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WIGGLIT
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Name: Ron
Country: United States
State: Virginia
Birthday: 3/15/1968
Gender: Male
Interests: I enjoy fishing, skiing, wrenching on sportscars, motorcycling, traveling, reading science- and 'regular-' fiction, collecting comic books, and tinkering with computer software and hardware.
Expertise: My areas of expertise are multi-faceted: 10 yrs. military experience in intelligence analysis and nuclear weapon maintenance, personnel management, and physical training. I've now a career in network analysis, mainly network intrusion analysis.
Occupation: Computer related
Industry: Computers (Internet)
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
3/21/2001
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| I've been gone awhile...well, not GONE but just not here at Xanga.
For one, I don't like the newish interface (I've been with Xanga awhile). Also, they keep prompting me to upgrade (WTF).
Half the people I used to subscribe to on Xanga are now gone.
I also have other more used blogs.
I may kill this blog.
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| I'm free until Friday (or Saturday, since I have to work Friday...I may not feel like driving 300 miles after work). The family went to visit my parents for spring break, but I opted to stay home so that I don't end up burning up all my vacation days. I'm going to actually use this break as a vacation. I want to do a few things:
1. Vacuum the WHOLE house, top to bottom.
2. Mop the kitchen
3. Take my Macbook to the Genius bar...it's been non-functional for over 2 months (dead hard disk).
4. Get my truck details or wash it myself
5. Get the truck's oil changed (and maybe front and rear diffs' fluid changed).
6. Catch up on all my Tivo'd shows.
I may amend that list as the days go by. I can't do much of that since I usually rush home after work to get the son from daycare and pick up the girls from my sister's place. I usually go from a hectic day at work directly home within 30-40 min. If I have to do something important, I usually wait until my wife gets home so I can do what I need to do...sometimes she doesn't get home until 7PM and occasionally 8PM.
I also think I'm going to guss up my resume (again, as I recently did it) so that I can focus on a management position or a position that doesn't require me to meet certain requirements within 15 minutes of notification. I'd applied for a tier III position at work but someone more junior got the position. It's not that I"m not aggressive or substandard work in comparison or even that this guy offers more...he doesn't, but my supervisor wanted to cut this guy a break...I don't necessarily agree with the decision but I'd be stupid to just quit.
So, for the next six months, I'm going to focus on finding that PERFECT position. I do NOT want to do any more firewall change requests or receive customer phone calls. I really don't want to be responsible for a team, either, as today's work ethic, on the average, is bad. What I want is be be able to conduct research on exploits and vulnerabilities (no, I don't want to do C&A work or work with any government office as a contractor). I want to work with the minimum of deadlines and oversight. I want to define my own projects or at least have a say in what needs to be researched. I don't necessarily want to monitor network detection devices. I'd like to be able to go to security courses or attend Defcon. I'd like to attend ArcSight conferences or attend an ArcSight course. I'd like to be able to go to those courses without having to haggle with management about who's going to pay what percentage. I'd like a job with regular hours, no shift work or on-call work. Is this impossible? Maybe but I'm sure I can get most of that if I look hard enough and if I hone my skillset.
My current job is OK, but I've been the lead for my team for 2.5 years...it gets old, especially in my field and within a SOC. I've an opportunity with Network Solutions that I may check out, but it doesn't mention anything about being a senior part of the team, which I want very much. I believe I'll also attempt to take the CISSP exam, since that's what most people appear to be expecting (although I know quite a few people with those credentials who probably don't warrant it).
It is also warming up here...with that comes the pollen and allergens. I'm now taking my Flonase and a tablespoon of local honey a day, to harden my body's defenses. I hate spring...it makes me sick, literally. I prefer winter, dry skin and all...at least I can breathe.
So, let me go enjoy my night by eating dinner, dessert, then watching some Tivo'd movies!
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| This past Sunday, the family visited Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia, a ski resort. This is the second time we've had a family outing to that resort and it is indeed awesome. The trek is 4.5 hours by vehicle from the DC area, not factoring in snow or bad weather. Last year, it took us 6 hours when it decided to snow at the beginning of our trip...and this included a jack-knifed truck that was blocking a mountain pass that made us double back to a major interstate and go around (added hours to our trip, along with the ice and snow).
This year, I sorta mentored my oldest daughter. I'm by no means an expert skier...not even close. She opted to not take a training course this year (we'll make her next year). We did many passes on the bunny slope then decided to brave it on a green trail...only thing is, the green trail included some blue trail that wasn't included on the map (yes, I read the map correctly). This had my girl anxious...we wiped out several times due to her getting her skiis tangled with mine. Several hills had me very hard on the brakes the whole way down the hills. She was initially beside me, alternating on sides that put me between her and a steep drop, but I moved her between my skiis when things got rough, putting my forearms under her armpits. Because the route was so long (one trip was like 35 min) and because I was basically carrying her down the steep slopes, I was pretty worn by the end of the first day. The second day was mostly rain (that sucked)...it was enough rain to where it wouldn't have been any fun and snow was melting bigtime. The day we left, it started with freezing rain that turned into snow that complicated our drive home.
My son also got really sick the night before we left, vomiting everywhere. My wife decided to care for him while I slept since I was the one that was going to drive us home. She was up pretty much all night cleaning him up and sleeping under a thin sheet since he'd messed up our spare sheets and covers (the lobby had closed before he'd gotten sick).
So, I'm battered from skiing and semi-tired from a roughish night of semi-sleep. I also have to plan to be up caring for the son tonight and possibly taking half a day off to take him to the clinic if he's still bad in the morning.
Otherwise, a very productive week.
This week, I possibly find out if I can move to another team to focus solely on security analytics...I'm still not sure if that's what I want, as there's another position that works security analytics that is more freelance and does internet backbone security analysis and trending. If I don't find out by the end of this week about the first endeavor, I'm going to pursue the second one (which my tick my director off, especially if he accepted me on his team but hasn't yet notified me yet). I'm just tired of managing a Tier II SOC team. The work is good, but I can't stand being held accountable for things my upper managers won't really give me control over (staffing and such). I'm not trying to be anal or uppidy but some times I feel that I care more about the team as a whole than every one else, to the point that many people ask me questions about things I'm not really in charge of. I've been with the company since 2005 and its been fun enough to where I don't want to go, but I definitely have to get off of this team , for sanity-sake. I hate doing firewall change requests, but I do them. I hate getting on the phone with a customer when my support guys should be running the call. I hate speaking to an irrate customer because we failed to provide what the customer is paying for...and all due to not having a toolset that we should have to achieve our goals. <end rant>
So, I go back to work with a filthy truck. It will be about an hour before Exchange archives my e-mail from 5 days back, then I'll have to move desks (again). Lucky, I only have tomorrow and Friday left for the work week! :)
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| You know what's lame as hell? Guys that I grew up with contacting my sister to say 'what up' and not even attempting to do the same for me...WTF is all that about?? Especially when she graduated two years later.
Several times, my sister came to me saying that 'so-and-so' e-mailed or IM'd her and that she'd passed my e-mail addy to them...I never get anything from them...WTF?
What also frustrates the hell out of me is when I get e-mails from the forum saying that someone posted...I go and check and its someone saying 'happy birthday' and I don't know either party. I've been on the mailing list for years and only see certain people doing that crap...spamming the whole list to say 'happy birthday' to some person I never even said 'hi' to in the hallway...crap like that. I'm definitely not upset about the fact that no one monitors my birthday...I've my wife and kids for that...that's all that counts. What does upset me is that, for some reason, 20+ years later, the damn cliques won't die. Cheerleaders that now have wrinkles and are 200+lb still think they're in the 'in' crowd...dudes with mullets and never leaving town and bettering themselves. I never desired to be associated with those groups and I especially don't now. I'm definitely the person everyone will love to hate if I ever attend another high school function. I also have an ex-girlfriend that hardly said crap to me and for some reason, her and her friend think I can't handle the fact that she got married 20 yrs ago??? Give me a break! I've moved on, trust me...two marriages, 3 kids, and a military career later, trust me when I say that I'm not pining over some relationship that happened back in 1984.
You know what's cool though? My mom got locked out of her house once and she was sick, so the neighbors let her stay over their house until my mom could contact my dad. That's cool. Parents don't let silly stuff get in the way of looking out for each other.
While I'm OK with my life, I should definitely have stuck up for myself more when I was in high school. And while I promise myself that I'll not live through my kids' school days, I'm definitely pushing my kids to be aggressive in getting what they want out of life...starting with school. I'm teaching my kids to be Alpha, especially my boy. They already know that they don't have to be liked to succeed in the things they do...that's secondary, and while its nice to be liked, its better to be liked in everything, not just successful things. I didn't know ANY of my class leaders...they already knew they were class leaders...the didn't need someone like me reminding them, even though they probably wouldn't have minded. What I learned over the last 20 years is that real leadership requires caring about what you're responsible for...its not about throwing another medal on your chest or another diploma to mount on the wall. What I like hearing from people I've worked with are things such as, "I'm glad you fixed that issue...I've been trying to get someone to look at that for quite awhile", or, "I glad you helped me...the others think its above them." I'm the type of person that loves to let people know that someone does care. That attitude has moved me quickly up the management chain and while that's nice, I always seem to bump into those people who know I care about the important things...I think that's more important than anything else.
About 10 yrs ago, I chatted with someone I hardly remember seeing in school that had a very difficult time. She hated school with a passion because of the damaging mentalities present in most high schools. What sucks is that while some people can slog it out and pull themselves out of the muck, others can't. This lady had me concerned because it affected her adversely and I could tell she was still very moody about her experiences. She never elaborated but she didn't really have to...she told me that school definitely sucked and she told me why (its the same stuff I'm rambling about now). Nowadays, we see people bringing guns and killing as many people before killing themselves or being killed...all because people go out of their way to make them feel that they don't belong anywhere. This society is going downhill so damned fast...
I went to the first reunion and it was my last. I will not go again. I don't have time for games and such and will tell someone off in a minute nowadays...it's better that I do my own thing and let them die off. The people that I care about know who they are...I said my hellos back in 1996 and those hellos were also goodbyes.
And you know what? I don't really give a shit if any one of them sees this.
I haven't posted in quite awhile and when I do, I drop a dump-truck load of stuff...sorry
I also have a facebook account...I don't know if I'm too old for that type of thing because I hardly ever use it and looking at others' facebook pages, they seem awfully gaudy and busy...the pages usually have no agenda other than giving daily shout-outs or some dumb stuff such as that.
I've been with Xanga long enough to where I may either purchase an account or go with Blogger.com...if only I posted here more...
OH...one more thing...for you gamers, I've a Call of Duty 4 server, if you're looking for a good server to game on. I'm trying to get some traffic there, so feel free to take the server for a spin with a friend or 3. For more details, see http://24.7.war.unixfool.com/
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He loves to eat! :) | | |
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