Grab Bag: Farewell RTC, Dobbs on CNN.com, etc.

RTC farewell
So, I said goodbye to the work location I've known for the last 3.5 years (which, btw, is amazing in and of itself). We're all being moved out of the old Reston (RTC) location and heading over the main campus in Dulles. Quite exciting, you know. For me, it's good news because I'm spending about half my time there already anyway.

Last Thursday we had a half-day celebration, including a hallway golf tournament and one last beer bash. The event was fun, the food was ok, and the weather was hot and sticky.

This week has been just the opposite, with storms the last few days that have caused many problems, including a major leak in the old RTC building. To the left is a picture of the sign out front, and you can see the hail dotting the island in the foreground. The temp dropped so quickly that the inside of my car was completely steamed up when I finally got to it. Though it doesn't show in the picture, there was fog coming off the hot pavement. Kind of wacky.

Kilimanjaro and global warming
CNN.com had an article this week on a new study disclosing that, yes, Kilimanjaro's ice pack is decrease, but no, it is not related to the allegedly human-caused "global warming crisis." Apparently the melt-off pre-dates peak human activities with respect to production of greenhouse gases. Here's my favorite quote:

"It is certainly possible that the icecap has come and gone many times over hundreds of thousands of years," Mote, a climatologist, said in a statement.

So, you see, a climatologist actually comes out and essentially admits that hey, maybe there are natural cycles to some of this stuff. Shocking, I'm sure.

However, not to put our minds completely at ease, these folks do still have to pull out the traditional FUD and remind us that "global warming" certainly isn't helping matters. Well, duh. You mean snow and ice don't handle increasing temperatures very well? I'm just shocked.

Once again, however, I wish to remind everybody that this study underscores once again that scientists have no honest clue what's up with climate change, except that the climate is changing. Somehow I doubt that the end of the world is approaching. Though I still like my ice age prediction...

CNN's Dobbs hits the nail on the head
I've become a fan of Lou Dobbs' and his straightforward lancing of political BS. This week's commentary is no exception. In particular, he takes on the president's push on this stupid, moronic, ill-conceived, insulting immigration bill, which of course seems like it's going to pass, regardless of reality. This whole thing really reminds me of USA PATRIOT in that politicians are so afraid of that very small minority (because, let's face it, 20m votes can potentially make a difference in national elections now) that they're willing to bend over backwards. Of course, the flip side is that doing so may end up alienating the other 200m who actually vote, and the 300m+ who are legally in this country. But never mind those legal citizens -- what do they know or care about politics, anyway? Quotable quotes:

In what other country would citizens be treated to the spectacle of the president and the Senate focusing on the desires of 12 million to 20 million people who had crossed the nation's borders illegally, committed document fraud, and in many cases identity theft, overstayed their visas and demanded, not asked, full forgiveness for their trespasses?

Main point here: I like what Dobbs is saying and highly recommend jumping over to take a look.

Amazon Associates and stupid iframes
In order to diversify my revenue sources for this blog (a few more years of this and I might make $5), I've decided to add some Amazon links, particularly for book references, since I'm reading and reviewing them on a regular basis. Anyway, this week I received a promotional announcement from Amazon about their new Amazon Grocery service. Pretty good incentives are offered to me for advertising this new retail service, so I of course was eager to get a banner ad in place. Until I was reminded of just how dumb they really are.

When I first began to use the Amazon Associates program, I actually wanted to leverage their graphical cover art links for my book reviews. Unfortunately, they wrap the tags in iframe tags. Why, I don't know. What I do know, however, is that using an iframe tag completely blows up the Moveable Type (MT) blogging platform. I also looked to add other banner adds on the right side, like I do for Google ads, but again, iframes, no joy.

So, this is of course the case with banner ads for the Amazon Grocery service, meaning I'm pretty much SOL on putting up graphical adverts. Frustrated by this, I sent them feedback, flagged as a "feature request." In no short terms, I asked if they could please provide graphical ad support that did not require retarded iframes. I got a stupid response back that pointed me toward text ads (my bad, I must not have been clear). I've sent them a follow-up trying to be more clear this time, specifically calling out that I can generally use their banner ads because, well, they use iframes, and iframes blow up my blog, meaning, therefore, that their code sucks. We'll see if they understand my request this time. But, hey, it's just their failure to be promotable, so what do I care, really?

Fiction: Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants: A Novel
This book review has nothing to do with security - sorry! Every once in a while you need to put down the heavy, academic reading and dig into something light and frothy. This piece certainly fit the bill, allowing me to rip through it in a few days (less than a week).

The overall story focuses around a main character who intended to be a vet with his father and, through a tragic incident, finds himself completely on his own. So, logically, he hops a train (oh, btw, this is a period piece set during the Great Depression), which turns out to be a circus training, and he eventually ends up being a circus veterinarian. Oh, and he falls in love, with a few torrid love scenes thrown in for good measure.

As a guy reader, I found this book to be fun and engaging. Like I said before, it was a nice diversion from my normal load of academic-oriented reading. If you're looking for a fun, quick read that doesn't make you think much, if at all, then this is probably a good choice. We'll definitely be looking into other works by Sara Gruen now to see if they're as good.

Bob needs a new contract
My buddy Bob is out of work again. If anybody knows of anything in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for a technical security guy, please drop him a line, or let me know. He kind of got screwed again, which seems to be a theme with contracting in Minnesota. Personally, it's made me reconsider whether or not I would ever do independent contracting. Just seems like too much hassle!

India trip coming up quick!
This month is blowing by quickly. In just a shade over a week, I'll be on a very long flight to India. I'm very excited to go over, and not just to see the sites, but also to meet the people, including the senior management team. This stands to be an excellent all-around trip.

The only major point of pending doom is that this trip will conclude the same day that my parents arrive for the July 4th holiday. We are literally scheduled to arrive into Dulles about 6 hours apart. Eep! I'm going to be coming back from a place that is 9.5 hours ahead of local time. Luckily, I'll be likely able to use comp time from the trip instead of vacation time to hang out with them. Nonetheless, I'm going to be one exhausted fellow come July 6th, when "normality" is resumed. Oh, and all this starts on the heels of the recent office move, too. What fun! hehe... wheeee.....

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Well, that's all for me tonight. And, frankly, it's enough. I've been typing for nearly an hour now, in fact. Have a good one!