bamed.org » Personal

Social media and the news

admin — Sat, 28 May 2011 00:46:10 +0000

A couple of years ago, we dropped cable TV and setup our XBox to watch live streaming Netflix. After awhile, I put together a computer running Boxee, and we started watching Hulu and other shows that way. Now we’ve got a PS3 along with the XBox, and Hulu Plus is available on both. I’ve also got PlayOn, and can watch Hulu, Netflix, etc. on my modded Nook Color. Basically, our family gets all of our video entertainment through the Internet and only the Internet. So when a tornado sweeped through my home town of Joplin, there was no breaking in, no important news updates, but we knew about it almost as instantly as it happened.
Thanks to Facebook and Twitter, we found out through friends and family that our hometown was under a tornado watch. Then the rumors started pouring in that St. John’s Hospital in Joplin was hit by a tornado and suffered severe damage. A quick Google search later and I’m reading live updated over twitter from various sources describing the damage, and linking to a live video feed on the Weather Channel’s website. Then the personal reports from friends and family started pouring in.
One friend reported early that her father’s house in Duquesne ( a suburb on the East side of Joplin) was destroyed. Once I realized that St. John’s and Duquesne were damaged, I realized that my sister’s house was in between those two points. I sent her a quick text, and got a call back from my brother-in-law letting me know that both my sisters and their husbands were safe, though one of my sisters’ house of damaged. A little while later we got a call from my wife’s sister. She told us that she was in her vehicle with her family at the corner of 20th and Rangeline (which we already knew suffered sever damage). My brother-in-law got some nasty cuts on his back because he was shielding the rest of his family, but he’s OK. Their car is totaled, but they’re OK.
For hours, my wife and I kept watching Facebook updates and twitter feeds, and saw pictures and videos of various spots around Joplin that we know well and the after effects of the tornado.
At some point during the chaos I had to sit back and was just a little amazed at the wealth of up-to-date information that was readily available to me, and that I was able to connect with so many family and friends and find out who was safe, who lost their house, and who was in ICU within hours of the tornado hitting thanks to both Facebook and Twitter. If we had cable, we would have been glued to the Weather Channel or CNN or some other station and would never have learned as much about the things that we cared the most about. Even the live feed on the Weather Channel’s website only focused on one small section on the far West end of Joplin, away from the center of commerce.
Anyway, whenever a disaster strikes, somebody always comments on how social media has changed the way we connect to the world, so I’m just saying it again. And in this case, it has changed for the better. Without Facebook and Twitter there would be people that I still don’t know if they’re alive or not, but thanks to these media outlets I know that my friends and family are safe.

Doing my small part to help Joplin relief effort

admin — Wed, 25 May 2011 22:38:02 +0000

Got a chance to help the Joplin relief effort out a bit yesterday. I only played a small part, but every bit counts. I can’t get there to help physically, but I plan to do what I can.
In case you didn’t know, Joplin is my hometown, but I moved to Houston this past December. Many of my friends and family still live in Joplin and all were effected in some way by the tornado last week. My sister’s house was hit and suffered some damage, but it is still standing. Several friends weren’t as lucky and completely lost their homes. One person I know is in ICU, but as far as I can tell, everyone else I know is alive and without serious injury.
Anyway, my former employer, is now the city’s main distribution center. So I got an email from their new tech guy yesterday. They were needing to setup additional phone lines to help deal with the volume of calls they are receiving, but he hasn’t learned the new phone system that well yet. So i spent my lunch break yesterday on the phone with their new tech guy and walked him through the process of programming additional extensions to be members of the Operator Group, and programming the various functions of the new extensions on a Samsung Prostar DCS. I know it’s not much, but it was something that helps the effort and that I was in a unique position to be the one available with the knowledge to help. It felt good to be part of things for a few minutes, but I really wish I could be there.

My son was looking at some of the pictures with me and he said, “It reminds me of Fallout.” I mentioned this to my friend Poorchoices and he said that’s exactly what it looks like.

I miss my hometown now more than ever and spend every night checking on friends on Facebook, and looking up more information on the damage, as well as the latest death toll. It just all seems so surreal. If we hadn’t moved, I’d be there in the middle of it right now, sorting donated goods, digging through rubbage, or who knows what else, and life just goes on here in Houston like nothing happened.

Anyway, if you want to help out, CHCC has regularly updated information available at http://www.chcchurch.org/the-storm regarding various ways you can help. They have a list of things they currently need as well as a place you can go to make donations.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

admin — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:54:25 +0000

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” (Douglas Adams)

The only thing constant in life is change. And as such bamed and family are on the cusp of a most significant change. Seven years ago this month I began a new adventure as the ‘IT guy’ for College Heights Christian Church in Joplin, MO. “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” (Douglas Adams) Later this month we will be leaving Missouri and heading South to the great state of Texas.

“Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future.” (Douglas Adams)

At the end of this month I will be beginning a new adventure as a Linux sysadmin for HostGator.com in Houston. Anyone who knows me at all will know that I have always been a rather large fan of Linux and have made it the focus of not a few blog posts through the years. As such, I am looking forward to spending my days at a command line exercising my CLI-fu. I’m also rather excited about moving to the great town of Houston where things such as Linux Users Groups, 2600 meetings, and hacker spaces are more than something you read about on the internets.

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” (Douglas Adams)

We should be all moved and begin settling in by Christmas. To all those we’re leaving behind, know that you will be missed, that you are welcome to stop by whenever you’re in the area, and that if you have any Linux experience HostGator is still hiring! So… until we meet again, “So long, and thanks for all the fish!” (Douglas Adams)

Predictable Endings

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:56:30 +0000

I was reading This Day all Gods Die by Stephen Donaldson last night and a somewhat disappointing thought occurred to me. The Gap series has been great. I’ve really enjoyed it and it has kept me on the edge of me seat through at least the last four books. The first one pretty much told us how it would end in the first chapter, but the rest have just gone from one major crisis to the next. I’ll let you read the book yourself if you want details, but the main thing is that all of humanity is at risk. Of course, the main characters have been at risk for quite sometime.

What disappointed me, is that even though I don’t yet know how the conflict will be resolved, I know it will be resolved. I expect that mankind will be saved and the “good guys” will win the day. They may not all survive, but in one way or another they will win. Similarly, in the previous books, I knew that the current conflict would be resolved. And since I also knew there were more books in the serious, I knew they would end up in trouble again. They had to; otherwise, what would the rest of the books be about?

I suppose what’s disappointing, is that even though this series has continued to surprise me, even shock me at times, and though I don’t know exactly how everything will end up, who will survive, etc., I’m reading the book expecting the day to be saved, and just waiting to see how. I don’t get to enjoy the shock and surprise that the good guys won because I already expect it. I’ve come to expect it from books, movies, and TV shows. I think more often, the good guys should lose. Humanity should be lost. Insurmountable odds should remain insurmountable. Every now and then, I’d like to read or watch a story where the hero can’t do the impossible. Actually, more often that that. The hero should lose more often than he wins. I want to see a hero driven to the brink of failure and then actually fail. Not because I’m a pessimist. Not even because I’m a realist. But if I actually thought there was a good chance the hero would fail, I could enjoy the suspense more. I would enjoy actually not knowing. Yes, I know, there are a few stories like this, but not many. When they come I am pleasantly surprised. But I want to be surprised when the hero wins. I want to be shocked when he/she/they are driven to the brink of failure and somehow come back. But as it stands, I expect it. And where’s the fun in that?

Updated Resume

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:18:33 +0000

In case anyone out there is interested, I’ve updated my resume to include recently obtained degrees and certifications. Specifically, a couple of months ago I managed to obtain OSCP status, and today I graduated with my Associate of Science in Information Technology.

I’m continuing on to achieve my Bachelor’s by next summer and I hope to obtain another certification or two this year.

So, if anyone is looking for either an entry-level infosec position, or an experienced sysadmin position, check out my resume and drop me an email.

Goals for 2010: Part 10 – Um… well… come up with more goals.

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:56:40 +0000

OK, so I asked my family, “What are some more goals I can set for myself for next year?” And Josef, my oldest son, said, “Come up with more goals.” So, that’s pretty much it.

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you’ve already seen all these, but I thought I’d take some time to define these goals a bit more. This way, you, my faithful follower (Hi, Mom & Dad!) might understand what I mean, plus writing it down gives them more meaning to myself as well, especially come December 2010 when I look back and think, “What the heck did I mean by that?”

Goals for 2010: Part 9 – Buy a minivan, or an SUV that’ll seat 6 comfortably.

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:52:54 +0000

Ok, once again a simple goal. Basically, our family grew from 5 to 6 this year and we need better transportation seat us all comfortably. We’ve currently got two cars, one only seat 5, the other seats 6 but nor comfortably. So, I want a vehicle we can all comfortable fit in.

Um… ya, that’s pretty much it.

Goals for 2010: Part 8 – Don’t be evil

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:45:03 +0000

I you don’t already know, this is the informal company motto of Google, and I think is a pretty good goal for anyone both personally and professionally. It’s simple and too the point.

Goals for 2010: Part 7 – Create

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:43:06 +0000

This goal can be interpreted in plenty of ways and won’t be easy to quantify. The basic philosophy behind this goal is to take some time each week to create something original. This goal could be satisfied by contributing to an OSS. There may be a few lines of code I contribute that I have created. But I want to find some other ways to expand my horizons and explore my own creativity. One way I have been doing this lately is by writing. I have actually been working on a few science fiction short stories. I don’t plan on becoming a famous author, but I’ve found that I rather enjoy writing and it’s a good way for me to exercise my mind in areas that typically lie dormant when I’m configuring servers, troubleshooting users, or writing some code.

I should mention that in school I’m writing 4-6 original papers per week, so I suppose that would meet the criteria for this goal, but unless I find one of these to be exceptional I would like to keep the creative juices flowing in some other way.

Perhaps the biggest challenge with this goal, and several of the others, is time. With school and work and the family, when will I have time to be creative? I believe my youngest son, Grant, has come up with a solution to this problem. Each week at the local Books-A-Million a large group of kids get together to play Yu-Gi-Oh! and he wants to go there as often as he can. So my current plan is to take my laptop with me to BAM each Saturday afternoon and while he plays, I’ll create. I’ve done this a couple of times so far and it’s worked great. The local BAM does NOT have Wi-Fi available, so there’s no distractions, and the environment seems to be conducive to pumping those creative juices around my grey matter. So we’ll see how this goes the rest of the year. If I come up with something I like well enough, you may find it here at bamed.org.

Goals for 2010: Part 6 – Take the kids out more often

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:30:36 +0000

Obviously, this is also another one of those personal goals. My daughter loves it when I take her out on a “Date.” She’ll talk about it for weeks afterwards. And of course, my boys are pretty fun to hang out with too!