Author: Joe

Categories
Books

Ghost in the Wires

Ghost in the WiresWent back to some nonfiction for my latest read. Noticed Ghost in the Wires in the new arrivals sections. Since it claimed to be about the adventures of the world’s most wanted hacker and there was a forward by Steve Wozniak it was worthy of a read.

As a web developer I found it to be very interesting. While for some reason I was expecting more of some crazy hollywood hacks (even though I know how fake they are in the movies), it was very interesting to see of off the old fashioned social engineering techniques that were used. I always tell people that most hacks are a result of human error (giving out passwords, login, etc.) and the author certainly confirmed this.

The author’s hacks were great. It’s amazing to hear of his workarounds of the phone services. Very impressive stuff. Most of it was just a little bit before my time, but I would recall hearing some of the tales as he told them.

I also really enjoyed remembering all the various tech that was so prevalent in the 80’s and early 90’s that I sometimes forget about. VMS, Sun, some really great times.

 

Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Playoffs

Last night was both a very exciting and sad time. It was the dodgeball playoffs, and also the last night of the season.

Our opponent was the Lightning Donkeys and the first round game was an eleven match game. We started with our guy squad first and someone grasped onto a win thanks to Kevin. The man always finds a way to stay alive.

Matches were exchanged early on, until we ran into a bit of a hole. I gotta put a lot of blame on myself for this one. I just played horribly, not sure why I didn’t feel too bad physically going in. I had a couple of drops of what should’ve been automatic catches.

Kevin and Dustin gave us hope early on, but ultimately it wasn’t enough.

We wound up losing 6-3, which really bummed us. We can and have played better than that.

I did make and present awards to the team afterwards. I tried to sum up each teammate with an adjective that I thought best described their contributions and play this season. Everyone seemed to enjoy that, which felt good. They are a really good bunch of teammates and I really enjoyed playing with each and everyone of them.

Afterwards most of us headed over the the Windjammer in Somers Point. The SJSL was offering free beer, and that really got a lot of the league to show up. Handing out afterwards was a lot of fun too. We’ve got some characters in this league and I had a good time telling ridiculous stories and hearing some as well.

Categories
Books

A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to ArmsI was a little stumped looking over the recent arrivals at the library, nothing was really catching my eye. So I figured I’d stroll down the fiction section and see if anything jumped out at me. Apparently, you can’t just walk by aisles in the library and expect books to jump out, you kinda need to be looking for something specific.

I noticed a whole shelf or two of Ernest Hemmingway books. I knew he’s considered to be a great author, so why not give him a shot. I wasn’t exactly sure what to pick from the bunch, but went with A Farewell to Arms since I had read up on WWI a little while back.

The book was excellent. It bis one of the darkest and gloomiest things I’ve ever read. You really get a sense and feeling of how people felt during that time period. Nothing is over the top or greatly exaggerated, just dark and sad.

Even though you know that doom is coming, I still found myself rooting for a happy ending to this tale. The last several pages made absolutely sure that there would be not a shred of happiness to be found in this.

While not exactly an upbeat tale by any means and more of a romance story than I usually care to read, it was still a great book. I haven’t read anything of Hemmingway’s since high school and am glad that I went back and read another of his works.

Categories
Sports

Amazing Flag Football Game

Played in arguably the finest flag football I’ve ever played in this morning. We all met up at the usual field in EHT at 8:30 am. All the games we’ve been playing have been a great time, but this one really took it to the next level.

It was four on four. Chris, two Mikes and myself against Wes, Josh, Mr. Yuk-Yuk and Geoff.

We played up to ten, and the game took tow and a half hours. It was just a highly contested game, with each and every play battled over. There were for broken plays the entire game, just a steady back and forth answer for answer.

We used some early corner blitzes from Chris that were very effective. We never blitz him, and it really caught the other guys by surprise for a while. Both our Mike’s were amazing, making some incredible catches and throws all day long.

I’m old and my nagging groin injury isn’t helping matters much, but I did my best to create space for my teammates running routes, and throw a few blocks to help us march down the field a few times.

On the final drives of the game the other team seemed to be driving plays specifically against me. I sensed this would happen, hobbled I was clearly the weakest member of our team this day. I may be old and beat up, but I have played in many backyard games and made several plays on passes on the last two drives.

I knew how hard my teammates had played all day, and how much they carried me early on. It was great that I was able to come through for them on those last few drives, guaranteeing us a hard fought win.

Easily on the the greatest, evenly matched games I’ve ever been a part of. So glad that I have some good friends who wake up early to play flag football. A great bunch of guys led to a great game.

Categories
Books

Dog On It

Dog On ItWent with a different approach with my last read. While I knew that I liked dogs, I wasn’t sure if I’d like a fiction story about a dog, a detective dog actually. Turns out this was a very enjoyable read.

Chet (the dog) and Bernie (the human) are private investigators on the case. But the book is written from Chet’s point of view, which was a nice touch. The author does a great job of thinking how I’d imagine a dog actually thinks.

For the record I did write a short story titled Dog Town for a 7th grade project, so I did almost come up with it first. Believe I got an A on it actually, will have to see if I still have it.

Back to the book, it was a solid mystery. Nothing too over the top (besides a narrative dog of course). Very solid book that appears to be a series which I’ll have to really consider reading more of. It was entertaining stuff.

Categories
Sports

Dodgeball Week 8

Our final regular season game of the season was against the Banzai Executioners. We’ve had a couple of bad weeks, taking some tough losses. I really wanted to see us finish the regular season strong even though we’ve been getting some breaks.

I couldn’t of been more proud of how we played as a team last night! The energy, effort and just overall dodgeball smarts were great to see. I felt like we finally played great as a team last night.

Everyone was moving around well and throwing great. I think the week off really helped us all recover and come in fresh. We all talked to one another, and just had a good time. It was great.

Despite our stellar play, we did lose the game 9-7. But just to finish that strong and bring that momentum into the playoffs next week will be great.

The only drawback on the night for me was that I hurt my right elbow pretty badly early in an early match. It’s swollen up pretty good, and really giving me some limited movement today. I’m in full recovery mode and will play in the playoffs next week even if I have to use duct tape.