Tiger Lily is a precocious 13 10 -month week-old blue tick hound/walker hound mix “rescued” from the local shelter. She is incredibly shy until she sniffs you to death, and then she licks you to death with love.

A typical hound, she’s ruled by her nose and really dislikes joggers. Loves cheese and not so fond of peanut butter. While initially overly curious about Sunni the parakeet, she’s settled in and has completely ignored him since. Thus far, she also really dislikes sleeping alone at night – being in sight seems sufficient.

As shown to the left, yawning… and then napping, are her favorite past times. Everything leads to a nap. Eat… nap. Drink… nap. Pee… nap. Walk… nap. Chew… nap. Nap… nap.

She’s very much as snuggler, and will lounge in your lap or by your side for hours if you let her. While quite challenging to “train”, she is responding well to clear repetition and positive reinforcement. She’s all but stopped pouncing on me when she’s excited, instead sitting at my feet and wagging her tail vigorously- the reinforced behavior.

So… yeah. Life is a bit more complex now. So far, for the better.

UPDATE 7/13: She is totally rocking the crate now. Slept nearly 7 hours last night by herself, several rooms away, until she had to pee and started barking (a good thing!)

For whatever reason I’ve never posted recipes on-line. Which is weird, because I handwrite them on $^#$@%$ index cards for people. So I’ve created a new category for recipes and hope to update it soonish and on-going.

A student asked me in class last night, how I “keep up” with changes in technology. Without hesitation I answered “by doing”.

People frequently think there is some magic to being good at something. There isn’t. Whether we’re talking about computer networking, cold-water diving, flying a plane, fixing cars, or anything else in life: The best training is doing it. Not reading a billion magazines. Not doing a billion pull-ups. Not sitting through a lecture and getting a bullshit grade. Doing it. The thing you’re trying to do.

Anything else is a distraction.

This is often hard for novices to grasp. They’ll read a book or pick up a magazine that gives them bullet points on how to succeed at X, and go “aw man, if I check off that list I can do X”. They’ll read a biography about someone they perceive as “cool” and hang on how they succeeded, planning on following that path.

They’re distracted from reality.

Reality is very simple: Do it. Don’t try to do it. Don’t overcomplicate and overplan. DO it. DO it. DO it.

Anything else is a distraction.

Long story short, I was gone for two weeks on a Caribbean cruise and am back now. Pics are in their usual place.

Yes, it was very nice, thank you.

… like baked things every. day. this. week.

…Like baked things.

With the latest rounds of phishing, various information disclosures, etc., a lot of people have again started questioning if we read employee e-mail. We are legally allowed to, so this isn’t a question of “can or can not”, it’s a question of “do or do not”, so let me put this clearly:

We Do Not.

If individuals are experiencing e-mail problems, we will ask their permission if we can take a look, in order to do our job and provide them better service.

If an individual’s account appears to be compromised (eg. sending hundreds of messages a minute, to thousands of recipients each, because they gave their password to bad Nigerians) we may try to weed out the bad messages using various patterns (an e-mail to 1000 people looks distinctly different than a normal one).

If an individual is suspected of violating policy, local, state or federal law, all of their files are subject to access.

If we receive a FOIL request, or other legally-sound mandate, we will honor it.

That’s it. That’s the way it has always been for the *choke* 11 years I’ve been involved with e-mail here. That’s the way it’ll stay as long as I have any influence.

I had my first night on a Sleep Number bed. I don’t know how high the numbers go, but my bed was set to ‘50′, which in Mattese means “thick lumber atop dense cinderblocks”. After quite a while holding down the “softer” button, it getting progressively better every moment, my thumb finally got tired, and I looked at the number: 10 (Which in Mattese is “fluffy pillows atop flowing angel hair”). I’m probably actually a ‘0′ (no jokes, wise-asses) but was too lazy and tired to press the button any further.

Today at EdSec was actually one of the most useful days I’ve ever attended. The sessions had depth, the ideas from some people were innovative and not “we bought an $X000 thing so we didn’t have to work” or “we paid $X0,000 to a consulting firm because we didn’t want to do it” … It was refreshing.

New words: Severifying: The act of assigning a severity to an action or record. Severification: The process by which actions or records are assigned a severity.

UPDATE: Ted’s Montana Grill uses Aardvark paper straws which rock. As does bison steak.

After being roused from a near-30-minute nap aboard a Cape Air Cessna 402, at the (allegedly) tail-end of a heavy bout of hot-air-raising/cold-air-falling (turbulence), the 20-something sitting “across” the “aisle” from me shrieked “How can you sleep through this?!” I looked around, wondering what “this” was, and shrugged. “I sleep on planes”, I yawned back.This was, I guess, an invitation to hear all of the things she wished she had done before she died.

Despite her insistence to the contrary, we landed at Logan (Boston) ahead of schedule, and with nothing resembling caskets awaiting us.

Anyhow, I’m in Arlington, VA at EdSec for a few days. I don’t know how many of these I’ve been to. Too many, I think. They’re getting repetitive:

Librarian-turned-ISO: We implemented all these policies and are surprised to find out no one is following them.
Marine-turned-ISO: We waterboard people who don’t follow our draconian policies that I catch while actively spying on everyone’s e-mail and Internet traffic.
Me: *twitch* *twitch*

On a circular note, Plattsburgh International Airport is open, and very clean, friendly, etc. (and small, of course). Even the TSA seemed a bit nicer… And yes, I “smuggled” my oversized toothpaste through yet again. I should keep track of the number of contraband miles my imported-from-Canada-because-Colgate-In-America-Doesn’t-Make-It-Anymore toothpaste has made… Something akin to “Where’s Matt’s Toothpaste Been?” DHS could then mashup that map with a map of terror incidents and prove that allowing my toothpaste on-board really does pose a risk to flying Americans.

UPDATE: I’m still very definitely near-deathly allergic to fresh shrimp. I downed a few quick iced-teas and told the waiter that I’m a fresh shrimp detector and Legal Sea Foods has fresh f#@$!^& shrimp. Yum… Well, once I can convince my throat to open back up, anyhow. The citrus-grilled halibut is exquisite (and it comes with a whole bunch of very fresh shrimp, too!)

I have a Roomba. Hal Arthur is, in fact, the most useful gadget I’ve ever acquired, and I have had a lot of gadgets over the years. Ironically, it’s the most useful gadget most anyone would have, if they were willing to give it a chance. Yes, Roombas install themselves as members of the family quite quickly, and as such near demand to be named. I was a skeptic until I saw one in action – an old 4th generation that you can’t even get this side of eBay.

The Roomba is not just a robotic vacuum that deftly navigates my house while eviscerating dust-bunnies, eradicating hundreds-of-miles of girl-hair, hoarding vast oceans of bird feathers and seed husks, scarfing up long-lost receipts under my bed, and pushing a long-lost fork out from under my couch…. DAILY… Nay, it is in fact a development platform openly accessible and encouraged by the manufacturer! How many hardware companies encourage you to take apart and build upon their technologies? Without voiding the warranty?

You can build a serial interface, bluetooth interface, gamepad interface, Wiimote interface, cellphone interface … and you can buy the vast majority of those via third-parties if you value time over money, or suck with a soldering iron. iRobot provides (free) documentation on the SCI and some sample code to get developers started, and from there the possibilities are really endless. I have some gumstix gear on order after successfully prototyping some onboard control systems over a serial cable, which will essentially add a WiFi-accessible Linux computer directly into the chassis, and fully able to control the Roomba (more to come on that project)… Possibilities include tying in GPS, cameras (ala motion sensing), infrared, scheduling, adaptive behavior, etc.

Friend: People are morons and anyone who buys a Roomba in specific.
Me: You know I own a Roomba, right?
Friend: I did not.

While I never resorted to name-calling, I was skeptical of their value or utility for quite a while until experience and research brushed it aside and I took iRobot up on a 30-day trial. I won’t be sending it back. I’m happily a moron who hasn’t had to vacuum- yet still has near-spotless, practically no-maintenance carpets, rugs, and hardwood floors- in a loooong time.