Information Security

More Adventurous

At work, I was quizzed about internet security. One of the choices in a quiz about what to do when you encounter a virus on your computer is "make a copy of it and take it home for further analysis."

Hey! That might be a proprietary virus, and you just made an illegal copy of it. Bad move. Stealing viruses is a crime. I also like how industrious a worker would have to be to do that. Hahahahaha.

Taco Bell Philosophy

More Adventurous
While I was sitting in a Taco Bell today, I took time to look around at all of the other people in the restaurant. Many of them were middle-aged Caucasian men wearing button-down shirts and trousers, and with little computerized name badges hanging off of their belts, just like me. (Unlike me, they all had pretty heavy-duty middle-aged paunches and stomachs.)

Anyway, they looked like members of the engineering crowd, or at the very least programmers or something, and they were all eating tacos, fueling their bodies, and making money to sustain their chosen lifestyles. Basically, they were me in a few years (but paunchy. I'm not gonna be paunchy. Someone will pay, if I'm paunchy. I even hate that word. Yech.) ANYWAY! Forgive me for falling off-subject so easily.

I realized that on some day, some day that I can probably even imagine pretty clearly, I will be dying, and all of my worldly accomplishments or lack thereof will fade and disappear, having no further importance. I don't say this in a nihilistic way, or even in a discouraged way, because it is in this that I find so much comfort. Every day my understanding of God's goodness and of my own inability to make myself good grows. As this happens, my mind moves further and further from the pursuit of glory and riches, or even acceptance, and takes hold more firmly of the joy that God gives to all who trust him, and this is the peace that he gives to me. The word of God is holy and good, and it fills my heart like I know nothing else can. In no hidden place, anywhere, in this life or the next, is there something better than God.

That's not to say that some of his gifts to us aren't pretty wonderful...

Good news

Hey cool, I just got two new scholarships! That feels nice. Also, to the crew headed down to Houston, I am in fact going to be in town the weekend of the 15th. It's a little sad, but I got booted from the offshore trip by one of the new hires, who has higher priority than I do. They may still schedule another trip for later in the summer, though. Another fun thing, I found that we have tea bags here, in addition to the kind-of-nasty coffee I had been drinking. Neato! After work today, I'm going to do laundry, go to Tai Chi, and go running. Anyone who reads ->this word, tell me to claim your prize.

A wonderful week, aside from being sick

These are all of the wonderful things that have happened lately.

First and foremost, Happy Birthday Asher!

Hmmm, for pictures, let's start with the oldest thing I did.
I went to a free outdoor performance by the Houston Symphony, and it rocked. The soloist played the Haydn Cello Concerto in D-Major, and did a really good job, even if his cadenza was a little bit boring.

Side note: I'm breaking in my new climbing shoes right now, and they are a little painful, but they're supposed to be that way, so I will take it. They are Five Ten Coyotes, and have fantastically grippy rubber on the bottom, and a pretty comfortable toe box.

Aaaah! There is a mosquito in the room with me, and he's survived two of my attacks. Sad day, now I will be paranoid all evening.

I'm drinking another one of my terrible chimera drinks. This one is

1) An un-named yellow-green, highly caffeinated soda,
2) Grapefruit juice, and
3) Fruit punch.

To be fair, it's not nearly so bad as my coffee / ice cream / milk / juice / chai / ice smoothie. That was disgusting. I kept up a brave front for at least the first half of it, but then my machismo gave way and I admitted to having made a bad decision.

Aaaah yes, back to my recounting of events.

I also went to a baseball game, at Minutemaid park. Pretty fun! I have the house here all to myself (I have for the past four days) so I've taken this opportunity to do some of the things that I've wanted to for a long time, but hadn't gotten to. I made a pull-up bar, rigged my roommate's speakers into an acceptable stereo with my iPod in the living room, and did sit-ups until I couldn't really move.

Final note, everyone who is coming to visit me, I love you all!!!

Lastly, my trip offshore to the oil rig has a definite date, and it is July 15th. Helicopterhelicopter, woohoo.