Thursday, August 28, 2008

Another Great Will Smith Speech...

I Love to hear Will Smith Pontificate
clipped from www.bripblap.com
 blog it

Patience is a Virtue that I Lack...

Last week I attended the CISSP boot camp. CISSP is the Certified Information Systems Security Professional certification sponsored by ISC2. This certification is an intense study. The breadth of knowledge covers 10 distinct domains. The problem that most people have with this exam is that you don’t need to know a lot about any one thing, but you do have to know a little about a lot of things - the comparison is made to a lake 5 miles wide, but only 2 inches deep. So the company I work for sent me to a boot camp last week. It was 5 days of studying and a test on the 6th day. The boot camp was extremely helpful at focusing me on the things that I needed to study, and more importantly, on the things that I didn’t need to study. The downside to this exam is that it isn’t computerized, so I have to wait a couple of weeks to get my result back. Ugh – time can’t move fast enough some times.

Class Picture:




** Update ** I passed !!!! I received the email i was "patiently" waiting for on September 9th.

"Dear Jon Brusco:

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that you have passed the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) examination ..."

AWESOME !

Thursday, August 14, 2008

The Last Lecture...

On Sept. 18, 2007 Randy Pausch gave a lecture at Carnegie Mellon. Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. I want to be a man like this man. His speech is inspirational. I have embedded the You tube video here:


Here are some of the nuggets I pulled from his speech that I want to be sure to remember:

1. We can not change the cards we are dealt - just how we choose to play the hand.

2. Jim Graham
Showed up to coach practice without a football. The players asked "how are we going to practice without a football. The coach responded with "How many people are on a football team" players stated 11 on each side, so 22. How many people touch the football at any given time? - (1). so lets work on what the other 21 people are doing.
3. The Brick walls are there for a reason. Brick walls let us show our dedication. The Brick walls are there to make us prove how badly we want things - The brick walls are there to stop those who don't want it bad enough.

4. Don't bail; the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap.

5. obvious- Like a fish giving a talk about the importance of water.

6. When you do the right thing good stuff has a way of happening.

7. Don't complain; Just work harder.

8. Be good at something: it makes you valuable.

9. Be prepared: "luck" is truly where preparation meets opportunity

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Back to the Grind

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Is the Burgandy and Gold worth that much?

I have been a big Washington Redskins Fan for a long time (going on 23 years or so). When the skins were in the previous stadium (RFK) season tickets were the mythical unicorn. They were left in wills to families, they were difficult at best to get a hold of. Today is much the same, although it is somewhat easier to buy season tickets at FedEx. I have wanted to be a season ticket holder for as long as i can remember. I think it would be awesome to be able to go see the game at the stadium (which I have always liked) - and know the seats you are getting will be the same seats you will have next time. I haven't looked into how much other teams charge for season tickets, but Danny Snyder has our fans paying through the nose. I received an email from the skins this morning about a ticket offer

"A very limited number of great seats recently became available for our pre-season opener against the Buffalo Bills on August 9th at 7 PM. These seats are located in our Club Level and are only $250 for two seats. This offer includes a premium parking pass* and wristbands to our exclusive Tailgate Club**. The retail price of this package is between $700 and $1200 based on seat location."


What's that again? So to purchase 4 tickets (enough for the whole family to go) to a "pre-season" game will run me $500 before food? I don't know how people do it. I don't make a lot of money - but in the same breath i don't make chump change either. I can not comprehend how one would go about spending that kind of money on a weekly basis for a football game.
Some quick math shows me that if I were to go to a full 2009 season (Home games only) I would end up paying

$1500 for the 3 preseason
$15,200 for the remaining 8 home games
for a total of $16,700

That is just insane. I guess i am going to have to depend on "lucking" into tickets again. Hasn't been the best method historically, but it doesn't cost me anywhere that kind of money.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Allowance thoughts...

I’ve been thinking about how we issue allowance in our house. The way it is now is that my daughters do tasks that we ask them to do and we give them an allowance equal to $1 / year they are old. So my 6 year old would make $6 / week and my 10 year old would make $10 / week. The problem with the system is that it is pretty unregulated. The chores that seem pretty regular are for them to make their bed, clean their room, unload the dishwasher, help pick up in the family / toy room, and help set & clear the table.

The problem lies in that some chores, like clean her room, don’t get done every day. Which is ok, but then it’s not motivating for her to do her other chores. I don't think that the chores should be broken down into $x = chore (x). I am at a cross roads because while i think it is good for her to have her own money so that she can learn to be responsible with it, I also think that they should do the chores for the good of the household and not purely for a financial gain. I do not want to hear the question of how much do i get for doing (x) when i ask them to do something.

This little problem has been on the back burner for the last few months. I finally have a solution I’m going to try. I’m going to get a roll of raffle tickets from the craft store and a jar. Then each time she does a chore she will earn a ticket. She can trade the tickets in for money. Maybe a quarter each?

Chore ideas are:

6 Year Old
1. Clean Bedroom
- Make Bed
- Open blinds in the morning
- Clothes in the hamper
- Closet doors shut
2. Unload the dishwasher.
3. Help Set / Clear the dinner table.
4. Help straighten up the Family (TV) Room.
5. Straighten up Toy Room.
6. Take recycling out to the bin
7. Help clean up your bathroom

10 Year Old
1. Clean Bedroom
- Make Bed
- Open blinds in the morning
- Clothes in the hamper
- Closet doors shut
2. Help put dishes away (unload dishwasher)
3. Help Set / Clear the dinner table.
4. Help straighten up the Family (TV) Room.
5. Straighten up Toy Room.
6. vacuum carpets (family room, foyer, toy room) each night
7. Help clean up your bathroom

Monday, August 4, 2008

Updates....

I haven't written much original items in a while. There has been a lot going on over the last few weeks. This summer has seemed to speed along at a pretty good clip. The kids are getting ready to go back to school in a couple of weeks. Its pretty crazy how fast time has gone by.

On the 16th of July we took a family trip to Hershey Park. The 16th was a Wednesday. We tried to go in the middle of the week in an attempt to go with reduced crowds. We met our friends Will & Chirsty and thier kids. The kids always have a good time when they get together. They are almost like extended family for us as we've been friends for a little more than 10 years. We got to Hershey just after 10. The day was really nice. A little on the warm side, but tolerable for the most part. The kids went on thier first rollercoaster (The Trailblazer). Everyone had a great time. We brought swim suits with us so that we could enjoy the water park section as well. We didn't plan well and left the swim suits in the car with the idea of changing later in the day. This was pretty poor planning since the water park is on the complete oposite side of the park from where we parked. Oh well - next time. It is a shame that we only get to see Will & Christy every more. We always have a great time together.

We went to our first baseball game the other night. My companies federal practice had a night out at the ballpark. We went to see teh Washington Nationals play the Cincinatti Reds. The weather cooperated for us, but the seats were in a less than desirable location. We were really high up there. At the end of the day, everyone had a good time.


Oh yeah... The Nats won 10 - 6

I am looking forward to our weekend at Massanutten this weekend. We didn't take a true vacation, so these little trips is how we are trying to handle it. The resort sounds nice, so we'll have to see how things go.

Lost their mind...

Has the U.S. lost it's collective mind. Through one of the data streams that i read on a daily basis - I hit upon 2 items that i found kind of disturbing.

1 - The U.S. Department of Defense approved up to $10.7 billion in arms sales for Iraq over the past week, including a $2.16 billion sale of M1A1 Abrams tanks built by General Dynamics Corp. The proposed tank sale would also include some equipment built by Honeywell International Inc. and General Motors Corp., the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees foreign arms sales, said.

2 - The U.S. Defense Department notified Congress about a possible sale to Israel of $1.9 billion of Lockheed Martin Corp. C-130J-30 transport aircraft and related equipment. The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said that Israel had asked to buy 9 of the Lockheed cargo planes, plus 6 spare engines built by Britain's Rolls-Royce, 9 missile warning systems, advanced radars, radios and other communications equipment.

Seriously? are we not finding these conflicts in the middle east difficult enough? We feel that it is in our best interest to sell of military hardware to countries whose relations with us are strained?

I just don't understand the law makers

Night Guy vs. Day Guy


“I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night, cause I’m Night Guy. Night Guy wants to stay up late. ‘What about getting up after five hours sleep?’, oh that’s Morning Guy’s problem. That’s not my problem, I’m Night Guy. I stay up as late as I want. So you get up in the morning, you’re exhausted, groggy… oooh I hate that Night Guy! See, Night Guy always screws Morning Guy. There’s nothing Morning Guy can do. The only Morning Guy can do is try and oversleep often enough so that Day Guy looses his job and Night Guy has no money to go out anymore.”

- Jerry Seinfeld
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