Now let it be said that I am not skinny, I haven’t been skinny for years. Heck I haven’t weight 100lbs since puberty struck and I’m ok with that. Thankfully I am happy with my body and I see room for improvement. I am thrilled to say that the hubs is sweet on my current figure and has been a fan of my body for the entirety of our marriage. I just hate how the topic of weight and size keeps coming up at the oddest times, I mean I’m at work and someone will ask me how my weight is going. Um, I am in my third trimester in my second pregnancy, why the heck is it your business what my weight is? Why is it now that I am carrying and supporting another life it’s ok for you to ask and then have an opinion about the fact that I am actually still down from the weight I was when I found out I was pregnant?!? I’m not sure if this hormonal woman is ok with either response to this piece of information. People may tell me, ‘Good for you!’ :gives person blank stare: Are you trying to break it to me that you thought I was fat? Are you just not a fan of women gaining weight to sustain healthy life? Am I ready too much ‘jelly’ for you? Last time I looked in the mirror I looked good, darn good. Last time I walked down the street to get somewhere I get smiles, from men and women appreciating that my form is to sustain another life. Smiles because I’m happy and confident in who and what I am which is obvious in the way I hold myself.

The other answer which irritates me is ‘Are you eating enough? I mean you have seen a doctor and they have said you aren’t hurting yourself or your child, right?’, really? You think that I would take as much time to take care of myself but when I’m pregnant I wouldn’t go see a doctor regularly to be sure that both my unborn child and I are ok? You would think that I would harm my baby or myself in some way? I love my children, both my toddler and my unborn son. They are a huge chunk of my everything. I have seen a doctor as soon as they would see me for my current condition and have been reassured over and over that all is well and wonderful with both of us.

I know I gained some weight in my last pregnancy, and according to my OB that was healthy and good for both of us as my son’s growth was perfect. I also know that I go out of my way to eat healthy daily and eat multiple meals and snacks daily in this pregnancy and my son has already showed signs of being a big strong child that will be born in a couple of months. Was there ever concern about my lack of weight gain? Sure, but I went to a specialist and he checked my youngest son’s growth and development and he is right on track for a above average fetus. When we got that green light from him both my OB and I sighed a sigh of relief and have continued to see that this pregnancy has progressed well.

Now my goal for this pregnancy was to have a ‘skinny’ pregnancy, meaning I was going to be back down to my wedding day weight and then get pregnant, then gain a beautiful amount of weight and be that really cute pregnant lady. Due to complications of life and interesting health circumstances this didn’t work out. When I found out I was pregnant I was over the moon, and I still am. I got over the fact that I wouldn’t be able to shop at a trendy maternity store in town and just figured I’d be a bit curvier, like I was last time. I embraced it and moved on. I’m ok with it, but Lordy why do I have to explain where I’m at so often with, at times, complete strangers. I know I’m a friendly person, I am generally cool with sharing but can’t I have a few off limit areas when I’m exhausted trying to be all I can be for my husband and my baby boys?

I have never regretted not weighing 100lbs or less since being an adult, I don’t look good under 120lbs. I know, I have tried it out and I’m all skin and bones and my body resists it. When I say resists it I ache from head to toe, I don’t have much energy. My body just feels better at a higher weight. Weight is simply a taboo topic and when you are a person that has studied the number on the scale critically and wondered why you can’t seem to keep your weight lower like all the girls at school do. It means that you aren’t thinking about your body, your gentics, your shape. My genetics, my shape is not conducive to weight 120 or less, just isn’t and I’m ok with it.

Now if I could get everyone else on board or to just leave the weight topic alone for bit life would be good. Because some days I don’t want to have a debate on my weight, it’s my booty and I love it. You don’t? Then don’t look at it.

The story you are about to read is true, not even the names have been changed so as to fully implicate the accused.

First, a teensy bit of background. I conduct a lot of transactions online, and do most of my business electronically. I own three of my own domains, and manage a fourth for a friend, as well as hosting all of them on my own VPS. As such I feel I’ve become pretty attuned to possible scams, phishing attempts, and other ne’er-do-wells. That is, until last week.

See, when I needed to register a new domain and have it hosted, I went with the “all in one” offering with the hosting company I was using before I switched to my VPS. This was super convenient, as they handled registering the domain for me, and set me up with one year of hosting a website and email for that domain for one year. Great, one stop shopping! That was nearly one year ago, and the domain is due for renewal in December.

So, when I received an email from a domain registrar I did not recognize suggesting that I renew my domain I assumed that it was the domain registrar that my hosting company used to register the domain on my behalf. I happily followed the link and renewed my domain with that registrar for two more years. I did find it odd that I didn’t have to supply any user credentials or other identification, but I just assumed they’d use some of the personal information I provided to compare against the WHOIS or something. Besides, what do they care if someone else pays to renew a domain, even if it doesn’t belong to them, right?

Well, some days later I received another email, from what appeared to be a separate entity than the domain registrar I renewed with. This email requested that I authorize a domain name transfer to them. Hmmmn.. Wait, I thought I renewed, not transferred. Something is wrong here..

I proceeded to do a few quick Google searches on the domain registrar that I renewed with, and the name of the registrar which was apparently requesting a domain transfer. Turns out they’re all part of the same organization based out of Canada, and all I read was experiences of shady business practices and situations of domains which were either lost, or trapped in limbo! Some keywords for you to search on in order to read what I read about. No bueno!

domain registry of america scam
domain registry of america brandon gray
namejuice.com

Great, so now I realize I’ve given my personal details to some unscrupulous individuals and they’ve charged me $50 for two years of domain registration which I’ll likely never actually receive from them. Fortunately, the domain transfer request turned out to be suspicious enough to catch my attention and make me thing twice before proceeding! At least my domain name is safe (I hope).

Next steps? I call my bank, and file a chargeback for the $50 charge, and have them cancel the Visa bank card I used to place the order. Now I get to be on the look out for odd or fraudulent charges on my account, yay me! Tomorrow I’m going to try to actually renew and transfer my domain to Register.com where I manage my other domains.

So, here are the lessons I’ve learned and some sage advice you might benefit from.

• Whenever possible, register your domain name yourself with a reputable domain registrar. Something like;
  • Register.com
  • Network Solutions
  • Go Daddy
• If you do happen to let some entity register a domain on your behalf, know who that registrar is. You can use the WHOIS domain services to learn what registrar “owns” your domain.
• When renewing or registering a domain, make sure not to do so by clicking on links from emails, instead go to the registered web address for the domain registrar identified in the previous bullet point

Of late the hubs and I have been trying to do everything at once. Weaning our son, and encouraging him to sleep in his own bed. Both of us have been crazy busy with our jobs. We have been searching for a new home to rent. I have been attempting to get in better shape so as to be able to keep up with a baby boy and keep my health in check to the best of my abilities. We keep trying to keep our home clean, which seems to only last for a moment after cleaning. Trying to really take the time to catch up with each other and making sure both of us are really getting the down time that we need. It simply has been crazy.

Now we are recovering from a long weekend of attempting to do all of it, and do it well. My son is finally sleeping for a good stretch. It is peaceful in my home right now.

I just saw a LOVELY home that I want to live in but it is simply too small for our needs. The home we looked at last night is simply bigger than we need. I am so bummed that we can’t make the charming little place work. Did I mention that my husband is chomping at the bit when it comes to the larger home? *sigh*

I am just trying to figure out how to make everything fit in our lives and make sure nothing is being neglected. To be a good woman, a good wife, a good mother, a good daughter, a good sister…it is a hell of a lot to juggle. I am learning but dear lord, every time I think I have everything under control something new pops up. I can’t wait till the home search is done.

Warning: This post may be a bit, um, private or sensitive but it must be said.

Time and time again I see the commercials for Viagra and Levitra and they have their spokesmen saying, puzzled that one medical condition or another has effected their performance in the bedroom.

EVERY SINGLE TIME I yell at the television questioning if that is for real. I mean really? You didn’t know that things that effect your blood flow to your entire body would effect your erectile function. For serious!!???

Mkay, I have no medical education. I only have the education taking care of my grandfather after heart attacks and open heart surgery. The education that life as a dental assistant gives you. Which by no means gives me the medical authority of anything. And yet I know that diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure can effect erectile function. I realize in turn that the medication to help with these conditions also can effect erectile function. WHY ON GOD’s GREEN EARTH DON’T MOST OF OUR SOCIETY NOT KNOW THIS TOO???!!!???

You need blood to flow to this body part to be able to function to do blank. Why wouldn’t cholesterol which slowly clogs blood vessels effect this function? Why wouldn’t high blood pressure effect this function? Why wouldn’t diabetes which effects so many other aspects of your ability to function not effect erectile function? I wish instead of using these medications men took the time to take care of themselves to do the best to prevent these issues to the best of their ability.

Too much to ask, I know. I hear more and more that men are dying from preventable illnesses. If only they had gone to a doctor and had taken action when a health concern was in the warning or beginning stages. Yet so many fight it every step of the way. They are too busy. They are able to ‘man up’ through what ever ailment they are coping with. Sigh. Yet if they can’t get it up they run to their doctor and ask for a pill.

Not often do you hear about a man who can’t get it up and they demand that their physician to do a battery of tests to make sure everything is ok. Make sure that this isn’t a precursor to another, bigger, possibly more serious health concern.

What am I getting at? Guys if you take care of yourself. If you see a doctor regularly and bring up you concerns that you may have quickly, maybe you won’t need the mighty blue pill. Maybe you will be healthy enough for sex and be able to enjoy a great deal of other aspects of life.

Common sense people, please use it.

Okay, first..  This post/rant was inspired by a few tweets from Chase Jarvis.  That said, I’m not throwing stones, or trying to start a fight.  The topic just got me thinking and I wanted to share my train of thought.  Chase, and any other professional who shots tethered, I’m actually jealous.  I wish I could shoot tethered.

Read more after the break…

So, the gist of the tweet(s) was about shooting tethered with the Nikon D3x and Aperture on a MacBook.  At first I thought "curse you Chase and your justifiable budget for fancy gear cause you’re a professional".  But then I thought, isn’t this just the professional expensive version of chimping?  If you’ve not heard of chimping, wikipedia has the best description I’ve seen here.

See, since I got my dSLR I’ve been reading a lot around photography communities, forums, and the like.  In that time, I’ve been able to gather that "chimping" is considered a weakness, and that "real professionals" don’t do it.  I don’t really subscribe to this mentality, afterall the manufacturers put the LCD on the back for a reason right?

I’ve recently shut off the automatic review of photos on my Nikon D80, for a number of reasons.  For one, it’s distracting to have the LCD glowing into your eye when you’re shooting a lot of shots in a dark situation, like in our living room at night capturing something our son is doing.  Also, the dials on the camera change function when the LCD is on to move back and forth between photographs, and the info that’s overlaid.  So if you shoot a shot, and keep the viewfinder to your eye, but try to change the exposure it’s ineffective and you just scroll through the pictures.

That said, when I’m doing anything other than "snap shots" I find myself pushing the play button to see the shot I just took.  Needless to say I’d gladly shoot tethered.  At the moment I have nothing but Windows and Linux based systems, and I haven’t commited to software for a RAW workflow or other tools that would allow me to shoot tethered, but I can assure you when/if I have all the tools necessary I’ll probably do it too.

So, I say to the critics of chimping…  Is tethered shooting really just an expensive version of chimping?  Is it "OK" for a professional to shoot tethered, and if so why is it any different than us mere mortals looking at the LCD on the back of our camera?  I submit that you are just jealous, like I am so you fabricate reasons that this practice is "bad" and makes you "weak".

Comments?

For the past few weeks there have been a rash of issues with our water supply lines here in our apartment complex. We’ve been without cold or hot water or both for hours at a time.

It’s culminated into our landlord deciding to basically gut our water lines and replace them. So since last Friday we’ve had folks coming in and tearing out large chunks of our drywall to reveal the plumbing, then the plumbers running new source lines along the outside wall and into each apartment. Then water was turned off Monday night around 9PM. The plumbers were coming in on Tuesday to finish hooking up the lines that had been run in parallel to the existing lines. Well, the water remained off through Tuesday, and we’d already forgone bathing for one day so we weren’t looking forward to another day without running water.

That brings us to the image above. We chose to check into the Ramada Inn that’s directly next to our apartment complex. They have this awesome koi pond/lagoon which the hotel surrounds, and as I was walking to the jacuzzi that night, it struck me how pretty the whole scene was a night.

So in an attempt to find a silver lining, I took some timed exposures of the lagoon at night. I didn’t quite get the effect I was looking for, but I think this is a cool shot none the less.

I just received an email today from one of my contacts on LinkedIn. It was an invitation to join this new UNYK Address Book application which is apparently in beta.

I think I’ve made it clear that I’m a big fan of anything which centralizes my information and allows me to access it through a web browser from anywhere, so I checked it out.

Overall, it looks quite promising. It will harvest your existing contacts from several different locations (Yahoo!, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft Outlook, MSN, etc.) and consolidate them. When you sign up you provide your personal and professional contact information, and this in turn keeps your contact record up to date for anyone who has you in their address book. Their premise is that everyone will eventually use them to manage their contact information, and therefore your address book will always be “automatically” up to date, because all of your contacts will have updated their information with UNYK.

My first, and perhaps biggest problem with the service is that they don’t provide an https:// option. So as I’m entering all of this personal and professional data, as well as supplying my login credentials for these other services it’s all going across the wire in plain text!

My second problem is that I’m already using GooSync to store my contacts, and then synchronize them with my HTC phone, which is my life line as far as contact information is concerned.

There is also some considerable controversy regarding the fact that it will effectively “spam” the contacts that you do import inviting them to join UNYK as well. This is no doubt how the email was sent to me. I’m less concerned about this than the previous two points however.

So in order for me to fully embrace this new UNYK solution, it’ll have to get a “secure” presence, and either integrate (which they seem to already do quite well with several other services) with GooSync, or provide the same functionality (syncing with my HTC).

Seems like a cool idea, but it’s not quite mature enough for me to dive in head first. I’ll keep an eye out though!

EDIT:
Since I was more than a little bit surprised that there was no secure access to login and supply my credential for other services, I did a little further digging. UNYK insists in their privacy policy that they encrypt any “sensitive data” that goes across the wire. Here it is directly from their site.

How Secure Are Your Web Servers? [ ^ ]
The security of your personal information is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).
To learn more about SSL, follow this link http://www.verisign.com/products-services/security-services/ssl/index.html.

We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can contact us.

So, since it looked like they used a lot of Web 2.0 technologies I thought possibly they were doing some javascript magic to encrypt the stuff going across the wire, I did a little test with Wireshark to see what got sent. I bit the bullet and imported my gmail contacts, and this was the result, with the password obscured by me, of course.

POST /Scripts/dotNET/ContactFinderProxy/Services.asmx/ImportWebContacts HTTP/1.1
Host: www.unyk.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.17) Gecko/20081021 Firefox/2.0.0.17
Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=UTF-8
Referer: http://www.unyk.com/Diffusion/main.asp?nub=5EDC7952-7D0D-445F-B49A-0E068F4CA09E
Content-Length: 76
Cookie: BIGipServerwebUnyk=185207306.12310.0000; s_cc=true; s_campaign=en-US-0064; s_cp_persist=en-US-0064; s_sq=%5B%5BB%5D%5D; s_vi=[CS]v1|49503BB000004A0E-A02085E000051AD[CE]; InfosCompleted=3; nub=5EDC7952%2D7D0D%2D445F%2DB49A%2D0E068F4CA09E; __qca=1224815862-86415704-76514833; __qcb=1181521546; UNYK=LoginPassword=&LoginUsername=&RememberOption=0
Pragma: no-cache
Cache-Control: no-cache
provider=Gmail&username=qwikrex%40gmail.com&password=*********&useOctazen=true

Clearly not secure. I do have to admit however that I seem to have been wrong about the mobile sync, they do provide this, though I’ll have no idea how well it works until they fix the security problem.

What you’ve just seen is the latest marketing campaign by Burger King. Every time I see teasers for this on TV, I feel… I dunno.. Just… Wrong.

Something about this offends me, and I’m not really sure what it is yet. There are others who feel very strongly about it. I’m not sure I agree with any one of those opinions directly. But something about this just doesn’t set right with me.

I’d wager that if Burger King were doing this as a purely altruistic endeavor, by providing food to remote villages without the marketing spin people might feel differently, myself in included. However, as it stands, it feels awfully exploitative for the sake of marketing.

No, I didn’t actually buy a super car, but I think that I should be able to. Allow me to elaborate.

I live in a rather affluent part of Southern California and nice (expensive) cars are not uncommon on our roads. I spent just a couple hours recently at Shoreline (some bluffs just over the beach) and watched as every 3rd car that drove by was a Porshe. Mostly boxters and cayman but none the less, where else in this world are porche’s more common than hondas? Here, you have to drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini to even begin to stand out.

It’s worse than that though. I know of no less than 3 Ford GT’s, 2 BMW M5′s, 4-5 Astin Martin Vanquish, 2-3 Ferrari F430′s, countless Bently GT’s and Mercedes AMG’s of all flavor, and last but not least one Maserati quattroporte which I see every day at work. If I recall, when I read a magazine review of the Maserati the author felt comfortable saying that you may never see one of these vehicles in person, and here I am fighting for a parking spot with one.

Now those are just the cars that I’ve observed on the road, god knows what is tucked away in garages and not driven but on the most holy of days to tootle on down to the country club. And here, by my reckoning, is the worst part. Most of the owners of the cars have NO CLUE how to drive, nor will they ever come close to exercising those cars to any where near the potential. The worst offenders are the trophy wives who are driving around in their various Mercedes Benz AMG’s. There isn’t one of them that drives more than 40 MPH at any time for any reason, very much including the freeway. Either that, or they think they’re an Andretti and drive dangerously fast in a straight line, and panic whenever they have to actually change trajectory. Why their sugar daddies thought it was necessary to spend 30% more for the same car, but with a ton more power they’ll never use, I can only guess.

Which brings me to the point of my rant. I know, about time eh?! I think that all manufacturers that make cars built for the enthusiast should have some sort of discount program. Here’s how it would work.

Perhaps only a couple weeks out of each year, you could walk in to your favorite uber car dealership, take a test drive, and chat with the salesperson. Then before you go to sign the paperwork for your shiny new cruise missile you are required to prove your enthusiasm for the car. How you ask? By proving your mettle on a series of driving tests.

Picture this, you get behind the wheel of the $360k car that you’d like to buy, and if you can wring it around the test track in less time than a certain predefined speed, demonstrate competence in controlling the car at, and beyond the limits of traction, and otherwise convince the manufacturer that you’re willing and able to drive the car in the way it was designed, why it’s yours for a mere fraction of the price!

Isn’t that what it’s really about anyway? These cars aren’t built so that only real estate moguls and CEO’s can own and drive them. No! They’re designed to be driven FAST, on a track by a talented and appreciative driver. So why not give your average Joe the ability to get into one of these vehicles, someone who would really cherish the privilege and (hopefully) have some respect for traffic laws and be able to control the vehicle on the street, someone like ME!

It might even cut down on the number of incompetent and unexperienced drivers that get behind the wheel of these monsters.

Just a thought. Manufacturers are you listening? I’ll take delivery of my Ford GT as soon as you realize how good this would be for business.

I’ve been noticing a trend lately in modern cars. Everything is getting exponentially faster and more powerful, and meanwhile more affordable.

You can go out today and buy a lightweight SUV or sedan from Jeep/Dodge/Chrystler with a 420hp Hemi for around $35k. But it’s not just the “hot rod” cars that are getting big power, a 2008 Honda Civic has no less than 140hp in it’s cheapest form. Not even 10 years ago that amount of power was reserved for the “Si” model. A 2008 Honda Accord v6 has 286hp. The performance of these cars easily exceeds that of the 60′s and 70′s muscle car and is well in excess of what most drivers need, or can use.

Meanwhile, all you need to do is memorize a few rules and convince a government worker that you can drive in a straight line and use your signals when appropriate to get a license. Worse still, you only need to prove it once. Afterward you’ll just get a renewal notice in the mail until your 130th birthday when they start to wonder if you are still alive, and should be driving.  That’s well past the age where “oops I mistook the gas for the brake” is at an acceptable margin of error. There is no requirement to handle power induced slides, know how to react when you start to go sideways in a turn, nothing! But 16 year old Johnny, if he’s fortunate, or wealthy can be behind the wheel of a relative super car.

Where’s the responsibility? You should have some vague inclination of how to drive, and control yourself if you’re going to be able to drive some of todays cars on the street with others. Now don’t get me wrong, my first car was a 1967 Thunderbird which made 340hp. However, it almost NEVER ran well enough to generate that power and deliver it to the tires. Furthermore, I had to work hard on that car to even keep it running, which gave me a good sense of it’s inner workings, and exactly what I was dealing with. I was also taught a few important lessons about speed and control before I was set out on my own with it or any other vehicle.

The idea of just anyone with an (easily acquired) drivers license behind the wheel of some of these vehicles is frankly quite terrifying to me, particularly in the face of the sort of antics I see on a daily basis even from “mature” drivers. Mind you I wasn’t alive during the “hot rod” era of the 60′s and 70′s where I’m sure a similar situation existed, even in the absence of anti lock disk brake systems, air bags, and chassis/traction controls, so maybe this is just history repeating itself.