Tag Archives: job

Changing Timezones

Posted on by
3

Changing timezone without moving anywhere. It’s a tough assignment, but I’ve been able to do it.

Since September 2010 I’ve been working for Rosetta Stone’s test lab on the second shift, generally working somewhere in the vicinity of 5pm-midnight. In the last few days I was asked if I would be interested in swapping positions with a member of the day shift team who needed to move for personal/family reasons.

I elected to think about it, and later accepted. As of yesterday (and everyone I work with is now aware of this, so I can tell the world in full), I am a member of day shift working “normal people” hours! I’m still officially part time, so there is no change in my 35 hour limit. The only change in pay has been a result of my regular company raise (also received that notice today!) so really all that changes for me is starting in the morning and finishing in the evening, and not the other way around..

Quotable Monday: Unemployment

Posted on by
Reply

“What is a danger is that we stay stuck in a new normal where unemployment rates stay high, people who have jobs see their incomes go up, businesses make big profits. But they’re learned to do more with less, and so they don’t hire.” — Barack Obama

This has been one of my chief concerns with improvements in technology and efficiency over the last few years. It is probably basic economics, but if you have a group of 10 people, each of whom is responsible for producing something for those 10 people, then they have a small balanced economy.

Say you have someone whose job is to provide and maintain housing, and someone whose job is to provide food, and someone who oversees medical needs. You can introduce currency to allow them to pay each other in a standard manner, but if they each have a job then it is a fair system.

Now, introduce another 10 people. That means there are now 2 people who can perform each job, but an extra 10 people that require the service provided. It remains balanced and in ratio.

Introduce more people, and in theory the ratios will stay in check. Until two things happen. Firstly, too many people get educated to do one job, which leaves a gap in areas with untrained workers and creates a surplus in workers for other areas. This means people have to settle for a job they don’t want, or aren’t trained for. Secondly, and this is the bigger problem, is that technology is discovered or new methods of doing work are implemented which now allow the job that was done by 5 people to be done by just 2. What are the other 3 people going to do? Unless they can find a niche business opportunity (and let’s face it, how many of those survive for any period of time?) then they are doomed to unemployment, which is what I fear is our problem today.

And so I cannot help but agree with our President. Those who have jobs will likely keep them, those who own companies will probably succeed. Those who are on the street with no opportunities on the horizon will likely be left there.

Photo Friday: Working Late

Posted on by
Reply

One of the few benefits to working late in Harrisonburg is that I get to watch, or at least listen to, the late night workings of the Chesapeake Western. They don’t often work late, but when they do I’m usually around to know it’s happening.

Security: We’re Doing It Wrong

Posted on by
Reply

Don’t worry, this won’t be a long post.

I have long been of the belief that we are going about password security all wrong, and XKCD have successfully visualized it. A few months ago I saw an excellent post somewhere (of course, now I can’t find it) about the basic methods used to crack passwords and how to derive a secure but memorable password that will defeat most of them for long enough between change cycles.

Basically it boils down to brute force, and dictionary attacks. There are also hybrids, but they are essentially combinations of the two. Social engineering, while valid, doesn’t really apply to this argument.

With a dictionary attack, a hacker or script kiddie will have a long list of words that may be commonly used for passwords that they will run through attempting to gain access. So if you use a word like “banana” or “elephant” as your password, it probably wouldn’t take long to be compromised.

With a brute force attack, a hacker or script kiddie will use a system that tries to guess your password by cycling through every possibility and hopes that he eventually lands the right one.

More common are hybrid systems which take words or phrases and use them as the core of a brute force attack, making the attack more intelligent, if you will.

The problem is that deriving a good secure password (as we’ve been taught is secure, at least) can result in a password that is difficult to remember. Personal anecdote time. A couple of companies I have worked for in the past had password systems in place that required a password at least 8 characters long, and that had upper and lowercase characters as well as at least one number. It also had to be changed every month, I believe, and it wasn’t possible to use any password that had been used in the last 12 months.

Most people will agree this is a good idea. Passwords should be regularly changed for various reasons, but having those kinds of requirements starts to become silly and LEADS to insecurity. I reached the point where I had to use an insecure password system (though I wouldn’t tell anyone what it actually was) just so that remembering it wouldn’t be an issue.

The other issue arises when someone needs 3 or 4 passwords to go about their daily business (I have 4, that I can think of that I use regularly) but there is no interconnection between the two. Even worse, there may be different requirements for technical or security reasons. “No numbers” or “cannot start with a number” are occasionally issues. This ultimately leads to people writing their passwords down, which is just not a good idea. Whether it’s in a file on your computer, a note in your notebook, or even worse a post-it taped to your desk, keyboard or even monitor, chances are good someone will find it and utilize it.

Simple rule: keep it simple, make it long, use some form of obscurity. Ideally find a password that will suit all the systems you use so you can keep it in sync, and find a way to juggle it around in a way you’ll remember every time that window pops up saying “your password will expire in 12 days, would you like to change it now? Yes, No”

Field Trip!

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been about a month since the last writing, and much has happened since.

The trip to Boston went flawlessly, the trip back almost as much. One interstate on-ramp that didn’t look nearly as sharp as it was at the top, and a couple of instructions either from the GPS or the ones I had written down the night before that were interpreted too late and meant we had to detour a little. I was loathe to use the GPS entirely as I had mapped the route from our hotel room and found that the quickest way home had 3 tolls to pay. I changed a couple of things and found that by adding a few minutes (pocket change on our 10 hour journey) we would only pay 1. I feared if we used the GPS too much then it would lead us through the other two as well.

We had initially planned for Kelly and I to share driving, once we got out of New York (she wasn’t excited about driving through New England – I didn’t care), however we left later than we intended to and were into New Jersey right around dinner time when it was getting dark. I did get a 20 minute break right before Harrisburg, PA, before Kelly decided it was too dark and simply unsafe for her to be driving, so I took the wheel again right after Harrisburg. We eventually arrived home at around 1-1:30am.

The next week we headed for Mississippi to a friends wedding in Jackson. Another long drive! We ran into several large storms on the way down. The first happened while Kelly was driving and inspired a panic attack. We, like several others, pulled off to the side of the interstate to let it pass. At the earliest opportunity we switched seats again and I think I drove the remainder of the trip from there. As we were entering the city limits of Chattanooga, TN, the CD I had in started playing a track I had forgotten – Chattanooga Choo Choo. It was too awesome to not mention! The trip to Jackson went well, at least as well as a trip can go when you’re relying entirely on other people to decide when and where you need to be, and usually not providing good directions to get there 😉 I enjoyed myself, at least.

After Jackson we headed south to New Orleans where we spent a Sunday afternoon in the French Quarter. Staci, who had been there before, was more than happy to lead us around and show us things. I discovered trains (having correctly deduced that of the three rail lines, two were right for the trolleys going up and down but the third didn’t look right) and was able to photograph a New Orleans Public Belt maneuver going by. NOPB has to be one of the only shortline railroads to do business with 7 Class I railroads. The only that gets missed is Canadian Pacific (who don’t come nearly that far South). We had a good time walking around the area before eating (at IHOP of all places!), parting ways with Staci who caught a cab back to her hotel and driving back to our hostel for the night.

The trip home was also mostly uneventful. No storms to drive through, and all was well. Until Radford. We had stopped a few miles south in Wytheville, and in hindsight I vaguely recall noticing the vibration at 70mph had increased a little just before that point. Thinking nothing of it, we got back in the car and continued on. Just a few miles later I noticed loud noises and heavy vibration coming from the car. Thinking it was a flat tire I pulled over, put on hazards and walked around the car with a flashlight. All 4 tires were fine. “Weird,” I thought, and we got back in the car and started driving again. Less than a tenth of a mile and the noise was too much, I pulled over to give the wheels a closer look. I pulled in closer to the grass, just a few extra feet from the traffic going by at more than 100 feet per second. Starting with the front left (a lucky guess, apparently) I put my foot on the top, and shoved. You know, the wheels on a car aren’t supposed to have that much horizontal motion, and the first thought that went through my head was “Oh s**t, I hope it isn’t a wheel bearing..”

At this point I decided we were not going anywhere. I had taken a quick look and noticed we were missing two (out of 5) lug nuts. A closer inspection later would reveal that they hadn’t just fallen off, but the studs/bolts had been sheared off. We called the insurance company who kindly informed us that we had reimbursable roadside assistance coverage (great!) and worked with a nearby towing company to get us home. The cost to get us home was $800. And they wouldn’t take a check (Oh, dear). In all of this the lifesaver and the reason to be home that night was in the back seat – our friend Doreen volunteered the use of some of her savings (knowing it would be reimbursed) and worked with the parties concerned to get us to where we needed to be.

Long story short, we got home in one piece. After talking with the tow truck driver at the rest area near Roanoke (both Kelly and Doreen needed to use the facilities) it was determined it was my fault, having borked the tire rotation done 3 days and 2,000 miles earlier. The upside being I now know how to get it right? The repair to the car itself was only $80, including a brief overview of what will be needed for inspection later in a couple of months. The receipt for the towing has been forwarded to the insurance company for review.

And this weekend we traveled again, not nearly as far. Our friend (who was in Boston) was moved to Winchester for intensive rehabilitation and a van full went up to visit (Her husband invited us if we took him, and so me, Kelly, Kelly’s brother Matt and his girlfriend Anna, and their parents Randy and Tammy elected to take the trip). While there is certainly some ways to go, she is doing so much better in just a few weeks. We had been in talking to her, and the nurses came and kicked us out to prepare her for dinner. Stepping outside all I could think was “Wow!” – me, the ever under-estimating, was surprised at how well she is doing. Her vision in her right eye is working (though not perfect, she was able to see things better than before), she seems to have either more energy or more willpower to use it (or both), and she is actually interacting in a way that is much more like a ‘normal’ person. I know when family and friends visit, there is a tendency to sugarcoat the responses fed back to the masses who are watching for news and hoping and praying based on it. One thing that I’ve noticed is that when she has a bad day, it is also fed back to the group. But it’s one thing to read the reports, it’s another to actually see the results for yourself. I can imagine how disturbing it might be if someone is expecting to see their bubbly energetic friend laying down and not seeming quite themselves, but having seen her just a week after her stroke I can only say the improvement over the 4 weeks since is amazing, uplifting and very optimistic.

In other news, I am waiting to hear about two job applications I have in within Rosetta Stone for full time, day shift positions. Expecting announcements early this week, but family and Facebook will likely be the first to know, posted here shortly afterwards. Today I am inspecting, double checking, looking again and triple checking an envelope to be sent to the USCIS processing center in Vermont which will contain my paperwork for becoming an unconditional Permanent Resident of the United States. Initially, when I came I was a non-immigrant (the K-1 fiance visa is considered non-immigrant). After filing the paperwork correctly (we took long enough!) I was issued a work permit pending processing of my residency application. Once that came through I was granted Permanent Residence, conditional on marriage to Kelly. That card expires next month and so the next step is filing to remove the conditional status. No, I’m not going to be a citizen, I’m not even eligible for citizenship yet. I suspect I will take it at some point when it is possible, so long as I can retain my New Zealand citizenship. We’ll need to review our options before that time depending on various factors, but that is still a year or few away.

Semi-wasted Fridays (AKA, I really need to acquire a scanner)

Posted on by
Reply

The last two Fridays have been train-watching days, one relatively more successful, though how you determine which is up to you.

March 25th saw me arrive fairly late in Staunton, and I was greeted almost immediately after arrival by the BBRR local arriving “home” for the day, coming in from the West.

It consisted of BB12 leading BB6 and 3 cars. It backed down towards the flats and shut down around 12:30.

The Eastbound Cardinal (AMTK 50) was well late, arriving at around 2:25pm led by Unit 92:

The Westbound Cardinal (AMTK 51) was only a few minutes late, coming in at 3:05 led by Unit 123:


And that was about the level of action I saw for the day.

April 1st made me the fool, and would have been a whole lot easier had I been in possession of a radio scanner – I would have done a lot less running around, that’s for sure!

I arrived in Staunton at about 10:45 to find three BB units about to drop a cut of cars at the Shenandoah Valley Railroad.

I pulled in to the small road off behind the SVRR offices and took several photos – I suspect it was while this was happening that the FRA car went through without my realizing it, either that or between while I was at the SV and driving down to sit at Brand, a crossing loop just outside Staunton to the East, for a while.

4

I came back from Brand with nothing, and decided to sit at the station for a while. I happened to turn around and saw three bright lights and a solid snake creeping around and jumped out of the car:


Literally 5 minutes later the last car went by…

Growing a little bored and knowing that #50 was running almost an hour late I decided to adventure eastward towards Fishersville and Waynesboro, and I had just turned the corner giving visibility to the NS bridge in W’boro and I saw an unknown train (now known to be 38Q, thanks Yahoo Groups) passing over it. A snap decision was made to follow it North, eventually getting ahead of it. Too far, in fact. I stopped and turned around (BAD idea), and caught it again. What was I saying before about needing a scanner? When such an acquisition is made I’ll also need to carry timetables in my car too.

Anyway, I finally got far enough ahead of him to stop and get photos at “Rocky Bar” and at “Island Ford” before heading straight through to Shenandoah and then heading home to Harrisonburg.




Other photos are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellyzdude/

Great Success!

Posted on by
1

Our first items are up on Etsy! Our combined blog appears to be working nicely so far, and I’ve been working on reigning in our budget.

I found an excellent tool for budgeting and setting/meeting financial goals. It’s run by Intuit, the same people responsible for TurboTax, and it’s called Mint. I’ve spent some time over the last few days adding our accounts and loans and such. Today I added two financial goals – paying off the two credit cards (possible by September) and paying off two of our smaller loans (Possible by 2015).

To summarize, this is what it did for us when I first signed up. It asked for some basic information, as all sites do. Then I added our bank accounts, credit cards, and loans all automatically via online banking. Now, that might seem scary, but Mint is a purely read-only system. It makes no attempt to do anything other than look at what you’ve done – in fact with alert systems in place it adds security by allowing SMS messages to be sent when it senses strange things are going on in your accounts.

So now it knows how much money we have in our accounts, how much we owe on loans, most of the loans also show the interest rates, all of our transactions for the last 90 days, and it automatically assigns categories to transactions based on who they were to. I’ve had to manually change some, because not all of our spending at Sheetz is on gas, for example. It also recognizes our income, and assigns budgets to the various spending categories based on that. So we have a budget for gas, a budget for movies and entertainment, for fast food, for restaurants and dining, for saving, etc etc. It gives warnings on things, like the fact that we are currently using 131% of our combined credit card limits. It gives suggestions on alternative products (credit cards, checking accounts, savings accounts) that would save more money or pay more. For a long time I’ve been wanting to keep track of all our transactions and see where our money is going, but I’ve been far too lazy and it requires more organization to make sure we’re in check with what the bank says. Mint does it automatically!

Granted, I’ve been using it for 3 days so my experience isn’t huge, and it does have it’s downsides – e.g. it won’t read our Sallie Mae account (for some unknown reason – I’ve put in a request for them to find out), and because I don’t have online access to either of our auto loans I can’t enter them either. It also poses a security risk by giving your online banking information to one entity, however secure and reputable they may be.

Selling Jewelry (Or Jewellery, for my NZ Friends)

Posted on by
Reply

I am a man. Not the manliest of men, I’m not great at physical labor. I’m not amazing at physical sports. I shy away from physical confrontation whenever possible. But I am undeniably a man. I’m not a particularly girly man, I don’t try to wear women’s clothing or particularly enjoy shopping. I do, however, enjoy organizing things and coordinating activities.

And that, dear reader, is why I am selling jewelry. You may or may not be aware that my lovely wife enjoys making earrings, and often sells them at craft shows and such. You may or may not be aware that attempts to sell them online have not always come to much. So we decided to combine our strengths and try a team effort in online merchanting. This week we started our master plan. I registered a new store on Etsy, called Flying Glibbies. We also registered a domain name and set up a website, flyingglibbies.com. Many changes are yet to come this week as we continue organizing and getting things together, but hopefully we will have items available for purchase by the end of the week.

The goal is to sell different kinds of things, but to start with several pairs of earrings will be made available. I’m also working on some wood crafts of a couple of varieties, and will also sell some large prints of photos. Watch this space!

A Range of Updates!

Posted on by
Reply

So, there are a few new things worth reporting.

Firstly, my performance review at work came in, and I scored a fairly solid 3/5. Not bad, considering I’ve been there just coming up 6 months (was 4 at the end of the 2010 calendar year). I have a few things to work on, but don’t we all?

Also work related, there is a full time position opening on day shift, which I think I will at least apply for. There are several others in the lab that are interested, all of whom have been there longer than I have and so I don’t doubt that they would get it over me. Still, if I don’t try I can’t ever hope to succeed.

I’ve been to Charlottesville a couple of times in the last month or two, and had a great time. I’m sure there must be more, but so far I’ve only found one hobby shop that was where the maps and information on the internet told me it would be (and even then, I’m not sure it’s one of the ones on the list!) It was near Kroger on 29, not marked very visibly but big “Thomas Trains Here” and “Lionel Trains Here” signs in the windows. I have also spent a fair amount of time sitting around near the Amtrak station near down town, as this is where two fairly busy railroads cross. The Norfolk Southern running North-South to Manassas and Lynchburg sees several trains a day. The CSX running North-East-West (the division, leased by the Buckingham Branch Railroad) connects with the NS at Orange to the North, CSX to the East and through Staunton on to Clifton Forge to the West). There is also daily Amtrak traffic (though I’m not usually there early or late enough to see the majority), in the form of the New York to New Orleans train, the New York to Chicago train (three days a week) and the Washington DC to Lynchburg train.

I’ve also found that US-250 is a great alternative to I-64. The interstate cannot be matched for speed at all, but it’s still a great drive over Afton Mountain. At some point I’d like to visit Afton and explore the area a bit more, but for now I’ll settle for having driven past it.

Last but not least, is the model situation. I’m still waiting for my ATX cables to arrive (hopefully they didn’t get lost, or not sent..) so the sections are still leaning up against the wall, same as they were last time I posted. I do have updates, however. A couple of months ago I found that Ollies, a discount store that lives on buyouts and the like, has a fair stock of IHC products. The range isn’t great, a couple of buildings and a few vehicles, a LOT of MoPac RPO cars ($5.99 each, if anyone is looking for some..), but they are CHEAP. I picked up a Factory/Office building kit (constructed over the weekend!), a set of Algoma Central passenger cars (I have plans to model a kind of historic railroad running on a Class I/II when I get around to modeling big), and a few trucks and such. I have a greenhouse which will need some modifications to be realistic enough, and a bunch of “village” accessories which will need some attention before they are considered suitable (by me!).

In the Factory/Office kit were some molded people who I finally got around to painting today. I’m not entirely happy with them overall, but considering I’ve never painted anything in HO before, I’m pretty happy with my first try.

I don’t have any photos to post today, but maybe next time. Trainspotting photos from C’ville will be up on Flickr soonish.

Facebook Scams

Posted on by
2

One of my facebook friends (someone I went to school with many years ago) apparently was hacked or scammed or something, and sent out messages to me and to all my friends. I will probably take a look at my security settings for that reason later, but I wanted to post a couple of images that came up as a result of it.

In short, I am ‘friends’ with two dogs. The first is Fetch, he is the dog of a couple of friends, Ben and Bethany, and his response was rather amusing. I may be biased (though I didn’t write it), but I found the second response funnier – that of Crash.

Enjoy!

And …