Final Workday 2014

Finally here we are, sitting on the edge of a nice holiday break. Time off from work and the usual day-to-day duties that go along with each new day. Once we put a period at the end of today I will have fifteen days away from the office.

That said, I do plan to check in with the team over the holiday during work days to be sure there is nothing that requires my immediate attention or involvement. Fairly easy to do honestly with the laptop and the VPN connection. I did the same thing over the thanksgiving holiday and it worked out just fine.

Plus based on the way my calendar looks, filled with names from left to right and top to bottom per day of those who are taking time off the next couple weeks between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Argh, that reminds me - it will be time for everyone to look at the New Year and determine what they are going to 'try' to do that coming year. Whether it's lose weight, learn a language, get up earlier, be a better 'insert common trendy thing here' and so on. I say why bother saying you plan to 'try'? You've already set yourself up for failure.

Do yourself a favor and say what you are going to 'DO' and 'HOW', otherwise you are already failing when you plan to try, hope, or related. Those are not strong goal setting goals, more-the type you can easily fault on. After all you were only planning to 'try' and improve right?

Enough out of my rabble-box about all of this for the time being. Generally I have a nice soapbox that I get up on New Year's Day or eve anyhow so I will spare you my rant for now, you've been warned, it's coming your way!

Hackers, Hacking American Business

In the past week or two there has been a great deal of media and press surrounding a hacker group that is thought to be out of North Korea known as 'The Guardians of Time'.

At first there was thoughts that there is no way possible that North Korea could pull this off with their lack of free thinking and computer, Internet and related knowledge, speed and all thing related that a hacker group would need to pull something like this off.

Well wouldn't you know it, it's looking more and more based on research that they in fact are the ones that did it and did a pretty damn good job of it as well - unfortunately for us in the United States. We have a killer infrastructure and backbone for this sort of thing and they were able to get in with what seemed to be not much effort.

I guess I should have started this paragraph off mentioning that this is in relation to the Sony hack which if you are reading anytime in December 2014 and have not been under a rock you know all about the situation.

Sony finally backed down yesterday and sent out a press release that they would not release the new movie that was based around killing the Dictator of North Korea - Kim Jong titled "The Interview". This of course being the reason behind the cyber attack and the private data sent out to the public and media in .zip files each day revealing private, classified and related information.

On one hand I think it's a good thing that Sony finally back down because this will secure the privacy of all of their employees and their private data. On the other hand all of that data is still in the hands of the North Korean Hackers. It sets a precedent that United States of America will back-down with our tails between our legs when it comes to attacks like this and honestly, that sucks.

Heck even the president was in a press conference today and he mentioned that he also thought that Sony backing down was a huge mistake and for once in a very long time, hell maybe ever, I agree 100% with Obama.

Cold

So the cold is getting better slowly but surely and thankfully the cough is feeling better and calming down quite a bit today which is a nice pre-holiday gift. My hope is that it stays this way for the long run. Taking time off and being sick the entire time will not be cool.

Otherwise

That is it for today. I am ready to get my butt out the door and get the holiday started and move on with relaxation and some rest. Oh and of course a whole lot of fun too!

Photo: New car color, this is the hood with a reflection of the neighbors pine tree in it. Kinda hard to see that it's a nice shade of red, not a bright red and not a maroon red either but a nice change after having a few silver and mineral color cars.