (aka "dead/dying nerves affecting muscle function") causing paralysis of my right Soleus muscle in my calf. Means I can walk and "fake" a normal gait but can't push upwards to tip-toe with my right foot/leg and makes running properly impossible. Caused by the Sciatic nerve impingement from Stenosis and Failed Laminectomy Syndrome.
• Neuropathy (aka "dead nerves affecting skin sensations and pain") causing burning/tingling/numbness in various locations (feet/toes, left outer thigh between waist and knee). Caused by Stenosis. 

... 2012 (age 41)

• Cervical Kyphosis C4-C7 (aka, nerves being crushed from spine in lower neck due to vertebrae being rotated front-to-back instead of back-to-front). Caused by years of overcompensating for lower back pain by tilting my head and shoulders badly. Onset was mid-2000s but finally bad enough to be treated as it was causing the loss of my hand and finger coordination as well as Neuropathy and Myelopathy in my arms and shoulders.
• Spinal Stenosis L3/L4 (natural progression a decade after fusing the levels below). 

... 2013 (age 42)

• Surgery: ALIF (Fusion from the front of my neck) C5-C7 by Dr. Matt Gerlach in Westminster, CO on 1/21/2013. Required to correct Kyphosis C4-C7 (C4/C5 not fused as it was opened up once the 2 vertebrae below were corrected).
• Surgery: XLIF (Fusion from the side below ribs) & Laminectomy L3/L4 along with removal of old hardware from L4-S1 by Dr. Matt Gerlach in Westminster, CO on 3/8/2013. Stabilizes the L3/L4 level to relieve Stenosis.
• Surgery: Emergency repair of Dura Mater and Arachnoiditis mass removal by Matt Gerlach on 3/22/2013 ... during the surgery on 3/8/2013 where they fused my L3/L4 they also removed accumulated scar tissue on my Dura Mater (the soft tissue outer casing of of the spinal cord). However they didn't realize how weakened the tissue below the scarring was and at some point shortly after sewing me up a 1 inch hole blew out of my Dura Mater causing 2 weeks of spinal migraines and allowing over a liter of spinal fluid to leak from the spine and fill the surgical cavity opened during the XLIF procedure.
  [surprise finding: fully formed Arachnoid mass in Cauda Equina (see next). This was removed hoping it would not reform but imaging a few months later showed the mass had reformed and later imaging showed the degree of scarred nerve tethering was inoperable]
• Arachnoiditis ... simply put the spinal fluid in my lower spine, Cauda Equina, had coagulated/solidified into a jelly causing the nerves inside the spinal cord from L2-S1 to twist into a spiral and be permanently tethered to the walls of the Dura Mater. Likely present for 8-9 years prior to diagnosis. Possibly due to Epidural Steroid Injections done in 2002 or due to leaking via pinhole tear in the Dura after my surgery in 2003. Will never know what caused it.

 ... 2014 (age 43)

• Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction ... the joint connecting the sacrum (mine being fused to my lumbar spine) to the pelvis has begun to deteriorate and cause pain both walking and resting. Just in the beginning phases on this and luckily treatment for this has been advancing significantly in recent years. Not doing anything about it for now but ... someday it will likely need work. 

Does anyone LIKE Quicken Loans?

2 months ago my loan got transferred from GMAC to Ocwen. No problem, updated payment, everything was quiet. Now Quicken is buying our loan and in 6 weeks I've spoken to 2 different agents who cold-called me trying to get me to refinance (umm, hey, idiots, my loan rate would be lower and you already HAVE my loan, so obviously this is just trying to shark me for fees). I finally sat on the phone for 15 minutes to let them get their spiel down before I told them to quit calling me.

In that same time I received deadtree spam not once (PO Box) but twice (the other came via FedEx??). Both the same spammy flier not actually containing the information I need to send my payments to the right place. This one claimed I am eligible for HARP (Home Affordable Refinance Program) loans because my house is worth less than my loan. Which is completely not true anymore. Maybe it was a couple of years ago.

Then today I go to the post office and am told that I have a First Class letter from an address I don't recognize but because the person who mailed it to me put it in a Priority envelope I had to pay $4.48 postage due. We have multiple legal things (selling house, insurance messes, etc) so I paid the $4.48 and opened it and guess what was in it?

That's right: another flyer from Quicken telling me they would own my loan soon and I should refinance. Again with no information about payment.

So I called and explained it. Lucky for me I have a scanner. So they just got a scan of the documents with a request for a check for $4.48. Not because $5 is going to make or break us but because if I didn't do that I'm sure the idiot in their mail room would keep doing this to other people.

PS. This is the second time ... for the same house ... that the loan has been bought by Quicken in 10 years. They must really love me. I didn't like them then either. I may well refinance. Just to get away from them.

PPS. Wow, almost 2 years since I used my blog instead of ranting on Facebook directly.

Recipe: Peanut Butter Custard & Meringue Pie

NOTE: This is NOT your typical restaurant Peanut Butter pie. That is usually a peanut butter pudding or cream, not custard, and almost always will have whipped cream instead of meringue. This pie is significantly lighter in weight but richer in flavor. Which means your taster gets a wallop without making you feel overstuffed from the whipped cream. 

This was a family recipe. I got it from my mother, she got it from her mother. It won 1st place in the 1970 Kansas Restaurant Convention though I'm not sure if it was Grandma or her friend that submitted it. 

Updated 5/31/2015 ... for awhile this page had my approximation of the recipe from memory. However my grandmother found the recipe cards over the holidays and I've updated the post to correct a couple of thing. I've kept some extra notes regarding sugar grain sizes, alternate stabilizers for the meringue, etc. If you prefer to use your own sweet pie meringue recipe feel free, meringue is actually pretty darned easy, don't let my detailed notes make you wary.

It is an EXCELLENT pie. Period :)

TL;DR
If you don't want a very detailed recipe and you're comfortable with the basics on cooking custard and meringue, just look at my Grandma's recipe cards :) The longer version that I've made below includes a couple of tweaks that I've added as well as detailed instructions to let a beginner do their first custard and meringue pie. 

INGREDIENTS: 

• 2 tbsp. UNsalted butter, cubed, softened
• 1 tsp. kosher salt (or leave out if using SALTED butter)
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• ½ cup smooth peanut butter (use something like Smuckers / Reeses, etc ... no sugar needed in the peanut butter and the oils from the natural peanut butters will help mixing)
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup white sugar (any size grain is fine)
• 2/3 cup white sugar (separate measurement for meringue, caster sugar or icing sugar works best but normal granulated will work with patience)
• 5 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1 Tbsp cream of tartar OR 1 fresh lemon juice OR white vinegar (see note in Merigue section)
• 3 egg yolks, separated ... FARM FRESH or organic eggs for best yolks
• 3 egg whites, separated ... the fresher the eggs the stiffer the meringue
• 2 cups milk, scalded
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 (or two, see note below for stretching the recipe) baked pastry pie shell

Peanut Butter Crumbles:
Mix powdered sugar and peanut butter until in small (small pea to buckshot sized) crumbles. Using a large whisk or potato mashed to smash the peanut butter into the powdered sugar and then stirring it all together with a strong wooden spoon works best. Reserve 1/3 cup (1/2 cup for 2 pies) of the crumbles. Deposit the rest in the baked pie shell. 


Custard:
If you have a helper, they can be making the meringue while you cook the custard. Don't try to do them both by yourself at the same time. If solo, do the custard first. 

Make sure the milk has already been scalded and you have 2 cups (scald it by bringing it to a high boil while constantly stirring and then removing from heat, stirring until it no longer tries to stick to the pan). This saves you time when cooking the custard. 

Beat egg yolks gently until smooth in a bowl and set aside.
In a large saucepan / dutch oven whisk together salt, sugar and cornstarch. Then slowly add scalded mix while stirring to mix evenly. Warm on medium/medium-low to a simmer (don't boil). Take 1/4cup of heated mixture out and slowly stir into bowl of egg yolks to temper. Pour yolk mixture into custard pan and simmer for until custard thickens, constantly stirring to keep custard from sticking to pan. Turn off heat. Whisk in softened butter and 1 tsp vanilla (less if you prefer). Pour into pie shell over peanut butter sugar crumbles and allow to cool while making the meringue. 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Meringue:
Make sure all of the items you use to whisk the meringue (bowl, whisk, spatula, spoon, etc) are clean of all oils. Oil will make it much harder to get the right consistency without over-whisking. 

Use a beater on medium to high to mix eggs, [optional] 1 tsp vanilla extract and stabilizer (cream of tartar or per egg 1/4 tsp white vinegar or 1/4 tsp lemon juice). Don't add the sugar yet. Whisk or machine whisk on medium the whites until they have started to foam but not truly thick. Now while still gently whisking slowly add 2/3 cup white sugar (caster/icing sugar if possible, finer grains absorb faster). Now whisk quickly until stiff peaks form (takes awhile, don't give up). The meringue is stiff enough when you can pull a wooden spoon out and have a large puff of meringue stick to the spoon with no dripping. STOP WHISKING. If you go too far you will break the protein changes that you spent time building. 

Place the meringue (1/2 of per pie if doing 2 pies, see "stretching" below) in a tall lump in the middle of the pie. Spread the meringue with a soft spatula evenly from center to the edge, sealing the edges. Use the spatula or a large spoon to pull up peaks in the meringue by gently pressing the flat of the spatula on the meringue and pulling straight up while twisting a 1/4 turn sidways (this is not just for looks, the peaks will hold the remaining peanut butter sugar crumbles). 

Top with the reserved peanut butter sugar crumbles by sprinkling over the meringue peaks.

Baking:

Bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until meringue is browning on the peaks but still white in the valleys. 


Allow to cool on counter for at least 90 minutes so everything can set. For a full set, chill for a couple of hours (or more) in the refrigerator ... BUT ... while this makes for a cleaner pie serving (won't fall apart) it tastes better warm or at least not chilled. You might want to set it out at room temperature in a pie dish or under glass/tupperware (to keep dust, bugs and fingers out) before serving. 


TIP:
Store pie in refrigerator to keep the sugars in the crumbles from separating as quickly. BUT, if you plan to eat the pie within a couple of days, you can leave it out. The way the sugars permeate the crust and meringue and separate into a "peanutbutter honey" can be the best part if you don't mind a little mess. 


Stretching the recipe:
The amounts above will make 1 TALL pie (which is what it won the award with) or 2 shorter pies. An absolutely easy way to get the 2 full pies shown in the picture is to stretch a few ingredients. This is how I make it these days so we have 2 pies as I usually only make it on holidays. It also helps mellow the pie a bit because it is RICH.

Stretched ingredients:
5 egg whites (instead of 3)
5 egg yolks (instead of 3)
1/2 cup light brown sugar (instead of 1/3)
1/2 cup white sugar (instead of 1/3)
1 cup white sugar (instead of 2/3 for meringue)
5 Tbsp cornstarch
2 baked pie shells

Recipe: Easy chicken finger (and MORE) dipping sauce

So if you've ever had chicken fingers at:

• Zaxby's
• Raising Cane's
• Guthrie's
• Slim Chicken
  (etc)

Then you've probably had that tangy sweet peppery pink-colored dipping sauce these places are famous for. I found a few recipes that claimed to be the REAL (Zaxby|Guthrie|Cane)'s sauce but all were a bit off to me (one of them had close to quadruple the garlic powder that I decided on, another had equal amounts ketchup and mayo, some call for paprika, etc). While I don't have it all perfectly nailed down, I got it good enough to share.

---

1/2 cup Mayonaise^*

1/4 cup Ketchup**

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (NOT tablespoon like some recipes)

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (again, NOT tablespoon)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Stir / whisk until the sauce is completely mixed, you shouldn't see any color difference (look for white swirls). Put in a covered container and let it set up in the refrigerator at least overnight***. Preferably for 24-48 hours but 12 will do in a pinch.

---

This basic recipe will make around 7 ounces, which is PLENTY for a family of 4 sitting down to a LARGE amount of chicken fingers. Quadruple this recipe and you fill up a 26oz spaghetti sauce jar so that you have plenty on-hand (I don't know how long it takes to spoil, it doesn't get that far here). Cutting it down to smaller portions is possible but a bit hard simply because you'll need to work in smaller-than-half-teaspoon ingredients. .

The nice part of making it yourself isn't just that you can adjust the flavors to fit your tongue, but you can make sure the ingredients are the quality you want to serve. Yeah, you won't get around it having a TON of mayonaise, but you can use a healthier mayo (and ketchup without corn syrup, etc).

---

Once you have the first batch done, play with increasing the black pepper or garlic. Be careful, a little garlic powder goes a long way ... the first batch I made with the recipe that called for 4x the amount I used and it got dumped out without being eaten. If you're craving it to be a bit saltier, you might want to add more Worcestershire sauce instead. I usually cheat and up the Worcestershire just a bit.

Not just for chicken by the way. This works great as a sandwich spread on pulled pork, as a dipping sauce for tacitos, etc.

PS. If you end up getting something that tastes closer to the real thing for your particular brand of chicken finger restaurants (I don't live near any of them anymore, which is why this project became important to me :), please feel free to post tweaks and notes. For instance I know Slim Chicken's changes the proportions and adds more black pepper (I think they use closer to an equal mayo-to-ketchup ratio).

---

*I use Hellman's Canola Cholesterol Free Mayonnaise. This is a fairly new product but the Hellman's flavor seems to work best to me. I tried Kraft Olive Oil Mayonnaise, which is what I use for sandwiches, but the flavor wasn't right.

**I use Hunt's 100% Natural No High Fructose Corn Syrup Ketchup. (say that 5 times in a row). I tried a couple of organic ketchups (Nash Brothers, Muir Glen, both of which I like for other things) but they were actually TOO tangy and weren't as finely processed so they left tiny red specs in the sauce. We're trying to be fairly close to the restaurant sauces here. However if you like the idea of a tangier sauce, give it a shot.

^***IMPORTANT: Yes, you really do need to let it sit 24 hours. It will mellow the sauce out. 48 hours or more is even better. Most of these restaurants mix this in-house at the store and let it sit a day before serving it. It just won't taste the same otherwise.

Rage against the Parking Machine

So after a show that Darien did in Denver, I walk out to find a parking ticket ... even though I had paid and put the ticket on my dash for the attendant to see.

Will I get my $3 back? Maybe, maybe not, I don't really care. I'm just tired of companies that do this kind of thing. Mike, one of the show organizers, said it had happened to him recently. He got out of it by faxing receipts. But how many people also get overcharged by these guys regularly?

I'm mostly just feeling impish and wanting to see if they will rage at me or actually do something to fix the situation. In all likelihood I'll completely forget about reporting it. Unless they rage :)

.......................

Attached to this email please find:

* SCANNED documents:

a) Ticket issued on 3/10/2010 for parking at 16th and Wazee for "No Payment in Advance" for stall #15

b) Receipt for paying for parking in advance showing parking valid from 3/10/2010 through 3/11/2010

* Photographs:

a) Showing that the receipt was prominently displayed on my dashboard.

b) Showing that the parking violation was placed in a way that made it very easy to see that the receipt was displayed.

c) Showing that your signs show the wrong cost for all-day parking compared to the charge on the receipt.

... Note that these are low resolution images as a courtesy due to emailing, I am happy to provide megapixel resolution photos on request. Other than resizing the images, no manipulation has been done to them.

Please void this ticket and respond to this message stating it is void. Failure to void the ticket in 7 days will cause me to issue written complaints in this form with my supporting evidence to the City of Denver along with a request for information on how to complain to your licensing organization.

Furthermore please NOTE that the sign on your parking lot shows that the max fee for parking is $12. Yet your receipt clearly shows I was charged $15. Additionally I am told by the organizer of the event I was vending at that this exact same thing happened to him recently in your lot, showing a clear pattern of problems.

As such, please refund my $3, via check, to:

Geoff Baysinger

PO Box 1322

Nederland, CO 80466

And show evidence that your machine is either reduced in charges to $12 -or- that you have changed your sign to state the new daily maximum price.

Failure to refund my $3 -and- show photographic evidence of fixing your sign within 7 calendar days (allowing an additional 2 days for mail) will cause me to report this as charge fraud to the City of Denver along with all credit card bureaus that are listed on your sign. While $3 won't matter to me, I would expect this would initiate an investigation of all similar charges by your lots. If pursued by either the City of Denver, Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover I would be perfectly happy to testify in this matter. Please note that refunding this $3 does not guarantee my lack of reporting to the mentioned agencies, my final decision will be based upon the level of courtesy shown by your response.

Sincerely,

Geoff Baysinger

PS. I probably never would have noticed the overcharge if your parking attendant had not given out this improper ticket.

WARNING: that 13-year-old with a laptop in Starbucks just hijacked your bank account.

Note: I'm writing this up for my less tech-savvy friends ... some of you knew how to do this before it was easy ... but now it is just stupid simple and anyone anywhere can do it. For another blog on this subject (showing how someone might actually use this attack to help educate people), see this page.

You see that 13-year old kid with a laptop over there? Or that 50-something? Doesn't matter where you are ... airport, Starbucks, next door neighbor's house, hospital lobby ... if you ever log in to a web service over an insecure session (more on that in a second) someone can hijack your web accounts if you aren't careful.

How? Well here's the surprise. You see when you log in to a website like Facebook or Yahoo mail you log in once to establish your identity. And if you log in over an insecure public network (pretty much any network like those at Starbucks, McDonald's, hotels, airports would qualify) and do not use a secure web service (ie, the web site starts with "HTTPS" ... "S" being the important letter) then someone else on that same network can intercept your password in real time.

That's been known for awhile, but I bet you didn't know that someone can intercept your session even after you have logged in. Why is this important? Because many sites will direct you to a HTTPS (secure) login page ... but once you've logged in they default to normal HTTP (insecure). But that's been known for a long time ...

Even worse? This is the part that this post is about ... once you log in securely if you are dropped to an insecure web server then someone can "sniff" the network you are on and get your "cookie". A cookie is what the site sends you when you first log in. It is a string of characters that you send back to the web site whenever you view a page that says "hey, I already logged in once, just use this instead of making me enter my password for every page".

Now what this means is that someone can, while at that Starbucks/hotel/etc, scan the network and once you appear on the network and load any information from a page like Facebook (and your browser will constantly do this even if you never touch that Facebook tab again). They can take your cookie and it will tell them not only what your name is on that service but it will let them click on it to immediately get into the site as you.

Now that might not seem too bad, right? They don't actually have your password. But wait ... what if one of those services is a web mail service? If they can access your email AND they happen to know anything about your other accounts then they might be able to go to that other service and use the "I lost my password, email it to me" option. What if they know where you bank? Well if they got your real name from your Facebook session ... they can also get your credit report in the matter of a minute or two.

How is this done? Well, the ability to do this was always out there. People with enough skill could use tools to read all of the data going across that open network. So this is really nothing new to the determined criminal. But now with the release of a software package called "Firesheep" -anyone- can do it inside the Firefox web browser. This software does all of the hard work for them. All they have to do is install it (takes less than a minute) and start up Firefox. Then they just watch until your name pops up on the screen. Once they do that they can click on your name and see anything you have access to on that service.

So ... what can you do to protect yourself? (Caps below for emphasis ... I'm not yelling at you :)

1) NEVER log in to ANY site you that has ANYTHING sensitive (and plenty of people consider the ability to post their Facebook status "sensitive") on an insecure WiFi network unless that site is using SECURE HTTP (HTTPS). That was basic "public networking 101" since WiFi came out and you probably already knew that.

2) Make sure that any site you access that you don't want others to access (like ... again ... Facebook or your email) not only let you log in over HTTPS but ALSO let you browse over HTTPS.

EXAMPLE: If you log in to Facebook right now it will go over HTTPS (although they're pretty bad about letting you realize this since it doesn't show up in their login page). However once you do that you will be put onto their unsecured HTTP site. At this point, if you had been on a public network, someone could have snatched your cookie. It would only have been safe if after you logged in you had been sent directly to a HTTPS address.

... In a case like the example above, you can sometimes force the site to let you browse securely by just changing the "HTTP" to "HTTPS". However it is important to re-state the face that if you had done this after logging in while on a public network it would have still broadcast your "cookie" that one time.

4) So if you wanted to be safe in the example above you would have needed to have logged in from a private network FIRST and then continued your browsing on the public network only after having changed it to "https".

BUT

Every link and image on that page, even after you changed it to HTTPS, is using standard HTTP (at least in the case of Facebook). That means you're still not safe. It is up to you to make sure ... before you use it on an open network ... that you can safely browse on HTTPS the entire time.

If the site you need to use simple won't let you secure your session you have 2 further options:

a) You can browse over a VPN ("virtual private network"). Those will encrypt your traffic but unless you get one from work or you have a very friendly networking guru in your life you will have to pay for this service. Even an extremely simple SSL VPN or Windows-based VPN will suffice.

b) Don't browse your site from that network.

Period.

I highly encourage you to encourage your favorite sites to work on this problem. They've known about it for years and years. But now they can't just ignore it. Or rather you shouldn't let them keep ignoring it.

PS. I used Facebook alot in my examples. It was easy. Hopefully at some point after this writing Facebook will have fixed their security issues ... but even if they do that (and I'll try to remember to update this if they do so) it won't stop OTHER sites from having the same problem. I know that in the past Yahoo mail did similar stuff with secure sessions and cookies. This is because running data over HTTPS requires more processing overhead and a little more cost than open web traffic. But in these days of open networks everywhere ... it is worth that expense.

U.S. Postal Service? Shipping a Package? Don't bother.

(EDIT after I posted this the dress arrived ... 2 days late and without any warning ... the USPS never scanned the tag so we couldn't track it ... combined with the bridesmaid dresses being run over we had no way to know ... at least we got it ... but NEVER EVER ship valuables USPS)

So the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has once again proved why FedEx and UPS are such successful businesses. Cheap != better.

Earlier this week my fiancée shipped a package via the USPS "1 day" Express. The package was in before the deadline for going out that night. When did it get there? 2 days later.

On Wednesday the person making her wedding dress shipped both the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses via the USPS. Guess what? The wedding dress will probably never arrive.

The person shipping it got a tracking number. So Friday morning we tracked it and realized from the text that the USPS had not yet (2 days later) even scanned it into their system. So we contacted the dress maker and she swore she dropped them off Wednesday. She ended up driving to her Post Office to check on them. Nothing. Lost.

Yes, the dress maker insured the shipping, so $ aren't the problem here ... but we have 1 week to figure out a replacement for a dress that took months to have made. It was a custom design by my fiancée to fit her dreams of a Steampunk/Victorian style dress. It was looking pretty magnificent from what we could tell.

A couple of hours later we got word that the dress maker had the bridesmaids dresses. They were returned to her by the Post Office. The box had been run over by a vehicle.

Today? No word on the wedding dress. So unless it magically appears in a couple of hours it is pretty certain that both of the boxes fell off the transfer truck and the wedding dress didn't get recovered. That's actually close to a best-case scenario.

I doubt we'll ever know what happened to it. Anyone want to take bets on the USPS not bothering to investigate and just paying out the insurance? Wouldn't much matter unless they investigated by Monday. Yeah.

So in the end:

* The USPS loses $1000+ in insurance money, they won't notice that.

* The dress maker gets her money from the PO and returns our payment.

* My fiancée has to figure something out that will definitely not be what she wanted after spending months dealing with the stress of organizing things versus her mother.

Simply put: don't ship anything of value via the USPS. I haven't done it for years. I would have paid the extra for shipping if I'd known that the dress maker was going to ship USPS just to get it on FexEx or UPS. The USPS is cheap for a reason.

Jailbreaking the iPhone 3G with a modern firmware and no Apple PC

This is another of my "I'm getting old and I really don't want to forget what worked" posts. You likely won't find much of use here.

I'm trying to update my iPhone to firmware 3.1.2 (yeah, 3.1.3 is out but doesn't do much other that rip the ability to tether off the phone again). The key here is that I DON'T want to update my modem baseband as I have the cherished 4.26.08 version that is easily unlockable. I also want to have a version that I can use for tethering.

This would be (probably) much easier if I had an Apple PC for using Pwnage, but I don't. And I decided to spend 2 days figuring this out on my PC rather than going to my sister's house for 2 hours. Duh. I'm not going to bother saying how many times I downgraded to older firmwares / put the phone in a recovery loop / etc.

The key components were:

* Prebuilt IPSW file from someone else built in Pwnage. My file was "iPhone1,2_3.1.2_7D11_Custom_Restore_UNTOUCHED_500MB.ipsw". The key information is:

1. no baseband included
2. "UNTOUCHED" means "unactivated" means "works on AT&T". For now I'm not moving my iPhone off of AT&T. For now. I know, I threatened awhile back, I just didn't get around to it.
3. 500MB ... since Cydia installs to the media partition now there isn't much reason for a 1GB partition

* iReb from iH8sn0w ... this utility allows you to put your phone in DFU mode (hint: put the phone in DFU WHILE the iReb app is running) and cause a whitescreen.

* Once in whitescreen mode you can use iTunes to restore the custom firmware. This allows you to skip the errors that prevent iTunes from otherwise working.

* FAILED DON'T DO THIS: Once THAT is done I used redsn0w 0.9.3 (which includes the IPCC tethering patch) to re-break my phone. To do this, make sure you use the "Already pwned" option in redsn0w. This also gives you the option of adding a custom boot logo.

* NEXT: Install MyWi from Cydia. Launch the "Rock" application and create a Rock ID. Go to settings and enable USB tethering. I don't know if this will break once the app's trial period ends. Quite possibly ... though probably not IF you never open it again. Since I want the ability to connect over WiFi I'm going to spend the $10 on it.

The biggest problem was I wanted tethering. If I would have been happy without it I could have used sn0wbreeze and 3.1.3. I even had that working at one point. I didn't want to us other methods because I didn't want to risk upgrading my baseband.

Apple is unfortunately getting good at preventing or making much harder all the jailbreaking methods used so far. I expect it will get harder and harder to do this on my phone in the future.

If you do this ... I highly recommend keeping copies of all the files you use to do it in case newer versions change the process in the future. Please don't ask me for copies of firmwares, I'm not going there.

Open note to CNN.com regarding video ads

I emailed this to CNN.com ... but I also know that that probably gets tossed in the bit bucket. This is MY bit bucket for Google to index and all to see, even if only a few do.

The amount and length of the ads CNN.com places before video segments has become prohibitive.

* Much more of your content is video based now

* To watch even a 15 second clip (not counting replays of the same thing ... like the Stupak baby killer video) I have to watch a 30 second advertisement.

* To watch another clip I have to watch another advertisement.

Suggestions:

> Shorter clips.

> Longer clips only on longer videos

> Track how many ads I've seen recently so I don't have to see a new one just to watch another short clip. A 4:1 ratio of ad length to clip length (cumulative) is the max I'm going to go for.

> Vary the ads ... seeing the SAME ad over and over is horrible

> Seek out ads that aren't identical to the ones we see on TV

> Examine the Hulu model of letting us choose the style and length of Ad we want

Until then, I will just keep closing windows as "not worth it", and start looking for my news elsewhere. Like I just did when I was going to have to watch 30 seconds of Donald Trump and his impersonator -again- just to see if 4 servicepeople made good music. I'll never know. Or if I do know ... I'll know by watching them somewhere else.

MySpace just jumped the shark.

MySpace just jumped the shark and decided to sell user data to 3rd party firms.

I haven't used MySpace much for years now anyway, so the answer for me was simple: leave.

If you're in the same boat ... make sure you actually edit your user data before deleting your account. Change things like your First / Last name, home town, etc to "PRIVATE". Delete your photos. Message your friends and then un-friend them. If you just delete your account or set it inactive then all that does is stop you from logging it in, but in theory (who knows what their practice here will be) the data will stay in their systems. If they're going to sell your data ... give them bad data to sell.

Take this as a warning Facebook and Twitter ... if you sell my data I will pollute it and leave. I don't care if you set up ad targeting systems so that the ads I see are relevant to me, but don't be turning into the next generation of spam lists. That's not what I signed up for.

iPhone 3G Tethering and Windows 7

I decided to play with using my iPhone to give a data connection to a fresh Windows7 install (on my HP Mini 2133, though that shouldn't matter). The following are some notes about how to get it to work and what exactly it does.

First off, be aware that if you use AT&T (as I do) that tethering isn't available to you by default. With Firmware 3.0 they made it very easy to install by using a mobileconfig profile. However I think in 3.1.x (I'm still on 3.0) they locked it out. From what I have read you can re-enable it with a mobileconfig after jailbreaking your iPhone. The jailbreak I know is reported to work with is blackra1n, but who knows what other jailbreak methods may work. Either way, I'm not supporting your jailbreaking issues. But if you've gone there ... (or are using a non-US iPhone that gives you tethering) ... this may be of use.

NOTES:

1) You can tether with USB or with Bluetooth.

2) If you have a fast 3G network, tether with USB, Bluetooth seems to max out around 768Kbs to 1Mbs ... whereas USB is giving me over 3Mbs right now. Uploads on both were the same.

3) If you tether your PC will be getting data from the cellular network EVEN if the iPhone has a working WiFi connection. This is kinda sucky but no way around it using the built-in tethering method, at least so far.

Ok, those notes out of the way ... this is what I needed to make it work:

* Windows 7 fresh install

* iTunes 9.0.2.25 (earlier iTunes will work ... in fact iTunes itself isn't necessary if you can find the Apple mobile device drivers package separately ... but iTunes will bundle it). This is because Win7 doesn't have the USB drivers for the iPhone built-in. You can do USB mass storage without it but not the data tethering. Just grab it from itunes.com.

NOTE: That SHOULD be all you need if you want to USB tether. I'm not 100% sure on that though since I also did the next step before testing.

* Windows Mobile Device Center ... this is a fairly new mobile device driver suite from Microsoft that replaces the old ActiveSync stuff. I used it to get updated Bluetooth connectivity on my Win7 laptop. You can get if from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/downloads/microsoft/device-center-download.mspx

I'm not really sure it was necessary since things still didn't work at that point. I found a post about the problem I was having at this page: http://www.conetrix.com/Blog/post/iPhone-Tethering-Cannot-Install-Driver-for-Bluetooth-Peripheral-Device.aspx

The summary of that post is:

* Pair with your iPhone using "Add a Bluetooth Device" in Win7

* Right-click the connected iPhone in "Control Panel -> Hardware & Sound -> Devices and Printers" and select "Properties"

* Go to the "Services" tab

* Uncheck "Wireless IAP"

* "Apply" or "OK"

Then from that point, to connect to the iPhone for tethering, right-click the iPhone in "Devices and Printers" again and use "Connect Using" and click on "Access Point".

So ... the results of all of this? Yeah this may not be worth it for the average user BUT for someone reliant on data while travelling it may just save your butt:

* USB tethering now works. This is the preferred method since it is both easier to hook up (just plug the cable in) AND supports better download speeds as well as charging your phone.

* Bluetooth tethering now works. Forgot your cable? Just need a quick connection and don't need a lot of speed? Just don't want to rifle through your bags? Great. You're covered.

* Remember: all your data is coming from the cell network. I would like it if it would tether the wifi on the phone, just so you could keep a single connection while roaming the airport (letting your phone switch networks at will while the laptop just plays dumb) but ... it doesn't. So if you're not on an unlimited plan you will want to be careful. And if you can't get a 3G signal be prepared for a slow time. But SOME data is better than none.

NOTE: the previous paragraph is a very sad note when you're near one of those free AT&T wifi spots like a Starbucks. It sure would be nice to use tethering in those spots where you get free iPhone WiFi but not free WiFi on your laptop.

Flip Mino Camcorder

"Cisco bought Pure Digital recently and I'm about to start selling the Flip cameras. They have a really fun way of customizing your camera. Yes, that is my face with a little editing to fit the camera. Want to make your own? Hint: Make the picture a ratio of 2:1 (like 1000 px by 500 px)."

Flip Mino Camcorder with Personalized Design - Available only at www.theflip.com. Check out this unique Flip Mino design. The Flip Mino camcorder combines remarkable video quality in a pocket-sized package. Now personalizable - create your

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AT&T / Apple's app policies are plain inconsistent.

So ... it's well known that Google Voice applications have been killed off of the iPhone app store. For the most part I think we can assume this was due to AT&T. The official reason being given was that the apps "duplicated functions already on the iPhone".

Someone please explain to me how, then, the "Comcast Mobile App" not only hasn't been killed off ... but also is in Apple's "Featured" Apps? Right now it is on the "Featured" category under "New".

While the Comcast offering isn't the same as Google Voice, many of the same duplications occur. What doesn't occur? SMS. And even Google Voice apps that did not have SMS were yanked.

Apple ... AT&T ... your motives are obvious. And you're going to lose customers over stuff like this. Customers who pay close to $100/month. Is it really worth squeezing us over SMS messaging?

Google Voice on the iPhone

Yay! I got my Google Voice invite last night. I've been waiting for that for a long time. Sadly it comes just as I am finally migrating to a location with cell service, so I don't need it -as- badly but I know I will use it every day anyway. I already got my phone number assigned and was able to get one that is almost identical to my "real" cell number.

For those not in the know, this is what Google Voice provides (at a very high level) ... all of this is currently free unless otherwise noted::

1) A phone number that will ring all of your other numbers simultaneously so that you can answer from wherever you are.

2) Send and receive SMS messages using that same number (and get the messages forwarded to "real" SMS devices if you wish, but it is a bit messier since you see the GV number on the messages when forwarded). Meaning:

* unlimited SMS messages
* access your SMS messages from your smartphone using a GV app
* access your SMS messages from your not-smart phone using SMS (but not as useful)
* access those same SMS messages from the Google Voice center on any web browsing device like a PC
* SEND messages from any web-browsing device

3) Place calls using your GV number. Free for the U.S., very cheap for long distance calls. See next item for why this becomes INSANELY good for some cell users.

4) If you have a service like T-Mobile you can add your Google Voice number to your "favorites" and then never use minutes when you dial with it (meaning if you use GV to make outbound calls you can make unlimited calls from your cell number).

Sadly for AT&T users like myself we can't do this since AT&T doesn't have a "favorites" type plan. However:

5) If you have some form of free VOIP service that will give you inbound calls then you can have that number ring using Google Voice. Not too shabby ... free VOIP calls with a public phone number. But most VOIP services charge for inbound "real" phone numbers.

6) This is the killer-app part: GV has applications for most smart phones that will do various levels of the above for you on your mobile device.

For the iPhone there are 3 apps (VoiceCentral, GV Mobile/GV Mobile Free (Free doesn't do SMS), GVDialer). Unfortunately none have push notifications which means you need the app running to see things like incoming SMS messages (workarounds to follow in another post, GVDialer doesn't do SMS yet so skip it entirely in my opinion until they add it).



...

I know Google claims to have an iPhone app on the way. My guess is it has been done a while and Apple and AT&T are trying to stymie it as often happens. Well ... STOP THAT ...

My hopes for a Google app is that it will merge the best of the existing applications:

1) For calls we need ways to use the service with and without data access:

... GV Mobile and VoiceCentral need data connections to dial and if they have them they seem to be the most feature-rich way BUT many times we are out of data range in the mid-west. This should be the default dial method when available (or maybe let us configure it to only work when on WIFI, etc, since 3G can be spotty at best in places).

... GVDialer allows you to dial calls without data. I think it must just place a normal call and use timers to send the dialout codes. Seems to work good though, just slower, and would be WONDERFUL for being in no-data areas.

2) SMS and Voicemail MUST ... absolutely must ... have Push Notifications. Email notification isn't good enough since we will often have times that we want Email off or at least not on Push to save battery (OS3 push notifications are significantly less network traffic than email push because with email push you are polling multiple accounts and sending more data back and forth). This would allow GV SMS to completely replace SMS on the iPhone and is exactly what OS3 push was for!

Honestly if VoiceCentral could do push notifications (which I understand why they hesitate, since it means you have to store your GV credentials on VoiceCentral's servers instead of only on your phone ... meaning insecure for you and costly for them ... something Google could fix both problems easily if they had their own app) I would be 100% happy with it's functionality. Google could definitely do worse than immitating it and extending with push.

4) If Google would incorporate some form of true VOIP into the application so that we could use GV SMS with a VOIP call? Magic. And all the components are there since they own the GV number we use now.

5) Have a "smart switch" mode for notifications that, if you haven't checked for push notifications recently, will set SMS forwarding "on" to your cell phone. So that if you go out of data range (like in the middle of Oklahoma and Kansas) or need to turn off your data to save battery, you get SMS forwarded to your cell number until you start checking via the data connection again later.

This would be selectable as a check-box if you had "Receive SMS on this phone" selected.

6) Integrate GTalk into the SMS in Google Voice and vice versa for a single conversation panel. Ideally start supporting MSN and other protocols as well so we can keep all conversations available and sorted.

7) a "Voicemail-only" number that would drop directly to voicemail when forwarded, so that I could set up some of my other devices to drop to GV voicemail if they are busy (like my office line). (not an iPhone item per se, just a GV feature request)

...

My next project will be to see if I can get VOIP service on my iPhone that works in conjunction with Google Voice numbers so that I can get free time on my cell when I'm in WiFi range. It will probably be a bit complicated to set up but should be pretty easy to use if it works.

I'll post details on that once I've finished it or decided it won't work. I need to be in my home area to do all the testing.

Mortgages are a pain in the &*#&!

I'm tired, this will be short and scattered.

* My mortgage agent didn't respond to my emails well for the last week. As in days without replies. Finally got a note from her 3 days ago that I was being assigned to a new agent because she got a promotion. She emailed it to me and the new agent. Too bad she didn't -call- the new agent and tell her this. So I spent 3 days not getting any replies and not knowing the new agent's phone number.

:sigh:

* The people selling my house have 2 mortgages. The company that owns the second mortgage was contacted by the title company over 2 weeks ago to get a pay-off number. They said 'in 7 days'. 7 days later they claimed to never have gotten the request (even though the title agent has a confirmation number from the first request) and said 'in 7 days'. The only reason I even know this is because I asked the mortgage agent to confirm with the title agent that everything was set to close on Monday. The title agent hadn't told me. The sellers hadn't told me.

So ... is THIS why a real estate agent can make 3% commission? Just because people can't be bothered to get off their butts and do their jobs without constant baby-sitting?

End result: if the title company can't get the pay-off number from the seller's mortgage by tomorrow, I can't close on the house come Monday. And if I don't close by -Tuesday- my mortgage application is expired unless I start paying a weekly fee to keep the rate I had.

And if I hadn't been spending most of this week nagging my mortgage company ... and the title company ... and now the sellers? It would have just fallen through without me knowing a thing until I arrived in Oklahoma with a U-Haul full of stuff. Which kills me given how much I've been busting ass to clean/pack and get all my finances in gear ... and probably pissing off my boss for how little I've accomplished lately at work.

Which reminds me, I guess I need to cancel the U-Haul tomorrow unless the paperwork all comes in.

I hate my road rage ... but I hate the people who cause it worse!

So tonight I decided to take the scenic way home from Broomfield, which meant Clear Creek Canyon instead of Boulder Canyon (which is scenic, too, I just see it alot more). I am not going to get to see these views on demand once I move so it was a cool thing to be able to do.

I am on the stretch of highway that goes into the mountains. It is a 45mph zone (or is it 40?) but the commuters go through at 65-70mph. I got an email on my phone and I had been expecting a message, so when I get the "ding" of the email I pulled off the road to read it and reply. You know, the safe thing to do.

I was basically here:

View Larger Map

Once I was done sending my reply I locked my phone and put it down, then put the car in drive, waited for an opening and got back on the highway. I saw a white car in my rearview but it was way back, I had plenty of time to get up to speed. Except this guy turned out to be going quite a bit faster than 45 and by the time I hit 40 he was breaking to slow down, right on my bumper.

No surprise, he started to pass me. One problem ... this is a no passing zone, 1 lane going each direction. You can see that from the Google Maps streetview above. And there was a car coming at us in the distance that he couldn't see because he was so close to my tailpipe when he started to pass. I put my left-handed bird in the window, thinking he would go even faster and barely make it (and he did try, he was almost parallel with me when he backed off and got behind me again).

By this time I had not only gotten up to speed but was speeding myself by about 10mph just trying to keep a little space between us. We got to this point:


View Larger Map

And he started speeding up to pass me. Do you see the problem from that picture? Yeah, that's not a damned passing lane or second lane, it is a TURN lane, to TURN left:


View Larger Map

(no, the red car wasn't there ... but there WERE cars in the distance that he once again couldn't see)

So I accelerated to keep him from passing me illegally and moved in to the turn lane on the left so that I could slow and he could pass me on the right. While doing this I looked in my mirrors and I couldn't seem him, he was in my blind spot. I -assumed- on my right. Guess what happens?

That's right, he keeps passing on the LEFT, meaning I'm in the left TURN lane, he's across the solid yellow, no one is on the right at all, and he is so close that when he starts to pull to the right (presumably he's got tunnel vision seeing the cars in front of him and hasn't realized he's about to hit me) and scrapes his way up the left side of my jeep.

I'm pretty pissed off at this point. In fact it was almost max road rage. I hate that feeling. But there isn't an easy way to remind myself to breathe before reacting. I start waving at him from behind to get him to pull over. Which he does ... but as I'm pulling in behind him he slams on his breaks so hard that he fishtails on the shoulder and I have to do the same to avoid hitting him. Yep. Road Rage has increased.

We both get out of our cars and I'm pretty much yelling at him about illegally passing. He counters with how I was going slow because I was on my phone.

Oops. Lesson #2 on how to piss me off: argue that I am in the wrong about something that I wasn't doing while I am mad at you for doing something else.

I told him, as I mentioned above, that the reason I was getting back on the road was because I WASN'T on the phone. And that if he had given me a few more seconds I could have gotten up to speed and he wouldn't have had to hurry that much. He then admitted he was doing 65mph (verbatim) and I challenged him to show me a 65mph sign anywhere around there. His response? "I drive here all the time".

Lesson #3 on how to piss me off: Justify screwing up by saying how you do it all the time.

AND

Lesson #4 on how to piss me off: Drive with reckless abandon in an area where I see people dying because of jerk-off bad drivers every year. These canyons are deadly and we were barely a mile (meaning 1 minute as his speed) away from where the switchbacks start. Do people scream through there at 60+ every day? Sure. And those are the people who tell the officer "but I go through here every day" when explaining an accident (or death).

Do I speed sometimes? Sure. I owe the city of Limon $155 for 79 in a 65 (mostly because Limon is a speed trap in the middle of nowhere BUT I was courteous to the officer and will pay the thing like a good boy). Do I go above the posted limits in the canyons some times in some places? Sure. We all screw up. But I don't defend it as somehow being right and I don't try and pass people on the left in a no-passing zone while speeding 20+ miles over the limit.

Anyway, when he realized he was just pissing me off even more he started backing down and said "I'm sorry". But by that point I was seeing red. No major damage to my car (some white paint scrapes, I can buff them out ... I got good pictures of them though and they -clearly- show the impact on my car was on the left and from behind). His white car has some dashed dark grey racing stripes now (I love having dark plastic body panels right now). I told him that if he'd been sorry he wouldn't have been arguing to begin with and in my face (though, had it been me, I probably would have had a hard time not reacting as he did, no doubt). I got back in my car while he was facing me on the side of the road (beside my car, just to be clear, I wasn't threatening to run him over or anything). I told him to get out of my way and that he was lucky he hadn't done any real damage to my car or I'd be reporting it and he'd be paying for my body work -and- likely getting a reckless driving ticket.

He was quite dumbfounded at this point. I was in full rage. I was flat out embarrassed at myself for not being able to get it under control and be slightly more mellow. If I could go back now I would probably accept his apology and go on.

But you know what? I shouldn't have to.

And he's -real- lucky it was me and not someone who would have turned my shaking hands into balled fists and punched him (or worse) as many other road ragers do.

I do wish I could dampen down these stupid fight-or-flight reactions though.

PS. Yeah, I do still know his license plate. Wrote it down. I sort of wonder if he won't be trying to call it in after he sees just how much paint is on the side of his car. So I might just be printing out this blog as a statement. :sigh:

My impending move

So yeah, I'm leaving the tall mountains of Colorado and fairly soon. The reason why is simple: my immediate family is in Norman, OK and much as they sounded like they wanted to move over the years it won't be happening. I'll definitely miss Colorado BUT I'll get all my vacation time (which was mostly spent visiting them) back to go see Colorado and all the other places I want to.

Progress so far is such:

* I've found a decent house. It is an old fixer upper (yes yes, I know, I keep saying I'm done with those). Built in 1941 and had the same owner through 2006 when she passed. A family with 5 kids bought it then and their dog did a great job tearing up the yard (which was good for me, I think that people drove by and drove on). It is situated right next to a TALL brick building (a catholic church's rec center) and across from a large open field playground for a middleschool. What does that mean? Low cooling bills and few neighbors ... both good for working from home. And if I keep my butt moving fast I should get the remodelling done this year. I'm quite sure the house will sell for 20% over what I'm paying once fixed up a little so I have a good budget to play with.

* The house is cheap enough that I can afford to pay on both places while my house in Colorado is on the market, so I'm buying -first- and then getting this place on the market.

* I got the loan approved today, pending all the typical appraisal hooplah, so at this point it's just red tape holding up buying ASAP. The family there wants to move as soon as they are able.

I'll be back in the area in a couple weeks for my class reunion (in Wichita, about 3 hours north) but I may cut my time in OKC short that week to have more time during moving week. Not a lot of point of spending a ton of time there when I can't do anything with the house yet.

More to come ...

Social Networking Confusion!

So I think I've found a pattern that will work.

1) I use Ping.fm to post updates. I used Loopt from my iPhone for awhile but it pretty much only updated Facebook and Twitter. Ping.fm is updating EVERYTHING. I do miss the location option from Loopt though (it would allow me to quickly paste my area based on my iPhone location). A Ping.fm app with location services ... hmmm ... should be doable.

2) I linked Facebook to my blog (this) with the Simplaris Blogcaster facebook app. So all my blog posts there should show on Facebook. Meaning anything that isn't a Facebook-specific note (like viral notes) will get posted on my blog not as a Facebook native note (I wish Blogcaster had an option to paste them as FB notes instead of links).

3) I use my blog (aleatorical.blogspot.com) to archive ALL of my posts. This is good because I have a record. It is bad because my status updates are double-posted on Facebook and people never really know when a blog post has extra content. I might change this, not sure. It would be nice if Blogger had a way to post multiple types of notes so that Blogcaster could only show 1 type.

4) I use Facebook pretty regularly. ALL of the other sites (MySpace, Plaxo, blah blah blah) are just shallow mirrors of my status using Ping.fm.

Mortgage qualified ... gave the Sellers the purchase agreement ... think it will close on July 3rd

At the airport again ... This time it's personal! (in a good way)