Just Another Post

As you can see, it's been awhile since I've posted to the blog. It has been an eventful year so far, though. Some good, some bad.

Of course, my big brother Greg passed away in April. It was a shock to the whole family. He was only 44. Those of you who know me well may know that I also lost my other brother in a car accident many, many years ago. So, I know from experience that the pain never really goes away. It gets a little easier to deal with, day by day, for the most part. And then some days, you see or hear something that brings back a memory, and you feel it all full force again, and it just completely catches you off guard. Like, a couple of weeks ago, I was sorting through things in my office and found a birthday card that I had bought for him. I had honestly forgotten all about it (yes, I have great organizational skills!). But when I found it and started looking at it, I remembered buying it ahead of time, being all proud for not waiting until the last minute, and thinking how funny he would think it was. He had such a great sense of humor. He was really a clown. He was so kind and giving. And he was tough! He was my big brother. How can he really be gone? Even now I sometimes read or hear something and think of sharing it with Greg or wonder what he'll think about it - and then I remember. Sometimes I dream about him -- really good, happy dreams. And then I wake up, and I'm a little disoriented for awhile, and then reality sinks in.

Yes, it still hurts a lot. And I still have a hard time talking about it. Even just typing this is really bring up a lot of emotion. So, I'll move on for now, except just to say thank you to everyone who has expressed their condolences, who has said a kind word or shared a memory about my brother, or just let me know that me and my family were in their thoughts and prayers. It means a lot. It's not so much what you say, it's just knowing that people care.

On a more positive note, after 8 years with my previous, rather large employer, I have just started a new job. Like my previous job, this one is network security related, but its a much, smaller organization which I think will suit me a lot better, and the product is actually quite different. Also, its an opportunity to get back into primarily Java development, which was not something I was really able to do any more in my role at the previous job. As a general rule, I don't tend to talk directly about my work or employer on my blog, just because I don't ever want to have to deal with any impression that I'm speaking in any way for my employer on this blog. This blog is all mine. :) If you really care to know particulars, you can hit me up on LinkedIn, or even Facebook or MySpace. Suffice it to say that I am really enjoying the new challenge and have met a lot of friendly and hard working people.

One more thing I should mention. Though I don't post directly to this blog all that frequently as of late, I do post short messages to Twitter (see the upper right corner on the blog) pretty frequently, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. Nothing profound, sometimes just mundane updates on whatever I'm doing, sometimes random outbursts directed at no one in particular about something that's aggravating me. You can always see the most recent of these updates in the upper right corner of my blog page, or if you want more instant updates, check out my Twitter's site and see all the ways you can follow my updates. (For instance, you can get updates on instant messenger or even SMS).

That's all for now!

My Big Brother Greg

My Big Brother Greg
Originally uploaded by ericasberry

I miss him so much. Today I will be carrying his casket. He was so young ... 44. I still can't believe he's gone. I wish I could talk to him one more time.

Pseudospam

On average, I get probably get around 50 - 100 spam emails within a 24 hour period. That's fairly annoying, but fortunately modern spam filters do a pretty good job of weeding those out. On a given day, probably 1 or 2 make it past the spam filter when they shouldn't, and maybe once or twice a week a legit message will get categorized as spam (although those are usually some kind of mailing list emails that probably look a lot like spam to a filter).

Today something really interesting happened. When I went to peruse my email inbox after about an hour away from it, I suddenly had several hundred messages in my SPAM folder. WTF?

Upon further investigation, nearly all of them were actually "bounces" from various email systems indicating that an email I had sent was undeliverable. Quite a few were also responses from spam filtering systems telling me that the message I had sent so-and-so looked like spam, so I needed to perform some action or another if I wanted my message to go through. Only problem was that all of these were referencing messages I had never sent. So basically, lots of spam was generated to notify me that spam I had not sent was undeliverable. Welcome to pseudospam!

So apparently some spammer used my email address as the sender for the "from" address on a big batch of delicious, juicy spams. It's funny, too, because the message have all sorts of different names in the from field, none of which are even close to mine. This looks bad though. How many thousands more of these am I going to start getting?

The good news is that, at least so far, there was a big blip on the pseudospam radar and then it all went back to normal levels. I'm honestly quite surprised that it hasn't continued. Of course, about the time I post this, the spammer will probably start another campaign and I will get inundated again.

It makes me wonder what the usefulness of "postmaster" bounces are anymore, though. It's great to know that the email you sent someone didn't make it, because you typed their address incorrectly, or they changed their address, but such a notification would have been lost in this deluge. And that's just the deluge I saw directed back to my address. I wonder how much more worthless email traffic must be generated every day to inform people that messages they never sent didn't make it to a recipient they've probably never heard of.

Walmart Is Stupid

So tomorrow is race day here in Atlanta. (Ironically, the Nationwide Race qualifying actually got delayed this morning because of snow). So, we made a quick run to Walmart to get some essentials.

As is often the case, Donna and I decided to divide and conquer while we were in the store. Typically, I tend to find myself mysteriously drawn to the electronics department by unknown forces. I looked around a little bit, and then I remembered I was wanting to get some cheap earbuds. I picked up a $20 pair of Koss earbuds, not exactly a premium electronics item.

So I went meandering about some more, and eventually met up with Donna in a different part of the store. I tossed the earbuds in the cart and we looked around a little more. I wanted to show her something in electronics, in case she was looking for ideas for things to put in my Easter basket, so we went back through there. As we were passing through, some Walmart trooper eyed those high-end earbuds in the cart, and told my wife "Ma'am, you can't leave electronics with those, you'll have to pay for them here."

Well, we weren't done shopping. And I explained to her that I had already basically been all through the rest of the store with them once. (I later enjoyed pointing out to Donna that nobody ever hassled me about them while I had them - obviously she must have looked suspicious). It's not like there was a sign posted stating that you had to pay for items there. It's a very open area too, not its own little sectioned off area. She reiterated that we couldn't leave electronics with the earbuds. So I took them out of the cart and told her she could keep them. Turns out we were done shopping there after all.

It really annoys me to go somewhere to spend my hard earned money and basically be treated like a criminal. Another example of this is the stupid deal where they have to stop you and look at your receipt when you walk out the door. It's not as if they actually take the time to confirm that everything matches up, it's just another additional way of them imposing themselves on you.

I have also adopted a policy of not stopping when the inventory control thing goes off because the minimum wage employee forgot to swipe some item over the demagnetizer or whatever the thing is. If a human being wants to ask to see my receipt or whatever, fine. But I refuse to be a Pavlovian dog who hears a bell go off and reflexively submits to my retail masters.

Yeah, I probably need to cut back on the caffeine.

Attempted Manslaughter By A Conspiracy of "Parktards"

We interrupt the regularly schedule radio silence of this blog to provide you with a news bulletin regarding the attempted manslaughter of this blog's author by a conspiracy of two nameless, faceless "parktards".

What is a "parktard" you might be wondering? Well, Webster's defines it as ... well, ummm. OK. Actually, Webster's doesn't define it. At least I don't think it does. I'm too lazy too look it up. But I'm pretty sure Webster's doesn't actually define it. So, I will.

Parktard is a term I have lovingly coined to describe those individuals who exhibit the symptoms of a very specific mental retardation. That is, the inability to park their vehicle within the narrow confines of the designated parking space, often with absolute disregard for the physical safety and mental health of those who may wish to park in an adjacent space or, even worse, someone who is already occupying said adjacent space.

Yesterday, I was the victim of a well-financed and highly organized conspiracy of two parktards, executed with nearly lethal efficiency. Here, we see parktard number one pictured.

Upon arriving back at my office for lunch, this parktard was parked two spaces away from the space I parked in. As you can see he was parked way over the line. It was at that time that I made the near-fatal assumption that nobody would be foolish enough to try to squeeze their vehicle into the remaining space.

Which leads us to parktard number two:

I discovered the co-conspirator as I was ready to depart my office. By this time, parktard number one had left the scene of the crime. As you can see, there was precisely one inch of clearance between the passenger side of the second parktard and my vehicle. I attempted to enter my vehicle on the driver's side, but the futility was quickly obvious. Left with no alternative, I opted to enter my rather small vehicle from the passenger side. While the execution of this maneuver was successful, you can see that it came at great cost and personal injury.

I initially planned on driving to the emergency room to see about getting some stitches to seal up the wound, but it was a Friday afternoon, and there was a lot of traffic, so I decided to live on the edge and tough it out. What can I say? That's how I roll.

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