Boo!

Hi peeps!

Did you miss me?

Is anyone still out there?

This has been my longest blogular dry spell and for that I apologize. I, nay, we have been busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest!

I found a little hole I could peek through and throw up a few words before life drags me into the mix again.

Wow, lots going on!

I have a date with my lovely wife tonight! We're going to go somewhere quiet (quiet? what's that?) to eat and then clothes shopping. I know, it sounds like a chick date, but I'm actually excited to get some new clothes, now that I'm back down to my "regular" weight, which is 35 lbs less than I was last year at this time. Heather says I look great and, bad as it sounds, I agree with her :) I certainly feel better. All my "numbers" are back in spec too.

The photography business is crazy busy. Actually, both of them, David Wild Photo and Lightsmith Imaging. They have taken off to the point that I have no free time, and it's always a struggle to work my way through the huge digital pile of edits left over from all these shoots. I guess that's a good thing too though, because, after all, the business is making money. I just ordered an iPad, which I can pretty much run the whole business from, excepting photo edits. I'm also researching options for a second camera body to use as a backup. It scares me to be going to shoot a wedding with no plan B. I'm thinking a 50D might compliment the 5D and with the 1.6x crop factor, I'll have the option of longer lenses for certain shots. A 7D would be better, but they're quite a bit more money than a 50D and not enough delta of benefit.

I'm getting better venues too, as I raise my prices. I just did a wedding at Greenfield Village and this weekend it's Meadow Brook Hall. You see, in wedding photography, the more you charge the better your customers perception of you gets. It's like buying jewelry, it's almost a status symbol to have an expensive photographer. Thank goodness.

I also have a new "job" in my day job. It's pretty exciting, although I promptly discovered that I inherited quite a messy issue from the previous steward of this position, an issue that allows me to "meet new people" everyday, and not in a good way. More stress!

But I'm keeping my thoughts on date night!

Until next time, which I hope is soon....

Maddie247

I used to be carefree and footloose with my passwords. I used the same password for almost everything. It was pretty easy to guess, and if you did, you had access to just about my entire online life.

Then one day my Twitter account got phished, and, while that in itself is not very dangerous, I started thinking about all my other accounts with that password and decided it was time to get serious.

There are password guessing programs out there that mash through thousands upon millions of guesses so efficiently and powerfully, even passwords like My_checking-account247 fall easily to it. It knows all the tricks, the strung together words, the hyphens, the 365 and 247 add-ons, everything.

And failing that, passwords can often be gleaned from the data left behind by your computer, via software cracking algorithms. These programs check data in RAM and on disks to tease out cached copies of remembered passwords.

Password stealing is big, big business. Just think about what someone could do with access to your bank accounts, credit card numbers (with expiration date and that silly code on the back too), 401k account, email, Facebook, and everything else you do online. It makes me shiver.

So what to do? Well, if you know me, you know that when confronted with a problem I often go to extreme measures to solve it. I pulled out the big guns this time. I got something called 1Password that is designed to generate, hide, and maintain incredibly complex, essentially unguessable and uncrackable passwords. They are stored in a highly encrypted vault that is like a Fort Knox of logins. It's also got built-in anti-phishing and anti-keylogging protection. My passwords are now about as safe as they can be. A typical password of mine now looks something like this:

k5!#ON<3rbslGi:6C!MTS5pXn25VBqibzoA[u#3T?L.hOV

Go ahead and try to guess one like that. No pet names or anniversary dates in these bad boys! Even a CIA supercomputer would choke on this evil thing.

This software doesn't cache passwords anywhere. They are inserted at login on your command and then they vanish like dust in the wind. You can tell your browser and all sites to "not remember you", giving you another big security boost.

1Password generates such powerful passwords that I have run into several sites than can't even handle them. One site couldn't do special characters and many limit password length. Fortunately you can tone your passwords down in cases like that.

If you are like I was, please get some kind of plan for increasing the security of your passwords. Until we have optical retina ID scanners in use everywhere, this is your best bet.

A Little Afghanistan Right Here At Home

One of my neighbors, a shriveled-up old-timer here since our subdivision was a farm, looks to be into farming again, sort of. He's growing poppies! Not a bad second career I guess, depending on the current state of the Opium/Morphine/Codeine black market.

If he drives up in a Lambo one day soon and a hot 20-year-old girlfriend spills out of it, we'll know for sure.

Lots Of Shots

We had an absolutely insane photo shoot on Friday, the second phase of the Spotlight Dance School mega-shoot. We had been warned that this would be crazy, but the reality exceeded all expectations. We took in a big box full of money and shot one dancer after another for hours on end.

Poor Zach though, he had to come with us and he's got the flu so he was laid out on a couch in the lobby shivering under a blanket the whole time.

The rest of the weekend has been devoted to counting money and recovering. It was very difficult on everyone, but it was also one of the best times I've had working in a long time.

Here's a brief moment of goofing around caught after dress rehearsal...

Slipping Through The Crack

We have an ordinance in effect that levies a $500 fine on any pet owner who fails to clean up their animal's poop while on city property.

While walking the dogs today in the park, I detected $10,500 in uncollected city revenue steaming in piles along the pathway.

Mansions In The Mountains

Here's a peek off one side of our 3,000 square foot deck. These are not hotels, they are vacation homes. There is some big money here, enough to match the big views.

Benjamins

I calculated my potential gas savings when I get into the Focus, using real-world mixed driving economy and my driving patterns. And of course, the current price of gas. Turns out I'll save about $100 a month. That's not pocket change. Bring on the 4-cylinder lovin'!