http://picasaweb.google.com/chad.kettner/TraverseCitySpring2010

I returned last weekend from Las Vegas where I was with a bunch of guys for a bachelor party/getaway. It was my first time to Sin city and my expectations were exceeded despite the number of people who talked up the city prior to my departure. The size and scale of everything there is unbelievable and the fact that every morning when I got up for breakfast, there were people just getting in from the night before astounded me. I wasn’t able to get a lot of pictures but it really doesn’t matter because the pictures can’t do justice to how massive the place really is.

http://picasaweb.google.com/chad.kettner/LasVegasSpring2010

Zach was born via cesarean after roughly 28 hours of labor in which he would not drop down for a normal delivery. We brought him home and every day since has been a learning experience – how much he eats, sleeps, and plays has constantly changes as he matures. Now at nearly 11 weeks, Zach continues to grow in a multitude of ways and increasingly brings joy to my days while losing some of the neediness of a newborn. We’ve even started traveling with him: We took a trip up to Traverse City for a long weekend a few days ago and things went better than I had expected!

On the job front, I’m settling in well to my new role doing similar work to what I was doing at Steelcase: enterprise data warehousing and analysis (SAP BW). I was looking for a better work/life balance (i.e. not working 50+ hour weeks and always being on call), better benefits (401k matching, bonus, pension, etc), and better pay. I found it all at Wolverine with only one down side: a longer commute. I’m now 18 miles one way versus 5 miles. Oh well, can’t win them all.

I hope to get back into a regular habit of posting things I find interesting now that things have calmed down a bit. Time will tell if I’m successful!

Now I’m aiming to do the same thing for the winter. For about $25 in parts, I’m installing a return air vent in the basement to suck in the coldest air and heat it. I did most of the work today – cutting the drywall and assembling the duct piping – and need only to obtain a six inch circular hole saw to complete the project. Hopefully I can do that over the next week or two.

What I really don’t understand is why most homes aren’t built with more efficient return air ducts in the first place. Is it because builders know most home owners won’t open and close the vents twice a year with the changing of the seasons? It blows my mind…

I don’t think I’m all that different from the vast majority of people in the world and as such, I probably make most of the same mistakes. For instance, I have used the same password for four or five years straight now at all sorts of online websites and for all sorts of functions. If only one of those sites were ever compromised or even if only one of those sites’ administrators took advantage of the user credentials in their possession, I could be in a world of hurt. From bank accounts to brokerage accounts to retirement accounts, my financial life could be devastated.

I also keep a lot of financial and credential information in a text file on my various machines – one copy on my work laptop and another on the server on my home network. This file exists as a master record of most of my user names and passwords for financial sites, social security numbers, banking, routing, and credit card numbers, etc. I started it years ago to keep track of passwords and information in case I ever came down with the momentary symptoms of Alzheimer’s, but mostly it’s useful for when I want to purchase something online but don’t have my credit card handy. Just open the file and there’s my information. Anyone who has been on my home network or work laptop has had complete access to this – they just didn’t realize it.

Lastly, I’ve noticed some issues with the security on the home network over the past few years. Knowing that encrypting wireless network signals demand overhead bandwidth and thus lowers actual throughput, I opted to use only MAC address filtering: permitting only those computers I knew and trusted. Strange thing is, the Wii worked and could access the internet long before I added its MAC address and others have brought over laptops that have exhibited the same behavior. I can’t figure out why this happens with my router but in reading up on it, I learned that MAC spoofing is easy enough for a toddler to do these days so my network really isn’t secure at all. Most likely that’s why there are frequently several computers on my network for which I can’t account.

Combine all this together and you have the potential for a wardriving crook to drive by my home, jump on my wireless network, access the shared files on my server, grab all my financial information and passwords, then use that information to drain all of my accounts – all while using my freely available internet connection. Talk about rolling out the proverbial red carpet for the would be cyber criminal.

So this evening I did my homework and made some changes. I’ve adopted a new password and while I plan to use the new password at all of my current websites, at least it’s a different password than what dozens of forums and other one-time use websites have stored for me. Sure, I could adopt a unique, computer-generated password for each site I visit, but I’m not yet that paranoid. I’d like to be able to remember my password and not have to look them up for each site I visit frequently.

I also downloaded Steganos LockNote to replace my text file of important information. LockNote is a neat little self-contained program that acts as an encrypted (AES 256-bit), password-protected text file. Not only does the would be viewer need a password to access the file, the contents are encrypted with one of the highest cryptographic ciphers currently known. AES 256-bit is the only algorithm approved by the United States government (including the NSA) for use on Top Secret documents. My LockNote file is so secure, I could post it publicly on the internet and boast about it containing access to millions of dollars that are up for grabs. At the earliest, someone might crack it in 75 million years (but inflation will have effectively reduced the prize to $0 by that point). Needless to say, it’s secure.

Lastly, I tightened down the home network by removing MAC filtering and enabling WPA2. WPA2 is currently the highest grade security protocol that exists for wireless connections. Without my pre-shared key, access to the network could only be obtained through a brute force attack (in this case taking somewhere in the neighborhood of two million years). If I’m still in the neighborhood at that time, they can have access.

I really liked this vent from Builder’s Edge. I special ordered it at Lowes in the brown finish to closely match the exterior of the building and it looks great. Aside from being off-centered (didn’t feel like cutting structural wood) it could almost pass for being original – which is important given that there are a few members of our condo association who disapprove of any changes to the external of the buildings.

While reading up on that news, I stumbled across a nice motorcycling news blog and saw this video on it. It’s a mockery of the high-revving import bikes and it really made me laugh out loud.