Again.

Again.

I hear it in my head. It is not the "again" of a child not wanting to do another chore.
I hear it in my mind. It is not the "again" with a hint of do I have to?
I hear it over and over. It is not the "again" of a question.
Those uncertain meanings to again do not exist in my head.

I feel it with my heart, the again of determination.
I see it with my mind, the again of consistency.
I hold it in my hand, the again of persistence.

This is the again you may hear from your martial arts instructor.

Here I am again.
Losing weight.
Riding consistently.
Getting where I'm going.
There have been setbacks before, there may yet be more.

Like riding on the trail, I take that same old obstacle with an new determination and confidence. I will take it this time.

Last time at the Muir blue trail, I cleared the last hill. Then, I did it again.

This week, I pulled through some pretty ugly number of hours in front of a computer screen. Figuring and fixing, again and again. Somehow I broke my old mold of giving up workouts while on-call. I managed 5.5 hours of basement, mile-less riding.

I have a long way to go, but I'm clearing new obstacles.

I do not share this to gloat of what I can do. I share with the humble wish that you can too.

You may not mountain bike. You may not work on-call in front of a PC. Whatever your obstacle, stand up and do it again.

Situational Conditioning

I've got a test coming up. I want to get re-certified.

I don't fully appreciate many of the certifications in my line of work, but this one was a challenge. The list of certified professionals is relatively short. I was an early adopter. And I felt it was worth keeping.

It's been some time since I've had to study in any capacity. There is the hitch. Now, I have seen some commercials about "the new learning" and all. New learning, indeed.

I have received mp3's of my material. It's Unix security related. So, my headphones are spitting out about 40 hours of Unix threats from the past 25 years. All the while I'm gasping and choking on 15F degree air. I've done some wacky things, but listening to "how to hack and protect computers" while running is most definitely different.

So, will I need to get a treadmill for the test?

I like it. Maybe I should swap this for the TV while doing rollers.

Pre-Turkey Day Burn

I don't really want to be a "workout blogger". Having not posted in some time, I should update from the "Life" post. I did have a fortnight totally off of workouts due to fatigue and illness. I hopped back on when I was sure I was ready. The first roller workout was pretty steady compared to starting up last month. And here I am this week...

Sunday, two hours on the single speed outside in 40 degrees. Someone remind me to put it back to fixed so I can work the cadence. I felt I could push the low end but topped out quick.

Monday, gasp! I ran. I had to crank up the nano something fierce to drowned out the sound of my pleas and wailing.

Today, I'm really happy with today's workout. Sixty minutes on rollers doing Ron Rogers interval workout #1. First time I ever attempted these on rollers. I have some feed back for how to improve getting it done next time.. but basically I'm on my way.

The current go forward plan will be: Run M/W/F. Interval program T/R. And a nice outdoor ride on the weekend. As for swimming, I have to remember to cancel my membership before I'm stuck swimming another year.

While I'm at it, IT security stuff has been buggin' me more lately.. Tip of the day, "Turn off autorun". Especially if you take your thumb drive and/or memory stick to photo kiosks.

See you out there.

Life...

Here is where the rubber hits the road.

• I've got 3 flat tires in the basement.
• Some kind of virus is going through the family.
• Two birthday parties canceled today.
• Wifi users now have to worry that not only is WEP a flimsy substitute for encryption, but WPA is on it's way to the "do not use" list.
• SP3 is out, when to install these "fixes"?
• Boxes in the basement need to go to the attic.
• Whitefish Bay schools looks caught up on the wrong side of financial leverage.
• Update your Adobe Acrobat.
• Winter is coming.

Reboot

I hope there is some tail kicking going on at ICEMAN.

PSA: Patch Your Computer

This is your friendly neighborhood reminder to patch your PC regularly. Unless you're really picky about what goes on your PC, you should probably just have auto update on. If you don't think this to be true, check out some recent thoughts at SANS.org.

Long story short, when a patch comes out, it takes the bad guys less time to reverse engineer it to make a hack than it does for you to fix your PC (or it's at least close).

While your at it, when is the last time you backed it all up?

Good luck, it's a tough world out there.